Chapter 51 - 53: Wang Heng in the North, Blond Punk in the South

Chapter 51: Chapter 53: Wang Heng in the North, Blond Punk in the South

"Hey, all you guys who parked at my place — I’ll haul your gear over first and come back to pick you up!"

The session was wrapping up. Chen Dequan and his wife took charge of shuttling the customers who’d parked at their home.

Chen Jun and Chen Kingdom handled things on this end.

As for Wang Heng and the handful of others who’d come by village bus, they’d have to wait a bit — there were only so many three-wheelers to go around, three total between Chen Dequan’s place and theirs.

"Boss Chen, we won’t be back tomorrow, but when you launch memberships, make sure you give us a heads-up."

Ye Huan walked over and offered a cigarette.

"How could I ever forget the God of Wealth?"

Chen Yuan took the cigarette with a grin and tucked it behind his ear. "Next time you want to come out, just hit me up beforehand — I’ll make sure there’s a spot saved for you."

"Ha, now that’s what I like to hear."

Everyone knew spots were first-come, first-served, and Ye Huan wasn’t about to take it literally — but hearing Boss Chen say it like that just felt good.

"What if all the spots are already booked? I couldn’t even snag a reservation just now."

Ye Zhi gave her phone a playful little wave.

Cough, cough~

Ye Huan nearly choked on his smoke. What was Ye playing at, deliberately putting Boss Chen on the spot like that?

"Listen to you — when Ye graces us with her presence, if there’s no spot available, we’ll dig one out on the spot."

Chen Yuan fired back without missing a beat.

It was such a slick answer that even Ye Huan and the others gave him a thumbs-up.

"That’s more like it."

Ye Zhi was quite pleased with that.

Chen Yuan waved goodbye to Ye Huan’s group and watched the self-driving anglers pull out one by one before heading over to Wang Heng and Blond Punk.

"Brother Wang, you really didn’t plan on keeping any of your catch today?"

Chen Yuan pulled out his cigarettes and offered one to each of them, nodding toward their completely empty fish bags.

"Didn’t I say so this morning? Me and my apprentice weren’t here to clean out your pond. If we’d actually gone all-out, we’d have pulled a few hundred jin out of here easy."

Blond Punk said whatever was on his mind — no small talk, no dancing around things, straight to the point.

"I know, I know. It was mainly a test of your skills. Looks like you passed, yeah?"

Chen Yuan liked that about Blond Punk — no games, no bullshit. The world would be a better place if people were just a little more straightforward with each other.

"If my master couldn’t even pass a simple test, how’s he supposed to make a name for himself in the Fishing Realm?"

Blond Punk took a drag of the cigarette Chen Yuan had given him and blew his side-swept fringe out of his eyes — he had that whole mid-2000s alternative kid vibe going on.

"In the martial world there’s Qiao Feng with his Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms — in the fishing world, there’s Blond Punk with his Eighteen Fish Subduing Casts. Can’t wait to see you make your name and shake the whole Fishing Realm."

Chen Yuan said it with a grin, just messing around.

"Wang Heng rules the North, Blond Punk rules the South — Master, what do you think of that slogan?"

Blond Punk was exactly the type to get a little carried away the moment someone hyped him up. Chen Yuan had barely mentioned Qiao Feng and he’d already spun it into a battle cry for the two of them.

"It’s terrible."

Wang Heng shot him a look. They were here to fish — what was all this nonsense?

"I think it’s pretty good, actually. Out in the world, your reputation is whatever you make it. You’ve got to start talking yourself up — if you’re in a game and nobody knows your name, you might as well not bother playing."

Chen Yuan kept the teasing tone going.

"Heh, Boss Chen, you’re a real one~"

With Chen Yuan’s seal of approval, Blond Punk was over the moon and immediately started turning the slogan over in his head, trying to figure out how to make it land better.

Wang Heng of the North, Blond Punk of the South?

Southern Emperor (Blond), Northern King?

"Alright, I reckon that’s just about everyone. Brother Wang, let me ride you both out of the village."

In the time it took to smoke a cigarette and chat, most of the anglers had already cleared out. Chen Yuan’s dad happened to ride back to the pond on the three-wheeler just then, so Chen Yuan waved for Wang Heng and Blond Punk to hop on.

Blond Punk was still muttering to himself.

Still hadn’t settled on the slogan, by the looks of it.

Then, just as they reached the village entrance, he suddenly leapt to his feet.

"I’ve decided — we’re going with: Wang Heng rules the North, Blond Punk rules the South!"

What the hell~

Blond Punk’s sudden outburst scared the daylights out of both Chen Yuan and Wang Heng. One side of the three-wheeler actually lifted two centimeters off the ground — they nearly went flying into the fields.

Wang Heng snapped back to his senses and launched a kick straight at him.

Absolute bloody lunatic, scaring people half to death like that.

Chen Yuan just shook his head and laughed.

"Call me first thing in the morning."

Wang Heng had already reserved a spot, so Chen Yuan made a phone gesture, then spun the three-wheeler around, cranked the throttle all the way, and tore back home in about three minutes flat.

Chen Jun looked up when he saw Chen Yuan return and quickly checked his phone, a smile spreading across his face.

"Took twenty-four minutes to clear everyone out. If we run a night session, an hour should be enough to turn the place over."

Chen Yuan nodded.

In that case, it might be worth trying out the split-session format that Qin Fen and the guys in the group chat had been suggesting.

"Where are those two?"

Chen Yuan was ready to nail down the night session and wanted to talk it over with Chen Dequan and Liu Fang, but after looking around, he couldn’t find either of them.

"Didn’t you say you wanted to lay concrete? They headed over to the pond to work the cement mixer. Que De’s actually pretty handy when it comes to that sort of thing."

"Que De?"

"Ha, just an old nickname from when we were kids. His name’s supposed to mean ’full virtue,’ so naturally we called him ’no virtue’ instead."

Every generation of childhood friends comes up with warped nicknames for each other — Chen Jun’s crowd was no different. Same went for Chen Yuan and Qin Fen, didn’t it?

"Alright, I’ll head over to the pond and check things out."

Chen Yuan called out to Chen Jun and rode off toward the pond.

"Sure thing. We’ll go tend to the vegetable patch — your mom and your aunt are already over there. Call us if anything comes up."

There was already a construction crew at the pond, plus Chen Dequan and his wife pitching in — they didn’t need a crowd. Besides, there was plenty of work to do back at home too.

"Oh, and Dad — tell Uncle that he doesn’t need to feed the fish in the pond anymore. The anglers go through so much bait every day, the fish are eating plenty as it is."

With the all-in-one aerator in place, they could cut out all those little chores entirely.

Chen Yuan rode over to the pond to find the construction crew already on-site. An excavator was working its way steadily along the slope, leveling the ground, while another worker ran a small walk-behind vibratory roller over the embankments, packing them flat and firm.

Others were busy laying pipes and running cables.

Chen Dequan was over at the cement mixer, hard at work. Liu Fang was going around cleaning up the litter left behind at the fishing spots.

Mr. Qin and his crew had already cast their lines.

The whole place was buzzing with activity, yet nobody was getting in anyone else’s way — everything running along smoothly, like a well-oiled machine.

"You sneaky bastard, look at the scale of this operation — why didn’t you wake us up to help?"

Qin Fen waved Chen Yuan over, already digging a cigarette out of his pocket.

"It’s not like I can’t afford to hire a crew."

Chen Yuan took the cigarette with a smile and plopped down on the side of the road.

Whoa — that’s hot.

He couldn’t sit there for more than a second.

"You guys keep fishing — holler if you need me."

After a quick exchange, Chen Yuan called out and headed over to where Wang Tao was setting up the security cameras. At the same time, he pulled up the system and tapped the remote a few times, letting the Fish King do his thing so Mr. Qin and the others could have a proper good time.

"These things don’t need cables?"

Chen Yuan stopped under one of the newly installed streetlights and looked up at the camera. There wasn’t a wire in sight — where was the power even coming from?

"Right there — solar panel. Simple and clean."

Wang Tao pointed at the camera from where he was hanging on the light pole, then looked down at Chen Yuan.

"The camera’s mounted here at an angle that covers the whole pond. It can even pick up the slope over there — full three-sixty coverage, no blind spots. The monitor goes in your house, so you can watch the whole pond from home."

"Works for me."

Chen Yuan lit his cigarette and passed one up to Wang Tao.

"What else can it do?"

"Standard surveillance, two-way audio — you can talk to whoever’s at the monitor from right here. On top of that, the system threw in an extra feature."

Wang Tao finished mounting the camera and climbed down the ladder, accepting the cigarette with a sly grin.

"Fish in this pond are for catching — the legal way. The moment anything in that water is pulled out by any other means, the camera triggers an instant alarm, then tracks and locks on. It’ll get you a clear shot down to a single hair."

Holy shit, that’s something else~

Chen Yuan was genuinely impressed.

With that thing watching over the place, nobody would dare pull any funny business in his pond.

"I’ll put four streetlights at the four corners of the pond — that should be more than enough to light up two acres. Any issues with that?"

Wang Tao took a drag and pointed out each corner.

"No issues at all. Just do it."

He’d handed the whole construction project over to Wang Tao — there was nothing to be worried about.

"Actually, one more thing."

Wang Tao nodded, then seemed to remember something and turned to look at Chen Yuan with a serious expression.