Idle Fish slang: This is not a second-hand market, it's clearly the dark web.

On Idle Fish, while you're still proud of knocking fifty yuan off a price, the real “hunters” have already completed an illegal transaction.

Have you ever come across a post selling a coin for two thousand yuan with a corner? Don’t rush to curse the seller for wanting too much money, and don’t go home rummaging through boxes thinking you’re about to get rich.

Look carefully, and you'll find dozens of people clicking “Want” under that post, with comments all saying: “It's a bit far,” “Can you deliver?” “What year is it from?” If that coin were really valuable, the bank would have already gone bankrupt.

The truth is: that coin is just a “front” for a scam, and the so-called year and condition are actually the age and features of the service personnel. That phrase that tries to scare you off—“You wouldn’t understand if you don’t play this”—translates to: “You’re just an ordinary buyer, don’t block me from doing shady business.”

Even more absurd are those second-hand bicycles posted by “Ballet graduate” or “Pet-loving young lady.” Originally priced over two thousand, now only five hundred, and the legs in the photos are whiter than the frame. When you ask where the bike is, she replies, “Let’s see if SF Express can deliver it”; when you ask what year the bike is from, she says, “Any year you want, I’ve got it.”

Wake up, the “bike” here isn’t for riding, it’s for “driving.” Those cryptic “Guess?” and “Understand?” comments are meant for those who hold secret codes and are familiar with Idle Fish slang—“veteran” users. Every word carries a strong “criminal” vibe.

Idle Fish’s slogan is “Start with Idle Fish for anything,” but now it seems those two words, “anything,” are dangerously deep waters. Geek Bay can buy unreleased Switch 2 chips on Idle Fish—an outright spy’s paradise; someone even posted a shield tunneling machine for nine million yuan, making me suspect the seller could pull out a second-hand aircraft carrier at any moment.

As for those super cheap concert tickets, it’s even more surreal. It’s not that the seller is fast, but that the big brother at the door is responsible for arguing with security to attract attention, while you sneak in during the chaos.

True contraband transactions will never be directly searchable. “Li Sanguang enters the village,” “Muscular man picks up branches,” “Electronic atomizer”—these are all surviving secret codes under the platform’s crackdown. When the crackdown tightens, seasoned veterans switch to Baidu Tieba—an even more wild “black market ancestor.” There, they negotiate prices, then go back to Idle Fish to complete the process, emphasizing the idea of “a great hidden master in the city.”

To uncover these secrets, I used my main account to test those “hardcore” coin sellers. As a result, that very night, someone wanted to buy my graphics card and scheduled a midnight delivery.

Walking down the dark corridor, all I could think of were the comments under those coin posts: “If you walk any further, your butt will hurt.” I kept wondering if this big brother buying the graphics card mistakenly thought I was also selling those “one-cent coins.”

So, if you see something too outrageous on Idle Fish, don’t be curious. You think you’re just sightseeing, but in reality, you might have already stepped into someone else’s hunting ground.