Chapter 222: Chapter 222: If you don't have any money, give me some land
It was raining heavily along the river, but it was sunny and hot in the hometown. Mei Qiuping would have described this kind of sun as one that could peel the skin off a person.
Apart from the old yellow cow on the hillside, which was leisurely eating grass while shaking its tail in the sun, all the domestic animals, such as chickens, ducks, pigs and dogs, knew to find a shady place to lie down.
There happened to be a small spring behind Fourth Uncle's house, which was called Qingshui Pond in the local dialect. Every day, only a small amount of water welled up, and it was a summer paradise for those fat pigs.
After lunch, when Uncle Si went out, the family's big white pig was covered in wet mud and was lying in the water pond, snorting contentedly.
On days like this, no hardworking villager would work in the fields in the middle of the day. They would all go up the mountain before dawn, go home when the sun was almost at its zenith, go back to the fields at three or four in the afternoon, and go home in the dark at night, just avoiding the hottest time of the day.
So he didn't meet anyone along the way. He followed the road Feng Yiping took to his grandfather's house, and waited on the road in front of Meijiawan for a long time before a tricycle 'dong-dong-dong' drove up.
The car was already full of people, and he didn't have time to wait for the next one. He had to stand in the middle of the carriage with his hands grasping the iron bars under the tarpaulin and bending over, so that the wind from the front blew in, which was not too stuffy.
The two rubber trees in front of the town hall were also wilted by the scorching sun. Their thick leaves were not as glossy as before.
The old man in the caretaker's room, wearing a pair of reading glasses with a string tied around his leg, was reading the newspaper. A fan whirred nearby. When he heard someone enter, he looked up from his reading, saw it was him, and continued studying the newspaper as usual.
The main part of the town hall is an old three-storey building that is well maintained. There is a large pagoda tree in the courtyard, and in the front corner, there are several roses in bloom. In front of the building, there is also a flower bed with tiles on the outside and a few short holly trees planted inside.
Uncle Si went straight to the third floor, walked to the door of the office on the left with the mayor's nameplate hanging on it, took out a joss stick from his bag, and sat in front of the door waiting.
Before long, Xiao Su, the mayor's driver and secretary, came up carrying an enamel basin of water, 'Mayor Feng, you're here again! You've been here every day these past few days, and the mayor sleeps really soundly.'
Uncle Si ignored him when he heard this.
Xiao Su opened the door, and a cool breeze immediately filled the room. The mayor's office was air-conditioned.
After a while, the mayor, wearing a black T-shirt with a grey checkered collar, came over and opened the door, wiping a towel across his face. 'Lao Feng, come in and sit down,' he said.
The mayor handed the towel and basin to Xiao Su, took a box of cigarettes from the table, pulled one out and threw it to Uncle Si, lit one for himself, and opened a window. A blast of hot air immediately came in. 'This damn weather,'
'Mayor,' Fourth Uncle just opened his mouth, but the mayor stopped him, 'Lao Feng, you don't need to say anything. You've been coming to my mill for so many days, and I know you really want to do something practical for the village. I've met with Secretary Liu and the others several times in the past few days, and there's really no way. We can't squeeze out a single penny, and we can't count on the county either. This year is going to be very difficult. So I was thinking, maybe you could go back to the village and talk to the folks there, ask them to overcome their difficulties and wait a few more years. When the town has more money, it will definitely allocate some to your village to build the road.'
Uncle Si has been here for more than ten days in a row. He originally came in the morning, but the town mayor usually doesn't go to work until after 9 o'clock in the morning. Then the office is full of people coming and going, and Uncle Si can't get a word in edgewise. After another two hours or so, it's time to go home again. So, two days later, he changed his strategy and came in the afternoon to block the people, because the office is air-conditioned and the town mayor takes naps in the office.
'Mayor, after waiting for so many years, I really can't wait any longer. Things are different now. Young people all go out to work, and there aren't many people left in the village who are younger than me. We old folks really can't handle it anymore. We have to sell things and buy things, but we have to walk for dozens of miles up and down the mountain road.'
'Yes, I understand. The situation in each village is similar. All the able-bodied men are working outside.' The mayor flicked the ashes off his cigarette, without even looking at Uncle Si, and stared out the window.
'The town should be able to allocate some funds, and we'll find a way to raise some more. That way, we can get the project underway during the slack season in the second half of the year, and it might even be ready for use by the end of the year. It'll be convenient for you to inspect the work then.'
'Lao Feng, Mr Feng, it's true that there isn't any. You should know from your time at school that in the past two years, there hasn't been a single month when your salary hasn't been late. Even the funds for the maintenance of the town's hydropower stations this year were only put together by shifting money around.'
'Can the town hire a design institute to help us with the design?'
'That costs money too, Mr Feng.'
'What about equipment, such as excavators? Can the town pay for them?'
'Pish!' Xiao Su laughed when he returned, "The town doesn't even have an excavator. If we ask the town to pay for it, won't that cost money too?'
Fourth Uncle sucked the cigarette to the end, stubbed it out on the ground and crushed it with his foot. "Since we can't rely on the town for money, we'll have to find a way ourselves. But there's one condition: we hope the town will grant our village a few dozen mu of land by the river in the south.' freewebnøvel.coɱ
This was quite a big change of direction. There were hundreds of acres of wasteland to the south of the town, which over the years had become a dumping ground for rubbish.
'What do you need the land for?'
'We want to use the land as an investment, to do business with someone else, so that the village will have the money to build a road.'
The mayor's eyes lit up when he heard this. It was quite an original idea.
'Is this your personal opinion or the opinion of the village committee?' the mayor asked.
'It's the opinion of all the villagers!'
'Then go back and have the village committee hold a meeting to produce a document, and we'll study it.'
'I already brought it today.' With the mayor's astonished gaze, Uncle Feng handed over a stack of papers. At the front was their application for the town's approval of 30 mu of land, and at the back were the signatures and handprints of all the villagers.
'Haha, Feng, you've really prepared well. I can see that these signatures weren't written in a day or two,' the mayor said, smiling as he flipped through the thick stack of signatures at the back.
'We were forced to do it. We've tried every possible way to build this road,'
Xiao Su went over to the mayor's bed and poured water onto the quilt. 'Teacher Feng, you really are clever. No wonder I heard that your third brother has made a fortune doing business in the provincial capital. Your family is really something.'
'This isn't cleverness, it's doing things with heart. And the reason you're not clever is definitely because you didn't do well at school when you were young.' Although Uncle Si is not a teacher now, he still has a bit of a pedant about him.
'Alright Feng, don't argue with him. I understand what you mean, but this is a big deal, and we definitely need to discuss it in a meeting. You can go home first, and I'll let you know the result.'
'Mayor, that wasteland is just sitting there, and giving us a few dozen mu is like giving our village the hundreds of thousands of yuan that would have been spent on building the road. We can then set up a factory in partnership with someone else, which will not only increase employment and tax revenue for the town, but also attract investment. This is a win-win situation, so what's there to think about?'
'Well, there's one more thing you didn't mention. Your village will have a hen that lays golden eggs in the future, right!' After a while, the mayor also figured out the gist of it. 'I've taken note of what you said. You have to let us think about an idea like this. I will arrange a meeting as soon as possible. You go back and wait for news.'