Chapter 187 - 172: Fishing Influencer

Chapter 187: Chapter 172: Fishing Influencer

"Yuan really knows his stuff — running a fishing ground isn’t something just anyone can pull off."

"Just last month I was thinking about copying his model and converting the Old Pond into a fishing ground. Didn’t even last a few days before I was nearly ten grand in the hole."

"Not to point fingers, but you guys ran it way too stingy. No wonder business was bad."

"Even if you weren’t stingy, you still couldn’t get it that packed."

Chen Yuan rode his three-wheeler over to the Old Pond and found that all the staff had already shown up — Zhou Jianming and his son Zhou Lin had even come out.

Everyone was standing around chatting.

"Uncle Zhou, what are you two doing here?"

Chen Yuan pulled out a cigarette and walked over, surprised to see Zhou Jianming and Zhou Lin had come to lend a hand.

"Ha, nothing much going on at home right now."

Zhou Jianming took the cigarette and tucked it behind his ear.

"I’ve got the canopy sorted out. Tomorrow when the wedding crew comes to set up the stage, we’ll coordinate with them and get it all done together — nobody’s going to be sweating through the ceremony."

Chen Yuan turned and handed a cigarette to Zhou Lin.

He had a pretty good idea why the two of them had come. After all, he was helping with the canopy, helping with the wedding procession, and pulling fishing ground staff to cook — the ground was bound to be short-handed.

They had time, so they came to help out.

That’s just how things work — you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

"Appreciate it," Zhou Lin said.

He’d personally experienced how good the shade umbrellas were — it really was noticeably cool underneath them. The wedding banquet wasn’t going to be a sweaty mess after all.

"Don’t mention it."

Chen Yuan smiled, tilted his head to light his cigarette, chatted with everyone for a bit, then got the send-off started.

He left Chen Li in charge of coordinating, while he headed back first with Wang Heng and the others. It had been a long, grueling session — they needed to get back and rest early.

"Old Heng, I’ll follow you guys out."

With Chen Li managing things at the fishing ground and Zhou Jianming’s crew pitching in, it didn’t matter that Chen Yuan didn’t know where every customer had parked — just following one person was enough.

Between the staff and the Zhou Jianming father-and-son duo, they had well over ten people. On top of that, almost none of the Old Pond customers had taken their catch home — they’d all sold it on the spot to the fish dealers for cash.

So the send-off went fast. Two runs was all it took.

Over at the small pond, Chen Kingdom had shown up too. Four people, four three-wheelers — equally efficient, and all the customers were sent off in just a few trips.

"Once you’re done, everyone get some rest."

After the last customer was sent off, Chen Yuan told everyone to go get some sleep, then headed upstairs to his room.

He took a quick shower, dealt with his WeChat messages, and was getting ready to turn in.

Then a message came in from someone he’d just added.

"Haha, Boss Chen is really hard to find on WeChat."

That was just the opener. The next message cut straight to the point.

"Quick intro — I’m a professional angler. My main business is promotional content for fishing grounds and bait and tackle brands. Any interest in working together, Boss Chen?"

He’d assumed it was just a fellow angler. Turned out to be someone hustling for business.

Chen Yuan was about to decline, but then the thought of his prestige points crossed his mind.

"Tell me how this collaboration would work."

He typed back from his bed.

"I’d come in and absolutely wreck you on camera — livestreaming the whole thing. You stock the pond beforehand, or maybe starve the fish for a couple of days to get them biting hard. The more fish I pull, the better it looks for your ground’s bite activity, and anglers will definitely buy into it."

"If you’ve got your own bait or tackle brand under your name, I can use your gear during the shoot and the stream — promote everything at once."

The replies were coming in fast.

Chen Yuan immediately thought of all the fishing influencers from later years.

There were genuinely skilled anglers among them — plenty from the Fishing Association, the association president included, who loved posting fishing videos. But those real talents mostly did wild fishing.

They traveled around, showing off actual technique.

The influencers who camped at fishing grounds had some skill too, but it was less about the joy of fishing and more about the money.

Like this guy right now — by coming in and "wrecking" the owner, he could show off his own skills, promote his bait and gear, and at the same time hype up how good the bite was at the ground, pulling in more customers.

A win-win for the influencer and the owner alike.

That’s why fishing influencers were everywhere in later years, and fishing grounds were always eager to bring them in.

The harder the "beat-down," the better the effect.

"The fishing at Chen Yuan Fishing Ground has always been top-notch."

Chen Yuan thought for a moment, then typed that out.

"Haha, how good the bite is isn’t for the owner to say — that’s for the anglers to decide. And with a new pond opening up, a bit of bite-activity promotion could really make a splash."

Chen Yuan read that and smiled to himself.

Both ponds were packed to capacity every single session, with spots nearly impossible to book. What more of an effect could there possibly be?

"There’s no room left to grow at my fishing ground."

Chen Yuan typed back casually.

"Haha, don’t be discouraged, Boss Chen. My reach covers all of Sichuan and Chongqing, mostly concentrated within Sichuan Province. I’ve got a solid following — dozens of angler groups across the region. One round of promotion won’t resurrect the worst fishing ground overnight, but you’d at least get a solid boost."

The influencer had completely misread what Chen Yuan meant.

Chen Yuan was both speechless and a little curious.

Where had this guy even gotten his WeChat? Did he know nothing about Chen Yuan Fishing Ground? He hadn’t done any research beforehand, and he was already here trying to pitch a deal?

"Chen Yuan Fishing Ground has two ponds, 172 spots total. Two sessions a day, sold out every single time. What exactly do you think a collaboration with you would accomplish?"

"???"

Sometimes telling the truth just makes people think you’re bluffing.

The influencer fired back with a string of question marks.

Was this guy laying it on a bit thick?

"Do you have your own bait or tackle brand?"

Chen Yuan didn’t care whether the guy believed him or not, and kept the conversation moving.

"Yeah."

The other side thought for a moment and replied with that single word, then another string of question marks.

"Let’s try a different kind of deal. You bring your bait and gear, I’ll have someone use mine from the fishing ground, and we see whose brand actually performs better."

"You win, and from then on, all the bait and tackle at Chen Yuan Fishing Ground gets swapped out for your brand — and you’ll be paid every penny of what we agreed."

"You lose, and consider it free promotion for Chen Yuan Fishing Ground."

"You up for it?"

There was half a minute of silence on the other end.

Then a message came through.

"You sure about this, Boss Chen?"

He hadn’t expected to stumble into such a good thing — it was like hitting two jackpots at once.

Not only could he earn a round of promo fees, but he could also lock down the bait and tackle supply rights for an entire fishing ground.

Tackle was one thing — that stuff wasn’t consumable; an angler could buy a full setup and use it for years. But bait was a different story. Bait got used up every single time.

Every fishing trip meant burning through bait, and a fishing ground went through it even faster.

And bait wasn’t cheap either — a single bag of loose groundbait could run several dozen yuan, and even pellets and earthworms added up to a serious amount over time.

"Absolutely certain. We can put it in writing and sign on the dotted line."

Chen Yuan had complete confidence in what the system produced. Whether it was bait or rods and line setups, they’d all been proven in session after session of real-world use.

Even Zuo Xianyun’s gear had come up short against it.

And that was the brand Little Fish King himself had called the best bait in Sichuan Province — nothing some no-name label could touch when it came to attracting fish.

"When?"

The other side went straight to scheduling.

"Tomorrow’s out — both sessions are already fully booked. I’ll hold a spot for you the day after tomorrow. Afternoon session starts at four, runs until midnight."

Both ponds were booked solid in advance, and tomorrow he had to help with the wedding procession — there was no way to fit anything in.

The night session the day after tomorrow would work fine.

By the time he got back from the procession and finished the banquet, there’d be plenty of time.

"Deal. I’ll be there day after tomorrow."

The influencer accepted the challenge.

"Which one do you want — the small pond or the Old Pond?"

Chen Yuan asked.

"Has to be the big fish pond."

Once the influencer learned the difference between the two, he went straight for the Old Pond without a second thought.

By the time Chen Yuan finished chatting with the influencer, it was nearly one in the morning. He set his alarm, put his phone down, and killed the lights.

The next morning, when the alarm went off, Chen Yuan couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes. That chat with the influencer the night before had cost him sleep, and he could feel it.

He rolled over and grabbed a few more minutes, and when the alarm went off a second time, he finally pushed himself upright, bleary-eyed, and shuffled off to get dressed and wash up.

By the time he came downstairs, breakfast was already ready and waiting.

"Another late night?" Chen Li asked, handing him a bottle of milk and a chive flatbread.

"Ran into a fishing influencer online. Talked through some promotional stuff." Chen Yuan stifled a yawn.

If it weren’t for the prestige points as an upgrade metric, he wouldn’t have bothered entertaining any of these fishing influencers. But this was a good chance to see whether the red indicator had anything to do with promotion.

And worst case, it’d still get the word out about the fishing ground — and the bait and tackle brand.

"Handle stuff like that during the day. After the night sessions clear out it’s already late enough — how much sleep do you even think you’re getting if you stay up on top of that?"

"Are we still heading over to Zhou Lin’s place later?" Chen Yuan asked, eating as he talked.

"No rush. We’ll go over tonight for dinner and take care of the rest then."

They’d already spent over an hour decorating the night before and there wasn’t much left to do. No point making a separate trip — they’d be going over for dinner tonight anyway, so they could finish up then.

"Aunt Juan’s away these next couple of days, and the auntie next door has to help out at the wedding too, so things might get a bit hectic on the lunch box side."

"I’ll team up with Aunt Zhang to cover it."

With Xu Juan gone to cook at the wedding, that whole crew was down to just Zhang Youfen alone. It wasn’t impossible, but the workload would double — having an extra pair of hands would make a real difference. ⅇℓ.

After breakfast, Chen Yuan passed out cigarettes to Wang Heng and the others. His uncle and his uncle’s wife came over from the back courtyard, and Chen Dequan along with the rest of the staff filtered in one by one.

Zhou Jianming and Zhou Lin rolled up on their three-wheelers not long after.

Chen Yuan went around offering cigarettes to everyone.

"Look at you two — wedding’s such a big deal and you’re not at home getting things sorted, you’re over here getting in the way. It’s not like we’re short on people."

Chen Jun was giving Zhou Jianming a hard time, but he was smiling the whole time he said it.

The courtyard was full of people.

That kind of lively scene first thing in the morning — there wasn’t another place in the village that could match it.

Before the cigarette was even finished, vehicles started turning the corner and anglers began rolling in one after another.

"The wedding company’s sending people over this morning to set up the stage."

After the check-in rush settled down, Zhou Lin tracked down Chen Yuan.

"Got it. I’ll bring some people over in a bit."

Chen Yuan was already on his phone, calling Wang Tao to come in and restock the pond.

Knowing Chen Yuan was busy, Zhou Lin didn’t linger for small talk — he called out a quick goodbye and headed back to take care of things on his end.

The restocking went quickly — one truckload was all it took.

Once the fish were in, Chen Yuan handed Wang Tao a cigarette.

"Got the canopy materials ready to bring over?"

"Ready to go whenever you say the word."

Wang Tao grinned.

Chen Yuan didn’t bother pressing further — he’d nearly started thinking of Wang Tao as a real-world delivery driver.

"Go take care of your stuff. I’ll call you when it’s time."

He put his head down, lit his cigarette, gave a wave, and jumped on his three-wheeler. He twisted the throttle and headed home, went upstairs, and started packing a bag with a change of clothes.

He was going along for the wedding procession, after all — he needed to be somewhat put-together.

They’d be leaving right after lunch. Better get packed now while there was still time.