Chapter 99 - 100: Trouble at the Old Pond

Chapter 99: Chapter 100: Trouble at the Old Pond

"Uncle Bin, did you not sleep well?"

The office door was wide open. Chen Yuan knocked on the doorframe and leaned his head in to find Chen Wenbin slumped back in his chair, one hand pressed to his forehead, kneading his temple hard.

"Hey, Yuan! Come on in, sit down~"

Chen Wenbin straightened up and waved him inside.

"Uncle Bin, you really need to take care of yourself. You’re carrying the weight of this whole village on your shoulders — if you so much as catch a cold, everyone’s going to be worried sick~"

Noticing Chen Wenbin’s poor complexion, Chen Yuan refilled his teacup and slid it across the desk toward him.

"You, you — if everyone in this village was half as thoughtful as you, I wouldn’t be getting these headaches."

Chen Wenbin pointed at him with a laugh, shaking his head, then picked up the cup and took a couple of sips.

After setting it back down, Chen Wenbin’s expression shifted — unusually serious, with a trace of unease on his face.

"The Old Pond situation might hit a snag."

Chen Wenbin pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to Chen Yuan.

He had a pretty good idea why Chen Yuan was here, so he skipped the small talk and got straight to the point.

"What happened?"

Chen Yuan raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised.

"That bastard Zhou Jianming isn’t as dumb as he looks. Seems like he figured out the contract can’t just be voided — and that if the village committee is willing to refund his fees, it means someone’s already lined up to take over."

Chen Wenbin flicked his lighter and took a long, hard drag.

Chen Yuan said nothing. He lit his own cigarette and waited quietly for Chen Wenbin to continue.

"So who do you think is the most likely person to take over, out of everyone in this village?"

Chen Wenbin asked.

"Does it even need saying."

Chen Yuan smiled.

Nobody else in the village would be willing to throw money at raising fish. And without the skills to back it up, why would they bother? Zhou Jianming had already proven that point — his fishing operation lasted three days before shutting down. Even if people were jealous of Chen Yuan’s success, none of them had the guts to try their luck.

The only real candidate was him.

"So now Zhou Jianming’s suddenly got an attitude. His words — if you want the Old Pond, fine, but it’ll cost you a hundred thousand as a transfer fee. Otherwise, there’s nothing to talk about."

Chen Wenbin spat in disgust after saying it.

Just a couple of days ago, Zhou Jianming had come crawling to him — offering cigarettes, bowing and scraping, practically on his knees begging for help, saying a few tens of thousands could save his skin.

But the moment it seemed like things were actually moving forward, Zhou Jianming flipped the script and started acting like he had all the leverage. Seeing that attitude today had made Chen Wenbin want to rip into him.

Chen Yuan blinked when he heard the number — a hundred thousand — then slowly shook his head with a bitter laugh.

"Is he brain-dead, or has he just lost his mind over money? Even if I take over the Old Pond, the deal goes through the village committee. What the hell does that have to do with him? Why would I give him a single cent?"

He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and stared ahead, completely dumbfounded.

"He’s trying to roll his lease fees into the price — recover his losses and then some. That’s some serious wishful thinking."

Chen Wenbin shook his head as well.

"He’s not just brain-dead — the man has to be genuinely unhinged to be dreaming like this. He hasn’t even figured out who should be the one sweating here."

Chen Yuan kept shaking his head as he stood up, grabbed a paper cup, and filled it with water.

He took a couple of sips, sat back down, and kept going.

"Right now, he’s the one stuck holding the Old Pond, desperate to offload it. I’m not the one who needs it at any cost. If I walk away, let’s see who else is going to step up — and at that point, the village committee won’t even need to deal with him anymore."

Zhou Jianming had completely misjudged the situation.

He seemed to think that because Chen Yuan’s fishing ground was doing well, Chen Yuan absolutely had to get his hands on the Old Pond — and so he was using it as leverage, hoping to claw back some of what he’d lost.

What a joke.

Who ever said I need the Old Pond that badly?

The moment I walk, he can kiss that lease fee goodbye. Losing close to a hundred thousand all told — he’d have no one to blame but himself.

And when he goes crawling back to the village committee after that, let’s see if Chen Wenbin will even give him the time of day.

He could kick up all the fuss he wanted — he’d just be throwing away his own opportunity.

"He sees you raking it in while he’s bleeding money, and it’s eating him alive. So he thinks he’s got a card to play and wants to squeeze something out of it. He’s about to drop a rock on his own foot."

Through a haze of cigarette smoke, Chen Wenbin ground out his cigarette butt and furrowed his brow again.

"But if he’s dead set on playing hardball, the Old Pond stays in his hands. What are you planning to do?"

Personally, he was on Chen Yuan’s side — but in his role as village secretary, there was only so openly he could play favorites.

He could push to have the village committee reclaim the Old Pond on compassionate grounds — say they were looking out for the villager — and Zhou Jianming would probably accept that, lease refund and all.

But then turning around and leasing it straight to Chen Yuan? That wouldn’t look right at all.

He could tilt the scales a little, but tipping them all the way over would make it impossible to get anything done in the village.

He’d already chewed Zhou Jianming out and tried to talk sense into him — laid out all the pros and cons in plain terms. But Zhou Jianming was hellbent on going scorched earth, and there was nothing Chen Wenbin could do to force his hand.

How to handle it was ultimately up to Chen Yuan.

"He’s not even worth going scorched earth over."

Chen Yuan scoffed, then looked up at Chen Wenbin. "Uncle Bin, pass along a message for me — tell him I don’t want the Old Pond anymore. He can keep it and raise fish himself."

"You’re really giving it up?"

Chen Wenbin’s frown deepened.

"Not quite."

Chen Yuan shook his head.

"You’re going to wait him out — see who blinks first?"

Chen Wenbin turned it over in his mind and caught on.

Chen Yuan just smiled and said nothing.

Zhou Jianming was the one who’d misread this whole thing — he had no idea who should actually be panicking. If it came down to a waiting game, Chen Yuan had nothing to lose. Zhou Jianming, on the other hand, would end up losing the shirt off his back.

Chen Wenbin didn’t say anything. He glanced over at the pack of cigarettes on his desk and was just about to reach for it when Chen Yuan had already slid a Hua over to him.

"From what I can tell, Zhou Jianming’s dug his heels in. He’s not going to budge anytime soon."

Chen Wenbin lit the cigarette Chen Yuan had given him, not entirely convinced by the plan.

It was going to take too long.

He had high hopes for the Chen Yuan Fishing Ground — he’d greenlighted everything he possibly could on the village’s end, all because he wanted to see Chen Yuan’s vision start taking shape as soon as possible.

With Zhou Jianming sitting on the Old Pond like this, just grinding it out wasn’t the way to go.

"Then we speed up how fast he breaks."

The corner of Chen Yuan’s mouth curled up.

"You sneaky kid — I knew you had something up your sleeve. Let’s hear it."

One look at that smile and Chen Wenbin knew Chen Yuan had already worked something out. He was genuinely curious what the move was going to be.

"The Old Pond isn’t the only pond in the village~"

Chen Yuan took a drag and watched Chen Wenbin’s reaction.

"You’re thinking about the Big Pond?"

Chen Wenbin’s brow immediately creased.

Sure, shopping around made perfect sense — if one option fell through, you found another. In theory it was a great move, but the Big Pond was a different beast entirely.

"I can’t get you the Big Pond right now. The optics would be impossible to manage."

Chen Wenbin thought it over for a moment and shook his head firmly.

"Uncle Bin, what’s the deal with the Big Pond, anyway?"

Chen Yuan wasn’t necessarily set on going after it right now — he was just curious. His dad had said the Big Pond was complicated, Uncle Bin had told him to put it out of his mind for the time being, and even his uncle and Zhou Jianming had never once considered using it when they were raising fish.

What was all the mystery about?

"On paper, there’s nothing wrong with the process — but the real issue is what the villagers would think. If it looks like we’re handing every pond in the village over to you, people are going to talk. I just don’t see how it works."

Chen Wenbin didn’t go into detail.

But Chen Yuan picked up on the key point: the gossip.

Yu City Village only had three usable ponds. He’d already been given the small one. If he got the Big Pond too before he’d even secured the Old Pond, it would look like every piece of Yu City Village’s resources was being handed to Chen Yuan to profit from.

People would definitely have something to say.

Chen Yuan was just about to open his laptop and walk Chen Wenbin through his plan when Chen Wenbin kept talking.

"The Big Pond is genuine collective property. Back in the day, for reasons I won’t get into, the old village chief rallied everyone to dig it — hundreds of households put in money and labor to build it together. It was written into the record that the Big Pond belongs to the villagers. Even the village committee has no right to just do whatever it wants with it."

Chen Yuan was genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected anything like that. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

Then again, he’d never thought about fish ponds in his previous life, so it made sense he’d never looked into it.

And this clearly dated back to his grandfather’s generation — not only was he not around back then, even his dad’s memories of it were probably hazy at best.

"The rule the village set from the very beginning was that the Big Pond was for irrigating the fields — to make life easier for the villagers. Back then, nobody had dug wells either, so drinking water came from the Big Pond too. Anyone who messed with it was picking a fight with the whole of Yu City Village."

Hearing all this, Chen Yuan finally understood why nobody had ever gone after the Big Pond. Even his dad had said the whole thing was a tangled mess and told him not to even think about it.

Every household had a stake in it — so who exactly would you be leasing it to?