Chapter 127 - 128: Fatty Is Bringing Out the Big Guns

Chapter 127: Chapter 128: Fatty Is Bringing Out the Big Guns

Chen Yuan pumped his fist and let out a triumphant shout.

When he’d seen the mission rewards yesterday, he’d been turning over the difference between a tenfold and a hundredfold multiplier, trying to figure out exactly what standard the system used to judge.

The only useful hint had been that one line: the more fish you land, the greater the reward.

Working from that, he’d had a hunch — maybe the system used a baseline catch as the benchmark for the tenfold reward, and anything beyond that got multiplied on top of it.

Turns out, he was exactly right.

He’d landed ten times the baseline, so the system rewarded him ten times over — hitting the hard cap of a hundredfold boost.

"Haha! With rewards like this, who needs to worry about stocking fish~"

Chen Yuan was over the moon. It wasn’t until Wang Heng called that he finally reined in his excitement and grabbed his phone from where it leaned against the tackle box.

"Hey, Brother Wang~"

He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face — he was still laughing when he answered the call.

"You’re done over there, right?"

Wang Heng asked from the other end.

"Yeah, just wrapped up. Good haul today."

"Which peg are you at? I’ll get the owner to come in and help carry your catch. Blond Punk and I are known faces here — better if we don’t show up ourselves~"

Wang Heng already knew the haul was solid. He’d been watching the whole session through a screen, so he’d timed it just right and gone straight to the owner.

Both of them had come along in the car, but since they’d already had a run-in with the Fisherman, walking in now would only stir things up. Better to have the restaurant owner handle it.

"Pond 2, peg 13."

Chen Yuan glanced down at the number plate by his feet.

After hanging up, he started breaking down his rod and packing up his gear. He hadn’t even finished when he heard a rattling and clanging from behind — the restaurant owner was rolling a hand trolley his way, a big plastic crate loaded on top.

"Haha, Boss Chen~"

The restaurant owner was a familiar face. They’d met once before — back when Wang Heng made his first visit, the guy had personally walked them to the edge of the village to watch the deal go through.

"Thanks for the trouble, man~"

Chen Yuan slid his rod into the rod bag, then pulled out a cigarette and offered one over.

"Boss Chen, don’t even say that — I’d love for you to trouble me every single day~"

The owner laughed heartily.

Buying fish straight from a fishing ground was a lot cheaper than going through the market. Sure, the savings didn’t look like much trip by trip, but it added up — enough small wins eventually made a proper windfall.

"There’ll be plenty more chances down the road."

Forget about the other fishing grounds he still planned to work — the next few days alone were sure to bring in heavy catches. And today’s remote tag-team setup with Wang Heng and the others had worked out surprisingly well.

They’d definitely want to try it again, and if this method really took off, the opportunities would just keep coming.

"Here’s hoping, Boss Chen."

The owner chuckled, not catching the deeper meaning behind Chen Yuan’s words. He tucked the cigarette behind his ear and stepped forward to grab the fish bag.

"Whoa, Boss Chen, you’ve got serious skills — that’s gotta be a few hundred pounds in there."

He gave the fish bag a tug and it barely budged. That kind of weight — this guy was a proper big fish guy.

Wouldn’t have guessed it. Boss Chen actually had some serious game.

"Just got lucky today~"

Chen Yuan laughed, finished packing his gear, and stepped up to help. Even the two of them together were struggling, and a regular angler nearby rushed over to lend a hand.

All three of them counted off together and threw everything they had into it before the fish bag slowly began to move.

SPLASH, SPLASH, SPLASH~

The fish inside were thrashing wildly, smacking the surface, sending water flying in all directions, ripples spreading outward in rings — and within seconds, every nearby angler had their eyes on them.

"Holy shit, that bag is nearly bursting."

"That’s a legit overflowing net bag right there."

"The owner’s really getting cleaned out this time~"

A handful of anglers nearby were drawn in by the commotion. They crowded around to get a look at the catch, phones already out, snapping away at the fish bag.

A haul like this wasn’t something you saw every day.

"Good lord, Boss Chen is that much of a beast?"

Even the regular who’d helped was wide-eyed.

He’d given the bag a tug when he first walked over and felt how heavy it was — clearly a lot of fish — but he hadn’t imagined it would be this much. Had to be around four hundred pounds, give or take.

"Haha, just got lucky~"

Chen Yuan handed the regular a cigarette, then got to work transferring all the catch into the big crate.

"Keep at it — I’m heading off~"

He gave the regular a wave, then headed out of the fishing ground with his gear in hand while the owner pulled the trolley alongside him.

On the way out, he casually glanced over toward the payment booth. Sure enough, there was the short fat guy, leaning against the wall with a cigarette dangling from his lips, glowering in their direction.

Didn’t look like he was having a great day.

Well, how could he be?

You could see from a mile away that the fish bag was packed. Even a rough estimate put it close to four hundred pounds, and at a buy-back rate of around four yuan a pound, that was well over a thousand yuan straight out of his pocket.

Bleeding money, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it~

"Great fish in this pond, boss. I’ll have to come back sometime~"

Chen Yuan couldn’t resist twisting the knife on his way out.

The short fat guy stumbled and nearly lost his footing.

Come back my ass~

I’ll have you blacklisted from every fishing ground around~

"I’ve decided to go all in on a proper restock. Anyone else thinking the same? I’ll reach out to the fish supplier and we can do it together."

He watched Chen Yuan disappear through the exit, muttered a few curses as he flicked away his cigarette butt, then pulled out his phone and threw the topic into the group chat.

They’d been going back and forth for a while and hadn’t come up with anything useful.

Screw it — he’d handle it himself~

"Honestly, you need to restock. That happy pond of yours isn’t even worth visiting for beginners — fish count is way too low."

"And Pond 3’s giant fish pond is even worse. You advertise silver carp, bighead, and Daqing as the big game, but you’ve already scooped out almost all the Daqing, and I bet there’s only one or two fish in the thirty-to-forty pound range left. Actually landing one of those is harder than winning the lottery."

"I’m not just talking out of nowhere here — even I run a fishing ground and I think it’s a bit shady. Who puts fish barely over ten pounds in a ’giant fish pond’?"

"Honestly, only Pond 2 is still worth a damn~"

Not a single owner in the group was talking about restocking — they were all just piling onto the short fat guy.

The Fisherman depended entirely on Pond 2 to pull in customers, while Pond 3 was where they actually made money — the giant fish pond charged through the roof, and the big fish were being quietly scooped out on the sly.

There were maybe one or two left inside, and catching them was harder than landing Chen Yuan’s Fish King.

You’d need divine intervention just to get one on the bank.

Short Fat Guy: "Business is tough, man. I can’t lower the buy-back prizes or nobody’ll bite — I’ve got to work the angle from the fish quantity side. Don’t come at me though, if we’re talking about ripping people off, Old Wang of Jiangyuan takes the crown."

"Nobody even wants to get started on Old Wang — the guy goes the whole year without stocking a single fish, just scraping by on a handful of regulars. Totally pointless."

"That ’iron rooster’ reputation Old Wang of Jiangyuan has didn’t come from nowhere — won’t part with a single penny~"

Old Wang of Jiangyuan saw the group chat going in on him and fired back immediately: "Who says I don’t stock fish? I’ve literally been thinking about doing a big restock these past couple of days."

The group exploded with laughing and side-eye emojis.

Everyone in this chat had known each other for years — they all knew exactly what the other was about.

He’d said the same thing at the start of the year. Big talk about stocking thousands of fish, plastered it all over WeChat Moments and fishing group chats, hyped it up like crazy, got a bunch of anglers hyped up too.

And then it turned out to be all bark and no bite — he’d put in just over a thousand pounds of tiny crucian carp. Well yeah, that’s technically a "few thousand fish."

On stocking day, he nearly got beaten up by the anglers.

"You do you — just make sure it doesn’t go like last time. ’Cause if you end up in the hospital again, don’t expect any of us to come visit."

The group erupted with mockery.

Old Wang of Jiangyuan: "I sourced those through all kinds of channels — they were genuine wild crucian, top quality. A bunch of amateurs who don’t know what they’re looking at~"

Nobody bothered responding.

Same as before — believe what you want, mate.

"Shorty, when are you reaching out to the supplier? Get me some big plate crucian too — good quality, proper size. I’m actually doing a real restock this time."

Whether it was pride getting the better of him or a genuine change of heart, Old Wang of Jiangyuan tagged the short fat guy in the group chat.

Short Fat Guy: "You sure? I’m about to contact the supplier right now. I want the fish here by tomorrow morning — no half-measures this time. We stock right in front of the anglers."

Old Wang of Jiangyuan: "Absolutely, one hundred percent — I’m not playing games this time either~"

Old Wang really had been backed into a corner.

Two separate attempts to send people in to pull something, both ending in failure. That avenue was clearly a dead end. The big brother behind it all was stumped and had gone completely quiet.

And since Jiangyuan sat right next to Yinma, if the Fisherman took the biggest hit, Old Wang took the second biggest.

He had no choice but to handle things himself. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

His regulars had been grumbling more and more lately anyway. A serious restock could win some of them back — at the very least, he had to hold on to the ones he already had.

Otherwise it was lights out for real~

Short Fat Guy: "Alright, I’ll call them now. How much do you need?"

"DM me~"

The group went quiet after that. The other owners didn’t say a word, but they were all almost certainly sitting there thinking about how to go head-to-head with the Chen Yuan Fishing Ground. The competition wasn’t going anywhere.