Chapter 98 - 87: A Pragmatist
Chapter 98: Chapter 87: A Pragmatist
「June 20th.」
Right after waking up and washing, Jiang Miao’s first move was to check the company’s manager group chat. He found that Zhang Xinyi had sent him a private sales report for the 618 online store promotion.
He glanced at the report. The 618 promotion had gone quite well. In just three days, they had sold 13,000 orders of strawberries and, through a combination of sales and promotional giveaways, cleared out nearly eight thousand cans of eel.
After a quick reply to confirm he’d received it, Jiang Miao left his room with his briefcase.
Today, he was taking Zheng Siwen, Li Zixuan, and Ke Yong to the local village committee. Shang Yingze would accompany them. Their purpose was to draft a proof of title for the homestead’s deed. They also planned to borrow the committee’s bulletin board to post copies of the certificate all around the village.
He had reached an agreement with Shang Yingze: if no villagers raised objections within a week, he would sign the land lease transfer contract.
As Jiang Miao entered Little Jinshan Village, where the Durian Plantation was located, he took the opportunity to secretly inspect the ground beneath. He discovered that the gold vein did indeed extend under the village’s residential area.
This gold vein was about 6 kilometers long, with an estimated gold reserve of up to 130 tons.
Unfortunately, it was generally located in a stratum between 800 and 900 meters deep. At that depth, it would be impossible to discover the buried gold mine unless a company exploring for oil or natural gas was drilling nearby.
Jiang Miao didn’t entertain any ideas about it. For one, he lacked the resources to mine it himself. For another, even if the gold mine were developed, neither he nor the local villagers would be the beneficiaries. So why bother asking for trouble?
「In the blink of an eye, it was past three in the afternoon.」
On a road in the southern suburbs of Yuecheng, shimmering with heat waves, a water truck was spraying cooling water onto both sides of the asphalt.
After overtaking the truck, the pickup turned at an upcoming intersection and entered a country road.
They were on their way to another Durian Plantation.
Before long, they saw a middle-aged man waiting for them on the side of the road. He had dark skin and was wearing a straw hat. Upon seeing the pickup truck, he waved at them.
Ke Yong quickly slowed down, and after rolling down the window, he asked, "Sir, are you Huang Zhengwei?"
"I am. Are you Boss Jiang from Lingnan?" the middle-aged man asked with a smile and a nod.
Jiang Miao lowered his window, nodded, and replied, "Hello, Boss Huang. I’m Jiang Miao."
"Boss Jiang, you’re so young! My durian orchard is right by the reservoir. Follow me in your car!"
Ke Yong quickly asked, "Boss Huang, is the road in easy for a large vehicle to drive on?"
"It’s easy. It’s a concrete road, five or six meters wide."
"Then please lead the way, Boss Huang!"
"Alright, follow me." Boss Huang led the way, driving a three-wheeled vehicle.
Jiang Miao observed the village. There were quite a few houses in the residential area, maybe four or five hundred households, but he wondered how many people still lived here.
He could see from the road that there weren’t many young people in the village. In reality, a rural suburb like this, right next to a big city, was doing relatively well.
Some of the more remote rural villages had almost no young people left, except during holidays.
He scanned the rock strata underground again but didn’t find any high-value minerals this time.
After following for over twenty minutes, their car arrived at the foot of a mountain by the edge of the reservoir. Nestled there was a small farm, backed by the mountain and facing the water.
Boss Huang had already gotten out of his vehicle and opened the fence gate.
Ke Yong drove the car inside.
As he got out of the car, Jiang Miao felt the scorching air. He immediately walked under an old lychee tree, where he finally felt a hint of coolness. A small mountain stream flowed past the tree.
Next to the old lychee tree was a motorized well and a small, level patch of ground smoothed with concrete. Several beehives were placed under the tree, and looking at the small bees flying about, he realized they were the rarely seen Chinese honey bees.
"Boss Huang, you raise Chinese honey bees!"
"Boss Jiang has a good eye." Boss Huang fanned himself with his straw hat and said with a smile, "Would you like to try some longan honey?"
"Yes, please!"
"Please have a seat for a moment, Boss Jiang. I’ll go get it from the house."
There was a wooden table and several long wooden benches under the old lychee tree, so Jiang Miao and his men sat down to cool off.
Taking the binoculars Ke Yong handed him, he carefully observed the small orchard. It was about forty mu in size. About a dozen mu were planted with lychee, longan, and wampee, while the remaining twenty-odd mu were durian trees.
Furthermore, it looked like the durian trees were all quite old, at least twenty years. The varieties were incredibly diverse; he even spotted several wild varieties from Malaysia.
He counted carefully. There were 13 different durian varieties in total.
After a while, Boss Huang came out of the house. In one hand, he carried a 1.5-liter C’estbon mineral water bottle filled with a pale amber liquid. In the other, he carried a large kettle and a bag of disposable cups.
"This honey is all from my own orchard. Please have a taste, Boss Jiang."
As he spoke, Boss Huang poured a little honey into each person’s cup, then added some cool boiled water.
Jiang Miao didn’t stand on ceremony and took a small sip. "Not bad. It has a hint of longan’s fruity aroma."
After drinking the honey water for a while, the two parties started discussing the matter of leasing the orchard.
"Boss Huang, I was just looking with the binoculars. These durian trees are all over twenty years old, aren’t they?"
Boss Huang immediately gave him a thumbs-up. "Boss Jiang, you’ve got a sharp eye! My dad planted these durian trees when he was still alive. I was just a teenager back then, so they’ve been growing for over twenty years. My dad was quite familiar with the durian research institute at our local academy of agricultural sciences. In fact, Researcher Li Guanying, who specializes in durian cultivation, was a classmate of my dad’s. All these varieties came from the academy for trial planting."