How did underwater gold turn 50,000 yuan into tens of millions?

At 18, family circumstances forced him to leave his hometown, and the industries he has worked in are more than ten fingers can count. But not only did he fail to turn his life around, he went bankrupt instead. Just then, a fish he calls underwater gold rewrote his fate. This fish changes color, and this fish can survive out of water. Relying on this fish, he turned 50,000 yuan into 800,000 yuan in a year and a half, and over 7 years his wealth multiplied 200 times. How exactly did Xiao Jinsong of Dongguan, Guangdong, use underwater gold to rewrite his fate?

This is Xiao Jinsong's breeding base. As soon as he arrived, Xiao Jinsong took the reporter into a mud pond, saying he was going to dig up renminbi.

Xiao Jinsong: We just dig casually, and one fish is one red 100-yuan bill. You do the math on how many we have left.

Reporter: There are a lot of fish hidden in there?

Xiao Jinsong: That's right, the ground is full of gold down there.

Xiao Jinsong has 50 fish ponds like this, and he says they are all full of his underwater gold. This made the reporter very curious about what kind of fish could be so valuable. Hearing Xiao Jinsong say this, the people visiting by the pond could not hold back either, grabbing baskets and rushing down, competing to see the true face of the underwater gold.

A full 50 cm of silt made it impossible to move a single step. For a moment the whole pond was in chaos, and they had not even caught a glimpse of the underwater gold. Xiao Jinsong had to step in himself, saying that when dealing with his fish, you must be gentle enough.

Xiao Jinsong: The harder you try, the more it runs. Slowly scoop under its belly and you have it. Be gentler, be gentle with fish too. Treat it like a girl.

Following Xiao Jinsong's instructions, the whole pond fell quiet, and everyone quietly felt for fish. Sure enough, before long, someone caught one.

Xiao Jinsong: Our beauty caught a big one.

One after another, everyone caught fish. Just as everyone was getting ready to wash the fish clean and see the true face of the underwater gold, something unexpected happened on the other side.

Are you scared?

Scared.

Scared to death.

What frightened the children was the fish just pulled from the mud, and everyone's attention was on the fish's mouth. Our camera could only capture a big tongue. To observe it more closely, the reporter used a phone to capture this image.

A big tongue, a mouth full of teeth, and the washed fish really did look somewhat terrifying. Xiao Jinsong said that although the fish looks ugly, it is actually very gentle in temperament. And its name is also related to its appearance.

Xiao Jinsong: When this fish stands upright it looks just like a bamboo shoot. A bamboo shoot is also pointy at the tail, plump in the middle. See, doesn't it look like that? So it is called the bamboo shoot shell fish (marble goby).

The reason it is called underwater gold is first that the price is relatively high, and second that this fish has a special trait: in the air it is black, and when put in water it turns golden. Even more amazingly, Xiao Jinsong also claims that this fish can survive even out of water.

Xiao Jinsong: Our fish can live 72 hours out of water.

Reporter: It can live three days and three nights?

Xiao Jinsong: It can live three days and three nights.

Reporter: With no water at all?

Xiao Jinsong: No water, completely out of water, no water at all.

Everyone says fish cannot leave water. Without water, can the marble goby really survive? The next scene opened the reporter's eyes as well.

Consumer Ou Guo: It was caught today at twelve noon.

Reporter: What time is it now?

Consumer Ou Guo: It is now (2:30 in the afternoon).

Reporter: Is this fish dead?

Consumer Ou Guo: Not dead, alive.

Consumer Chen Xiuli: It has probably been about three hours now. We came here to catch them just after twelve noon, and we kept them until now after we finished eating, holding this one.

It was precisely by relying on the marble goby, which changes color and can survive out of water, that Xiao Jinsong changed his fate of not making money for ten years, using his wife's 50,000 yuan of private savings to earn 700,000 yuan in a year and a half, and afterward his wealth grew several times every year. No one knows the exact figure, but everyone knows he made big money from marble goby.

Wang Qingcheng, deputy mayor of Hongmei Town People's Government, Dongguan: He is making money. You can see his scale is expanding, and a lot of facilities and equipment are being expanded.

Fish feed wholesaler Li Zicong: Other small bosses use only eight or nine tons (of feed) a month, while this big boss uses more than 30 tons (of feed) a month.

Zhang Chunxiu, agronomist at the Agricultural Technology Service Center of Hongmei Town, Dongguan: Of course he is impressive. In the whole city and the whole province, he is among the very best.

Walking through several aquatic wholesale markets in urban Dongguan, the reporter did not find a single stall selling marble goby, and many people had not even heard the name. So how did Xiao Jinsong discover the marble goby and use it to make money for 7 consecutive years? This has to start with that batch of fish he raised but could not sell.

Machong Town, Dongguan, Guangdong, is Xiao Jinsong's hometown, and also his place of heartbreak. At 18, he was forced to leave here with his mother and young younger brother.

Xiao Jinsong: You do not need to say it in front of me, saying every day that I will never pay it back, never pay it back. Does that mean I will never be able to do anything my whole life?

His father died of serious illness, leaving behind 250,000 yuan of debt. His mother had no income, his younger brother was still in school, and Xiao Jinsong was surrounded by pitying looks and discouraging words. Moving the whole family to urban Dongguan, he secretly made up his mind not only to pay off the debt, but also to achieve something.

Over 10 years, he set up street stalls, ran a convenience store, ran an internet cafe, collected scrap, and worked in more industries than ten fingers can count, yet Xiao Jinsong's wealth kept spinning in place. In 2006, seeing that someone was making money raising catfish, Xiao Jinsong also contracted 30 mu of fish ponds and started raising fish. A year later the catfish came to market, with a cost of nearly 3 yuan per jin, while the market price was only 7 mao. Not only did he fail to make money, Xiao Jinsong went bankrupt.

Wife Zhang Yanting: It was like, wages were paid at the start of the month, and before the middle of the month we were basically worrying.

Xiao Jinsong: I do not know why making money is so hard. I have done every industry. How should I put it, I do not know if the method was wrong or what.

Even if he disposed of the fish, he could only get ten or twenty thousand yuan in exchange. Whether to keep raising them or not became a burden on Xiao Jinsong's mind. He shut himself in a room and forced himself to find a way out. Two days later, he really did think of a method. Relying on this method, he used fish that could only lose money to earn 800,000 yuan in just a year and a half.

Since selling the fish lost money but the ponds were still there, could he use the loss-making live fish as feed to raise higher-priced fish? Searching online, Xiao Jinsong found that one kind of fish seemed almost tailor-made for him.