My 1995 Small Farm.

"Teacher He, you guys haven't eaten at Brother Ling's house enough times. Do you know what I admire most about Brother Ling?"

"Huh? What?"

"What I admire most is that my husband can turn the mediocre stuff into delicious dishes in Ling Ge's hands."

This is Bai Huining talking about Yu Qi'an.

After discovering the jackal, He Jiawen and his group didn't dare stay on the mountain any longer and quickly came down.

Then, on the way back to the village, they ran into Yu Qi'an and his wife.

Seeing that they weren't from the village, I struck up a conversation with them.

With Yu Qi'an there, and since they were all from Beijing, they quickly became acquainted.

"Nonsense, those are just snacks to go with drinks. You're a woman, you wouldn't understand."

Yu Qi'an is very good-natured when it comes to other things, but when it comes to his favorite snacks to accompany drinks, he has his own principles.

"Teacher He, you'll understand when we have a drink together another day. When we men drink together and there's not enough food, and we're in a hurry to have something to drink with, isn't that what we want? It's all about speed."

Yu Qi'an's reasoning is very sound.

He Jiawen agreed, laughing as he said, "That's true. In the old days, even poor people would drink with rusty nails. When men drink, the food isn't important."

We're all from Beijing, and we're all friends with Brother Chen. Do you have anything else planned for today? If not, let's sit down and have a few drinks.

I've heard their liquor is really good.

"It's alright, it's alright, we're just here to have fun. I'll call Fugui later, and I'll let you try some of my homemade side dishes. They're definitely great with drinks."

"Okay, no problem, we old Beibei people will definitely be able to eat a piece, hahaha!"

Will we be able to eat a piece?
Bai Huining, who was listening nearby, just pursed her lips, thinking to herself, "I hope Teacher He won't regret it later."

But He Jiawen met a fellow villager in another place and was in high spirits, so he dragged Yu Qi'an to find a place to roast bamboo rats first.

Bamboo rats are really timid.

They are prone to stress or sudden death.

It needs to be processed promptly, otherwise the meat will quickly become stale.

The village has been quite lively these past few days, but this liveliness is the kind that involves trouble.

It happened yesterday morning when He Jiawen and his group arrived.

This refers to the matter of the newly arrived county leaders wanting to build a memorial archway and a temple for the turtle king in the village.

At first, Wang Laishun thought it was no big deal.

The village discussed it and it was settled.

However, once the discussion started, even the smallest things, like gossip from neighboring families, became big problems.

Moreover, this matter is not a small matter for the few households at the entrance of the village.

After discussion, it was discovered that in addition to cutting down their trees, they would also have to occupy a small plot of land.

Although the space is not large, each household doesn't even have two square meters on average.

However, it involves homestead land.

Let alone two square meters, even one square meter, half a square meter, or even taking up the space of a single brick, is absolutely unacceptable to farmers.

Moreover, on the one hand, they didn't give any money, and on the other hand, this temple of the turtle king wasn't even set up by the village organization.

If the village organizes the construction of a temple.

That makes things easier.

Your family provides the money, my family provides the labor, and it doesn't matter if we take up some space. This is a good deed done by our own village, and it's for the gods we worship in our own village...

After occupying their own homestead, they will receive more incense offerings and more blessings in the future.

This is a great deed that will bring blessings to future generations.

That's what people in the countryside believe in.

Of course.

Even if a temple is spontaneously built in one's own village.

We can't just let things be taken over without thinking about anything.

As the old saying goes, "Live in front of the temple, not behind it; live to the left of the temple, not to the right."

Now that a temple is to be built at the village entrance, it will be difficult to avoid this problem.

Those who live behind the temple can easily avoid trouble.

But if a temple were built at the village entrance, many families, such as Lao Niwai's family and Wang Jukun's family, would live to the right of the temple.

And it's directly to the right.

In the eyes of the villagers, this guy was a great omen of bad luck.

Now, the county government wants to build a temple just by talking to them. How can things be so simple?
There's no need to say more about this; it will definitely provoke collective opposition from the villagers.

Just as Yu Qi'an and his group were about to roast bamboo rats and prepare for a big drinking session.

Many villagers are holding a meeting here at the primary school.

Why isn't the meeting held at the brigade level?

It's because the people in Huangni Town on the other side of the brigade are still harvesting wild fruits.

Although no one from Chenwangzhuang goes to the mountains to pick wild fruits anymore, people from other villages still come here sporadically every day.

This is certainly not to say that the people of Chenwangzhuang are kind-hearted, that they stopped picking wild fruits to sell in their own village, and that they vacated the brigade to let people from other villages make money.

The main problem was that people from other villages brought loads of wild fruit, and they had to pay a weighing fee.

It wasn't much, just 50 cents per person on the bus.

It's a bit more expensive than the market in the county.

It's expensive, but the people selling wild fruit are willing to pay.

After all, it's convenient and less troublesome. They also use the village's large scale, not the one used to collect wild fruits in Huangni Town, which makes them feel at ease and reassured.

The brigade also keeps a ledger to manage the money they handle every day.

They say it's the end of the year, and people will be worshipping the Earth God and buying fireworks, which will come in handy then.

If we don't need them, we'll distribute them to everyone at the end of the year.

Because the money from selling fish in the reservoir in the first half of the year hasn't been distributed yet, every household has a considerable amount of money.

As long as they can see the money, they might as well let the village's courtyard be occupied. So for the past two days, taking advantage of the students' Sunday off, the school has been noisy and disruptive every day.

Several teachers from He Jiawen's group still live here.

Seeing this scene was a real headache.

Outsiders like them wouldn't dare get involved in this kind of thing.

It's best to avoid it if possible.

Didn't you see yesterday when they were looking for Brother Chen in their village, everyone was quick to turn them away?

This isn't just a matter for one family or household; let the village secretary handle it.

When Yu Qi'an followed He Jiawen and the others to set up a fire by the river and roast bamboo rats.

Then I saw Zhao Yubao, who had been invited over, walking home hurriedly with his head down.

Although Zhao Yubao kept saying he wanted to be a cultural hooligan, he always wanted to do something for the village.

For example, they might fund the purchase of large agricultural machinery for the village, or arrange for teachers to be assigned to the village.

He had taken this matter to heart these past two days, and he actually went to the county this morning. As it turned out, the people there were very polite and gave him, a great writer, a lot of face. They were extremely humble, but they also said that their desire to help the villagers get out of poverty and become rich was genuine.

In the end, they had to cry to this elder and ask him to come back and persuade the villagers that this was a great thing.

Zhao Yubao, who claimed to want to be a cultural hooligan, was hooliganized himself.

When he returned, he couldn't repeat what he said to the villagers in the original words, so he changed his story.

It's more euphemistic than the original words.

But the villagers weren't buying into that roundabout approach.

What is good for us?
We haven't seen any benefit from this; all we see is that you're going to touch our trees and our homestead.

This is worse than our village building its own temple.

So Zhao Yubao had no other choice.

If we continue to interfere, it will seem like he's stirring up trouble on both sides.

Even if you want to be a cultural hooligan, you can't just throw away your dignity.

No wonder Fugui doesn't want to get involved in this kind of thing at all.

"Professor Zhao, come quick! We're roasting bamboo rats. We'll call Fugui over for drinks later."

"Oh, so you went to catch bamboo rats?"

Zhao Yubao was lost in thought the whole way and didn't notice until he realized that someone was grilling meat over a fire by the river.

However, he had already had enough of these things, and he was in a bad mood and had no interest in eating them.

I only became interested when I heard that they were going to call Chen Ling over.

I'll go call him over, you guys keep grilling.

We headed towards the farm.

As it turned out, Chen Ling was at home writing a manuscript, which immediately triggered the old man's habit of being a know-it-all.

Now Wang Susu doesn't need to point out any typos.

Professor Zhao personally reviewed the manuscript.

He used the wrong words, so he came personally to change the words for Chen Ling.

This whole thing took more than an hour.

When they went out to look for He Jiawen and Yu Qi'an by the river outside the village, Yu Qi'an was chatting and laughing with two Japanese soldiers who had arrived at some unknown time.

Miyoko Chishima: "Welcome, Brother Yu, to Japan!"

Yu Qi'an: "I will definitely go, I will definitely go."

Seeing this scene, Chen Ling suddenly had a joke pop into his head that seemed quite out of place: "Welcome, Teacher Donkey, to Japan..."

It has to be said, this old guy really can chat with anyone.

"Hey? Brother Li, you two don't look too well lately. Why aren't you selling fish anymore?"

Chen Ling noticed that the two of them had gloomy complexions and heavy dark circles under their eyes, and asked curiously.

"Uh, it's nothing. I just suffered a minor injury a while ago and haven't fully recovered yet. Thank you for your concern, Brother Chen."

Li Zhongyi forced a smile.

In reality, it's certainly not just about getting injured.

He was messed with by Little Green Horse several times, but the first time he was seriously injured.

They weren't seriously injured afterward.

After they kowtowed and burned incense for the garlic and the others, the monsters stopped bothering them, and the villagers from other villages stopped causing them trouble. Gradually, things got better.

But recently, after that old monster left, other things came to bother them.

They recognized these creatures; they were the local red-crowned cranes.

They were all incredibly strong.

The fish they had prepared to feed the turtles were all stolen by these big birds.

They not only steal things, but also harass them day and night.

This made them wonder if they had really offended some local deity or something.

It is the gods or mountain spirits who drive these things to target them in every way.

These Japanese can be quite superstitious sometimes.

Moreover, with this lingering resentment, I started having trouble sleeping at night.

Today I've come to see Sister Xiufen again for a medical checkup.

But by chance, he ran into Yu Qi'an and his group having a barbecue by the river. They started chatting and ended up having a very pleasant conversation. All the frustration he had been feeling for the past few days vanished from his mind.

They thought to themselves that they would go and pray to Garlic and the others again soon, and then try to leave.

If no more strange things happen on the road, they will hurry back home and never come here again.

Chen Ling was quite hypocritical at this point, saying, "We're pen pals, so it's only natural for us to care about each other."

Li Zhongyi's face tightened, and he almost cursed out loud. (End of Chapter)