I Can Turn into a Fish

Tang Qiumeng looked at Chu Xian with some confusion but nodded. “Yes, I know. The people in my program know the basic structure of many kinds of animals.”

“Okay, that’s great. Can you give me a detailed diagram of the anatomy of a crocodile? I need something like that right now,” Chu Xian said expectantly.

“En, okay. No problem, this is pretty simple. I’ll draw it out for you later,” Tang Qiumeng agreed, nodding without asking any questions.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” Chu Xian said gratefully. He then fetched a fish tank from his store and came back.

“I don’t really have anything to express my gratitude, but these goldfish can serve as a small gift for the grand opening of your store, haha,” Chu Xian said, putting the fish tank down on a table to the side.

Tang Qiumeng looked at the goldfish and shook her head quickly. “This is too expensive – I can’t accept this. You should take it back!”

Chu Xian noticed her blushing and guessed she took the gift the wrong way, so he shook his head with a bitter smile and said: “Miss Tang, don’t take me the wrong way. In the future, I might come and ask you about all kinds of anatomy questions, and I will be embarrassed to bother you every time. Please, accept this for the help I’ll ask of you in the future.”

Tang Qiumeng examined him and the goldfish. She hesitated before nodding. “Okay, I’ll take them. In the future, if you have any anatomy questions you can ask me. I’ve also done quite a bit of research on ornamental fish.

Chu Xian nodded with relief and secretly thought to himself that it was little difficult to interact with this cold, proud goddess.

Chu Xian returned to the store and saw Feng Pupu staring blankly, elbows on her knees and head in her hands. He felt that she was super moe and cute (1). He walked over and rubbed her head. “You don’t have to always sit and watch people – if you’re bored, you can just play with your phone or watch some TV or movies.”

Feng Pupu lowered her head and nodded. “En!”

Chu Xian shook his head. This little loli was too cute.

At noon, Tang Qiumeng came over with a few pieces of paper in hand. “Okay. This is the anatomy of a crocodile. Thanks for the goldfish, they’re really cute.”

“Thanks! I’m glad you like them!” Chu Xian said, accepting the paper happily. He examined the picture and the detailed explanations and couldn’t help but exclaim in amazement – no wonder she was the top student from her college overseas.

“En.” When Tang Qiumeng saw how Chu Xian valued the piece of paper, she finally nodded to herself and realized she was overthinking things before.

“Pupu, can you watch the store by yourself?” Chu Xian asked Pupu half an hour later, finally turning away from the detailed drawing.

“No problem!” Feng Pupu nodded solemnly.

“En. That’s good. Watch the store while big brother goes to take care of some things,” Chu Xian said, rubbing her head affectionately. He took out some money and handed it to her. “This money is for dinner. In the evening, you can eat after you close up or just ask the restaurants to deliver your food here. Here are some phone numbers for the restaurants – just call them and ask for what you want. If you run into any problems, you can just call me!”

“It’s too much!” Pupu said when she saw how much money he handed her.

“It’s fine. It’s just a reward for my well-mannered assistant. Eat more tonight, and eat well!” Chu Xian chuckled, putting fifty RMB into her hand. “I’ll come back tonight. Take good care of the store!”

“En. Thank you, brother!” Pupu said, looking up and nodding.

“Heh.” Chu Xian nodded and walked to the back of the store to the huge Moke fish in the basin.

After he moved the fish into his car, Chu Xian drove home.

“Hu!” Chu Xian carried the 50kg fish for almost 1000 meters without breaking a sweat. He put it down carefully in his room happily, very satisfied with his level of fitness that he didn’t need to maintain or work out for.

Looking over the huge Moke fish on the ground, Chu Xian took out the papers Tang Qiumeng handed him.

Crocodiles weren’t fish, and this problem stumped Chu Xian for a long time. They were reptiles, and the biggest kind were Saltwater Crocodiles that could grow up to seven meters long, weighing more than 1600 kg.

Chu Xian was preparing for a bold attempt, an unimaginable experiment – cross-species remolding. Of course, the process would only be concerned with the appearance and general organ structure, not the genetics. At least, he couldn’t do that yet! (2)

Tang Qiumeng really was an outstanding student of the sciences – she described and explained everything from the basic characteristics of crocodiles to the structure of the organs and the cells. Chu Xian skipped over the basic characteristics and focused on the details.

Chu Xian made a 3D picture of the Moke fish appear in his mind. With a simple thought, the fish changed its outer appearance slightly.

The skin coloration of the Moke fish and regular crocodiles was already quite similar, and their mouths were somewhat alike. Very soon, the fish transformed into a lifelike crocodile. Other than a few differences in the leg structure, almost every other part was identical. Even an expert wouldn’t have been able to tell that this was actually a fish.

“The remolding has just begun!” Chu Xian thought. The outside transformation was just the start. Similarity in appearance alone was useless – the Moke fish still used gills to breathe and would die quickly out of water.

Everyone knew that creatures on land pretty much used lungs to breathe while most fish used gills. Only a handful of fish species could live on land – these were Lungfish and could breathe air with a modified bladder.

Chu Xian did some research on the basic principles that allowed these fish to breathe out of water, and guided by those thoughts, he focused on the Moke fish and gradually remolded its gills according to the structure of the Lungfish.

After finishing with the gills, Chu Xian turned his attention to the inner anatomy. The reason why the crocodile was so fearsome was largely due to its inner structure, and Chu Xian wanted to remold the fish into a capable and fierce beast.

Of course, as the base creature was still a fish, Chu Xian couldn’t transform the fish directly into a reptile, but he could strengthen it as much as possible.

The arrangement of the bones, circulatory system, locations of organs and the entire digestive tract all needed to be remolded and shifted.

According to the detailed paper Tang Qiumeng gave him, Chu Xian remolded all the inner workings of the Moke fish to copy the crocodile as closely as possible.