He got home to find his parents nowhere in sight — no telling whether they’d sold all the vegetables yet.
Chen Yuan set down his hoe and straw hat, ran over to the washing basin, and turned on the tap to rinse the mud off his feet. Then he splashed some water on his face, slipped into a pair of sandals, and headed inside.
He grabbed his tea mug and took several long gulps. That was better.
After resting for a bit, he noticed it was almost noon. Rather than rushing to map out his business model, he got up and headed toward the kitchen.
Just then, the distant rumble of a three-wheeled motor vehicle grew closer and closer, until it pulled into the yard.
"Mom and Dad are back."
Chen Yuan turned and went into the main room, poured two glasses of cold tea, and flipped on the fan.
"Yuan, I noticed a bunch of holes dug around the small pond — that was you, wasn’t it?" Tang Ying handed her straw hat to Chen Jun and started asking questions before she’d even set foot inside.
"Yeah, those are fishing spots I dug out so customers have somewhere to sit and cast."
"Did you get the lease contract signed?"
Chen Jun put his hat down and walked in, taking the cold tea Chen Yuan offered and draining half of it in one go.
"Done. Uncle Bin gave me a ten-year lease."
Chen Jun blinked, opening his mouth to say something, but Tang Ying cut in first.
"Good, good — how much was it? I’ll have your dad give you the money."
"Mom, what are you on about? I’ve got my own money." Chen Yuan made a face. "And Uncle Bin didn’t charge much at all — only five thousand yuan."
"Five thousand? That little?"
Chen Jun’s eyes went wide.
That was cheaper than a fire sale. Had Chen Wenbin lost his mind?
Then he remembered what Chen Yuan had said the night before, and lowered his voice. "Did he shift the cost over to your uncle’s tab?"
"Uncle Bin didn’t mention anything like that. He just said there was no need to be so transactional about it."
Chen Yuan shook his head. Maybe Chen Wenbin didn’t care about the money. Or maybe he was simply doing Chen Yuan a favor. There was also the chance he wanted to see the village produce something worth talking about.
Either way, it wasn’t a bad deal for any of them.
Chen Jun figured that was probably it, and decided not to dwell on it.
"Come help me with the firewood — the kid’s starving."
Before long, Chen Ying called Chen Jun off to help with cooking. With nothing left to do, Chen Yuan slipped back to his room, pulled out his laptop, and started planning the fishing ground’s business model.
There are generally two types of fishing grounds: the leisure pond and the black pit.
The leisure pond is all about the experience — any fish you catch has to go back in the water, no exceptions. The upside is that you never take a loss; it’s basically a guaranteed profit. But the entry fee is dirt cheap, and anglers don’t get much of a thrill out of it, so business tends to be slow.
The black pit is a whole different story.
In the south, black pits are called gambling ponds, and there’s no such thing as a guaranteed profit. The mainstream market runs on two models: fish buyback or no buyback.
With buyback, say you pay a hundred yuan to fish for four hours — whatever you catch, you can sell back to the pond, though obviously at below-market price.
But if you’re good enough and your haul is worth more than a hundred yuan, you’ve come out ahead. You fished for free and walked away with profit — what anglers call "beating the house."
With no buyback, the pond doesn’t take your fish. Whatever you catch is yours to keep — eat it, sell it, give it away, do whatever you want with it.
Competition ponds almost always require buyback. The water quality and fish in those places aren’t exactly normal, so even if an angler wanted to take the fish home, they’d probably think twice.
Mixed-species ponds generally go with the no-buyback model.
On top of those, gambling ponds also have a pay-per-pound model — no entry fee, but the pond won’t buy back your catch. You have to purchase whatever you reel in yourself, at roughly market price.
That model is basically a scam for suckers. If you’re paying market price anyway, why bother driving out to a fishing ground? Places running that model are mostly fish farms first and foremost; offering fishing is just a side hustle.
Chen Yuan would never in a million years run a pay-per-pound pond. He wasn’t interested in a leisure pond either — his fishing ground didn’t need to make money off selling fish.
"Guess I don’t have that many options to begin with."
Strip all that away, and Chen Yuan’s choices were pretty limited. All he really needed to figure out was pricing and hours — charge per session, or charge by the day.
"Pack up the laptop, time to eat."
Chen Jun called out from the doorway, grabbing two bottles of beer from the fridge while Tang Ying followed behind carrying the dishes.
Chen Yuan almost told them to start without him, but then he thought — his whole last life had been spent as a work drone. Wasn’t coming back supposed to change that? He closed the laptop.
After lunch, just as Chen Yuan was settling in for a nap, Chen Wenbin called to say the business license had come through and that Chen Yuan should come pick it up.
By the time he got back, any desire to sleep was gone. Everything was in place — the only thing left was nailing down the pricing model. No time to slack off.
Besides, the threat from that damn system was still rattling around in his head.
"With the Fish King in the pond, this place is anything but ordinary. A hundred yuan entry fee should be fine. If someone actually lands the Fish King, they get a thousand-yuan forced buyback — bet a hundred to win a thousand. That’ll pull in plenty of anglers."
With the pricing model locked in, Chen Yuan stretched out with a satisfied grin.
A hundred yuan sounded steep, but Chen Yuan was going with the no-buyback model — keep whatever you catch. And there was no splitting it into sessions; it was a flat hundred yuan for the full day, nine to five like a regular workday.
Simple and easy. Just the way he liked it.
Of course, without the system shop backing him up, he’d never dare run it this way. One serious angler camping at your pond for three to five days and the whole place would be fished clean.
That was absolutely a selling point in his favor.
Sure, for a suburban mixed-species pond, a hundred yuan was on the pricier side — but he wouldn’t be taking a loss.
With pricing and operations figured out, Chen Yuan started drafting the promotional copy. In his past life he’d been a top-tier salesman — this was right in his wheelhouse.
Once the copy was ready, he got to work spreading the word — first a blast on WeChat Moments and a few group chats, then he hunted down local fishing forums and fishing groups online.
He didn’t know any anglers personally, so old-fashioned grassroots promotion was the only way. But Chen Yuan was confident — once the first few came out to fish, the Chen Yuan Fishing Ground would spread on its own.
Plus, the system was going to deliver a high-quality customer. That had cost him ten thousand points.
While Chen Yuan was busy with his promotions, gossip had started quietly spreading through the village.
"I heard Chen Jun’s kid is back?"
"Graduated from college, apparently."
"Graduated from college and instead of going out to find a real job, he crawls back to the village to run some fishing ground? Who does that? Who around here is going to pay money to go fishing? That’s just plain stupid."
"Word is he got himself into trouble out there — didn’t even finish college. Couldn’t hack it in the city, so he slunk back home. Can’t really blame the kid, I suppose."
"Really? Where’d you hear that?"
"These days, what young person would willingly stay in the village if they hadn’t done something wrong?"
"What a shame."
"I’m telling you, Chen Yuan’s at the age where he should be looking for a wife. My guess is whatever he did hasn’t gotten out yet, so his family’s probably scrambling to get him married off before it does. You all keep that in mind."
The gossip made for entertaining chatter, but Chen Yuan didn’t have a clue — and even if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. This was just village life. Practically a local pastime.
Chen Yuan could see it for what it was. Chen Jun and Tang Ying were another matter.
When Chen Yuan shut his laptop and stepped outside to wait for results, cigarette dangling from his lips, he found his parents sitting in the yard looking thoroughly miserable.
"What’s going on?"
Chen Yuan blinked.
"Those gossipy old hens in the village, that’s what. Calling you an idiot for opening a fishing ground is one thing — but now they’re saying you got into trouble in the city and had to slink back here to mooch off us and drain the family dry."
Tang Ying was seething, her face tight with fury. "It’s definitely Liu Fang. That woman is this village’s self-appointed chief of intelligence."
Chen Yuan’s jaw dropped.
They were really running with that story, huh?