Chapter 211 - 188: Rather Break the Rod Than Let Go

Chapter 211: Chapter 188: Rather Break the Rod Than Let Go

"That fish is no small fry."

"Gotta hand it to Boss Chen — that custom rod and line setup is seriously something else. Any other 8.1-meter rod getting yanked around like that would’ve snapped ages ago."

"Even if the rod held, the line would’ve cut for sure."

The anglers around them were stunned by the quality of the gear.

Qin Fen had been late on the hookset, never managing to get the rod upright in time. Brute-forcing a fish with the rod nearly parallel to the water like that was just about the surest way to snap a rod or pop a line.

Yet even as Qin Fen strained against it, the line sang without a single worrying creak. The quality really was beyond reproach.

"Holy shit~"

Qin Fen had zero finesse — it was pure brute force all the way. But the terrifying power surging through the line still yanked him stumbling forward, nearly pitching him headfirst into the pond.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. The black carp threw everything it had into the fight, hauling Qin Fen into a frantic jog along the bank, his whole body leaning forward, his grip on the rod down to one hand, the whole setup inches from flying out of his grasp.

"Buddy, just let it go. You were too late on the hookset — there’s no way you’re landing this one. Keep holding on and it’s gonna drag you straight into the pond."

The angler next to him quickly reeled in to clear the way while urging Qin Fen to give it up.

Everyone around him was saying the same thing.

One look and it was obvious this fish wasn’t coming in. The rod was being dragged down toward the water, the tip already submerged, rod and line stretched nearly ruler-straight. How were you supposed to fight a fish like that?

You could say his luck was bad — he’d barely cast before something hit.

But you could just as easily say his luck was terrible in a different way — he’d hooked a monster. A ten- or twenty-pound fish and maybe he could have recovered, but with this kind of savage pulling power, there was no way this was some Little Kalami.

"Quit? Quitting is not an option. The first thing I learned when I got into fishing: you’d sooner snap your rod than let go. Come on then, try and drag me in — I dare you. You want to tire me out, fish? Get in line~"

Qin Fen had no intention of letting go. As he got hauled out of frame, he still managed to holler at Chen Yuan to keep the phone aimed at him. The stream couldn’t go dark.

"Watch my Fish-Taming Eighteen Techniques — granny’s diving under the covers~"

Once Qin Fen steadied his footing, he spun around, slung the rod over his shoulder, dropped his head, and charged forward like a madman. The cobblestones clattered and rattled under his feet.

"Fish-Taming Eighteen Techniques, original style — the Donkey Roll~"

His self-invented technique had no real method to it — just raw, dumb muscle. Head down, charge forward, pure tug-of-war with the black carp, trying to haul it out through sheer stubbornness.

"Holy crap, this isn’t gonna break the rod — he’s heading straight for a snapped line."

The onlookers were floored.

Rod and line were stretched dead straight. This was a full-on tug-of-war.

Could the setup even take this kind of punishment?

"Boss Chen, are that rod and line combo for sale? I want a full setup."

"Same question~"

Everyone expected the line to snap at any second, but Qin Fen and the black carp went back and forth — gaining a step one moment, stumbling back the next.

The line’s durability was genuinely beyond anything they’d expected.

And the rod? Absolutely unreal.

"These are for in-house use only right now — not on the market yet."

Chen Yuan could only shake his head. Every angler who got their hands on the gear the fishing ground provided ended up wanting to buy it. Same with the bait — he’d lost count of how many people had asked about that too.

After all, Chen Yuan Fishing Ground wasn’t the only place people fished. Plenty of regulars hit other spots too, and who wouldn’t want bait that worked this well?

Too bad the system hadn’t unlocked that feature yet.

Selling it as-is would never produce these results, and that would just be shooting himself in the foot.

"Boss Chen, why not put it out there already?"

"Seriously — that fat guy has zero technique, just yanks like a caveman, and he still hasn’t broken the rod or popped the line. The quality speaks for itself. If this hit the market, it’d be an instant bestseller."

"Watching this makes me want to upgrade my whole setup. On my knees begging you, Boss Chen — please release it~"

It wasn’t just the anglers at the pond. The viewers in the livestream were equally blown away by the rod and line, all desperate to get a set — plus the bait on top of that.

"We’re still ironing out a few details, but it’ll be on the market soon."

Chen Yuan made the promise.

He did have plans to launch a spin-off tackle brand — it just depended on when the system would unlock the relevant permissions.

Chen Yuan had been so busy chatting up the livestream audience — looking every bit the actual streamer himself — that he’d completely tuned out Qin Fen, who was still locked in a war with the black carp.

"Whoa, the fat bastard actually got the rod up."

"Nice — didn’t know his Fish-Taming Eighteen Techniques were that legit."

"It’s all about the gear. Any normal setup would’ve exploded or snapped by now."

Catching the comments scrolling past, Chen Yuan finally looked over and noticed that at some point, Qin Fen had managed to get the rod upright. Both hands locked on, body wrenched back as far as it would go.

Brute force, zero grace.

Though he was still getting yanked stumbling forward every now and then.

"Yuan, where’d you even find these black carp? Were they raised on milk? The pull on this thing is insane — I feel like I’m arm-wrestling a bull."

Qin Fen was drenched in sweat, his clothes plastered to his skin.

"Well, when you fight a fish like you’re in a tug-of-war competition, what do you expect?"

"You gotta work on the fundamentals. Otherwise when a moment like this comes, you’ll always fall just a little short."

"I didn’t fall short though, did I? I honestly thought it was over earlier — didn’t think I’d ever get the rod up. Clearly I’ve still got some chops."

"It’s all the gear doing the heavy lifting~"

Anglers crowded in to watch, and even those farther down the bank had turned to look.

At the start, nearly everyone had written it off as a lost cause. No one expected Qin Fen to get the rod back up — and judging by the fight still left in that fish, it was clearly something big.

Everyone was dying to know just how big, and whether he’d actually be able to land it.

"Even if you’re a water buffalo, I’m bringing you in today. Watch my Fish-Taming Eighteen Techniques — Heaven-Soaring Infinite Fishing!"

Qin Fen let out a battle cry and threw himself back into the fight. The rod bent into a terrifying deep arc, and the high, clear singing of the taut line rang out continuously, setting every nerve on edge.

"You’re not there yet, man. Heaven-Soaring Infinite Fishing — soaring is just the beginner stage. Infinite is the real deal."

The onlookers ribbed him from the sidelines.

"The real deal sounds way too dramatic~"

Qin Fen cracked a grin, then turned and shouted over to Chen Yuan with barely contained excitement: "Yuan! I think this might be a giant — pulls just as hard as the Fish King back in the small pond."

"Congrats — looks like a record’s about to fall."

Chen Yuan grinned.

"Ha! Record’s as good as broken!"

Qin Fen laughed out loud, buzzing with excitement.

"This could genuinely be a giant black carp."

"With a pull like that, even if it’s not a giant it’s got to be 90-plus pounds."

"If he lands a 120-pounder, he’ll be the top catch in this whole pond."

"Too bad he’s not the lucky angler."

If Qin Fen had been the lucky angler, this catch would’ve been an absolute jackpot.

A ninety-pounder would still be five figures. A hundred-pound giant black carp? Six figures, easy.

But Qin Fen wasn’t in it for the money — he wanted the record. The giants in the big pond were even bigger than in the small one; any one of them would blow his personal best out of the water.

"This big pond has to be magic or something. Heavy Chummer actually hooks his own fish, and even a guy whose technique is basically just garbage — he’s landing a giant black carp?"

Chen Yuan muttered to himself.

He turned back to the stream — not to admire Qin Fen’s battle with the giant, but to scroll through the flood of comments, chat with the viewers, and sneak glances at the viewer count, his eyes crinkling into happy slits.

The numbers kept climbing. An hour in, the peak had cracked four thousand concurrent viewers, and the moment the black carp had broken the surface and Chen Yuan zoomed in for a close-up, the count had spiked even harder.

"Holy shit, did you guys see that fish?!"

"Oh my god, that thing has to be over a meter long. I’ve never seen anything that big in my entire life."

"My fishing instincts are going absolutely haywire. I need to get to Chen Yuan Fishing Ground right now."

"I didn’t even know I had fishing instincts until this moment. They just woke up. Please, someone drop the address — I need to go catch a monster."

Reading the comments flood in, Chen Yuan’s grin stretched even wider. He rattled off the fishing ground’s location several times in a row and dropped his contact info in the chat.

"That’s definitely a giant black carp. I’ve seen the Fish King from the small pond — I don’t think it’s even this big."

"That’s probably the 108-pounder. I was there on day one of the Old Pond’s opening event — got to see both giants. That one should be the smaller of the two."

The anglers on-site were just as electric.

And that one comment — "the smaller of the two" — sent the livestream into a frenzy. This absolute beast of a fish was the smaller one? Just how big was the biggest in the pond?

This fishing ground had to be visited. There was no way around it.

When an angler lays eyes on a true giant, the urge to conquer it is almost impossible to resist — it’s a goal every serious fisherman has to chase.

And even someone who barely fishes at all, catching a glimpse of something that massive, would feel their blood start to pump, their chest tighten, their dormant angler’s instincts snap awake — a sudden, overwhelming itch to pick up a rod.

"SPLASH~"

The instant it broke the surface, the giant black carp thrashed and sent water spraying in every direction. The onlookers got soaked, but nobody cared — every eye was locked on the enormous fish still twisting and fighting in the shallows.

A fish this size was a rare sight. A black carp topping a hundred pounds was even rarer. Even seasoned veterans might never see one up close in their entire fishing lives — the sheer visual impact was overwhelming.

"Kinda on the small side, isn’t it."

Qin Fen listened to the comments around him, glanced over at the giant black carp still thrashing at the surface, and somehow looked almost disappointed.

Every angler within earshot turned to stare at him with undisguised contempt.

What an insufferable show-off.

Calling a hundred-plus-pound black carp "kinda small."

He was lucky he didn’t get mobbed on the spot — especially by the guys who’d gone home empty-handed. They looked ready to curse his entire bloodline.

The livestream chat was equally savage.

Chen Yuan just found it hilarious.

That guy had a real knack for comedy. The stream was loving it.

"Are you kidding me? A hundred-plus-pound black carp and it’s ’too small’? Why don’t you try deep-sea fishing then, grab a rebar rod, and go toe-to-toe with a great white shark? I guarantee you won’t be calling anything too small after that."

"He earned the right to show off, honestly."

"That chunky guy’s got some serious luck. Landed the Fish King in the small pond, now hooks a giant in the Old Pond."

The fishing ground’s group chat was buzzing too.

Chen Yuan didn’t need to do a thing to promote the place anymore. The moment someone landed a monster, the anglers nearby would whip out their phones to film it — and the person who caught it would be bursting to brag about it themselves.

"Haha, karma’s pretty fair when you think about it — give you the giant black carp, but no lucky angler bonus, and definitely no reserved spot for tomorrow."

"Oh crap, I forgot to book my spot~"

The anglers who’d been watching the action live saw the message pop up in the group chat, checked the time, and immediately felt a wave of regret crash over them.

It was already past five. Spot reservations had closed.

They’d gotten so caught up in the spectacle they’d completely forgotten to book.

"SPLASH~"

The giant black carp was still fighting at the surface, but each thrash was weaker and slower than the last. Everyone watching knew the end was near — this fish wasn’t going anywhere.

"Yuan! Get the net~"

Qin Fen hollered over at Chen Yuan.

Chen Yuan called back in acknowledgment, got the phone propped up in its stand, then grabbed the big landing net and made his way to the bank, eyes fixed on the giant black carp slowly drifting toward the shore.

Splash~

As the line drew the giant black carp in close, Chen Yuan moved fast and decisive — and the fish made one last desperate lunge, sending a spray of water straight into his face.