1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 356 Dust (2)

In the courtyard of the Ye Niang Temple.

Gao Qing stared blankly at the needle hole on his son's hand, his face changing constantly with expressions of anger, fear, guilt, and self-blame.

"My son, you went to sell blood?"

Gao Qing's voice trembled like a sieve.

The boy was silent for a while, and finally nodded.

Gao Qing's big hands covered with blue veins began to tremble: "Draw blood or scrape plasma?"

The boy turned his head away evasively: "Drawing blood... I have studied biology and have consulted our biology teacher. Drawing blood is safer than scraping plasma."

As he spoke, the young man mustered up his courage and faced his father's pale face: "Dad, I'm in good health, young, and have a strong hematopoietic function. It won't be a problem to draw 600CC of blood... And I went to the county to draw it, and I even asked the nurse to change a set of syringes, so it shouldn't be a problem."

As he spoke, he gently pulled his arm out of Gao Qing's palm, then opened the box, took out a bottle of royal jelly from it and handed it over: "I asked the teacher, Dad, your face is so yellow, it should be jaundice caused by liver damage and hemolytic anemia... The village party secretary won't let you leave here, and Uncle Zeng and others are guarding not far from the temple gate. You won't be able to see a doctor for a while, so... you should eat this first. I heard that royal jelly can replenish blood. Once the blood is replenished, your body may not feel so uncomfortable."

Looking at the dark brown bottle in front of him, Gao Qing felt mixed emotions, and even his voice became empty: "You are only thirteen years old... Why would the plasma station let you sell blood?"

The boy forced a smile and said, "Dad, a thirteen-year-old can already understand a lot of things... I brought two cans of sugar water from home that my mother was reluctant to eat, and said a few nice words, and the nurse changed my registration age to eighteen."

At this point, the boy hesitated for a moment, but finally raised his head and said, "Dad, I've decided. I won't go to high school anymore."

"What!!?"

Gao Qing's face changed, and he shouted loudly, like a tiger waiting to devour its prey, attracting the attention of everyone in the yard.

The boy gritted his teeth and looked at his father bravely: "Dad, you are not in good health now, and the village secretary won't let you go out... The family can't be without a pillar!"

"My grandparents are old and have worked hard all their lives. My grandfather can't even straighten his back now, and my grandmother's feet are deformed into prismatic shapes. She gets so painful that sweat breaks out on her forehead after walking a short distance. "

"My mother's health is not good. Once she is tired from doing heavy work, her expression becomes dazed. If something happens by mistake, what do you want me to do?"

"My sister is only ten years old this year. You can ask her to help with cooking, feeding the chickens, and even fetching water, but she can't do farm work. You can't let her do other heavy or dangerous work either!"

At this point, the young man straightened his chest and said, "So, only I, only I can support this family when you are not around!"

"I'm already thirteen years old, and I've grown strong. Hoeing, plowing, digging ridges, diverting water, harvesting, carrying manure, and grinding are no problem for me. I know all the technical work of sowing, transplanting, fertilizing, spraying pesticides, and weeding, except for spraying pesticides... But I can learn spraying pesticides easily if I ask my uncles... Although you didn't let me touch this before, I'm smart, and I believe this is not a difficult problem."

At this point, the boy said with some pride: "The most important thing is that I am not bad at physics, and I have also learned a little bit of bricklaying. As long as I ask Uncle Li to take me with me, it won't be long before I can take advantage of the slack season to go with him to take on jobs... I heard that bricklaying work in other villages can earn 3 yuan a day!"

At the end, the boy bit his lip and said, "Dad, I know you have always hoped that I could get into a university and make you proud, but my sister's academic performance is also very good... Don't worry, I will try my best to create a good learning environment for her, and I will help her with her homework at night when I have nothing to do... She works so hard, she will definitely be able to get into a university and make a name for herself, bring honor to you, and then bring you and grandpa and grandma to the city to enjoy a peaceful life!"

Looking at his son who seemed to have become an adult overnight, Gao Qing felt relieved but also felt a deep sense of sadness.

He knew that his son was not telling the truth. The one acre and two mu of land at home and the little bricklaying work he took on during the slack season were not enough to support such a family of sick, weak, elderly and young people...especially since he had to support his younger sister to go to college.

Therefore, he was almost certain that his son would follow in his footsteps and would sell blood when someone in his family needed to go to the hospital for treatment or when his sister needed to pay tuition.

This is the powerlessness of rural Qilu, especially the powerlessness of a family like his that has lost all brothers and sisters.

Once the pillar of a family falls, if no new pillar steps forward, then as a chain reaction, the family will face irreversible decline.

When the father falls, the son steps up; when the son falls, the younger brother steps up; fathers, sons, brothers, and younger brothers, are caught in this almost unsolvable cycle, overdrawing everything they have for the family.

Looking at the light fuzz on his son's mouth and his eyes that were full of determination yet still showed a hint of regret, an unknown flame rose in Gao Qing's chest.

Pa~!

Amid everyone's astonished gazes, Gao Qing slapped his son hard.

"Get lost! I'm not dead yet! Does this family need you to stand up to me?"

As the wall of award certificates appeared in Gao Qing's mind, his eyes turned fierce.

"Damn it, everyone, stop lying there, sit up and listen to me!"

Gao Sheng kicked his son away, who was both unpromising and overly ambitious. He turned around and spoke in an unusually hoarse voice...

........................

At this time, in a small courtyard in Xiaoshui Village, the village party secretary and the village chief were looking at Yan Laoxi in front of them with embarrassment, their eyes full of entanglement and anxiety.

Nowadays, wealthy and larger villages would build a few houses specifically for the village committee to work in, but poor and small villages like Xiaoshui Village did not have such good conditions. Both the village chief and the village party secretary worked in their own homes, and everyone could just go to their homes to talk about anything. Therefore, even if the head of the prestigious Xialiu Distribution Agency came, the village party secretary could only entertain this distinguished guest and the cadres sent by the town to be responsible for coordination in his own small courtyard, which could barely be considered not dirty, with homemade tea.

To be honest, neither the village party secretary nor the village chief cared much about the cadre who accompanied him from the town.

Everyone is quite familiar with each other. The other party knows that Xiaoshui Village has such conditions and has long been accustomed to it. And like most villages and towns, if the town wants to do something, most of the time it has to coax the village cadres with nice words. Therefore, they do not have any psychological pressure on the town cadres.

But facing the general manager of Xialiu Sales Agency, they were afraid of neglecting him or making him unhappy.

The reason is very simple. After more than half a year of tossing and turning, all the villages in Dezhou, Lanling, and even Quancheng area know that the drilling company is a first-class God of Wealth, and Xialiu Sales Agency is the Good Fortune Boy in front of this God of Wealth.

Countless real cases have proved that once Xialiu Sales Agency takes the initiative to contact you, there must be good things happening. They may cooperate with you on a few small projects to greatly improve your life, or they may simply give you a huge fortune and let you turn your life around.

In fact, the visit of the stern-looking General Manager Yan did give them a great surprise.

The total investment of the purple candy project is as high as 740 million!

Although it is just an investment and the shareholding ratio will not exceed 10%, this is a rare big project for their Xiaoshui Village in decades.

only……

This project is different from the investment projects he had heard of before. These shares cannot be obtained by just relying on one's home field status and a few pieces of industrial land. "Mr. Yan, thank you for your respect and willingness to let our Xiaoshui Village participate in the purple candy project. However, it is easy to provide people and land, but your company asked Xiaoshui Village to raise 20 yuan to buy shares... This is really difficult to do!"

The village chief, who was about the same age as Yan Laoxi, picked up the kettle and refilled the water for the God of Wealth, his tone full of helplessness.

Yan Laoxi frowned and said, "Village Chief Jia, as far as I know, although Xiaoshui Village, which mainly makes a living by farming, is a notoriously poor village in Wucheng, the per capita income last year was only 306.2 yuan per household, but this is just the official statistical data... To put it bluntly, it is the income obtained by growing food and cash crops;"

"But everyone knows that your Xiaoshui Village is a well-known blood-selling village nearby. Nearly half of the villagers regard selling blood as a secondary job, and many even regard selling blood as their main job."

At this point, Yan Laoxi took out a stack of lists and placed them on the low table: "This is the data we got from the Wucheng County Plasma Station... In just one year, the amount of plasma [donated] by your village exceeded 40 milliliters, and the number of villagers who donated blood was close to 1500 times."

After glancing at the stack of information that was not actually very detailed, Yan Laoxi said in a gloomy tone, "The subsidy standard for [nutrition fee] at the plasma station is very transparent."

"I won't discuss how a village with a population of just over 1500 people and only 912 young and middle-aged laborers sold blood 1500 times in a year. I'm just curious, why can't a village that sells 40 milliliters of plasma in a formal plasma station even pay 20 yuan?"

At the end, Yan Laoxi's voice was stern and almost reprimanding: "Do you, Xiaoshui Village, plan to survive by selling blood forever? "

Anyone who knows a little bit of math should be able to figure out that Xiaoshui Village, a notoriously poor village, can actually raise much more money than Dawangzhuang, a "newcomer" that has shared profits from many small projects in the past six months... You have to know that not all villagers will sell their blood to the plasma station in the county. For various reasons, quite a few people sell their blood to private outlets. Adding the two together, the amount of plasma/blood sold by Xiaoshui Village in a year is really not a small number.

Dawangzhuang was able to mobilize the entire village to raise 50 yuan to invest in the edible rose planting project, so how come Xiaoshui Village couldn't even raise 20 yuan?

The village party secretary was not angry at Yan Laoxi's tone, which sounded like he was scolding a subordinate... This was not only because the other party was the God of Wealth, but also because the drilling company, a state-owned enterprise, was behind him.

Xialiu Sales Agency is very famous in this area. This is not entirely because it is the only urban-rural economic circulation platform that can provide a large number of income-generating opportunities for the vast number of rural people. The real reason why their reputation is becoming more and more famous is actually mainly their very unique style and corporate philosophy.

It is precisely because of this that everyone gradually gets to know that Yan Laoxi, the head of the Xialiu Distribution Agency, is a man whose ideas are conservative to the point of being naive, whose style is full of gangsterism, and who cannot tolerate any sand in his eyes.

He was also a man with rich life experience, so he naturally realized that the reason why the other party spoke to him and Village Chief Jia in this tone was not because he felt that he was superior to others, but because he was simply standing in the identity of a "former village party secretary" to express his anger at the current situation of Xiaoshui Village and at the incompetence of him and the village chief.

This condescending questioning came from the obsession of an old party member and the conscience of an old-school Qilu person. He did not rely on his status, nor could he use his status as a cover to evade or shirk responsibility. Therefore, he could not avoid it or resist it at all.

After taking a look at the coldness on Yan Laoxi's rock-like face, the village party secretary sighed, "Boss Yan, you misunderstood."

The village party secretary smacked his teeth in pain and said in a muffled voice: "Although there is not much money left from each household in Xiaoshui Village due to various reasons, if we really add them together, it is not a small amount... At least there will be no problem in raising 20 yuan."

"But the problem is...it just can't be put together!"

Yan Laoxi frowned and said, "What do you mean you have money but can't make it? How can you be the village secretary?! Now there are hepatitis C patients in various places one after another. Although the dividends and income from the purple sugar project are far less than selling blood, isn't it better for everyone to make money safely than risking their lives to sell blood? You can't even do ideological work for the masses!?"

Seeing Yan Laoxi acting like an old veteran, the village party secretary smiled bitterly and shook his head: "But the fact is that ideological work is not easy to carry out!"

At this point, the village party secretary took a sip of tea in annoyance: "Mr. Yan, I won't hide it from you. Being a village party secretary in a place like Xiaoshui Village... is difficult!"

"Xiaoshui Village has no mines, no resources, no industrial base, no foreign investment projects, and even less fertile land than the surrounding villages... Over the past few decades, everyone has survived with one meal a day and one meal a night. No matter how many village party secretaries have been replaced, it's always the same."

"After a long time, no one is interested in whether the village party secretary should be changed or who should be the village party secretary. They will continue to be poor anyway."

"So, after some people were persuaded by people from other villages to start selling blood a few years ago, the villagers thought they had discovered a new way to get rich, and they became less and less interested in us village cadres."

At this point, the village party secretary's tone was full of grievance and frustration: "That's right, more than a dozen village party secretaries have worked so hard, but they haven't improved the lives of the villagers. Instead, they run to the county town to get a needle and get dozens of yuan immediately... No one takes us village cadres seriously!"

"So now, apart from the production of staple food and the mandatory tasks assigned by the higher-ups, the villagers don't pay much attention to us village cadres. We can barely manage those trivial matters on a daily basis. Now you ask us to mobilize the villagers to collect money from their homes... I'm not trying to shirk my responsibilities, it's just not realistic!"

Yan Laoxi gave the village party secretary a stern look.

Disaster?
Is it going to be as difficult as Xialiu Village once was?
This is obviously like not sharpening the knife in normal times, so you won’t be able to chop wood at the critical moment!
snort!
Not only do you not have the ability to lead everyone out of poverty and into prosperity, you can't even do a good job in daily unity work. You still have the nerve to complain in front of everyone. If I were you, I would just buy a piece of tofu and kill myself!
However, the current problem of Xiaoshui Village is very clear.

The reason why Dawangzhuang, a village that is not actually rich, was able to collect 500,000 yuan and resolutely invest in an edible rose planting project that had not even been seen before was, on the one hand, thanks to the extremely good reputation of the drilling company and Xialiu Sales Agency in the Shanghe area; but more importantly, it was due to the absolute reputation of the old uncle in the village... For such a self-raised internal incubation project based on the village, the cohesion of the villagers directly determines whether the project can be launched.

But it is obvious that Xiaoshui Village, which has a smaller population and villagers have more actual disposable income, does not have such cohesion.

If it was just for business considerations, Yan Laoxi could just walk away. After all, with their influence in Dezhou and Lanling, there are many villages that are willing and have the ability to raise enough funds and manpower to invest in the purple candy project.

But he couldn't do that.

He persuaded Lu Yingying to obtain Yang Mo's permission and use the purple candy project as an opportunity to further try to implement the internal incubation model, not for the purpose of making money from the project.

In fact, there are many high-quality potential projects in the commercial demonstration zone. If they really just want to make money, then there is no need for them to choose a project like Purple Sugar that has various severe restrictions.

In fact, Xiaoshui Village was a tough nut that he, Lu Yingying, Qin Xin and others were determined to crack after discussing it together.

The reason is very simple. It is not Yan's style to be soft-hearted and afraid of hard things.

Moreover, starting with Wucheng County, which is the poorest area in the province, and Xiaoshui Village, which is the poorest village in Wucheng County, will make it easier to verify the feasibility of this self-financing incubation model, so that when it is applied to other projects and other areas in the future, we will not be at a loss when encountering emergencies.

And more importantly, Xiaoshui Village is one of the villages that Lu Yingying specifically emphasized that must be conquered... The girl had come here for an investigation two months ago and had a deep memory of the situation here.

After going through a series of things, Tugou's influence on Yang Mo has become increasingly valued by people like Yan Laoxi.

Not to mention that Yan Laoxi was determined to take on the tough challenge of Xiaoshui Village. Even if he wasn't, he would have to take it down for the sake of Tugou.

Thinking of this, Yan Laoxi suppressed his dissatisfaction with the village party secretary, snorted lightly, and was about to speak.

The next second, the half-closed door was pushed open and a young man in his twenties rushed in in panic.

"Village Chief Jia, Secretary Chen, something bad has happened...something has happened at the Ye Niang Temple!"

Just as the village party secretary turned his head and looked at the young man who had rushed into an important occasion with dissatisfaction, his face suddenly changed when he heard the other party's words. He didn't care about being rude and stood up at once: "What!?"

Temple of the Lord's Mother?
Something went wrong?

Yan Laoxi thought of the dilapidated temple he had seen when he passed by before, and the tattered red cloth hanging at the temple gate, and frowned...

(End of this chapter)