I Build a Top-tier Fishing Destination

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Returning to the Village to Dig a Fish Pond

”Now arriving at Yu City Village. Passengers getting off, please take your belongings and exit through the rear door.”

Chen Yuan stepped off the suburban bus, bag in hand, and gazed out at the small village nestled among distant green hills. A wide smile spread across his face.

There’s nothing quite like coming home — and that feeling runs even deeper when you’ve lived two lives to get there.

Heart brimming with excitement, Chen Yuan set off toward home at a brisk pace.

”Yuan!”

He’d barely reached the front gate when his mother, Tang Ying, came jogging out to meet him. She looked him up and down, her expression caught somewhere between joy and worry.

”You’ve lost weight. The internship must’ve been rough, huh?”

Chen Yuan was a fresh graduate. He’d missed the Spring Festival because of his internship, and ever since word got out that he was finally coming home, Mrs. Chen had been counting down the days.

”Mom, I’m almost 140 pounds. What do you mean I’ve lost weight?”

At five foot ten, Chen Yuan was by no stretch of the imagination skinny.

But there’s a special kind of thin — the kind only a mother can see.

”How did the internship go?”

His father, Chen Jun, cigarette dangling from his lips, reached out and took Chen Yuan’s backpack.

”Pretty good,” Chen Yuan said.

”You’ve got your diploma now — should be able to convert to a full-time position, right?”

Chen Jun pulled two bottles of beer from the fridge, popped them open, and handed one to Chen Yuan. Tang Ying carried a spread of dishes to the table — a proper homecoming meal she’d been preparing for a while.

”Yeah, I got the diploma at the end of June. The full-time offer is there, but I’ve decided not to take it.”

Chen Yuan grabbed three glasses and filled them for his parents and himself.

”Not taking it?”

Chen Jun looked taken aback. ”Why not?”

Tang Ying immediately asked, with a note of concern, whether something had happened.

”Nothing happened. It’s just too far from home.”

Chen Yuan shook his head with a smile, but for a brief moment his expression drifted — as if a flood of memories had washed over him all at once.

In his previous life, he’d been transferred to Capital City after his internship.

Chasing the dream of big-city opportunities, Chen Yuan had been just like so many others who’d drifted to the capital — full of ambition, convinced he was going to make something of himself.

He’d worked in sales. Every day was a grind of hunting down clients and wining and dining them, and he’d drunk himself to the point of vomiting blood more times than he could count, waking up in a hospital bed.

He pushed himself to the limit, yet his income never came close to keeping up with the skyrocketing housing prices.

Even pooling everything his whole family had, draining six sets of pockets, borrowing from every relative and friend they knew — they’d barely scraped together a down payment, and that was for something outside the fifth ring road.

He drove himself even harder, desperate to prove he was worth something. But in the end, years of heavy drinking caught up with him, and at barely thirty years old, he was diagnosed with liver cancer — late stage.

It was only in those final moments, looking at his parents’ white hair and his sister’s hollow, worn-out face, that he understood what he had truly lost. ℴℴ𝘮

Ten years.

Ten years drifting in the capital, and Chen Yuan had turned himself into nothing but a work machine.

Work, and more work.

His memories of his family had frozen somewhere a decade in the past. When he finally looked at them again — really looked — his parents had aged beyond recognition without him ever noticing.

His sister, only two years older than him, looked as worn and haggard as a woman in her forties or fifties.

All of it, for his sake.

And what did he have to show for it?

A cold, cramped box of an apartment, a few dozen square meters of nothing.

If he could do it all over again, he would never choose that relentless, indifferent city. All he wanted was to stay home — to be with his parents, his family.

That was where home actually was.

Whether it was a dream, or some kind of parallel world, he didn’t know — but when he opened his eyes again, he was back, ten years earlier, standing at the moment he’d been about to leave for Capital City.

He didn’t hesitate. He quit, bought a ticket, and headed straight back to his hometown in Chong City.

”You want to stay in the village?”

Chen Jun stared at Chen Yuan, disbelief written all over his face. He’d thought his son’s future was finally sorted — and now he was spouting this nonsense.

”Your mother and I worked ourselves to the bone to put you through school. Your sister went out to work right after high school. You know why?”

”So you could get into a good university, get out of this village — not so you could come back and spend your life bent over a field.”

Chen Yuan shoveled a mouthful of food and explained patiently, ”Dad, I’m not talking about farming. I’m planning to open a fishing venue.”

”The hell does that mean — you want to come back and run a fish pond?”

Chen Jun reached over and pressed the back of his hand to Chen Yuan’s forehead. Was this kid running a fever? Had he gone soft in the head?

”Dad, a fishing venue and a fish pond are two completely different things.”

”Different how? At the end of the day you’re still raising fish. As far as I’m concerned, that’s not even as good as farming.”

Chen Jun waved his hand dismissively. ”Your uncle’s been raising fish in that little pond in the village for years and he’s barely made a cent. I’m not agreeing to this.”

”You’re a college graduate, for crying out loud. Coming home to raise fish — what does that even look like? You’re not afraid of being the laughingstock of the whole village?”

Chen Jun fixed Chen Yuan with a look of pure, frustrated disappointment and shut the idea down flat.

Chen Yuan felt a wave of helplessness wash over him.

His dad wasn’t exactly a die-hard traditionalist, but he still carried plenty of that old-generation thinking.

In his father’s mind, a college degree was a one-way ticket out — a guaranteed path to a good job, city life, and a comfortable future.

They’d sacrificed so much to get him through university, and now he wanted to come home and raise fish.

Did raising fish require a college degree?

His uncle had never even finished primary school and he managed just fine.

Was that worth putting you through university?

Half the old-timers in the village would have a field day — a college boy coming back to raise fish, clearly couldn’t cut it in the city.

But Chen Yuan didn’t have much of a choice.

He’d come back from 2024 to 2014. With ten full years of hindsight, he could latch onto any number of booming trends and ride them to success.

But as a card-carrying member of the reborn, he hadn’t disappointed the community — when he came back, he came back with a system. The catch? It was a fishing venue construction system, hard-locked to one objective: go back to the village and build a fishing venue.

He didn’t have a choice. This was where he had to be.

”Dad, I know what I’m doing.”

Chen Yuan kept his patience and pressed on, trying his best to bring his parents around.

With the system in his corner, he had every reason to be confident.

”He’s grown up now — he has his own ideas. Wanting to start a business isn’t a bad thing. We should support him.” Tang Ying shot Chen Jun a look.

She didn’t really understand what a fishing venue was, and the business model Chen Yuan described went right over her head — but she knew he wanted to stay close to home, and that was already better than him going all the way to Capital City.

A mother worries no matter how far her child goes. What mother wouldn’t want her child nearby?

”This isn’t starting a business.”

Chen Jun lit another cigarette and said with a grimace, ”Our family’s finances aren’t great as it is. We’ve got two kids in their twenties to think about. What if it all goes sideways?”

Chen Yuan felt a headache coming on.

This was exactly what he’d been afraid his parents would say.

And from the look on Tang Ying’s face, she was clearly turning the same worry over in her mind.

He quickly cleared the last of his food, chugged the rest of his beer in two gulps, grabbed the dishes, and made a beeline for the kitchen. He knew from experience that making himself scarce was the smartest move right now.

”Leave those. You’ve been sitting on that bus for hours — go take a nap.”

Tang Ying patted his hand, a flicker of tenderness in her eyes. This kid had lost weight.

”Yes, ma’am.”

Chen Yuan really was exhausted. He’d bought the ticket and traveled through the night. Now that he was home, there was no rush — he could deal with everything after he’d rested.

”Fine, let him do what he wants.”

Once Chen Yuan had retreated to his room, Chen Jun ground out his cigarette under his foot and stood up, heading for the door.

”Where are you going?”

”To see my brother.”

That was Father Chen for you. Old-fashioned in some ways, but never truly stubborn. He’d pushed back on the fishing venue idea at first — but once it was clear his son had made up his mind, he’d take it seriously and do whatever he could to help.