Chapter 447 - 229: I Trust Him

Chapter 447: Chapter 229: I Trust Him

What I thought was an ordinary roadside diner, just a place to grab a quick bite, turned out to have some surprisingly delicious food.

"Let’s head straight to the ranch!" Having eaten and drunk his fill, he was no longer in the mood to go sightseeing around the small town.

It was a journey of about twenty kilometers, which took less than twenty minutes. Su Chen and his group soon arrived at the ranch.

The first thing they saw was a large area enclosed by a man-high wooden fence. An eye-catching plaque hung above the gate, bearing the words: "Far East Ranch"!

The car came to a steady stop at the main gate. After getting out, Su Chen surveyed his surroundings. To the left of the ranch was a vast grassland stretching as far as the eye could see, with the faint outline of mountains visible in the distance.

To the right of the ranch was a continuous forest of birch trees. It was spring, a time of lush and leafy branches, and everything looked vibrant and green.

At that moment, the ranch gate opened. A group of burly men emerged, carrying weapons and watching the newcomers with wary expressions.

Seeing this, Chen Fei and the others—Tian, Di, Xuan, and Huang—immediately moved to shield Su Chen and Xiao Chen behind them.

A burly, bearded man who appeared to be the leader walked closer. His eyes swept over Su Chen’s group of seven, finally landing on Su Chen and Xiao Chen, who were being protected.

Before the bearded man could even speak, Su Chen introduced himself first: "I’m Su Chen!"

Upon hearing the name "Su Chen," the bearded man hurried to his side and said respectfully, "Good afternoon, Boss. You’re finally here."

"I’m the current manager of the ranch, Vladimir Ivan. Boss, you can just call me Ivan!"

Su Chen nodded slightly. He glanced at the armed men behind Ivan and said, "We’re all on the same team now. Put the weapons away."

Ivan immediately turned and shouted, "Stand down! The Boss is here!"

At his words, the burly men’s guarded stances immediately softened. "Boss!" they called out in respectful unison.

Su Chen smiled and waved to the group of burly men, then proceeded to introduce Xiao Chen and Chen Fei to Ivan.

The group then walked into the ranch, and Ivan began to update Su Chen on its current situation.

The entire ranch spanned nearly 5,000 acres. Of that, 2,500 acres were pastureland, which currently supported over two thousand Angus cattle and more than eight thousand sheep. Female cows and ewes made up a quarter of the total.

Another 1,650 acres were made up of forests, mountains, and gorges, which were home to abundant wildlife.

The last 850 acres was a mechanized farm dedicated to growing crops like soybeans and wheat.

The entire ranch employed nearly fifty people. About thirty of them were livestock hands and farm workers, while the rest made up the ranch’s patrol team.

According to Ivan, after deducting employee salaries and bonuses, the ranch’s annual profit was ten to twenty million Rubles, which was equivalent to over a million Huaxia yuan.

Su Chen wasn’t surprised by this figure. For one thing, meat in Bear Country was incredibly cheap. Beef, for instance, cost only six or seven yuan per pound. Back home in Huaxia, it was twenty or thirty, sometimes even forty or fifty. It just went to show how unbelievably cheap beef and mutton were over here.

Besides, Siberia’s ranching season was only about six months long. Once the snow began to fall, any unsold livestock had to be fed indoors, which significantly increased costs.

’This ranch is surprisingly big!’ From the outside, it was impossible to see what was inside. But once Su Chen entered, he discovered that nearly twenty Bear Country-style buildings had been constructed across the property.

These were traditional wooden structures, but not built with planks as one might imagine. Instead, they were constructed from whole logs, each as thick as a man’s embrace.

What surprised Su Chen the most was that in the very center of the twenty-odd buildings stood a two-story villa. It was luxuriously built and had the air of an old Russian chateau.

Stepping inside the villa, Su Chen found the decor was practically brand new, looking as if it had been recently replaced. The first floor was about two to three hundred square meters, with the living room alone taking up over a hundred. Most surprising of all, there was even a private hot spring pool inside the house.

After asking, he learned from Ivan that there was a small hot spring aquifer beneath the ranch. When the residential area of the ranch was being built, they had channeled the hot spring water directly into the house.

In total, only two hot spring pools were built in the entire residential area. One was inside Su Chen’s villa. The other... was built specifically for communal use.

After a quick tour of the villa, Su Chen invited Xiao Chen and Ivan to sit down. As for Chen Fei and the four guards—Tian, Di, Xuan, and Huang—they had already gone with Ivan’s men to sort out their accommodations.

Su Chen took a sip of the steaming coffee, feeling a warmth spread through him. Only then did he turn his gaze to Ivan, who was sitting beside him. "Tell me about the gold mine."

"Gold mine? How big of a gold mine?" Before Ivan could speak, Xiao Chen, who had been leisurely sipping his coffee while leaning back on the sofa, shot upright. He stared at Su Chen in astonishment, not even noticing the coffee that had spilled onto his pants.

You couldn’t blame Xiao Chen for being so shocked. It was common knowledge that gold is a vital strategic reserve, a crucial factor in economic crises and currency devaluation.

Every country places immense importance on gold, let alone a gold mine. A super-large gold mine could lead to countless disputes.

Ivan also knew that Xiao Chen’s relationship with his boss wasn’t ordinary; otherwise, Su Chen wouldn’t have brought up the matter of a gold mine in his presence.