Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn
Chapter 129 - 83: The Road to Prosperity for the Small Mountain Village (Part 2)

Chapter 129: Chapter 83: The Road to Prosperity for the Small Mountain Village (Part 2)

```

During his time at Yunteng, Xiao Xian had never tasted alcohol, but once, after a meal, his grandfather became cheerful from drinking and dipped the tip of his chopstick into the wine and let Xiao Xian taste it. From that taste, the little girl developed a craving for it. She didn’t dare to drink openly but began to linger around her grandfather’s wine cup more frequently after meals.

The peanuts fried in rapeseed oil, with their crisp red shells, burst with fragrance in her mouth, fully satisfying the little glutton within her. "Grandpa, what is wine made of?"

"It’s made by fermenting rice. At the end of last year, didn’t your Sister-in-law Lian ask for some rice to make wine? She even gave you a few rice balls to feed this little glutton," said Zhu Shijun, seeing Xiao Xian drooling over his glass of wine; he raised his chopstick and dabbed it on her tongue.

"Grandpa, shall we keep a few pounds of rice to make wine for you?" The fields at the head of Xiao Xian’s village were demonstration plots this year, and though the yield per acre was slightly lower than the previous year, the growth was still more robust than other rice fields in the village. The village chief and Zhu Shijun pondered for a while but couldn’t find the reason for the high yield.

"Making wine is no trivial matter; first, you need to choose the right rice," Zhu Shijun was just about to explain when he suddenly put down his chopsticks, his furrowed brows also relaxed.

"Xiao Xian, you are truly a blessing to your grandpa," Zhu Shijun lifted his granddaughter and laughed heartily, unable to contain his joy.

The village’s rice was sold in just a few days, at a price two yuan higher per kilo than the Agricultural Grain Station. The entire village sold their rice for a total of over a hundred thousand yuan. What pleased the village chief the most was that not a penny was spent on transportation for the over ten thousand kilograms of rice sold.

Fifteen days after the autumn harvest, the village kids were thrilled. In their lifetime, they’d never seen such big metal trucks; each one larger than Uncle San Gouzi’s, five blue heavy trucks arrived to transport the village rice down the mountain. The containers of the trucks were emblazoned with the words "National Wine."

"Mr. Zhu, they say tobacco and liquor businesses are family, the sample rice you sent is excellent, with higher glucose content than the rice from the north-east. From now on, our factory will take all the rice produced in this village," said a rosy-cheeked man in his fifties who seemed to be perpetually drunk, who came with the trucks.

When he arrived, he brought two bottles of liquor for Zhu Shijun to taste. Xiao Xian sneakily glanced at them; a box with red, yellow, and black colors holding two bottles of liquor. Once opened, the aroma lingered for a long time, and later, the old man said when drinking it, that’s called a soy sauce aroma.

They say the business world is more ruthless than officialdom, but Zhu Shijun doesn’t think so. His friends made at the tobacco factory have not forgotten this old man.

After selling the grain, the village accomplished a big feat. Based on the allotments for each household, even Granny Zhao, who owned the least land, received over two thousand yuan. The old woman with cloudy eyes counted the money several times with her rudimentary arithmetic, incredulous, exclaiming, "This old lady has never seen so much money in her life; it better not be fake." The villagers joked with her, "Granny Zhao, it’s real. With this money, you can fix up a big tiled house, and you won’t have to fear the mountain floods anymore."

Granny Zhao spat and with trembling little feet, went off to hide her money.

Not long after selling the grain, the village chief announced through the village loudspeakers that San Gouzi would run for village secretary.

Everyone thought that San Gouzi’s election would be as inevitable as leaves turning yellow in autumn and persimmons reddening in winter. After all, in a remote and impoverished place like Ge Village, the positions of village chief and secretary were typically held by the same person until they were old, with no one else wanting to get involved in village affairs, but then an unexpected complication arose.

"Qian Duoduo is coming back to run? No, you mean Qian Duoduo’s uncle, Qian Yongcai, is coming back to the village to run? Didn’t he go down the mountain long ago to be a contractor and make his shady money?" Granny Zhao, now with money and a new set of dentures, sat at the village entrance chatting with people.

"That’s right, he’s even saying that if he gets elected, he’ll lead the efforts to build roads for our village," added the idlers of the village.

Indeed, tall trees catch more wind, and a wealthy village attracts trouble.

Qian Yongcai left the village right after his and Qian Yongfu’s father passed away. He was the first person from the village to go into business. Early on, he took over an unfinished construction project in Jinan, made money, and became a contractor. After more than a decade, he accumulated some assets, making him a millionaire. If it weren’t for the previous time his brother, Qian Yongfu, passed away and he went home, he would never have known that his hometown had started planting rice and made a fortune from it.

Shortly after Qian Yongfu’s funeral, Qian Yongcai discussed with his nephew, Qian Duoduo. Private contractors weren’t making much money, but the country was encouraging people to open up the mountains for farming, which could potentially sell for a good price.

Then the town sent a notice stating that all villagers over the age of eighteen interested in participating in the village election could run for village secretary, and after that, Qian Yongcai returned to the village with a flashy woman in her twenties.

His first move upon returning to the village was to take out ten thousand yuan and throw it in the village chief’s face, claiming it was to aid a few households that suffered a disaster.

"The village chief said, at the beginning of next month, during the National Day holiday, we’re going to hold a village assembly at the village entrance, and let San Gouzi and Qian Yongcai each speak, to see what they can do for the village," the villagers spread the word among themselves.

Xiao Xian thought, do we even need an election? None of the Qians who left the village were good seeds, of course, Uncle San Gouzi should be the village secretary. But what the villagers were thinking couldn’t be taken for granted.

That evening, San Gouzi, dressed in decent clothes, had Zhu Shijun write him a "speech," which he stammered through once.

(To be continued. If you like this work, we welcome you to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)

```

Follow current novels on freewe(b)novel.c(o)m