The Little Life of a Big Landlord

Chapter 115 The Tour Guide

(Please subscribe and support...)

When Aunt Da Bao said that, Zhang Xiaofei's face turned ugly. It wasn't that he was angry, but rather ashamed. He lowered his head and didn't say a word.

"Alright, alright, it's good that Uncle is alright. Aunt Dabao, now that Uncle and Aunt are staying at your house, you should install a solar water heater as soon as possible. Uncle Dabao went to buy some goods, so please have him buy a solar water heater while he's at it. Use the village's money for now, put it on Yang Ming's account, and you can pay Yang Ming back when you're in a better financial situation..." Aunt Liu changed the subject.

"No need, no need, our family can afford a solar water heater..." Aunt Da Bao quickly waved her hand.

"That's not how it works. Your family needs to buy more things, and we have so many places to repair. We need money for everything. If we only use our savings, will we even have enough to eat? Yang Ming has plenty of money. If we invest a little, it won't hurt us much," said Aunt Liu.

"If it weren't for the fact that everyone in the village cares about saving face, we would have been planning to pay for your house repairs and furniture ourselves..." Wei Qingqing knew how to say something cheap.

"You said it yourself, I'll tell everyone in a bit, and let them borrow money from your house that they don't have to pay back..." Aunt Liu rolled her eyes. You can't just say something reasonable, can you?

"Hehehe...did I say anything? The moon is so round today..." Wei Qingqing chuckled, changing the subject.

"Hahahaha..." Everyone in the room burst into laughter, including Liu Zhengfeng. Although his cheek muscles trembled as he laughed, he did laugh nonetheless.

"Stop laughing. Since it's all going to be on our tab anyway, let Uncle Dabao buy another LCD TV and a satellite dish. Our agritourism business can't be without entertainment activities..." Wei Qingqing said.

"Is this appropriate?" Aunt Dabao hesitated. Although she really wanted to have a TV at home, borrowing money to buy one always made her feel uncomfortable, like a heavy stone was weighing on her heart. And a TV is different from a solar water heater; a solar water heater can be used for bathing, but a TV? It can only be used for entertainment and relaxation…

That's how villagers are; they value practicality.

"Buy it... An LCD TV only costs three or four thousand. We plan to stay here for a month, so that's 3600 yuan. That should be enough," Zhang Xiaofei said, noticing Aunt Dabao's hesitation.

"Okay! I'll buy it..." Aunt Da Bao gritted her teeth and made up her mind.

Wei Qingqing quickly handed her phone to Aunt Dabao, who took it and dialed a number—Zheng Dabao's number.

The call connected very quickly...

"Hey?... Da Bao? What are you doing?... Are you browsing in the supermarket?... Nothing much, we just had two tourists with us, brought by Sister Liu. Sister Liu said she wants you to buy a solar water heater, and Qingqing wants you to buy an LCD TV, and also a satellite dish, all with the brigade's money. Yang Ming will pay you back when we get back... You should still have to pay them back. These two tourists will stay with us for a month, that's 3600 yuan. When you buy the TV, buy one that costs 3600 yuan..." Aunt Da Bao's tone was a little timid.

"Aunt Da Bao told him that borrowing money from Yang Ming's family to develop the countryside is a shortcut for our village to develop rapidly. However, the idea of ​​borrowing to make money is not easy to talk about. Everyone is an honest person and has a conflict with this. At this time, someone needs to take the lead. As the village party secretary, he should set an example." Aunt Liu spoke in official language, using righteousness to pressure Zheng Da Bao.

"He...he didn't say he wouldn't buy it, he just asked me what brand I wanted to buy..." Aunt Da Bao finally revealed the result.

Mrs. Liu was extremely embarrassed. She hadn't expected the man to be so open-minded; he truly had the magnanimity and breadth of mind of the Party Secretary…

"If we're talking about brands, then it has to be Hisense. It's a reputable brand..." Zhang Xiaofei suggested. Actually, their TV was a Hisense.

"…Da Bao, buy Hisense, that brand is reputable…" Da Bao's aunt quickly said.

After exchanging a few more words, Aunt Dabao hung up the phone and returned it to Wei Qingqing.

"I heard you have a fishpond here. I wonder if we can go fishing?" Liu Zhengfeng asked as soon as the other party finished discussing their business.

"We charge for the fish we catch, based on their weight. But you can fish by the river; there are plenty of wild fish there, and it's free..." Wei Qingqing said.

"Oh! I see..." Liu Zhengfeng said somewhat disappointedly, "I realized that your company's advertising on the website was just bait to lure us in."

"How can you say that? We said upstairs that it's a private garden..." Wei Qingqing smiled a little embarrassedly.

"Hehe..." Liu Zhengfeng chuckled, feeling that it was indeed true. They must have planned their escape route from the very beginning, making it impossible for you to find fault with them.

"What you're doing is a bit like fraud," Zhang Xiaofei said seriously, deliberately trying to scare Wei Qingqing. "You lure us consumers here, but once we get here, it's not what we were told. What is that if not fraud? I came here specifically for your hot springs..."

So, Zhang Xiaofei was still thinking about Yang Ming's hot spring.

"Hehehe..." Wei Qingqing quickly smiled apologetically, but she didn't let her guard down. Her family's hot spring was absolutely not for outsiders to use; that was her bottom line.

"We started a bit hastily, so many things are still under construction. Please forgive us..." Aunt Liu said.

Hearing Aunt Liu's polite words, Liu Zhengfeng knew that his wife's words had inadvertently distanced the two sides again. He couldn't help but laugh and say, "I heard from your aunt that she's just kidding you. People like her love hot springs. She often goes to the hot springs in the city. She can go without food every day, but she absolutely cannot go without soaking in a hot spring."

"You old codger, all you think you have is a mouth?" Zhang Xiaofei yelled at Liu Zhengfeng impatiently, "I'm a doctor, I come into contact with so many patients every day, who knows if they're carrying germs? What if I get infected? Wouldn't I have to soak my hands properly?"

"Yes, yes, yes... yes, yes..." Liu Zhengfeng's face turned green, and as if by reflex, the soft muscles in his waist began to throb irregularly. He quickly forced a smile...

"Brother Qian, I just saw Aunt Da Bao leading two people to your house..." Zhang Yang nudged Yang Ming with his elbow and said.

Zhang Yang and Yang Ming were sitting in the shack supervising the construction at this moment. Actually, they didn't need to do anything; Foreman Huang had taken care of everything. Foreman Huang had regained his youth and was full of energy. He was running in and out of the construction site, giving extremely careful instructions.

"Those were two tourists. Aunt Liu just led them to Uncle Da Bao's house..." Yang Ming said, glancing at his own house.

"How did you know?" Zhang Yang asked curiously. He had been with Yang Ming the whole time... He hadn't gone over to ask him, and no one had told him. How did he know?

"Isn't that simple? When Aunt Dabao led them to our house just now, she acted as their guide the whole way..." Yang Ming said.

"Maybe they're related to Aunt Da Bao?" Zhang Yang said.

"Aunt Da Bao's relatives? Then why did they come to our house in the first place?" Yang Ming asked.

"Haven't been here for years, got lost?" Zhang Yang said.

"Lost? If you're lost, why didn't you ask? Why did you have to go all the way to the back of the village?" Yang Ming said.

"I can't argue with you. How about we make a bet? If those two are relatives of Aunt Da Bao, I'll win 10 yuan from you. If they're not relatives of Aunt Da Bao, you'll lose 10 yuan to me..." Zhang Yang said.

"You wish..." Yang Ming's mind reacted quickly, and he immediately realized that Zhang Yang was setting a shameless trap.

"How boring. It's just 10 yuan. You're supposed to be rich, but you can't even part with such a small amount of money..." Zhang Yang curled his lip in disdain.

"As the saying goes, one should not accept a reward without merit. If you can sing me a little tune, it's not impossible for me to give you 10 yuan," Yang Ming said with a smile.

"You think I'm a street performer?" Zhang Yang immediately rolled his eyes at Yang Ming.

If a beautiful woman did this, it would be incredibly graceful and elegant, but if a grown man did it...

Yang Ming reacted immediately, pulling out 10 yuan and stuffing it into Zhang Yang's pocket. Then, he covered his mouth and ran away, saying, "This isn't a reward for you, it's money to save my life... Never roll your eyes at others again, it could get you killed..."

"Pay me a life? Only 10 yuan? You're insulting the value of life, you scum, you degenerate, you shameless scoundrel..." Zhang Yang immediately shouted at Yang Ming's back.

Yang Ming didn't even stop; he ran straight home.

"Oh my, who are you two...?" Yang Ming greeted Liu Zhengfeng and Zhang Xiaofei as soon as he entered the room.

When Wei Qingqing and Aunt Liu saw Yang Ming enter the house, they immediately turned around, not even glancing at him, and their faces fell.

"This is the first tourist to come to our village... This is the head of the household, Yang Ming..." Aunt Da Bao introduced Yang Ming.

"Hello, you two! Our village doesn't have much good food or much fun, but the air is great. You can feel it, right? As soon as you enter our village, even the air feels refreshing," Yang Ming said with a smile.

"Yes, yes..." Liu Zhengfeng nodded quickly. "I've been a smoker for twenty years, especially in the last two years. My lungs have been aching all the time, and I'm having trouble breathing... As soon as I enter the village, my lungs feel much better."

Aunt Da Bao said with some difficulty, "Yang Ming, these two want to go fishing, who do you think should lead them?" After being busy for so long, it was almost noon, and it was time to cook, at least to prepare lunch for the two tourists.

"It's Lao Liu who wants to go, but I'm not going. I see you're embroidering here, so I'll just follow along and take a look..." Zhang Xiaofei said, pointing to the work on the kang (a heated brick bed).

"I'll take them. I happen to have two fishing rods here! I'll be the temporary tour guide..." Yang Ming smiled. "Our village should set up a tour guide team, with a few idle villagers, to take tourists around."

"..." For a moment, the room fell silent. Everyone knew that Yang Ming and Aunt Liu were talking, so naturally no one responded. However, Aunt Liu just wouldn't say anything, which made Yang Ming very embarrassed.

"Ahem... Not only do we need to set up a tour guide team, but we also need to set up a reception team to specifically receive tourists who come to the village..." Liu Zhengfeng felt the atmosphere was quite awkward, so he coughed twice to help Yang Ming out of the predicament.

"Uncle, let's go fishing..." Yang Ming said with a smile.

Through this incident, Yang Ming became more enthusiastic towards Liu Zhengfeng.

"Let's go fishing..." Liu Zhengfeng was naturally happy to oblige. Fishing was his favorite sport, supposedly to cultivate his character and patience, but actually... it didn't require any effort at all! It was a lazy person's dream...

The two of them left the house together and went to the west wing, where some odds and ends were stored, including two fishing rods.

"Oh? These are hunting rifles?" Liu Zhengfeng spotted the several hunting rifles hanging on the wall at a glance.

"Hehe, it's all my brother-in-law's doing. He can only hunt wild rabbits and pheasants. When he encounters bears, wild boars, or wolves, he's helpless..." Yang Ming laughed.

"Oh? From what you're saying, there are quite a few large wild beasts in the mountains? Is it true that your big yellow dog killed a wild boar?" Liu Zhengfeng's eyebrows twitched.

"Of course it's true. Did you see that cardboard box on our kang (heated brick bed)? There's a little wolf cub inside, it's only a few days old..." Yang Ming said.

"A wolf cub? How did you catch it?" Liu Zhengfeng found it very strange. Wolves are not very good at hunting. What they are good at is their unity. A single wolf, that is, a lone wolf, cannot survive in the old forest. It is not as strong as a tiger, nor as powerful as a bear. If it encounters a wild boar with a single brain, it can only run away.

Wolves are social animals. You can kill a wolf, skin it, and sell it for money, but you will never catch wolf cubs unless you wipe out the entire litter.

"Once, some wild wolves from the mountains sneaked into the village, and I caught quite a few of them. Among them was a mother wolf who was pregnant with her cubs, and these cubs were born to her," Yang Ming said.

"So that's what happened? Wild wolves from the mountains come into the village?" Liu Zhengfeng had never heard of such a thing. Although there were many wild wolves in the mountains, they shouldn't dare to come into a village as big as Zhengjia Village.

"Of course they will, but when they enter the village, they usually don't hurt people. They'll just kill some livestock and take them back. However, if people go into the mountains, those wolves will attack them," Yang Ming said.

"Oh! So that's how it is... The village is populated by many people, which deters the wolves, so they don't dare to bite people. But if they go to the mountains, they won't have this concern..." Liu Zhengfeng said.

"That's roughly the idea..." Yang Ming nodded.

"So we really can't go into the mountains?" Liu Zhengfeng said with some regret.

"No, we can bring the dog into the mountains..." Yang Ming said.

"Oh yeah?" Liu Zhengfeng's eyes lit up, like two 1000-watt light bulbs. "Didn't your big yellow dog kill a wild boar before?"

"Our puppy is pretty good too..." Yang Ming said with a smile.

Liu Zhengfeng said in a low voice, "How about we go into the mountains now?" His eyes kept glancing towards the doorway, afraid that his wife might suddenly come out of the house and hear him.

"Today won't work, let's try tomorrow! Come early tomorrow, let's find a few more people and go into the mountains together..." Yang Ming said.

"Alright... let's go fishing now..." Liu Zhengfeng was delighted.

The winding river has clear water, though not so clear that you can see the bottom. The villagers' ducks and geese are paddling on the surface, their red webbed feet paddling through the clear water. There are quite a few ducks and geese following behind them, all raised by the villagers. They are white and spotted, swimming around on the river. Every now and then they will quack or goose, or flap their wings vigorously, using the power of their wings to briefly stand on the water and create ripples.

The two walked upstream along the riverbank and found a quiet place to sit down.

"When it comes to fishing, there's a certain art to it. You have to be completely focused, not like a cat fishing, half-hearted," Liu Zhengfeng said, considering himself a seasoned angler. "You also have to be as still as a mountain, calm and collected, and never let your breathing become disordered. Otherwise, the fish will feel uncomfortable with the surrounding atmosphere and definitely won't bite the hook, just like people. If a person is unhappy, they definitely won't want to eat..."

"Yes, yes, yes, what the uncle said is true..." Yang Ming nodded repeatedly.

"Sigh! Back when we participated in the city's fishing competition, I even won a runner-up prize. Actually, I felt really wronged. The fish that the top two caught were exactly the same weight, but that guy had a two-foot-long carp as a backup. As a result, the judges unanimously decided that we were the runner-up..." Liu Zhengfeng said with a hint of regret.

"What a pity..." Yang Ming shook his head regretfully. "But it's alright, the uncle caught quite a lot of fish..."

"What do you mean 'a lot'? That guy caught a two-foot-long big crucian carp, but the rest of the fish were all small crucian carp, about the length of a little finger. That guy caught hundreds of them..." Liu Zhengfeng still finds it hard to believe.

"..." Yang Ming finally understood why the judges made that judgment. It turned out that no matter the number, size, or weight of the fish caught by this person, they could not surpass the other person's.

So the two of them sat on the bank and calmly fished. Strangely enough, for some reason, the fish seemed to be full today. They would occasionally flick their tails on the surface of the water, creating ripples, but none of them took the bait.

"Why isn't it biting yet?" Liu Zhengfeng was getting impatient.

"Yeah, something's weird today..." Yang Ming also sensed something was off. "How about... Uncle, you stay here fishing, and I'll walk along the riverbank and see what's wrong..."

"Okay, go ahead..." Liu Zhengfeng nodded.

Yang Ming planted his fishing rod on the bank, got up, and left...

"Sigh... Young people, they just can't keep their tempers up..." Liu Zhengfeng shook his head, watching Yang Ming's retreating figure. Then, gripping his nerves, he stared intently at the fishing float, muttering, "Hurry up and bite, hurry up and bite, hurry up and bite..."

Yang Ming walked along the riverbank and finally discovered the truth at the riverbank directly opposite his own front door. It turned out that Wei Qingqing was shouting and jumping around with a small jar in her hand, and occasionally chuckling mischievously. The small jar was actually full of small fish.

"Hey... what are you doing?" Yang Ming shouted.

"Ah..." Wei Qingqing was startled when she heard Yang Ming's voice. She immediately picked up the small jar, grabbed the bucket at her feet, and ran away in a flash. Yang Ming saw it clearly: the bucket was full of small fish, and as Wei Qingqing ran, a few small fish would jump out from time to time.

"This silly girl..." Yang Ming was furious. Of course he knew that Wei Qingqing was getting revenge on him, but this silly girl didn't even know the timing. We're fishing with tourists here. If you take revenge in such an extreme way, you might give one of the tourists a heart attack. They're not young anymore...

"Just wait till I get back, I'll deal with you..." Watching Wei Qingqing's figure disappear into his yard, Yang Ming gritted his teeth, then picked up the fallen fish and threw them all into the river.

P.S.: Please recommend and add to your favorites...

(End of this chapter)