As soon as this incident blew up, apart from Zhang Yang being the direct victim, the forum moderator Wu Tianming was also exceptionally frustrated.
The channels were already laid out, money could be made easily, and now everything's ruined by someone's exposure.
Cutting off someone's financial path is like killing their parents; the furious Wu directly contacted the forum admin who also had a sales cut and found an excuse to ban the forum nickname Fish Demon God's ID.
The forum account was banned, the IP address was banned, now Fish Demon God couldn't talk nonsense on the forum anymore.
Handling this whistleblower relieved some anger, but it didn't solve the core issue.
Rice for Making Wine was still selling, but the carp formula bait had stopped moving, so Wu personally called Zhang Yang to discuss a solution.
Actually, the product's formula being exposed and shared was a matter of time since this bait didn't have any unique core ingredients from Zhang Yang. After calming Wu's emotions, Zhang Yang started contemplating.
Zhang Yang had a few usable commercial bait formulas on hand, but nothing as representative as the Jinlong Carp formula was left.
Without a core technical barrier, even upgrading the formula would only be a short-term fix, and getting cracked again was just a matter of time.
Otherwise, should I try to come up with the Xiao Huang Mian in advance?
In the previous life, Xiao Huang Mian first emerged around 14, 15 years ago in the Hebei region, and within less than two years, it swept across the country, completely overturning the black pond bait market. Even by 2021, it remained enduring.
Currently, the rice for making wine business on the company side is thriving, bringing in over a hundred thousand in profit each month, so Zhang Yang actually wasn't short on money.
Having made a decision, Zhang Yang immediately started researching.
He obtained a feed manufacturer from Wuhan through Xinda and then inquired about the floating expanded feed.
Mentioning floating expanded feed might leave readers puzzled as to what it is, but a bit of explanation would help everyone understand.
In the early production of fish feed, ordinary ring die or flat die pellet mills were used, and the pellets produced were the most basic fish feed pellets, like the frequently mentioned Tongwei 127.
Due to the production process, this type of adult fish feed is relatively heavy and sinks to the bottom after entering water.
When the bait sinks, it affects the fish's feeding behavior. Some pellets mixed in the mud are not found by the fish, and over time they swell and rot, affecting water quality and increasing aquaculture costs.
Later, to improve feed utilization and reduce aquaculture costs, feed mills devised a method of using an expander to turn the original ring die pellets into expanded pellets.
The whole process, put simply, is similar to the popcorn we commonly see. Through expansion technology, expanded feed pellets become lightweight and float on the water surface upon entering water.
This way, farmed fish can find the targets more easily when feeding, reducing feed wastage.
The farming effect was relatively good, so this new bait gradually entered the adult fish feed circulation field, becoming a new feed category alongside the original ring die pellets.
Why was Zhang Yang looking for floating pellets? This thing is actually the main material of the Xiao Huang Mian 1.0 version.
Floating pellets after expansion processing, crushed properly with a crusher, and screened through various meshes to produce processed powder are the main base ingredients of Xiao Huang Mian. Then, adding attractants like garlic essence, compound amino acids, etc., in proportional amounts gives rise to later versions of Xiao Huang Mian.
After inquiring via phone, Zhang Yang quickly found the renowned Tongwei 153 floating pellets from later generations.
The concept of Xiao Huang Mian only existed in Zhang Yang's mind for now, without any presence on the market. He had the manufacturer send over a bag of samples, and upon receiving them by mail, he got busy.
He used a small steel mill to grind, and after initially adjusting the coarseness of the powder, the basic sample was considered complete.
Next, Zhang Yang bought a series of additives from Taobao to enhance Xiao Huang Mian's performance, such as compound amino acids, garlic powder, DMPT, etc.
Without a mature additive ratio, Zhang Yang created control groups for real-world testing. After over ten direct fishing and fish theft field tests in black ponds, he finally found a relatively stable first-generation formula for Xiao Huang Mian.
...
Just as Zhang Yang was busy with practical experiments for the new product, something happened on the People's Fishing Forum that surprised Zhang Yang.
Fish Demon God, who had been "banned" by old Wu's series of punches, returned with a new account and IP, resurfacing on the forum as Fish Demon God 2.0.
This time, the guy not only complained and accused the corrupt moderator of abusing their power but also shared a new formula revelation.
Once again, Zhang Yang's aquaculture crucian fish loose bomb bait formula sold on the forum was disclosed.
This crucian fish loose bomb bait sold exceptionally well last fall and winter due to Zhang Yang's viral video of Flying Copy with a big crucian during last year's National Day.
Now, the main materials of the formula have also been shared. Zhang Yang checked the opponent's post, and aside from the secret Rice for Making Wine, everything else was almost spot-on.
At this point, this person named Fish Demon God successfully caught Zhang Yang's attention.
...
In a regular residential building community in Tingchun District, W City.
A young man in his mid-twenties fetched several packages from a courier point downstairs and leisurely made his way upstairs.
This fellow stands only about 168 cm, with a dark, thin face, messy hair, and thick high-prescription glasses. In the North, where the average height is 175 cm, his physique appears tiny, giving the impression of malnutrition.
The young man took the courier upstairs and eagerly tore open the box.
If Zhang Yang saw what was inside the box, his heart would definitely skip a beat. Inside were online-bought brown sugar, hawthorn, and dried jujube.
These items are the main materials for making a secret black sugar paste.
After entering his house, the young man put the materials aside and first went to check the laptop left open in the bedroom.
On the web browser, he was logged into a post on the People's Fishing Forum.
He pressed the F5 key to refresh and, upon seeing a new login restriction pop up, his eyes instantly turned red.
"Fuck you! Power-tripping mod! Banned my account again! I'll fight with you. You like banning, do you? I'll expose all the formulae of the things you're selling on the forum!"
Fuming with anger, the young man mumbled a few curses, slammed the laptop shut, and grabbed the newly bought experimental materials, heading to the kitchen.
The small apartment he lived in wasn't big, only 89 square meters, but it was more than spacious enough for a single person.
However, his place was incredibly messy, with various unpacked fish baits, cardboard boxes, and material records strewn all about.
In the living room near the balcony, there were as many as five 1.2-meter-high test float tanks. The tanks were filled with water, with different-sized bobbers soaking inside, though it was unclear what tests were being conducted.
Back in the kitchen, this fellow directly added water to an iron pot and dumped the newly bought brown sugar into it, commencing the making of brown sugar water and quickly getting back to work.
An hour and a half later, the young man's concoction of "brown sugar, hawthorn, and jujube mixture" was done!
Compared to Zhang Yang's secret black sugar paste, the young man's concoction was much worse.
The jujube and hawthorn weren't filtered, and after prolonged boiling, the fruit pulp mixed with the brown sugar solution, making it look very murky.
Although he planned to filter it after cooling, he realized too late that the consistency was too thick to filter.
Besides being too ugly in appearance, the smell differed significantly from Zhang Yang's black sugar paste.
During the cooking process, the brown sugar hadn't reached the appropriate state. Moreover, due to excessive residue causing uneven mixing, the scent carried a burnt bitter note, rendering these hours of experimentation a failure.