Me! A high-ranking official!

Now that Zhou Qingyan's brother, a high-ranking official, had personally shown up, Zhao Jianguo was relieved. With someone of this caliber in charge in the city, at least on the surface, even an old fox like Han Baomin wouldn't dare to make any rash moves against Zhou Qingyan.

As for the mysterious person secretly investigating the clinic, it's unlikely they'll find out anything in the short term.

He hailed a taxi in the city, and after a bumpy ride, he arrived back in Luojia Village around 3:30 p.m.

He froze as soon as he reached the entrance of the village committee compound.

The once quiet village committee courtyard was now bustling with activity, with seven or eight elderly villagers gathered around the corner, each carrying plastic bags or woven bags of various sizes.

Liu Zhijun was standing in front of an electronic scale, sweating profusely, busy weighing and registering the villagers, and then exchanging them for the corresponding laundry detergent, soap and soy sauce according to their categories.

"Secretary Zhao is back!"

The sharp-eyed Liu Zhijun looked up and saw Zhao Jianguo. He immediately stood up straight and greeted him loudly with great excitement.

Hearing the commotion, the villagers who were standing nearby turned around and enthusiastically gathered around.

"Oh, Secretary Zhao, you're finally back!" A wrinkled old woman, Aunt Zhang, beamed from ear to ear. "You big leaders from the county are really clever! You came up with the idea of ​​exchanging garbage for daily necessities. Before, this junk could only pile up at the door and stink, but now we can exchange it for oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar! It's wonderful!"

"Yes!" Old Li chimed in, giving a thumbs-up. "In the past, every village secretary came and went, just going through the motions. Secretary Zhao, you're a truly capable official! Everyone admires you because of this environmental bank!"

As Zhao Jianguo listened to the villagers' sincere praise, he felt a warmth in his heart, and the humiliation and pressure he had suffered from Zhou Qingyan these past few days seemed to dissipate considerably.

He waved his hand with a smile and said loudly, "Dear elders, we live in a civilized society now. If our Luo Family Village wants to develop, we must first improve the appearance of our village. The problem of garbage disposal has been troubling us for a long time. I just came up with a solution by chance, and the main reason we were able to get it done is thanks to everyone's support and cooperation!"

After exchanging pleasantries with the villagers for a while, he returned to his dormitory with some basic toiletries he had bought in the city.

He put his things down, lay down on the hard bed, and let out a long sigh of relief.

As soon as I had a moment to myself, the thing Lin Jiaojiao had mentioned on the phone at noon today immediately popped into my mind again.

"I wonder if Zhou Qingyan's brother has left yet..." He frowned. This matter absolutely needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Every minute that was delayed increased the danger. He had to notify her as soon as possible to prepare for the worst.

He took out his phone, opened WeChat, hesitated for a moment, and instead of making a call directly, sent a text message: "Is it convenient to talk now? I have something urgent to report."

After sending the message, I waited for a full ten minutes, but there was still no reply.

With a sigh, she tossed her phone aside. Zhou Qingyan had just been discharged from the hospital and was extremely weak. In addition, her unfathomable brother was watching her closely. He was probably either asleep or not with her phone. If she rashly called him now, and he answered or noticed something was wrong, things would get really messy.

After a while, the villagers in the courtyard gradually dispersed.

Holding an accounting notebook, Liu Zhijun excitedly pushed open the dormitory door and walked in: "Secretary Zhao! Your idea of ​​an environmental bank is absolutely brilliant!"

He excitedly opened his notebook and handed it to Zhao Jianguo: "We just started two days ago, and not many people in the village knew about it yet. We collected about 300 jin of garbage in one day, and more than 500 jin yesterday. As soon as the news spread, wow, everyone pitched in! It's not even evening yet today, and we've already collected more than 700 jin! I reckon we'll definitely break the 1,000 jin mark by dinner time tonight!"

He took the notebook, glanced at it, and quickly made some calculations in his mind.

The household waste in rural areas mainly consists of plastic bottles, waste paper, and some scrap metal. After initial sorting by Liu Zhijun, the waste is sold to recycling stations for composting, earning an average profit of about 20 to 30 cents per kilogram.

If a village can harvest 1,000 jin a day, that's two or three hundred yuan. On average, that's a turnover of nearly ten thousand yuan a month. After deducting the cost of exchanging daily necessities for the villagers and the labor costs of subsidizing Liu Zhijun and others, the village collective not only doesn't lose money, but can even have a slight surplus of a thousand yuan or so each month.

This is equivalent to creating a miniature blood-generating cycle for Luojia Village, which was originally an empty shell of poverty!

"Well done!" Zhao Jianguo smiled and patted Liu Zhijun on the shoulder. "I knew I hadn't misjudged you. This is all thanks to you and Uncle Luo for leading the charge. Without you two, I, as the Party Secretary, would only have had the idea, and this matter would never have been implemented."

Liu Zhijun was a little embarrassed by the praise. He scratched his head and chuckled, "Hey, Secretary, you're too kind. I'm just a handyman. As long as I can do something practical for the village, I'll be happy."

At this point, Liu Zhijun suddenly remembered something, his expression becoming slightly serious, and said, "By the way, Secretary, this morning when Uncle Luo went to collect garbage at the west end of the village, he discovered something, and he asked me to report it to you."

Zhao Jianguo asked curiously, "What's wrong? Are you in trouble?"

Liu Zhijun hesitated for a moment, then lowered his voice and said, "Uncle Luo passed by that abandoned pit today and found... a few villagers were digging through the old garbage in that pit with rakes! It looks like they were planning to wash it and sell it to us in exchange for something."

He was taken aback; he hadn't expected this at all.

"Secretary, do you think I should stop this?" Liu Zhijun asked with some concern. "The original intention of our environmental protection bank is to collect everyone's household waste to keep the village clean. Now they're going to the wilderness to dig up garbage and sell it to us. Isn't this...isn't this taking advantage of public resources?"

After hearing this, he couldn't help but burst into laughter and asked in return, "Why should I stop you?"

Liu Zhijun was stumped by the question: "Huh? But..."

"Zhijun, you need to broaden your thinking!" He slapped his thigh with a laugh. "What's wrong with this? This is absolutely fantastic!"

He patiently explained, "Think about it, that big sand pit outside the village has long been our village's natural garbage dump. It's piled high with decades of accumulated garbage. In summer, it stinks, and in winter, plastic bags fly everywhere when the wind blows. I used to be worried about it, thinking about applying for some funding from the town to hire a construction team to clean up the garbage in that pit and fill it in. How much would that cost? But now it's great! With our environmental bank, we don't need to hire a construction team at all. The villagers themselves are cleaning up that environmental scourge in exchange for things! We've not only saved a lot of money on cleaning costs, but we've also indirectly solved the major problem of environmental pollution outside the village!"