Mother Xiao also felt uncertain in her heart.
She looked at Xiao Yuan, mouth opening as if to say sothing, but she didn’t know what to say.
Xiao Yuan also knew that the family might find it hard to believe for a while, so he didn’t explain any further and just took Mr. Xiao to distribute the gifts.
He bought a set of clothes for both Mr. Xiao and Mother Xiao and asked them to try them on to see if they fit.
For Xiao Yufeng, Xiao Yui, and Xiao Yuzhu, he bought costics; in addition, he gave each of them a necklace, not the particularly expensive kind, just fine gold chains.
Besides these, Xiao Yuan brought so local specialties from N city, as well as so nutritional products.
Xiao Yufeng and Xiao Yui joyfully put on their necklaces; holding the costics, they opened the packaging and said, "I heard this brand of costics is really expensive."
Xiao Yufeng took out a tube of lipstick and said, "The Xiao Li who worked with bought this kind of lipstick before; it seed to cost several hundred, this whole box of costics must be quite expensive."
Xiao Yui smiled and said, "Anning has great taste, the lip colors she picked out really suit our skin tones."
Mr. Xiao changed into the new clothes and then began to discuss the matter of the car with Xiao Yuan.
Xiao Yuan said that in the afternoon, he would take Mr. Xiao to the county to pay the car tax and to get it registered, noting how having a car at ho would make things more convenient.
Mr. Xiao had driven cars when he was younger and had a driving license; he enjoyed driving. However, due to family matters later on, he had to return ho. He had driven other people’s cars since then but never his own.
Now that there was a car at ho, his spirits were lifted, and a smile constantly graced his face.
In the afternoon, Xiao Yuan and Mr. Xiao went to handle the car’s registration. On the way there, Xiao Yuan told his father about planning to contract the mountain and reservoir.
Mr. Xiao was a bit reluctant since contracting the mountain and reservoir involved a large investnt, and it would be no small loss if things didn’t work out.
However, Xiao Yuan was quite confident, and Mr. Xiao couldn’t hold against his insistence, so he agreed to give it a try.
After sorting out the car registration, Xiao Yuan took advantage of the daylight to go up the mountain, conducting an on-site observation of the environnt and soil quality.
Indeed, as Anning had said, the mountain not far from their ho had good soil and even a hint of Spiritual Energy, which was rare in the End of Dharma Era.
Such an environnt really should be utilized; fruits from trees planted here would undoubtedly taste better and have richer nutrition, and it could even be suitable for growing dicinal herbs.
Xiao Yuan walked from the bottom to the top of the mountain, having thoroughly explored it. And it wasn’t for nothing; he actually found several rouge rice seedlings on the mountain.
This discovery surprised Xiao Yuan quite a bit.
Not many around here cultivated rice, and almost extinct varieties like rouge rice were unrecognized by locals, but Xiao Yuan was different, having been through countless ancient worlds.
He had been of high status in those worlds, and green rice and rouge rice were common foods for him; he had seen the seedlings before, so he recognized them.
Having found the rice variety, Xiao Yuan set up an Array around it and then began to carefully nurture the seedlings.
He first used the Spirit Rain Technique and then a Ti Array to make the seedlings grow several generations in just a few minutes, resulting in quite a few grains of rice.
He collected these rice grains, took another walk around, and with a plan in mind, he descended the mountain and headed ho.
Back ho, Xiao Yuan quietly showed the harvested rouge rice to Mr. Xiao and told him about their value. Additionally, he explained how the mountain had an excellent environnt and soil, suitable for growing fruits or dicinal herbs—whatever was planted would be of exceptional quality.
Mr. Xiao trusted Xiao Yuan very much, and after hearing this, he felt confident about contracting the mountain and forest.
The next day, Xiao Yuan and Mr. Xiao went to inspect the reservoir.
Lianhua Village’s reservoir was small, just a modest reservoir, with fish and shrimp inside. However, for so reason, the fish and shrimp did not grow large, and with very few rich families in the area, not many villagers were interested in contracting the reservoir; the village was quite worried about it.
Xiao Yuan’s original self had not paid much attention to the reservoir, and although he had so mory of it, he wasn’t too familiar with the specifics.
He took Mr. Xiao to conduct a thorough inspection, to see if it was worthwhile to contract it.
After looking it over, Xiao Yuan was rather pleased.
When luck strikes, it’s unstoppable. Just like that, money was delivered right to the doorstep.
After returning, Xiao Yuan imdiately had Mr. Xiao talk to the village chief about the idea of contracting the reservoir and forest.
Because no one else wanted to contract them, and since the Xiao Family had been locals for generations, the fees to contract the reservoir and forest were not high.
The forest was only a bit more than ten thousand a year, and the reservoir was less than that, adding up to just over twenty thousand in total for a year.
Upon hearing that, Xiao Yuan hurriedly dragged the village chief to go to the town by car and signed the contract right there on the sa day; he signed a twenty-year contract.
In town, Xiao Yuan withdrew the money from the bank and imdiately paid the contracting fee to the village chief.
Now, the mountain and the reservoir belonged to the Xiao Family.
Holding the contract as he returned ho, Mr. Xiao was still a bit dizzy: "A Yuan, aren’t you being a bit reckless? That’s four hundred thousand! Why didn’t you do sothing better with the money? If you bought a house in the city, this should have been enough for a down paynt."
Xiao Yuan smiled: "Dad, this is just an initial investnt, we’ll need to invest more later on. Let’s plant fruit trees on the mountain first. Besides, I want to set aside a patch of land to grow herbs, and that requires money too. I’ll leave you so when I go, and if it’s not enough, just call , and I’ll send you more."
"Where do you get so much money?"
Mr. Xiao sized up Xiao Yuan: "It wasn’t from Anning, was it?"
Xiao Yuan nodded: "Yes, it’s from Anning. She’s very supportive of , but this is a loan. Dad, when our family earns money, we have to pay her back."
"Well, of course, we have to pay it back. Nobody’s money just blows in with the wind. The girl hasn’t even married you, and she’s already lent you so much money. That shows she’s a good person at heart. Our family isn’t heartless; we can’t just take soone’s money for nothing."
Mr. Xiao said this, but his fingertips trembled slightly; touching real gold and silver and seeing so much money had made him a little scared.
After dinner, Xiao Yuan called Mr. Xiao and said they’d go out for a walk.
Mr. Xiao thought there was so matter to handle, so he followed Xiao Yuan out. They walked around until they arrived at the edge of the reservoir.
Xiao Yuan asked softly, "Dad, can you find a boat?"
Mr. Xiao pointed not far from the reservoir: "There’s a boat over there. It belongs to our village. Whoever needs to go fishing or anything, they use it."
Hearing this, Xiao Yuan took Mr. Xiao over, dragged him onto the boat, and began to row.
"What’s all this for?"
Mr. Xiao felt sowhat bewildered.
Xiao Yuan whispered, "Dad, when I was a kid, you used to tell stories about bandits appearing around here, and also about how during a war, the enemy had dumped sothing into the reservoir."
"That was just for fun; when I was a kid, your grandfather told the sa stories."
Mr. Xiao didn’t take it seriously.
However, Xiao Yuan was quite sincere: "But I think it’s true. Later I checked the county records, and there was indeed such an incident. A few years back when I ca here, I studied it and identified several locations. Let’s try tonight and see if we can fish sothing out."
Gu Group
Gu Kai entered the office at nine o’clock, and just as he sat down, Secretary Zhao brought in so important docunts.
Gu Kai did not look at the docunts.
He asked Secretary Zhao with a grave voice, "Did our company previously employ soone nad Jiang Anning?"
Had Gu Kai asked anyone else, perhaps Secretary Zhao wouldn’t have known, but regarding Jiang Anning, Secretary Zhao indeed had an impression: "There was such a person, but she resigned."
"What happened?"
Gu Kai frowned.
Secretary Zhao reported truthfully: "Jiang Anning was very capable. She had worked at the company for over a year, and her performance had always been very good. Many of the company’s ideas had co from her. But later, her supervisor seed to intentionally make things difficult for her by assigning her a heavy workload, and she resigned in frustration."
Gu Kai’s frown deepened: "Why wasn’t this reported to earlier?"
Uh?
Secretary Zhao’s head lowered: "I only heard about this after she had resigned. By then, she had already left, and there seed to be no need to report it to you."
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