Chapter 135 - 136: Fantasy Business Blows Up, But the Result is a Clown

Chapter 135: Chapter 136: Fantasy Business Blows Up, But the Result is a Clown

"The party’s already started for me!"

Cheers and applause broke out, mixed with excited laughter.

Many anglers couldn’t even wait for all the fish to finish being released. They mixed their bait, placed their food orders, and were already casting out — and fish were starting to come up one after another.

"I believe Boss Chen now — these are definitely wild-pond virgin fish. I’ve never seen bites this good. They hit the moment they were put in. These things must’ve been starving for days."

The bite activity was genuinely off the charts.

Of course, the bait’s attractant effect was cranked up to the max as well.

"Get that rod in the water — this could be the one!"

"The one? More like a whole string of them!"

"Exactly. We’re going to be hauling them in nonstop. Never mind the existing stock in the pond — just from what they released just now, that’s two hundred pounds per person on average, or dozens of fish each by count."

"Forget chasing the Fish King today. I’m just here for the grass carp~"

Anglers were casting out at full speed. Some even waved over one of the pros to fish on their behalf, gladly giving up their peg and standing by with a landing net at the ready.

"Whoa, you’re actually hiring a proxy angler? Boss Chen’s going to be coughing up blood after today."

With bites this good and fish packed in this densely, anyone who wasn’t completely hopeless with a rod could land fish with zero effort. If you were lucky, you might even walk away two or three hundred yuan ahead.

Put a pro in the chair, and they’d probably pull in several hundred pounds in a single session.

"I’m not great at fishing — I’m lucky if I land two or three in a whole session. I figured I’d let a pro handle it for a bit while I watch and learn."

The angler scratched the back of his head, a little sheepish, and looked over at Chen Yuan with a goofy grin.

"Boss Chen, is it okay if I go the proxy route?"

"Absolutely. However you catch them, whatever gets landed is yours to take home — all of it."

Chen Yuan hopped down from the fish truck.

He handed the landing net to Wang Tao, dusted off his hands, and added, "That said, the pros only have so many hands to go around. To make sure everyone gets a fair shot, try to keep the proxy sessions to under half an hour, yeah?"

"Of course! It’s an Anglers’ Festival — what’s the point of letting someone else fish the whole time? I just want a little guidance to start, then I’m absolutely jumping in myself."

The angler laughed out loud.

After all, it was an Anglers’ Festival — you had to get in on the fun yourself.

And with fish packed in this tight and biting this hard, this was a rare chance. You had to feel the rush of landing them one after another with your own two hands~

"Brother Wang."

Chen Yuan waved Wang Heng over.

"What do you need, Boss Chen?"

Wang Heng had been helping someone set their float and bait up. He cast out for them and walked over.

"I’ll leave the pond in your hands. If you can, start by proxy fishing for the ones who aren’t so skilled — do whatever it takes to make sure every angler gets to land something."

Chen Yuan offered him a cigarette.

"You’re seriously worried about anglers not being able to land fish?"

Wang Heng chuckled and took the Hua.

A fishing ground owner fretting about whether his customers could actually catch anything, and going out of his way to fix it — no matter how you looked at it, the whole thing felt a bit absurd.

"It’s an Anglers’ Festival. How do you celebrate if nobody’s catching anything?"

Chen Yuan fished out his phone, tilted his head, and lit up, looking just a touch embarrassed as he said it.

"Don’t worry about this end — if you’re not scared, we’ll give it everything we’ve got. Oh, by the way, if you’re heading to Jiangyuan Fishing Ground now you might be cutting it close. Take Qingyang’s car. You do have a license, right?"

Wang Heng lit his own cigarette with a grin and started patting his pockets.

"I don’t know if I should..."

He did have a license — he’d gotten it the summer right after finishing high school — but it was a girl’s car, and on top of that, he’d only just met Dongfang Qingyang.

Just taking off in her car like that felt a bit off.

"Take it. Fair warning though — it smells pretty fishy in there. Just tough it out."

Wang Heng pressed the car keys straight into Chen Yuan’s hand, then walked off toward the pond with the cigarette dangling from his lip — someone was calling out for him.

"Thanks, man."

Chen Yuan called after him.

With the keys already in his hand, there was no point being polite about it. Besides, it was already past eight — going all the way to the village entrance to hail a cab would waste precious time. Having a car was a genuine help.

"Once I’m not so strapped for cash, I should think about getting one of my own."

He muttered to himself, said a quick goodbye to his parents, went to grab his gear, then climbed into Dongfang Qingyang’s car and headed straight for Jiangyuan Fishing Ground.

Just before leaving, he’d ordered the enhanced bait through the system and told Wang Tao to get it delivered as fast as possible.

...

Jiangyuan Fishing Ground was nothing like the Fisherman. There was only one pond here, though the water surface was genuinely impressive — wide and open. As for what was in it.

Old Wang was constantly rotating the stock. Different fish for different seasons and different times of day — sometimes a single species, sometimes a mixed pond where you could go after all four of the major domestic carp at once.

Occasionally he’d throw in something massive.

But that was rare. Mixed ponds were already uncommon. Mostly it was crucian carp — Old Wang had a particular soft spot for them — and restocking events were few and far between.

"Hey, Old Wang, it’s almost nine. When the hell are you putting the fish in?"

"Keep stalling and I’m out of here."

Chen Yuan had just stepped into Jiangyuan Fishing Ground when he spotted a fish truck parked at the edge of the pond in the distance. About twenty or so people had gathered around it, all circling a middle-aged man with a cigarette in his mouth.

"Relax. The truck’s here, the fish are getting released. We go at nine."

Old Wang took a drag, glanced at the time, and frowned slightly.

This wasn’t right.

He’d gone all in on this — spent serious money, even announced the exact release time in advance. The whole point was to do it right in front of the anglers, let them see the volume with their own eyes, and turn the fishing ground’s reputation around.

But with the release time nearly here, only twenty-odd people had shown up. Sure, that was better than usual, but it was still miles below what he’d been hoping for.

"Old Wang, give it up. A lot of the regulars got pulled away by Chen Yuan Fishing Ground’s stocking event. Everyone’s scrambling to grab a peg over there. You’re not going to see the crowd you were banking on."

One of the anglers had clearly seen through Old Wang’s game plan and shook his head.

"Chen Yuan Fishing Ground is doing a stocking event too?"

Old Wang’s head snapped up, his expression shifting. For some reason, a bad feeling settled in his gut.

"You didn’t know?"

The anglers around him looked genuinely surprised.

Chen Yuan Fishing Ground was the hottest newcomer in the Fishing Realm — it had blown up practically overnight and was already making serious waves in Chong City’s fishing scene. Word had spread through the angling community like wildfire.

Especially with the stocking event now in full swing, plus the spectacle that had unfolded at the venue that very morning — the so-called Anglers’ Festival was almost certainly going to sweep through every corner of Chong City’s fishing world, and Chen Yuan Fishing Ground’s name would be right there at the center of it.

It was well on its way to becoming the undisputed top destination — the fishing mecca of Chong City.

A rising star burning this bright, running a promotional event this insane, right next door to Jiangyuan — and Old Wang hadn’t even heard about it. Nobody quite knew what to say to him.

"I was tied up contacting fish suppliers last night. Didn’t have time to keep tabs on anything else. What kind of stocking event are they running over there?"

Old Wang made up a quick excuse and immediately turned his full attention to what Chen Yuan Fishing Ground was doing.

"Let me send you a screenshot."

The angler pulled out his phone and forwarded it over.

Old Wang whipped out his phone and opened the image, zooming in.

"He’s out of his mind~"

He’d barely taken in the stocking numbers before his eyes went wide.

Ten days of nonstop events, two sessions a day, with a guaranteed minimum of ten thousand jin of fish per session — never mind that you’d basically be stuffing a two-acre pond to the brim, just how much money was this guy willing to burn?

"And wild-pond virgin fish on top of that? Where the hell do you even find that many wild-pond fish? This bastard is absolutely running a scam~"

Reading further, Old Wang’s suspicion hardened into certainty — Chen Yuan Fishing Ground had to be pulling a fast one.

He ran a fishing ground himself. He knew better than anyone just how hard it was to source genuine wild-pond virgin fish. Never mind the cost — even securing a reliable supply was nearly impossible unless you had deals with a huge number of fish farmers, and natural-feed ones at that.

But was that even realistic?

Especially at the absurd scale of a hundred or two hundred thousand jin.

"A scam?"

One of the anglers scrolled through his phone, pulled up some photos and videos from earlier that morning, and sent them to Old Wang.

"See for yourself, Old Wang. Chen Yuan Fishing Ground weighed every single fish right there on the spot. Whatever they said, that’s what came out — not an ounce short. And look at the condition of the fish. Does that look like wild-pond stock to you?"

"Can’t say for certain whether they’re virgin fish, but the bite activity is real. People are already landing fish as we speak. Old Wang, take a look at that footage — the whole pond is a sea of rods flying up nonstop. It’s something else."

Someone had already pulled up a clip of the frenzied rod action from over there.

"They packed a two-acre pond to the absolute limit, ten straight days of events, pros on-site to coach or proxy fish for you, and somehow the session fees didn’t go up — in fact, they’re offering discounts when you land fish. Old Wang, I hate to say it, but when it comes to this stocking event? You got steamrolled~"

Old Wang stood there holding his phone, his face pale.

His head was buzzing, his mind completely blank.

He’d gritted his teeth and put serious money into this, all to turn his reputation around and win some customers back — and he hadn’t even thrown the first punch before getting flattened. Utterly crushed.

He’d been so sure his event was unprecedented, had let himself dream of business exploding today — and instead he was the punchline~