Returning to the small mountain village of '86, intelligence updated daily.

After finishing his breakfast, Zhou Rui saw that it was still early, so he told his younger sister and went out.

Even his grandparents hadn't come home yet, and it was still early to make lunch, so he wanted to take advantage of this time to visit the location they were going to discuss next.

That tea plantation.

In the southwestern mountainous region, tea plants are grown in both small, terraced fields and larger, single-plant varieties on hillsides.

Zhou Rui was going to the front mountain. The village was nestled between mountains, unlike the deep forests of the back mountain. The front mountain was mostly cultivated land.

The front mountain is not just one mountain, but a small cluster of mountains.

Zhou Rui's house is in a very good location in the village, as it is located on both sides of the country road. Other houses are either located in the alleys that lead in all directions, or they are simply isolated in the fields or at the foot of the mountain.

After leaving the house, Zhou Rui did not walk to the left or right as usual, but instead walked into a small alley opposite his house.

As you walk into the village, you can see small vegetable gardens and chicken and duck pens enclosed by fences everywhere.

"It's Zhou Rui. Where are you going? Aren't you going hunting?"

In the village, a woman from a Zhang family was spreading manure in her vegetable garden when she saw Zhou Rui and greeted him somewhat awkwardly.

Most people in the village knew Zhou Rui. In the past, the Zhou family had fallen on hard times, and people like Wang Ermazi had spread rumors, causing many uninformed people to distance themselves from the Zhou family.

But people can read the situation. Recently, the Zhou family seems to be doing unusually well. They have acquired a series of good items and made a lot of money. In addition, they sold the water deer in town a few days ago, so the Zhou family and Zhou Rui have become very famous.

These opportunistic families are now trying to curry favor with the Zhou family again.

Zhou Rui didn't find anything strange; he politely called out and replied.

He wouldn't make enemies for his family for no reason. Although these families are opportunistic and seek profit while avoiding harm, that's human nature. True friendship is revealed in times of trouble, and only a very small minority will ever be truly appreciated.

As long as it's not someone kicking your family when they're down, then whatever.

The man's surname was Zhang. His family was poor, but fortunately, the woman of the house was hardworking, so they managed to get by. They had received favors from the Zhou family in the past, but when the Zhou family fell into decline, they remained neutral, since their own family was struggling to make ends meet.

The woman took a manure ladle and scooped up a ladleful of high-quality "fertilizer" and poured it evenly around the roots of several vegetables.

In those days, pesticides were rare, and fertilizers were even rarer; most people used this most primitive type of fertilizer.

She greeted Zhou Rui, not expecting a friendly response, since she knew her family had indeed grown distant from the Zhou family over the years.

To her surprise, Zhou Rui replied politely, and her face immediately lit up with a smile.

"Son, come to your aunt's house for dinner sometime. I'll boil you two free-range eggs. Your Uncle Zhang misses you terribly. We'll invite the old man along too."

Zhou Rui replied politely again:

"Okay, after we finish the autumn harvest, Auntie, I have something to do, so I'll be going now."

The woman stood in her vegetable garden, smiling broadly as she replied, watching Zhou Rui's figure disappear around the corner of a mud-brick house.

"What a good kid. How could my family have acted like that before? His dad is a kind man, but these past years..."

"Sigh... let's wait for the child's father to come back and talk about it."

The woman muttered a couple of words as she watched Zhou Rui's disappearing figure, then continued fertilizing the plants on her own.

As Zhou Rui passed through the village, he encountered several households like the Zhang family. Most of them had women at home, while the men of the household either went to work in the fields or did odd jobs or manual labor.

Most of these households were extremely polite, a complete reversal from their previous distant and indifferent attitude.

Zhou Rui wasn't surprised, nor did he think these people had done anything seriously wrong. After all, he was used to this kind of situation.

After passing through the village and arriving at the front of the mountain, fields of crops begin to appear, mostly consisting of staple foods such as potatoes and corn.

In the present day, transportation is inconvenient and cash crops are hard to sell. Zhou Rui remembers that in his previous life, his village gradually planted a lot of apples, which eventually developed into a pillar industry.

After passing through the village, there were noticeably fewer houses, and the crops in the fields were almost ready for harvest. Stalks of corn hung from the stalks, and the potato leaves were slowly withering, but the tubers buried underground were plump and full.

It was a scene of vibrant life and flourishing of all things.

Zhou Rui looked at the beautiful painting and was in a good mood.

After walking for a while, they arrived at the slope of the front mountain. Based on the scattered memories in his mind, Zhou Rui found a place.

This is an unobstructed hillside, covered entirely with tea plantations stretching as far as the eye can see.

Zhou Rui only made a rough estimate, but the tea garden was probably no less than 20 mu (approximately 3.3 hectares), and the actual area was definitely more than that.

Zhou Rui walked into the tea garden, looking left and right, not missing a single detail.

He noticed that the tea plants in this tea garden were not growing well, perhaps due to neglect. Although it was the season for harvesting summer and autumn teas and the yield was not as high as that of spring teas, they should not be in such a half-dead state.

As Zhou Rui walked through the tea garden, he discovered something else: although the tea trees were not growing well, the variety was superior and would be highly sought after in later generations.

Moreover, the common problem with these tea trees is a lack of nutrients and fertilizer, while pest problems are relatively minor.

This gives us a lot of room to maneuver.

He learned from previous information that Zhang Chengyun was particularly eager to get rid of these hot potatoes quickly because of his lack of management experience and insufficient follow-up funds, and most importantly, he was losing money!

This has led to him being short of money. If he doesn't cut his losses in time, the people he does business with will all come after him.

With this issue resolved, the contract price will be much lower when negotiating the contract, and perhaps we can simply buy these tea trees outright.

It's a one-time investment; you only need to pay land use fees to the village collective later...

Zhou Rui's mind cleared up considerably. He had originally planned to take over the tea garden from Zhang Chengyun, but now, in the long run, it was clearly better to just buy the tea trees in bulk!

This was the conclusion he drew from observing the varieties of these tea trees. He also knew that the older the tea tree, the more valuable it became, which is why many of the gimmicks used in later generations originated from this.

What about "century-old trees", "millennial Banzhang tea", "ancient trees", "old village material"...

These are all real facts.

Zhou Rui thought back to himself and roughly formed a plan in his mind.

At the same time, he was also calculating the cost of contracting an acre of tea garden—no, now it should be said that it was the cost of purchasing it.

The cost of contracting would be lower. These tea trees have been growing for several years and are not seedlings. Zhang Chengyun must have spent a lot of money back then.