Chapter 196 - 178: New Rules for the Old Pond

Chapter 196: Chapter 178: New Rules for the Old Pond

"For the Old Pond’s opening event, all catches are yours to keep — you can take these black carp home, no need to release them."

Chen Yuan watched in surprise as the fishing influencer slipped all four black carp back into the water.

"Code of the trade — whoever pays the session fee keeps the catch. Boss Chen gave me this spot for free, so there’s no way I’m walking away with the fish."

Chen Yuan had heard those words before.

The first time he’d gone up against the Fisherman, Wang Heng and Blond Punk had said the exact same thing.

Since that was how it was, Chen Yuan didn’t push it. He offered to pay a promotional fee instead, but the influencer turned that down too.

You play, you pay — win or lose, you own it.

He hadn’t come here thinking about fish or promo fees. His whole goal had been to lock down the bait supply contract for Chen Yuan Fishing Ground. If he’d won, he wouldn’t have budged an inch.

But he lost, so he took it on the chin.

"Alright, come back and fish again sometime. Let me walk you out — Brother Wang, let’s go."

Chen Yuan started helping pack up the gear and rounded up Wang Heng and the others.

On the way out, the fishing influencer said he had a lot of respect for Wang Heng, though Wang Heng himself wasn’t too satisfied. Whether fishing for himself or as a stand-in, he hadn’t managed to land a black carp over a hundred jin.

And it wasn’t just him — aside from Little Fish King on opening day, nobody else had even touched one of those hundred-jin giants.

That was still the prize they were all after.

"The big ones are in there. They’ll get pulled out eventually."

Chen Yuan could only shrug.

The gap at that hundred-jin threshold was massive — only a black carp that crossed it was worth its full value. The problem was, the remote control was off-limits during the opening event.

He was half-tempted to just wade in and hand-hook one himself~

After seeing the influencer off, Chen Yuan hurried back to the Old Pond. Once all the guests had been seen out, he wasted no time scrambling upstairs, showered, flopped onto the bed, and pulled up the system with barely contained excitement.

"It worked, just like I thought."

Chen Yuan’s eyes lit up — the red progress bar had jumped to 7.2%, a gain of over four percentage points. Reputation really did need promotion to grow.

"The blue bar makes sense — it tracks how many customers come through. The red bar is tied to publicity, but I still can’t figure out exactly what drives it."

Chen Yuan muttered to himself, brow furrowed.

He knew the red bar needed promotion to move, but there was still no clear formula. Still, he wasn’t going to bang his head against a wall over it — knowing how to push it forward was enough.

As long as you know which direction to walk, you’ll find the path.

"Better restock the fish first~"

He checked the stock levels in both ponds, pulled some fish from the reward inventory to top them up, then closed out of the system and flipped open WeChat for a quick look.

Nothing urgent. A few friend requests could wait until morning. He set his alarm and was out cold fast.

The next morning, Chen Yuan’s alarm pulled him out of bed. He washed up, grabbed his phone, and headed downstairs.

"Boss Chen, so today’s the last day of the opening event, huh?"

Wang Heng and the others were washing up in the courtyard. Blond Punk spat out a mouthful of toothpaste foam and grinned over at Chen Yuan.

"It’s time to wrap it up. Keep going any longer and the fish dealers are going to start complaining."

Chen Yuan laughed, waited for everyone to finish washing up, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes and went around offering one to each person. "You’ve all worked hard these past few days. Rest up tonight — tomorrow at noon, drinks are on me."

"Hard work doesn’t feel hard when the money’s good."

"They always say money’s tough to earn and shit tastes awful, but Boss Chen’s money? That’s the easy kind. Honestly, I’d love work like this every single day — feet never leave the pond, rod never leaves my hand~"

"Ha! Then Boss Chen would be crying himself to sleep, and the fish dealers would be drowning in tears~"

The whole crew burst out laughing, faces lit up with wide, genuine grins.

Chen Yuan was already paying generous stand-in rates, and on top of that, he’d let them compete for spots in the Old Pond’s opening event. Even a single session had netted each of them several thousand yuan.

A lucky run could bring in tens of thousands.

From the Angler’s Carnival to the Old Pond opening, in just two weeks these guys had each pocketed at least several tens of thousands at minimum — hard not to be happy about that.

"Count me out on the drinks though. I’ve been away half a month — time to go home."

Little Fish King said with a cigarette dangling from his lip and a smile on his face.

He politely turned down Chen Yuan’s invitation to stay for drinks the next day. He was a family man, and the shop needed tending — better to head back and take care of things at home.

"Plenty of chances to drink later. I’ve got my membership sorted, so I’ll definitely be back regularly~"

Wang Heng also declined.

The rest of the crew said they’d head out once the night fishing session wrapped up. Chen Yuan didn’t try to talk anyone out of it.

Family or otherwise, two straight weeks of grinding at full intensity — everyone had to be worn out. Heading home to rest was the right call.

After breakfast, the staff began showing up one by one, and Zhou Jianming and his son came back as well.

Chen Yuan went over to greet them, and within a few minutes anglers started filing in.

"I’ll handle the small pond side."

Once the guests were settled, Chen Yuan headed over to the small pond and waved Chen Jun and the others off to handle their own tasks. The Old Pond was running smoothly enough — two staff members keeping an eye on things was plenty.

He strolled to the office with a cigarette between his lips and pulled out his phone, planning to get through those pending friend requests from the night before. But the moment he opened WeChat, he was in for a surprise.

Dozens of requests, all stacked up.

He accepted them all. Every single one was asking about the fishing ground — mostly anglers from the provincial capital.

"Looks like the promotion is actually working."

Chen Yuan was impressed with how much reach the fishing influencer had pulled in. He’d have to find more people like that.

Once he’d cleared all the new contacts, he was about to start drafting the post-opening rules for the Old Pond — things would definitely be changing over there, the free-keep setup wasn’t going to last — when his phone rang.

Unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is the Chong City Sports Bureau. Your application to establish a preparatory committee for a Fishing Association has been approved. We’ve issued the official approval documents. Please come in as soon as possible to collect them."

Chen Yuan’s face broke into a grin.

He’d half-expected another angler calling. Instead, it was the Fishing Association prep approval coming through — Zuo Xianyun had said three business days, and sure enough, not a day off.

He hung up, shot Zuo Xianyun a message, then thought for a second before bolting out of the office. He hopped on the three-wheeler, rode over to the Old Pond, and tracked down Wang Heng to borrow his car keys.

While Wang Heng and the others were still around, he had wheels — might as well make the trip now, pick up the approval documents, swing by the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, and file the registration paperwork.

Once that was done, the association would be official.

"Dad, keep an eye on the small pond for me — I’ve got something to take care of in the city. Should be back before dinner."

Back at the house, Chen Yuan called out toward the kitchen, then bounded upstairs, grabbed everything he needed, and drove straight to the Chong City Sports Bureau.

Documents in hand, Chen Yuan made a beeline for the provincial capital.

Sounded far, but Chong City bordered the provincial capital directly — it had always been under its administration — and the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau was only two districts away.

The distance wasn’t the issue. The city traffic was. Stop-and-go at every red light, barely able to get up to speed, and it still took a full hour and a half before Chen Yuan finally pulled up to the Civil Affairs Bureau.

"Looks like it’ll be an afternoon thing. Better eat first."

Despite pushing the whole way, it was already past noon when he arrived. The bureau staff had clocked out for lunch — nothing to do but park and grab a bite.

He used the break to start drafting the new rules for the Old Pond.

"Catch-and-release is definitely the way to go for the Old Pond."

First order of business: the release model.

The fish density in the Old Pond was no joke, and there were plenty of big specimens in the mix. Without a release system, every single fish someone pulled out would be a massive loss — land the Fish King and you’d be hemorrhaging money.

If he insisted on keeping it a keep-what-you-catch pond, the session fee would have to start at 1,888 yuan at minimum, and even then the odds of losing money would still be sky-high. How many anglers could stomach fees like that?

And sky-high fees had a way of drawing unwanted regulatory attention.

He could always pull the big black carp out.

But without them, the appeal would crater instantly — anglers wouldn’t stand for it.

No matter how he looked at it, catch-and-release was the only answer that made sense.

"The release model is the core issue. Based on how the opening event went, average catch was close to four fish per person. Even if I switch to regular bait, two or three fish per person is realistic — and 240 yuan a session just doesn’t hold up against those numbers."

Chen Yuan rubbed his temples.

He’d considered copying the Fishing King Arena’s model, but their redemption payouts were just too low — there was nothing exciting about it.

And Chen Yuan Fishing Ground already had a redemption benchmark set by the small pond. If the Old Pond’s payouts were too low by comparison, anglers would lose interest fast.

So the Old Pond’s payouts couldn’t undercut the small pond’s — but they couldn’t be too generous either, or everyone would flock to the Old Pond and the small pond would be left empty.

Which brought him right back to the same problem.

If redemption rewards were high, 240 yuan clearly wasn’t enough to cover it.

"So what, raise the session fee?"

By any reasonable market standard, his rates weren’t expensive — and with eight hours of fishing included, doubling the fee wouldn’t be out of line.

Or he could cut it to four hours for 240.

But shorter sessions would massively increase the workload, and all the time spent getting people in and out would eat into everything.

The two-session structure had to stay. The redemption rates couldn’t be embarrassing.

As for running 24 hours like some other venues — that had never crossed his mind. In his past life he’d ground himself into an early grave chasing success. This time around, he wasn’t doing that to himself.

And he definitely wasn’t dragging his family into that kind of grind.

At least not now.

Strip away all the other options and it kept coming back to the same answer: raise the session fee. That was the only real path to breaking even and turning a profit.

"At an average of three fish per person, that’s 336 fish across a full pond. If the average redemption payout is 100 per fish, you’re already looking at over 30,000 yuan — and at 300 a session, you’re still making nothing."

Factor in bait costs and staff wages on top of that, and every day would be a net loss. The whole operation would be running on pure system handouts.

"Once the system unlocks the sales feature, bait and tackle will have to be priced — building the brand through add-ons. But that step’s still a ways off."

Chen Yuan reined in his thoughts and kept punching numbers into his phone, trying to find the sweet spot between session fees and redemption payouts.

It was probably a headache every pond owner dealt with — set the redemption rewards too low and no one cares, set them too high and you’re bleeding out.

That balance point was brutally hard to find.

And Chen Yuan had an advantage that other owners didn’t — a remote control that let him manage how the fish were biting — and even with that, he was losing sleep over the numbers. God only knows how many brain cells other owners burned through just trying to work this stuff out.

Chen Yuan calculated, stared into space, typed and deleted, and eventually — pulling together input from Xu Bai, Wang Heng, and the others — hammered out the new rules for the Old Pond.

First, total fish stock: 1,342 — unchanged.

Session fee raised to 388 yuan.

Redemption rates: under 40 jin, 100 yuan per fish to keep.

Despite the sheer number of black carp in the pond, over a thousand of them were in the under-40-jin range. At this rate, you’d need to catch three before you could keep one — not a huge profit, but nothing ruinous either.

to 60 jin: 200 yuan per fish to keep.

There weren’t huge numbers in this bracket, but it wasn’t thin either. Land two and you could take one home — though with only around two hundred fish in this range, there was no way everyone would be pulling two of them.

to 100 jin: Chen Yuan grouped this as a single tier, but with a twist — payouts weren’t purely per-fish, they were based on order of catch.

The first three anglers across the entire pond to land a fish in this range would receive redemption payouts of 1,000, 800, and 500 yuan respectively. Anyone else in the top ten to land one got a payout equal to their session fee: 388 yuan.

Guaranteed at least one fish you could take home, with a little competitive edge thrown in to keep things lively.

Finally, the hundred-jin giants: three fish, with corresponding payouts of 1,888, 1,688, and 1,288 yuan.

And sitting on top of all of that was one extra reward — an absolute jackpot.