Chapter 68 - 69: The Heavy Chummer Hooks a Fish

Chapter 68: Chapter 69: The Heavy Chummer Hooks a Fish

"Alright everyone, that situation’s been taken care of — now let’s get back to fishing."

Chen Yuan flicked away his cigarette butt and grinned at the rowdy bunch of anglers in front of him.

"Boss Chen’s something else, sorted it all out with one phone call."

"Back to fishing, back to fishing — it’s scorching out here, give me that shade umbrella any day."

"Only about two hours left, we need to hustle. The Fish King still hasn’t shown today — Boss Chen, do something, get the Fish King biting!"

The message in the group chat had gone out to everyone, so all the anglers were already in the loop. Since things had been handled to everyone’s satisfaction, they headed back to their spots to chase the Fish King.

"What’s Boss Chen supposed to do about it? It’s summer — when it gets this hot, fish just don’t bite."

"Don’t make excuses, Heavy Chummer. That’s not a valid reason for getting skunked."

"Hahaha~"

Heavy Chummer had become the butt of every joke at the pond — a living, breathing example of what it truly meant to be a fishing jinx.

In today’s session alone, fifty-nine anglers were at the pond, and fifty-eight of them had hooked fish. Even the worst among them had landed at least one. Heavy Chummer was the only one still skunked.

"Damn it, I’m getting a fish today no matter what."

Heavy Chummer ground his cigarette butt under his heel and bolted back to his spot. He glanced at the bait bowl — still more than half full — and the angler sitting next to him felt his heart skip a beat.

Oh god, Immortal, please don’t start chumming again.

Thankfully, Heavy Chummer hesitated and held off on adding more chum. He baited his hook, cast his line, and locked his eyes on the water with laser focus, dead set on landing a fish.

"I’m heading over to the pond. You guys head back — come find me when the session wraps up."

Chen Yuan shook his head with an amused smile, said a quick word to Chen Jun and the others, then wandered off alone to crouch on the small slope nearby. At least there was a shade umbrella there — it was almost bearable.

"Time to try out the remote’s other functions."

Chen Yuan scanned the whole pond, let his mind drift inward, and pulled up the remote. These past few days he’d only used the Fish King bite trigger and hadn’t tested anything else.

The other functions included spot selection, pull force adjustment, whole-pond frenzy, and whole-pond lockdown — he had no idea yet what any of them actually did.

Now was as good a time as any to find out.

"Let’s try the whole-pond frenzy."

Chen Yuan tapped it, then instinctively reached for his phone to film the chaos — but then remembered the security cameras were rolling, so he shoved it back in his pocket.

Splash~

The pond erupted almost instantly. Fish surged up from below in droves, mouths gaping like they were gasping for air, while others rolled and thrashed at the surface as if they were dancing on the water.

"Holy shit, there are that many fish in this pond?!"

The anglers were floored.

The surface was absolutely packed — a wall-to-wall mass of fish. It was breathtaking.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Boss Chen, don’t tell me the pond’s running low on oxygen and all the fish are coming up for air."

A few anglers started to worry on Chen Yuan’s behalf.

Sure, it looked incredible — but this many fish breaking the surface wasn’t exactly a good sign. In this kind of summer heat, oxygen depletion was a real possibility.

"The aerators have been running non-stop. There’s no oxygen issue."

Chen Yuan answered with total calm.

The anglers let out a collective breath of relief, then immediately erupted with excitement.

Half of them whipped out their phones to start shooting. To an angler, this roiling, fish-covered surface was like watching a stunningly beautiful woman dance — utterly irresistible.

You had to get it on camera.

Post it to your feed and every fishing buddy you had would be green with envy.

"Heavy Chummer, the Immortal himself — you’re telling me you still can’t catch one with all these fish right in front of you?"

"Look at them — don’t they kind of look like they’re laughing at you~"

The hyped-up anglers started ribbing Heavy Chummer again.

"Oh come ON~"

Heavy Chummer had hit his limit. He stared at the seething mass of fish covering the surface, then just ripped his rod upward in a hard sweep. If he couldn’t get them to bite, he’d damn well snag one.

With fish packed this tight, there was no way he could miss even snagging one, right?

The other anglers caught on and followed suit. In seconds, the sharp whipping sound of lines slicing through the air rang out across the entire pond.

"What the—"

Chen Yuan’s eyes went wide. Are they fishing or snagging? Don’t go tearing the fish up like that.

Splash~

Just then, the Fish King suddenly burst through the surface, sending a massive spray of water into the air. Its scales caught the sunlight and blazed like polished gold, leaving every angler at the pond standing there slack-jawed.

Chen Yuan seized the moment and quickly switched off the whole-pond frenzy.

The whole-pond lockdown function didn’t even need testing — it was exactly what it sounded like. One tap and not a single fish would bite. Even Wang Heng himself would go home empty-handed.

With a function like that, who on earth could mess with him?

The pull force adjustment was just as straightforward — it cranked the fish’s fighting strength up or down from its natural level, with a ceiling and floor of a hundred percent each way.

Say someone hooked the Fish King: if Chen Yuan maxed the pull force out, the Fish King would fight like it weighed four hundred pounds. The drag would be absolutely brutal.

But dial it down to zero, and reeling in the Fish King would feel like pulling in a Little Kalami.

Honestly, that function seemed a bit situational. Probably wouldn’t come up much.

The one Chen Yuan liked most was the spot selection feature. Every fishing spot in the pond was mapped out, and he could target any single one of them for individual operations.

He hadn’t used it before because there was never any reason to play favorites. Even for the Fish King, he’d only toggled the bite trigger — whoever landed it was pure luck.

But now, he didn’t have much choice.

"Going skunked is not an option. Chen Yuan Fishing Ground has a zero-skunk policy. Heavy Chummer, get ready — you’re about to hook one."

Chen Yuan glanced over at Heavy Chummer, who was staring at the water with almost painful intensity. He selected the spot, picked a fish species at random, and tapped bite.

"Hm?"

Just a few seconds later, Heavy Chummer’s eyes widened slightly. He leaned forward in his seat and slowly wrapped his hands around the rod resting on the rod holder.

"Is he about to get a bite?"

The anglers nearby noticed and turned to look.

Sure enough, the float on the surface began bobbing up and down, then gradually rose higher — and then, in a blink, the whole thing shot straight under.

Whoosh~

Heavy Chummer’s face lit up as he seized the moment and yanked hard. The tip of the rod bent sharply, the whole thing arching into a deep bow as the line sang under the tension.

"Got one! I finally got one! Holy shit, I finally got a fish~"

Heavy Chummer was beside himself, lifting the rod and practically trembling with the urge to haul the fish in — but the line screamed even louder and the rod bent even deeper, taut as a drawn bowstring, one more ounce of pressure from snapping clean.

"Haha, this thing’s gotta be at least five pounds — this is incredible~"

The bigger the fish, the bigger the rush — and for Heavy Chummer, who’d been skunked for three and a half days straight, a five-pound fish was enough to send him completely over the moon.

Chen Yuan thought about it for a second, then nudged the pull force up by ten percent. Let Heavy Chummer enjoy it a little more.

Sure enough, feeling the fish suddenly fight back even harder, Heavy Chummer looked briefly startled — then absolutely ecstatic. He gripped the rod with both hands and threw his whole body back, leaning hard against the pull.

Before long, a bighead carp broke the surface. By the looks of it, it was right around five pounds.

"Quick, quick — someone net it for me!"

Seeing the bighead carp only cranked Heavy Chummer up further. He hollered for a fellow angler to help with the net.

The guy sitting next to him grabbed the landing net, waited as Heavy Chummer slowly worked the bighead carp toward the bank, then slipped the net smoothly over its head and lifted it out in one clean motion.

"Congrats, man — you finally broke the skunk!"

He handed the bighead carp over to Heavy Chummer with a grin, offering his congratulations. Quite a few anglers along the bank laughed and chimed in with their own.

They’d given Heavy Chummer plenty of grief, sure — but landing a fish after a skunk was always worth celebrating. That was the beauty of fishing.

"Thanks, thanks so much~"

Heavy Chummer tossed the guy who’d netted it a cigarette, his whole face lit up like sunshine. He crouched down and turned the bighead carp over in his hands, studying it with the reverence of a man holding a priceless treasure.

Click~

Out came his phone, and he snapped away like a man possessed — even got a selfie with the fish before finally, reluctantly, slipping the bighead carp into his keep net.

Then he rubbed his hands together, picked his phone back up, and got to work putting together a post.

"Five-pound bighead carp. Skunk officially broken. This calls for a celebration~"

Along with the fish photos, he threw in the shots from the earlier frenzy — nine pictures total, laid out in a perfect grid.

He’d barely posted before the comments started rolling in.

"No way, the skunked Heavy Chummer actually landed one?? How long has it been since that pond was fed?"

"If Heavy Chummer the Immortal can land a five-pound bighead carp, I’ll be running back-to-back — drop the location~"

"Which pond is this?? Send the address ASAP~"

Apparently Heavy Chummer was pretty well known in his own little fishing circle — though the nicknames, "Skunked Heavy Chummer" and "Heavy Chummer the Immortal," weren’t exactly flattering ones.

But that was precisely why it mattered. If even he could land a fish, every angler in that circle was salivating at the thought of showing up and going on an absolute tear.

Heavy Chummer was just getting ready to reply when his DMs started blowing up — message after message, all of them begging him to share the location.

"Boss Chen, mind if I add a few fishing buddies to the group?"

Heavy Chummer couldn’t be bothered to message them all back individually, so he just started adding them to the group.

Chen Yuan’s eyes lit up.

Now that was what he liked to see.

Add away. The more the merrier.

He knew it — having the ultimate fishing jinx Heavy Chummer finally land a fish was going to be fantastic advertising.

And just like that, the results were already showing.