HDRDTH -Chapter 104 Fishing Is Ultimately About Fishing Yourself

“Whoosh—”

The float on the water suddenly plunged without warning.

Fast—so fast it even carved a tiny whirlpool on the surface.

A bite!

Yu Xian’s entire body tightened instantly. Decades of instinct from his previous life surged up at this moment.

His right hand gripped the rod handle, and his wrist snapped upward sharply.

Strike!

Buzz!

The 9-yuan fiberglass rod instantly bent into a dramatic full moon shape. The fishing line went taut, screeching with a grating sound as it cut through the water.

A dull, heavy force surged from below the surface.

He couldn’t pull it up.

Not at all.

It felt like he had hooked onto a reversing dump truck.

“Dad! Big one! Definitely a big one!” Wang Dafu jumped up in excitement, grabbing the landing net and rushing to the shore. “That pull—at least twenty pounds!”

Yu Xian gritted his teeth, his left hand joining the rod as well.

There was no joy in his eyes—only panic.

That familiar heavy resistance… that lifeless, mechanical force…

It’s over.

Don’t tell me there’s submarine parts in this damn pond too?!

“Get up!” Yu Xian roared, veins bulging on his arms as he forced himself back half a step under the terrifying resistance.

Splash!

The surface broke.

No white splash of fish scales. No metallic reflection.

Instead, a dark figure slowly rose from the dense reeds on the opposite bank.

Yu Xian froze.

Wang Dafu’s landing net dropped into the mud with a plop.

It was a person.

More precisely, an old man so dark he blended completely into the evening shadows.

He was bare-chested, his ribs sharply visible.

His entire body was an extremely uniform deep brown—like cured meat that had been soaked in soy sauce for ten years.

On his head was a worn straw hat, and in his hand was a yellowed bamboo rod.

Yu Xian’s hook had snagged directly onto this man’s fishing line.

“You’ve got some strength, young man.”

The old man grinned, revealing a set of dazzling white teeth—the only bright thing on his entire body.

Yu Xian sucked in a sharp breath.

He and Wang Dafu had been sitting here for four hours and never noticed that just five meters away, hidden in the dense reeds, there was a living person.

That skin tone was nature’s perfect camouflage.

As long as he didn’t smile, even a searchlight would mistake him for a dead tree stump.

“Uncle… when did you get there?” Wang Dafu stammered.

“Six in the morning,” the old man said calmly, untangling the fishing line. He tossed Yu Xian’s rig back.

Yu Xian quickly put down his rod and awkwardly walked over, stepping through the mud while pulling out a pack of cigarettes.

“Sorry, uncle. It was too dark—we didn’t see you.”

He offered a cigarette.

The old man waved it off, pulling out a wrinkled tobacco pouch from his camo pants and skillfully rolling a cigarette himself.

With the matchlight, Yu Xian finally saw his equipment:

A battered bamboo rod of unknown age, cheap nylon line, and a float made from a goose feather quill.

Beside him sat a worn fertilizer sack that kept thumping faintly.

Yu Xian glanced at it—and his eyes widened instantly.

The sack was half open, filled with densely packed wild crucian carp, each about the size of a palm. At least ten or more kilograms.

“Uncle… what are you?” Yu Xian finally broke. He pointed at his own fishing spot. “There are fish here?! I’ve been sitting across from you for four hours and didn’t get a single bite!”

The old man exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and sat cross-legged in the mud.

“People in the village call me Old An,” he said.

“There are fish,” he added, pointing at the water. “But they won’t eat your bait.”

“Why?” Yu Xian asked urgently. “I’m using premium imported fish lure! With Antarctic shrimp powder!”

Old An grabbed a handful of mud from the side. Inside were wriggling black earthworms.

“Just this,” he said.

Dirt-dug worms.

He smiled faintly. “Young man, your temper is too heavy. You don’t look like a fisherman—you look like a butcher.”

Yu Xian froze.

Old An patted the ground beside him, inviting him to sit.

“I’ve been fishing for sixty years,” Old An said, eyes calm like a deep well. “I farm fifteen acres of watermelons. I fish from six to ten in the morning, then three to six in the afternoon. As long as I can move the rod, I never stop.”

“You don’t think the sun is too harsh?” Wang Dafu asked nervously.

“The sun?” Old An chuckled. “It’s a good thing.”

“Spring catches life. Summer catches coolness. Autumn catches harvest. Winter catches peace.”

“If you don’t give yourself to nature, why should nature give fish to you?”

Yu Xian fell silent.

He looked at the old man’s button phone lying in a cloth bag.

Suddenly, everything he had taken pride in—his “dimensional reduction strike,” his grand schemes, his dominance over reality—felt absurd in front of this farmer.

“Uncle,” Yu Xian finally sat down in the mud, his voice bitter. “I don’t want to bring this kind of pressure either.”

Then he poured everything out.

“How I caught an ancient Shang dynasty bronze sphere in a lake…”

“How I pulled a mutated stonefish in my backyard…”

“How I dragged up a Japanese nuclear submarine in the East Sea…”

His voice grew more emotional, almost trembling.

“I just wanted to retire and fish in peace! Why does everything I hook turn into world-changing disasters?!”

Wang Dafu was already tearing up beside him.

Old An listened quietly.

No surprise. No judgment.

He took out a watermelon from his basket, split it open with one hand, and handed half to Yu Xian.

“Eat,” he said.

Yu Xian took a bite.

Sweet. Fresh. With a hint of earthy fragrance.

“You’re wrong,” Old An said slowly.

“You think you’ve retired—but your heart is still in that battlefield.”

Yu Xian paused.

“You hold the most expensive rod and stare at the deepest water.”

Old An tapped Yu Xian’s chest.

“You’re still the man who fought for first place in the business world. You’re not fishing—you’re fighting the water.”

“What’s in your heart is the world. So what comes out of the water is also the world’s troubles.”

“You fish with calculation and resentment. The fish can feel it. Who would dare bite?”

“Only dead things—iron lumps, lifeless objects—will get pulled up by that kind of force.”

Boom.

It felt like a thunderclap exploded in Yu Xian’s mind.

He stared blankly at the watermelon in his hand.

Fifty-five years of corporate warfare, his reincarnated life, all his calculations—were stripped bare by a seventy-five-year-old farmer’s simple words.

Yes.

He said he wanted peace.

But everything he did—cooking, music, even casual complaints—carried the same dominance, the same intent to control everything.

He had never truly let go.

“I was fishing myself all along,” Old An said, extinguishing his cigarette in the mud.

“When you treat yourself as part of this place—just mud, just waterweed—then the fish will come.”

Yu Xian took a deep breath.

He stood up and returned to his fishing spot.

He ignored his expensive imported bait.

Instead, he dug into the mud like Old An and pulled out a simple earthworm.

Hooked it.

No calculations. No analysis. No theories about wave interference or anything else.

He closed his eyes.

He felt the wind over the quarry, the smell of soil, the steady beat of his heart.

I am Yu Xian.

Just a fisherman.

He opened his eyes and flicked his wrist.

The float landed.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Still water like a mirror.

He felt no anxiety.

Even if he went home empty-handed, sitting here was already enough.

Then—

The float dipped slightly.

A gentle tap.

Then it slowly rose, revealing two red dots.

A perfect crucian carp signal!

Yu Xian waited patiently for one second, then lifted the rod.

The 9-yuan fiberglass rod bent beautifully.

A lively struggle erupted underwater.

Splash!

A wild crucian carp burst out of the water, sparkling in the sunset, landing on the muddy shore.

Alive.

A real fish.

Yu Xian stared at it—and tears instantly filled his eyes.

“I caught it…” he trembled, holding the fish like treasure. “Dafu! Did you see that?! A real fish!”

Wang Dafu hugged him excitedly. “Dad! You broke the curse!”

On the opposite bank, Old An smiled, stood up, strapped his fish-filled sack onto his electric scooter, and prepared to leave.

“You’ve got decent悟性,” he said.

As he rode off, the scooter rattled loudly.

After a few meters, he suddenly stopped, turned back, and glanced meaningfully at the fish in Yu Xian’s hand.