In the millennium year, Jiang Wangchao, the village's so-called "fool," nearly dies in a maritime disaster but is saved at the cost of her own safety by the widow Liu Xianyun. He unexpectedly awakens extraordinary abilities after being reborn, gaining underwater perception and a mild ability to control animals that lets him see deep-sea schools of fish. Using his powers, he catches top-quality wild large yellow croaker and foils the forced-marriage scheme of Zhou Wancai, a bully in the fish market. He meets Lin Muxue, the daughter of a prominent provincial-city fishing family, and builds a modern seafood-processing plant. Along the way, he fights crime, outsmarts local tyrants, and ventures into the forbidden waters of the Blackwater Sea, where he battles a sea serpent on the verge of becoming a dragon that has lived for a century and obtains a rare dragon-saliva pearl. Finally, he takes his premium seafood to the provincial capital's trade fair, establishes the Qinghe seafood brand, and rises from a fishing-village boy whom everyone looked down on to a seafood tycoon who dominates the East China Sea.