Chapter 324 - 228: Tuantuan: What Kind of Fake Bamboo Was I Eating Before?
Chapter 324: Chapter 228: Tuantuan: What Kind of Fake Bamboo Was I Eating Before?
Snowflakes drifted down as Li Xiang harvested rice in the paddies, a sickle in his hand. Facing the reporter’s camera, he was very humble. He stated that as a local born and raised, and a man with some strength to spare, he felt a responsibility and an obligation to help everyone. These were just things that needed to be done, he added, and doing them put his heart at ease.
This wasn’t just for show; it was real, hard work, and he was covered in mud.
The same went for the three girls: Yao Yao, Zhao Xueqing, and Lei Xiaohui. They were all stunningly beautiful, yet they were dressed like village girls, covered in dirt and grime. But the skin peeking through was fairer than snow—like lotuses blooming from the mud, unstained. The contrast was incredibly striking.
The news wasn’t just broadcast on television; many official media accounts also wrote and published dedicated articles about it.
This wasn’t just happening at the county level, but at the provincial level as well.
In just a few short days, the story of Li Xiang leading over fifty volunteers to help the villagers with the emergency harvest spread throughout the entire province. It even reached a national audience, thanks to a repost from Luo Feifei and shares from some of Li Xiang’s own fans.
At the provincial level, this was naturally Zhang Youyou’s doing. After all, the Zhang Family controlled most of the province’s media outlets.
However, without the initial push from the town and county, the province couldn’t have just promoted him so bluntly. Li Xiang had real merit, and with the right timing, the right location, and the support of the people, it was only natural for him to go viral.
Everyone in the province who saw the news said that this young man, Li Xiang, was a righteous person. Later, when the Apocalypse arrived and Li Xiang announced that the Li Family Village base was accepting refugees, many people would remember this act and brave untold hardships to seek refuge with him.
Some people from Li Family Village who were working away from home sighed with complex emotions when they saw the news.
Some of them began to feel regret. ’Why did I even leave to find work?’ they thought. ’I would’ve earned more staying in the village and working for Li Xiang. All those great benefits went to people from Lei Family Gully, Yaojialing, and Zhaojiaping. The actual young people from Li Family Village hardly got any of the perks.’
Consequently, a number of enterprising young people from Li Family Village quit their jobs and returned to join Li Xiang’s emergency harvest team.
Li Xiang knew these people inside and out, so he gave them the same pay and benefits as his security guards. Promotions would be based on their performance down the line.
As word spread, even more people returned to the village, expressing their desire to work for Li Xiang.
Li Xiang accepted them all. None of these old acquaintances were criminals or people of poor character.
Anyone truly like that probably wouldn’t want to return anyway. The pay Li Xiang offered wasn’t exceptionally high; they could earn more doing shady things elsewhere. Besides, the outside world was a dazzling haze of debauchery, while life in the mountain village was simple and arduous, even requiring work in the fields.
Unfortunately, Li Family Village was a small village without many young people. Only eight returned. As for those who didn’t, well, everyone has their own path. Li Xiang certainly wouldn’t force them.
He did a quick tally. Including himself, his "tourist attraction team" now had exactly sixty members. It was a nice, round number.
This count didn’t include his other teams, such as the Jade Processing Factory in the small town on the China-Myanmar Border or the direct-sale jadeite stores in Sichuan Province and Yunnan Province.
In those places, Li Xiang was a completely hands-off boss; he didn’t even know most of the employees.
Xu Xuan, He Zhixiang, and his Little Aunt managed their respective operations quite well. He also periodically restocked the raw stone warehouse with new materials to free up space in his System’s warehouse. Every month, a huge sum of money flowed into his accounts.
The jadeite business was absurdly profitable. Moreover, his raw stones cost him almost nothing. After passing through his entire operational chain, all the proceeds were legitimate income.
A famous poem once said, "Snow falls in the eighth month under the northern sky," but now, it was snowing in August even in a southern province like Sichuan Province.
Although it was early October in the Gregorian calendar, it was still around the middle of the eighth month in the lunar calendar. Because of the rush to harvest the late-season rice, no one had really celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival.
What surprised Li Xiang was that his Little Aunt didn’t return this year, being too busy with work at the Jade Processing Factory. She just called their grandmother and chatted with the old woman for a long time.
Li Xiang, too, was leaving early and returning late because of the emergency harvest.
However, when he returned home on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, he saw the living room filled with expensive gifts.
They were from relatives. Among them were gifts brought by the husbands of his eldest and second eldest aunts, each worth over two thousand yuan.
Li Xiang was speechless. ’When we were poor, no one gave us the time of day,’ he thought. ’Now they’re tripping over themselves to bring us gifts.’
But seeing how happy his grandmother was that her two daughters had come to visit, Li Xiang didn’t say anything.
"Xiang’Er, they’re your aunts, after all. You’re connected by blood," his grandmother said. "Even if your aunts and uncles have done wrong in the past, you should try to be tolerant of them." In truth, his grandmother understood everything; she was just getting old and preferred to look on the bright side of things. She hoped for filial children and for the family to live in harmony and prosper.
Li Xiang just smiled. He had long since let it go and wouldn’t stoop to their level. As long as there were no major conflicts, he could at least maintain a superficial peace.
’Besides,’ Li Xiang thought, ’it’s not like they’re even in a position to have a major conflict with me anymore. I doubt they’d even entertain the thought.’
Even when the Apocalypse came, he wouldn’t let them starve, if only for his grandmother’s sake. Entrusting them with any real responsibility, however, was out of the question.
Jiang Cai’Er returned to school again. Just as predicted, a heavy snow began to fall, continuing unabated for three days and three nights.
This time, the school had prepared in advance, stocking up on supplies and ensuring there were heating systems. The students had also brought plenty of winter clothes beforehand, so attending their daily classes shouldn’t be much of a problem.