From collapsing rooftop to poverty alleviation village chief

"Village Chief Lin, what do you mean by telling Aunt Guifen to stay in Qiongyu Village without worry?"

On the way to the next store, Zhang Xiaoshan couldn't help but ask Lin Ye.

Lin Ye said, "Qin Guifen doesn't want to stay in Qiongyu Village anymore, which is why she remains indifferent to Zhao Chunyan's constant slander and rumors."

Zhang Xiaoshan cracked open the sunflower seeds she had taken from Qin Guifen's house, savoring them carefully, and suddenly sighed:

"Some people want to come back, some want to leave, sigh..."

Lin Ye laughed, "Why are you acting so mature for a little girl? Which place are we going to now?"

Zhang Xiaoshan quickly said, "Let's go to Aunt Xiuying's house. Like Aunt Guifen, her husband has passed away, and she's raising her child alone. Shouldn't the village officials give priority to caring for left-behind women and children?"

Lin Ye said, "Their situation should be described as that of an orphan and a widow."

When they arrived at Sun Xiuying's house, Zhang Xiaoshan whispered, "Village Chief Lin, Aunt Xiuying and my family don't get along very well. Why don't you go in by yourself?"

Lin Ye looked at her strangely, "What conflict does she have with your family?"

"that is......"

Just as Zhang Xiaoshan was about to speak, the fence gate in front opened, and a little girl with a round face and big eyes called out in a childish voice:

"Village Chief Lin, Sister Xiaoshan!"

Zhang Xiaoshan put her index finger to her lips, "Meimei, keep your voice down..."

Zhang Meimei turned and called into the house, "Mom, Village Chief Lin and Sister Xiaoshan are here!"

The door opened, and a woman wearing a blue headscarf and with her sleeves rolled up walked out quickly. When she saw Lin Ye, a warm smile immediately appeared on her face.

"Village Chief Lin is here! Come in, come in and have a seat!"

Zhang Meimei warmly took Lin Ye and Zhang Xiaoshan's hands, "Village Chief Lin, Sister Xiaoshan, come in and play!"

Lin Ye smiled gently, "Thank you, Meimei!"

Zhang Xiaoshan glanced guiltily at Sun Xiuying, smiled awkwardly, and followed her into the courtyard, where she sat down in the mud-brick house.

Sun Xiuying's home is a "one-bedroom, one-living room" house. The outer room is about 20 square meters and has a table, stools and two small wooden cabinets. The inner room is the bedroom, about 10 square meters, with a bed, wardrobe and mirror.

It's larger than Qin Guifen's house, and the environment and furnishings are much better.

Zhang Meimei was very polite and took out two porcelain bowls to pour water for Lin Ye and Zhang Xiaoshan.

"Village Chief Lin, Sister Xiaoshan, have some water."

Lin Ye smiled and patted Zhang Meimei's head. "Meimei is so sensible!"

Zhang Meimei said to Lin Ye very seriously, "Mom said that Village Chief Lin is different from them and won't mess around, so I have to be polite to you."

Lin Ye: "..."

"Meimei, go do your homework." Sun Xiuying coughed lightly, signaling Zhang Meimei to go to the inner room to do her homework.

Lin Ye asked curiously, "Didn't they say that Teacher Su from the village primary school wasn't here? Do Meimei and the others still have homework?"

Zhang Xiaoshan quickly answered, "Teacher Su gave the children homework before she left, telling them to do a little bit every day."

After she finished speaking, she saw Sun Xiuying looking at her with a half-smile. Feeling embarrassed, she quickly got up and went into the inner room.

"I'll go in and check on Meimei."

Lin Ye looked at Sun Xiuying and asked, "Sister Xiuying, what about you and Zhang Xiaoshan's family...?"

Sun Xiuying said straightforwardly, "My husband is a relative of Zhang Dafu."

Lin Ye was surprised. "Then you two are related, but I heard your relationship with the Zhang family isn't very good?"

Sun Xiuying picked up the bowl in front of Zhang Xiaoshan, tilted her head back and drank the water in it in one gulp. She wiped her mouth before saying:

"When I was pregnant with Meimei, my husband was working away from home and died in an accident. Zhang Dafu and Liu Ying went to retrieve his ashes. Later I found out that the construction site had paid compensation. I went to ask them, but they denied it."

Lin Ye was somewhat shocked; such a thing actually existed?

"But they handled my husband's funeral arrangements and buried him quite well. I've come to terms with it; I just consider it money spent hiring a Taoist priest for my husband. But..."

Sun Xiuying sneered and continued:

"After I gave birth to Meimei, my husband was gone, and the family needed money. So I started raising chickens and farming, and selling the produce in Zhanghua County. That's how I managed to make a living."

"The village uses water from a large pond for farming. Normally there's not much water, but in times of severe drought, the village's rule is to distribute it according to the acreage of land, one bucket per acre per day."

Lin Ye asked, "Sister Xiuying, is the big pond the reservoir that the village raised funds to build?"

The Poverty Alleviation Department's information about Qiongyu Village states that the mountain roads in Qiongyu Village are difficult to travel, and tap water pipes cannot be laid. The village only has one well, which is not enough for the whole village.

There is a mountain spring on Yunwu Ridge to the southwest, but it is seven or eight kilometers away from the village and at an altitude of more than 3000 meters, making it too difficult for the villagers to fetch water.

So the old village chief and Zhang Dafu called on the villagers to raise funds, and with a little funding from the county, they built a reservoir.

"Yes, it's that reservoir." Sun Xiuying nodded, her eyes gradually filled with resentment.

"Last year there was a severe drought. My family had two acres of land, and we should have been allocated two buckets of water, but for several days in a row I only received one bucket."

"I went to ask Zhang Dafu, who is the deputy village head in charge of water distribution, and he also has the key to the large pond. It turned out that I saw he had seven or eight buckets of water hidden in his house!"

"That's when I found out that Zhang Dafu had stolen all my water! I went to find the old village chief again, but he said the drought would be over soon and a few buckets of water would suffice."

"I respected the old village chief, but I later found out that Zhang Dafu would secretly deliver two buckets of water to his house every day."

"And Liu Zhaodi, Liu Yaozu, Zhang Dafu's sister-in-law and brother-in-law, they will all get an extra bucket of water!"

"I was the only one who acted like a fool, going up the mountain alone to fetch spring water, and almost falling to my death several times!"

Sun Xiuying grew increasingly resentful as she spoke, "They don't deserve to be village chiefs! Village Chief Lin, as long as they're around, Qiongyu Village will never be any better!"

Lin Ye was a little taken aback.

In that impoverished village on Earth in my previous life, there were also conflicts caused by unequal distribution of resources, but these were mostly due to the village officials' lack of consideration and were relatively easy to resolve.

In Qiongyu Village, the deputy village chief engaged in nepotism, and even the highly respected old village chief was involved.

Zhang Dafu, Liu Ying, Liu Zhaodi, Hou Dezhu, Liu Yaozu, and perhaps others, formed a small interest group.

Even though Qiongyu Village is so poor, they still abuse their power to seize resources.

And what role does the old village chief, who should be playing a supervisory role, play in all of this?

No wonder Director Liu said that the people of Qiongyu Village have complicated relationships.

The first two college graduate village chiefs were also full of enthusiasm when they first arrived, but they were mostly driven away because their actions touched the interests of Zhang Dafu and others.

What about yourself?

Lin Ye once again had a profound realization: poverty alleviation work in Qiongyu Village cannot be easily accomplished simply by having a magic touch.

The weather is about to get hot, and meteorologists predicted at the beginning of the year that this year would be another year of severe drought.

Therefore, in addition to renovating dilapidated houses and rebuilding village schools, there is now another urgent problem that needs to be solved—the difficulty of accessing water.