Chapter 169 - 161: Boss Chen, Congratulations

Chapter 169: Chapter 161: Boss Chen, Congratulations

The two of them chatted about the matter for a while longer, and it wasn’t until mealtime that Chen Yuan called out his goodbye and headed home.

Before leaving, he pulled out two packs of Hua cigarettes and slid them across to Chen Wenbin, who grinned and swept them straight into his drawer with the practiced ease of someone who’d done it a hundred times.

"Sis, this is the new land lease contract I just signed. Take a look at it and work with Wang Tao on how to design and develop the place."

Chen Yuan had just pulled up home on his three-wheeler to find Chen Li had beaten him there, standing by the roadside eyeing the long row of brand-new tricycles.

"You’re basically trying to lease the whole village, aren’t you."

Chen Li took the contract and flipped through it. Combined with what he already had, nearly half the land in the village was on its way into Chen Yuan’s hands.

"Even if I wanted to, it’d be hard to pull off. Let’s wait and see how much Uncle Bin can actually lock down."

Chen Yuan waved for his sister to come inside.

It was too hot to stand around talking outside.

"I noticed something."

Chen Li closed the folder and followed Chen Yuan in.

"What’s that?"

Chen Yuan went inside, grabbed two basins, and filled them with warm water — nothing better than washing your hands and face after coming home in the summer heat.

"I’ve been noticing that Uncle Chen and the others send WeChat messages when something comes up, and Mom and Dad do the same. But when everyone’s busy, there’s no guarantee anyone sees it in time. With just the small pond, it’s fine — it’s right down the road, and if something’s urgent you can just run over and holler or give someone a call. But that won’t work once the Old Pond opens."

Chen Li splashed some water on her face, then laid out her suggestion.

"Not only is it farther away, but things are going to be twice as hectic. And when it gets noisy out there, you can’t even hear a phone call half the time. You should get some walkie-talkies."

Back when she worked at the mall, the store always kept walkie-talkies on hand — incredibly handy whenever someone needed to run to the stockroom or something came up.

Way more reliable than a phone.

"No problem, I’ll sort that out in a bit. After dinner, let’s sit down and go over the opening plans for tomorrow. Then tonight I’ll call all the staff together for a meeting and get everything assigned ahead of time."

The Old Pond opening was going to be chaotic — without proper planning upfront, things would fall apart fast.

Chen Yuan had originally planned to gather the staff right after dinner, but on second thought, it made more sense to go over things with his sister first and patch any gaps. Two heads were better than one.

Talking it through over dinner worked out nicely anyway — it would double as a little get-together for the staff.

Plus, Aunt Juan and the others would probably come over early to help with the cooking, which would take some of the load off.

"You two, come eat when you’re done washing up."

Chen Jun came out of the kitchen carrying dishes and called out to Chen Yuan and Chen Li.

The takeout had already been sent over to the pond. His uncle and aunt had come by too. The food was on the table — they were just waiting on the two of them.

"Dad, tonight call Aunt Juan and everyone over for dinner. We’ll have a quick meeting and go over the Old Pond opening tomorrow."

Chen Yuan walked into the main room, said his piece to his father, then sat down and dug into his rice.

"Yeah, we need to get properly organized. If we don’t put our heads together first, it’s going to be a total mess."

Chen Jun nodded and agreed.

When the small pond first opened, they’d all run around like headless chickens with no real system in place. Parking alone had been a nightmare once it hit full capacity.

That was nothing compared to what the Old Pond would bring — over a hundred fishing spots, and judging by the group chat, it was going to be packed solid. Even with their experience from the small pond, this felt like a tough fight ahead.

"Make sure to invite Mr. Liang too. It’ll be a proper get-together for all the staff."

Chen Yuan popped a piece of cured pork into his mouth.

Back when he’d interviewed Chen Youliang, meals hadn’t been part of the deal, so Mr. Liang had been eating at his own place. Chen Yuan figured it was time to change that.

Once the Old Pond opened and all the other staff had meals covered, one more person made no difference.

Besides, Mr. Liang lived alone — his wife had passed early — so having meals included just made his life easier.

After dinner, Chen Yuan and Chen Li talked through the plans for a long time. It wasn’t until it was nearly time for the session change at the pond that they headed over. Once the swap was done, the stocking truck rolled in.

"I’ve got the development rights to the pond site sorted. Tell me what materials you need right now — I’ll have everything brought over in one go and we’ll push the construction as fast as possible."

After the fish were released, Chen Yuan pulled Wang Tao aside and told him.

"Great."

Wang Tao was all smiles. This was a big project.

The two of them spent the better part of half an hour hashing things out in the office. Wang Tao left beaming. Chen Yuan was left behind looking like he’d swallowed something bitter.

"Finally get a little comfortable, and now I’m back to square one."

Chen Yuan wanted to cry but couldn’t even manage tears.

Between Wang Tao and Chen Li’s vision for the Old Pond, a hot spring water park wasn’t enough — they wanted all sorts of indoor and outdoor children’s play areas too, and honestly wouldn’t have minded throwing up a whole shopping complex while they were at it.

He’d had close to a million points sitting in his account. Last night’s lottery had chipped away at some of it, but the rewards from the night fishing session and today’s daytime session had come in, pushing the total up rather than down — he’d actually crossed the million mark.

It was the biggest single points haul since he’d gotten the system. Five million in purchasing power, wiped out entirely by Wang Tao in one sitting.

"Sis must think the money’s coming out of Wang Tao’s company, which is why she had no problem going all out. And of course that’s exactly what Wang Tao wanted — those two must’ve had a great time planning together. Meanwhile, I’m the one getting absolutely wrecked."

Chen Yuan rubbed his forehead.

What a headache.

And from the way Wang Tao talked, this was just the initial phase. There would definitely be more points needed down the line — knowing him and Chen Li, they’d cook up something else once they got together again.

The village construction, the other projects — all of it needed points.

"At least the double rewards are carrying over from the festival."

That was the one silver lining — points weren’t a concern for now.

And construction was a good thing regardless. It would at least drive up the upgrade progress. He trusted Wang Tao’s abilities when it came to building — you got what you paid for, and if this many points were going into it, the quality was going to be there.

He just hoped this whole leisure and recreation route would pay off.

"Reputation points doubled — looks like it really does tie into foot traffic."

Chen Yuan had an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip as he checked the fishing ground upgrade panel. Both progress bars had moved, but the key one was reputation. He still hadn’t fully figured out the new upgrade requirements.

But after two consecutive sessions, he was starting to get a feel for the direction.

"At this rate, upgrading a Tier 1 fishing ground seems easier than going from Tier 0."

The small pond and the Old Pond combined had 172 spots. Two fully packed sessions a day meant 344 visitors — at that pace, the reputation bar would be done in two weeks, easy.

Of course, back at Tier 0 he’d only had the small pond. The difficulty wasn’t even in the same league.

"There’s still one more thing to deal."

He dismissed the system and, cigarette still hanging from his lip, started wandering around the pond.

There was still one fishing ground upgrade reward that hadn’t shown up yet — the high-value customer the system was supposed to identify for him.

Chen Yuan strolled around, chatting with anglers as he went, but nothing stood out about anyone. He started muttering to himself.

"Damn useless system won’t even give me a hint — just tells me to ’observe carefully.’ What am I supposed to observe? They’re all just fishermen. Nobody’s got three heads and six arms. What, is someone going to have ’high-value customer’ stamped on their forehead?"

This was brutal.

He’d done a full lap in the morning and another in the afternoon. Not a single clue.

"Congrats, Boss Chen!"

While Chen Yuan was grumbling to himself, the angler he’d been chatting with suddenly started congratulating him.

"Congrats on what — the Old Pond opening?"

Chen Yuan was a bit thrown. Were they getting ahead of themselves on the opening?

"Whoa, Boss Chen doesn’t know yet?"

The angler looked genuinely surprised.

"Know what?"

Chen Yuan was even more confused now. Clearly it had nothing to do with the Old Pond.

"Jiangyuan Fishing Ground and Fisherman couldn’t find anyone to take them over. They’ve followed Leisurely Angling and announced they’re shutting down one after another. And then Fishing Under the Lone Moon, Fishing King Arena — every single fishing ground in Chong City, one by one, they’ve all called it quits."

The angler grinned as he said it.

"Boss Chen’s the last one standing now. Aside from the wild rivers, you’re pretty much the only fishing ground left in all of Chong City. The undisputed king of the hill."

"Boss Chen should check the group chat — we’re waiting on those red packets!"

"Actually, maybe we shouldn’t have told him. The fish are biting like crazy right now and nobody’s got time to grab red packets. Would’ve been better to let Boss Chen find out on his own and drop a red packet shower later."

The anglers around them jumped into the conversation.

One of them suddenly snapped their rod up, stood, and yanked back hard at an angle — clearly another one who’d been influenced by the logo.

Chen Yuan hadn’t had a chance to check the fishing ground group chat at all. When he heard what the anglers were saying, he pulled out his phone for a quick look — and his face immediately lit up.

The group had broken three thousand members.

The Anglers’ Festival had sent the member count shooting past twenty-five hundred, but growth had slowed to a crawl after that and had been plateauing for days. He hadn’t expected it to suddenly crack three thousand.

But given what the anglers were saying, and all the messages in the group about having nowhere left to go and begging to be taken in — it wasn’t hard to understand why.

With the Chong City fishing grounds shutting down one after another, the regulars and die-hards from those places had nowhere to go if they still wanted to fish. Now there was only one option left.

"Looks like I’ve completely swept up the Chong City fishing market. Rallied all the heroes under one banner."

A wide grin spread across Chen Yuan’s face.

Chen Yuan Fishing Ground’s reputation had long since spread throughout Chong City’s angling community. Now it had pulled in every fisherman in the city — though the group still had some members from the Warm Zone and other areas as well.

But when it came to the Chong City slice of the pie, it was all his now.

"Welcome to all the new anglers! No speeches — let the red packet rain begin~"

Chen Yuan had promised a red packet at every hundred members, and at every thousand-member milestone it was a full-on red packet shower — a real downpour, with at least several thousand yuan on the line.

A hundred packets at a hundred yuan each, firing off nonstop without a break.

"Holy shit, Boss Chen ambushed us~"

"It’s raining — no, it’s a full-on storm~"

Red packets were dropping one after another in the chat. The newcomers were still processing what was happening while the regulars just put their heads down and grabbed, only surfacing after the shower was done.

"Thanks, Boss Chen!"

"Seriously, thank you — I caught dozens of packets and walked away with a nice chunk of change. More than I make in a whole day grinding away at my job."

"That paycheck isn’t worth the indignity anyway. What I’m really waiting for is to snag a fishing spot — land one monster grass carp and I’d quit my job on the spot, swap the bicycle for a motorbike, and spend a few nights living it up at Hong Lang Man."

The group chat was going off the rails again.

Hong Lang Man.

Whatever that was, Chen Yuan had no idea.

He was thinking about the spot reservations. He’d promised the group members who’d missed out on the festival that they’d get priority access to the Old Pond opening events.

But with five hundred new members flooding in, if he kept extending that promise, the promotion would never end.

He’d have the system set it up so only the pre-existing members who hadn’t experienced the festival could book Old Pond spots. New members could book the small pond instead.

"Finally, five o’clock is here!"

"Booking, booking~"

At exactly five o’clock, Chen Yuan saw the updated booking mini-program go live. The banner used the logo as the cover image — that brand really was everywhere you looked.

Not that Chen Yuan minded. He loved it.

Reservations open.

This time, Old Pond bookings went up first. After all, everyone was hyped for the Old Pond opening — there was a good chance some people wouldn’t bother competing for small pond slots and would just wait. Once the Old Pond spots were gone, they’d have no choice but to settle for the small pond.

"Nooo, I didn’t get an Old Pond spot, only got one for the small pond."

"Damn, I told myself if I missed the Old Pond I’d just hit up the small pond — and then you guys wiped out every small pond spot in under three seconds."

"You can’t hesitate when it comes to booking spots. If you miss this session, go for the next one — zero hesitation, zero second-guessing."

"You gotta move like you’ve been single your whole life and this is your one shot. Chen Yuan Fishing Ground is the only game in Chong City right now, and the small pond’s fish situation is genuinely solid."

"Haha, hesitate and you lose~"

Chen Yuan read through the group messages, thoroughly satisfied.

Once the spots were all booked out, Wang Tao’s delivery was almost on its way. Chen Yuan was just about to head over to the Old Pond when his phone rang before he could even get it back in his pocket.