Chapter 62: Shooting Fish

Kag stopped the boat and activated a device at the bow. Jimmy had never been on a fishing boat before, and he had no idea what these gadgets were.

"This is a fish attractant. It's actually a small electric prod. Just a tiny bit of current, and the carp here will jump right out of the water."

"Electro-fishing? Is that legal? Electro-fishing causes a massive die-off of small fish." Jimmy was somewhat bewildered. He remembered that electro-fishing in rivers was strictly prohibited in China; it was definitely an illegal act.

"Of course it's not legal. The current from this prod is extremely small, plus we only use it in remote places like this where nobody is around. As long as nobody sees us, it's fine. Haha."

Kag prepared the equipment and began adjusting his clothing. When he came out, he was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Now, with the boat stopped, he started putting on protective gear. He strapped arm guards around his forearms, swapped his wide-brimmed sun hat for a hard hat—though this particular hard hat had an extended brim all the way around, making it look like a narrow-rimmed plastic sun hat—and put on gloves, though they were three-fingered gloves with the ring and pinky fingers exposed. Finally, he put on an apron. Putting on all this protective gear made Jimmy instantly feel like coming bowfishing was a mistake. Just how dangerous could it be to require so much armor?

Jimmy hadn't prepared in advance; he only had an apron and a hard hat, which came with the boat.

The two men picked up their respective weapons. Kag told Jimmy to sit down first and wait until the fish schools rose before standing up. Jimmy was somewhat speechless. Did you Americans have some kind of misunderstanding about carp? Were they here to shoot fish, or to fight ancient monsters?

Seeing that Jimmy was seated securely, Kag turned on the fish attractant. The intermittently triggered electric prod directly stimulated the various fish in the river, causing massive fish tens of centimeters long to leap straight out of the water. Kag turned off the attractant and told Jimmy to stand up, but before Jimmy even had time to get up, he was directly walloped by a carp. A fish tail whipped across his arm with a loud smack, and the crossbow in his hand almost dropped.

Alright, now Jimmy knew what Kag's entire suit of protective gear was for. In his impression, carp only grew to twenty or thirty centimeters and didn't jump very high out of the water. But the fish here all seemed to be big fellows over fifty centimeters, with countless jumping a meter high, and quite a few fish directly leaping into the fishing boat, flopping around on the bottom of the hull.

Within a short while, Jimmy had already been assaulted by two fish—once below the arm, once on the back—and river water had soaked a large patch of his clothes.

Kag had it slightly better. With proper protection, although he was also struck, at least his inner clothes weren't splashed all over with river water.

Jimmy stood up and loaded his crossbow bolt. Kag aimed toward the bow and both sides, while Jimmy only had the area around the stern. For safety, their lines of fire could not overlap, and they were forbidden from shooting in other directions, such as the sky.

The school of fish was simply too large. Looking down from the water's surface, it felt like fish were everywhere. Jimmy took a casual aim, pulled the trigger, and the crossbow bolt shot out. He grabbed the rope at his feet and immediately began reeling it in, dragging a thrashing carp back toward him.

Although the carp had already taken an arrow, it didn't die immediately. This big fellow, visually estimated to be over fifty centimeters, possessed real strength. It was manageable while being dragged through the water, but as soon as Jimmy pulled it onto the boat, it immediately began thrashing wildly on the bottom of the hull, violently shaking the embedded crossbow bolt along with it. Jimmy stepped on it with one foot, pulled out the crossbow bolt, and tossed the fish onto the bottom of the boat.

Jimmy turned his head for a glance; Kag was already reeling in his second one. For a forty-pound compound bow, passing an arrow through a fish's body was a very easy task. Kag also looked extremely proficient—pulling the rope, extracting the arrow, rinsing the arrowhead in the river—the entire movement was smooth and fluid.

Jimmy rinsed his own crossbow bolt in the water as well to clean off the bloodstains, then continued firing into the school of fish. This time luck was not on his side, and he missed.

Jimmy drew back his crossbow bolt, aimed at the school of fish once more, and another unlucky carp was hit. After a few tries, Jimmy had basically mastered the shooting technique of the crossbow. When visually targeting fish underwater, you had to aim a certain distance ahead to actually hit them. If you just put the crossbow's sight directly on a fish, nine times out of ten you would miss. Without someone teaching you, it really wasn't easy.

Jimmy glanced at his harvest: five fish. He looked back at Kag, and good grief, there were already over a dozen of them littering the bottom of the boat.

Kag had already put away his compound bow and started taking off his protective gear. The weather was still very hot, and wearing that full suit of armor turned a person into a zongzi wrapped tight. Basking in the sun for just a little while, Kag's face had turned red.

Jimmy also put away his crossbow, and the two men motored the fishing boat to find a suitable spot to land. Jimmy picked up his bag, which contained a ground cloth and lunch.

Jimmy spread the ground cloth under a tree, took the lunch out of his backpack along with two cans of beer. Lunch consisted of sandwiches and wraps. For two rough-hewn guys, preparing exquisite food was completely unnecessary; their daily lunch was usually burgers from a food truck or a pizza bought from a roadside shop and eaten inside a patrol car.

"Kag, is there any word on my case yet?" Jimmy chatted casually while eating.

"Don't worry, it's fine. As long as ADA doesn't stir up trouble, you'll be back soon." Kag was a veteran cop; when it came to case-solving experience, he could leave Jimmy miles behind.

"What's the deal with that Kaya? During the inquiry, she seemed to be targeting me the whole time."

"Just an avaricious scoundrel. A lot of people can't stand her. We don't have many cases around here, and LRPD has had no shortage of grief from her. She used to be an intern at some big law firm, then went to the DA's office as an assistant, and spent several years becoming an ADA."

"Is she a supporter of the anti-violence movement?"

"No, she's a Democrat. She always wants to restrict police authority. Whenever police brutality cases hit a roadblock, nine times out of ten it's her causing trouble at that end. It's alright for now since someone keeps her in check, but who knows what the future holds. There are rumors that the DA's office intends to groom her as a successor."

"Shxt. So am I already on her blacklist? What if she targets me in the future?"

"Take it one step at a time. We can't control these high-level matters; we just have to follow along. If that situation really arises, we can only chalk it up to bad luck. Doing less work means making fewer mistakes, that's all."

Neither of them had much else to say; the whole situation was just too aggravating.

"By the way, Jimmy, you did that on purpose, didn't you? Those two shots at Johnny."

"What? What on purpose?"

"One to the chest, one to the neck. You could've finished him with a single shot."

"That's just your guess, and I'm not admitting to it."

"Okay, I'll call you directly next time something comes up."

"Hey, hey, I'm a cop, not a hitman. What do you mean by 'call you if something comes up'?"

"Didn't you know? The moniker 'Butcher Jimmy' is already circulating among various departments."

"Who did that?! I do not accept this. I'm a good cop, law-abiding, respect the elderly and cherish the young—why am I being called a butcher?"

"Then you'll have to go look for Kaya's trouble; it leaked out from her side. Killing six people in five months, you really something else."

"Sob!"