The volatile fortunes brought by turbot farming

Xu Ji was picking flowers in a greenhouse. This fish not only looks strange, but its body color can also change with its surroundings. Because of this fish, he lost more than 5 million yuan in a single year, and his spirit also suffered a major blow at one point. A small tag allowed him to make a rapid turnaround. It was still this fish that enabled him to reach more than 5 million yuan in sales in just 3 months. See how Li Ying of Xingcheng City, Liaoning Province, became a leading figure in the local turbot industry.

This is Xingcheng City in Liaoning Province. The greenhouse in front of us is very special. Not only is its area very large, but what is raised inside is also very unusual. On this day, it happened that distributors were visiting Li Ying's farm for inspection, and our reporter also followed them in to take a look. After entering the greenhouse, it really was a hidden world of its own inside.

Li Ying: President Li, look, you should be visiting our turbot breeding base for the first time. Listen as I introduce it to you. Look at its eyes. We also find it strange that its eyes look in two different directions, which is what we call cross-eyed. The edges of its fins are rich in gelatin, that is, collagen. This fish has especially good stamina. If I put it on the ground, it immediately does a flip. Look, right?

So what was being raised in there were all turbot. The turbot's body is flat and roughly round, both eyes are on the upward-facing side of the body, and its mouth is also slightly skewed. It not only looks strange, but its body color can also change with its surroundings.

Li Ying: Just like a chameleon, but at most it can only change into three colors: black, white, and gray. We must keep this fish in a fixed environment for one to two months to achieve the color-changing process.

For the sake of turbot, Li Ying's life went through great ups and downs. In just over a year, he lost more than 5 million yuan. His older sister and maternal uncle even mortgaged their properties to help him start his business. And because of turbot, he also suffered a major mental blow at one point.

Li Ying's father: Whatever you said to him, it was as if he did not hear it.

Li Ying's friend: He would talk to himself for a while there, and I just felt something was not normal. Only later did I learn that it was an illness, depression.

Afterward, in just three months after Li Ying's fish went on the market, sales reached more than 5 million yuan. The turbot sold through Li Ying's hands was 6 to 10 yuan per jin higher than that of other local farmers, and it was still very popular. And the secret that allowed Li Ying to make a rapid turnaround was on this small steel sheet.

Liu Xing, deputy mayor of Xingcheng City, Liaoning Province: He has become a leading figure. Entrepreneurship is not about age, so Li Ying, born after 1980, is very courageous, and our government will certainly support him.

Li Ying's friend: He has always been restlessly doing things. It seems there is always an inexhaustible energy in him.

Li Ying's friend: It is not just raising turbot. He has done a lot of businesses and is very restless, but he is very persistent. No matter what he does, he will definitely see it through to the end.

It is also turbot, yet others worry about having no sales channels, while in Li Ying's case people chase him for goods and he can even sell them at a high price. This restless Li Ying, what sales trick did he actually come up with? And what secret is hidden in this small steel sheet?

Because his family was poor, Li Ying did not even finish junior high school before following relatives to Tianjin to do a clothing business. Years of hustling allowed him to accumulate more than 5 million yuan in savings. In July 2011, a few words from friends made Li Ying take an interest in turbot.

Li Ying's friend: One fish can sell for 50 yuan, and each fish costs at most only 20 yuan, so the profit per fish is very, very considerable. Otherwise, we would not have pushed him into the pit.

Li Ying: I just thought this business was quite reliable. In an instant I set up logistics, bought a fish farm, and started a company, and then I got going. But after I started, it was really, really different from what I had imagined.

Reality and imagination are always very different. This reliable business really did push Li Ying into a pit.

Having hustled outside for many years, Li Ying always did things boldly and on a grand scale. Before the fish had even grown up, he bought 7 logistics vehicles for transporting fish all at once, and his more than 5 million yuan in savings was quickly spent.

From the time he started raising fish, Li Ying was very meticulous, carefully studying every living habit of turbot. He even knew exactly what colors turbot liked.

Li Ying: Look at the turbot's two eyes, like cross-eyes. It only recognizes red and yellow, very bright colors. Every time we feed the fish, we must wear this kind of yellow apron. Look, now look, right, they have all come up, just waiting for me to feed them. There is another particular about feeding fish: you must spread it evenly and also be fast, because the turbot's eyes only look up, not down.

When turbot is raised to one year and grows to about 7 liang, it is just about ready to go on the market. Li Ying was looking forward to these fish bringing him a great fortune. But as it happened, at this time, something unexpected happened to these fish.

One morning, while cleaning the ponds, Li Ying suddenly found several dead fish in the ponds.

Li Ying: On the first day when I was cleaning, I found one to two dead fish in each pond. I did not pay much attention, because one or two dead fish is very normal for us farmers.

Li Ying thought one or two dead fish was normal, but by the third day, he realized that the situation at the fish farm was not normal at all. The scene at that time made his legs go weak as soon as he saw it.

Li Ying: My whole body went weak in the legs. Why was I sad? I had worked so hard to raise them this big, and they were about to produce returns, and then I could recover my costs, and then they died. It was like I took money to repay you, but lost the money on the way.

Li Ying had been in business for many years. Although he had also suffered losses before, this loss was fast, large, and so baffling that he could not make sense of it.

Neither the fry nor the bait the fish ate had any problems. The fish died inexplicably, which left Li Ying puzzled.

Li Ying: What puzzled me was, why were the fish I raised so unlucky, while the fish raised by others were fine?

Li Ying's father: Just when the fish were growing fast, they all died at once and it was all lost, several million. He originally had a girlfriend, and later when she saw that this family could not get by, it ended.

Li Ying could only haul the dead fish out cart by cart and throw them away. He began to blame himself. However, misfortunes never come singly. His girlfriend at the time also left him. After that, Li Ying often shut himself in the fish-raising greenhouse and kept brushing the fish ponds. Sometimes when his family called him to eat, he could not even hear them.

Li Ying's father: He was quite broad-minded, but he still could not quite hold up. All day long he hung his head, and it was hard even to get a word out of him.

Li Ying's friend: When eating, he would be eating and eating, then feel unwell, throw down his chopsticks, and leave.

Li Ying's friend: Only later did we learn that it was an illness, depression.

A series of changes were too much for Li Ying to bear, and he suffered a huge mental blow.

Li Ying: At that time I really had that kind of thought, could I leave this world? If I could leave the world, I felt all the pressure on me would be gone.

During that period, Li Ying was very depressed. Through a friend's introduction, a girl entered his life, and he gradually began to improve.

Li Ying's wife Zhang Jiamai: I did not expect that he was born after the 1980s and would go through so many things, such great ups and downs. Then I felt it was quite hard for him, quite pitiful.

After recovering his health, Li Ying found relevant technical personnel to conduct tests, and finally discovered that the fish deaths were actually because of the water.

During the interview, Li Ying took the reporter to the shallow waters of the sea near his fish farm. Because the temperature was relatively low, this stretch of seawater had already frozen into ice.