After coming out of the restaurant, he found a deserted spot and first put the bucket away in his Space.
He was thinking about buying a decent fishing rod. After all, a worker must first sharpen his tools if he wants to do his work well; without a good fishing rod, he wouldn't be able to land a big fish even if he hooked one.
He wandered around several tackle shops in town but couldn't find a fishing rod to his liking. At most, these rods could only handle fish of around twenty pounds.
He wanted the kind of rod that could handle at least fifty or sixty pounds, to say nothing of a hundred-pound giant.
The economy was only just beginning to develop, and imported fishing rods weren't sold in the town yet. He probably had to go to the county or city to find one.
But he didn't have time to go all the way to the county or city to buy a fishing rod right now; his wife was still at home waiting for him to buy groceries and cook dinner!
Suddenly, he thought of Chen Quiang, who had made a fortune through smuggling. He wondered if Chen Qiang had any connections, and with that thought, he pedaled his bicycle toward Chen Qiang's shop.
When he arrived at the shop, he saw Chen Qiang sitting inside, brewing tea.
"Brother Qiang, busy?"
Hearing someone call out to him, Chen Qiang looked up, saw Wang Chu'an, and stood up to greet him.
"Brother Wang, what brings you here? Come on in, sit down, and have a cup of tea."
After exchanging a few polite pleasantries, they sat down, and Chen Qiang poured him a cup of tea and asked, "Brother Wang, is there something you need today?"
"Brother Qiang, it's like this: I want to buy a decent fishing rod, but none are sold here in town. I heard that Brother Qiang also likes fishing, so I was wondering if you might have a spare one you'd be willing to part with?"
"Haha, you're not wrong, my friend. When I'm not busy, I usually get a few friends together to go sea fishing. As for fishing rods, I do have a few, though they've been used. But I can guarantee you one thing, Brother—they are definitely good rods, all imported. If you don't mind, I can go get them for you to take a look!"
"Haha, great! Then I'll have to trouble Brother Qiang to bring them out so I can check them out."
"You rascal, you certainly know how to talk. Wait here, I'll go get them."
With that, Chen Qiang stood up, turned, and headed toward the back courtyard. After he left, Wang Chu'an noticed the standing fan that had just been blocked from view.
"I'll ask about it in a moment. If the price isn't too high, I'll buy one to take back. After all, the weather is just too hot right now; it's only cool in the early morning and late evening when the sea breeze blows."
He turned and looked around, discovering that Chen Qiang had quite a few household appliances here: washing machines, electric fans, refrigerators, televisions... You could say he had everything you could possibly want.
It was just that he didn't have much money on hand, or else he would have really liked to take one of each back home.
After waiting for over ten minutes, Chen Qiang came back with three fishing rods in hand.
"Brother, take a look at these three. Which one catches your eye?"
As he spoke, he handed the rods over. Just holding them in his hands, Wang Chu'an could feel that these three rods were much better than the ones sold in the shops in town.
"Little brother, all three of these rods were imported from the land of the little Japan. They said they're made of some kind of carbon fiber material—anyway, I don't really understand it, but they certainly feel pretty good when you use them."
He didn't know much about carbon fiber either, but he did know that fishing rods made of carbon fiber material were superior.
Because in his past life, when watching short videos, he learned that the country's massive industrial inventory check revealed that it was only through the Guangwei fishing rod manufacturing plant that China became able to independently produce carbon fiber materials, breaking the monopoly of other countries.
He looked closely and ran his hands over the three rods, feeling that the black-and-red one with subtle patterns suited his taste best. He picked it up and asked Chen Qiang, "Brother Qiang, I'm quite satisfied with this one. Do you think you could let me have it?"
"You rascal, you certainly have a good eye! This rod is said to be able to handle a 150-pound giant, though I've never actually caught anything that big with it myself."
"Then how much for this one, Brother Qiang? If it's too expensive, I won't be able to afford it!"
"This rod actually isn't mine; it belonged to a friend of mine, but he doesn't have any use for it anymore. He bought it for four or five hundred yuan back then. It's been used a few times, so it's not brand new, but the quality is guaranteed. Just give me 300 yuan!"
Hearing Chen Qiang say this, Wang Chu'an immediately guessed that his friend either had a bullet in his head or was sitting behind bars.
He felt a bit unlucky about it; after all, he was reborn, and he still had certain feelings about this kind of thing.
"This... isn't that a bit..."
Seeing him stuttering, Chen Qiang knew he had misunderstood, so he quickly explained, "Brother, you've got it wrong. My friend went out sea fishing with us a few months ago, and he ended up falling into the water. He was fine, but now he's got a psychological shadow and doesn't even dare go near the seaside."
Hearing this, Wang Chu'an didn't say anything else and simply asked, "Brother Qiang, do you think you could go a bit lower?"
"Then what price do you think is fair?"
"How about 240?"
"260!"
Hearing him say 260, which was close to his own mental price point, Wang Chu'an didn't want to waste any more time on this.
Once the price was settled, Chen Qiang brought out the fishing reel, several spools of line, fishhooks, a rod bag, and a hook remover.
Wang Chu'an packed everything into the bag, but instead of rushing to pay, he pointed to the standing fan and asked, "Brother Qiang, how much for this standing fan?"
"This one normally goes for 180, but if you want it, Brother, I'll let you have it for 165!"
"Great, then many thanks, Brother Qiang."
"Don't mention it, and thank you, Brother, for supporting my business."
He took the money out of the Space, paid for the items, and asked Chen Qiang for a piece of rope to tie the standing fan securely to his bicycle.
With the rod bag slung over his back, just as he was about to leave, Chen Qiang smiled and said to him, "Brother, take care on the road. If you catch any good stuff recently, remember to contact me—I buy everything at high prices."
"Alright. Brother Qiang, leave me a number. If I catch something, I'll call you, and you can come straight to the dock to pick it up."
Hearing him say this, Chen Qiang was very satisfied; at least the kid wasn't planning on pulling a fast one on him.
"Alright, I'll write down a number for you."
In truth, Wang Chu'an had figured it out: now that he was married, he had many places where he needed to spend money.
He had to let people know how he made his money, otherwise, if he spent large sums of cash, there would be no way to explain it.
The only solution was to sell a lot of fish, letting others see his income. As for those exceptional, massive fish, once or twice was fine, but if it happened too often, who knew what rumors would spread.
Anyway, those good, large fish weren't hard to sell. When he had time, he could go to the county or city to find large restaurants to offload them; there would be no acquaintances there, so word wouldn't spread all over the village.
Taking the phone number Chen Qiang wrote down for him, he rode his bike to the market to buy all the seasonings needed for cooking.
He planned to go to the butcher shop afterward to buy some fatty pork to render into lard for everyday cooking, and also buy some bones to make soup at home, helping Fang Shiyu nourish her health.
When he arrived, he found that the butcher shop only had some large marrow bones left. That made him realize that in this era, people lacked oil and fat in their diets, so everyone loved fatty pork—unlike later generations, where tenderloin and ribs were considered the good stuff.
He was quite familiar with the pork butcher. After all, when he went out to cater banquets, he often brought the hosts here to order meat, and even the pork for his wedding yesterday had been ordered from this very family!
After buying the large bones, just as Wang Chu'an was about to leave, he reminded the butcher to make sure to save him some pork caul fat tomorrow.