Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn

Chapter 16: Every village has its own hard-to-read scripture

The village chief was indeed very welcoming of Zhu Shijunʼs arrival. Zhu Shijun has almost lived in the village for two months now, and the only people he had dealt with were Sister-in-law Lian and the village chiefʼs family. Compared with the village party secretaryʼs deliberate flattery, village chief Jin Dafu was much more sincere about Zhu Shijunʼs arrival.

”Director Zhu, there was no need for you to come personally, just send a message through Sister-in-law Lian,” said the village chief upon Zhu Shijunʼs visit, his usually loud voice lowered a few degrees. Ge Village wasnʼt all that big, and the most common way to call someone here was just to stand at oneʼs doorstep and shout out a few times, but of course, such a greeting method was obviously not suitable for Zhu Shijun.

”Da Fu, Iʼve said it many times, stop calling me director,” Zhu Shijun said with a smile upon seeing the village chiefʼs flustered demeanor. This village chief of Ge Village was an honest man. When Zhu Shijun had just been demoted, he first went to the county, where not a single local official was to be seen, let alone a car for pick up. In contrast, when hearing the news, the village chief of Ge Village got up at four in the morning, borrowed a tractor from someone else, drove for over four hours on mountain roads, and waited at the countyʼs bus station with his family of four.

”Director, listen to what youʼre saying, itʼs simply what I should do. If it wasnʼt for the money you gave my father back then, Ge Village wouldnʼt be where it is today,” said the village chief, and couldnʼt help wiping the corners of his eyes with his sleeve. People say that Zhu Shijun was a corrupt official, but back in the day, the old village chief had gone all the way from the township to the town, and then to the city to secure relocation funds for the villagers. Somehow Zhu Shijun, who was then the factory director at a cigarette factory in the neighboring province, got wind of it and with a stroke of his pen, donated thirty thousand Yuan for the relocation.

Back in the early nineties, thirty thousand Yuan could provide for the entire village for a year. After the old village chief got the money and settled the villagers, he brought his whole family to the city to kowtow to Zhu Shijun only to find out that Zhu had already been transferred to Jing City a month earlier as the newly appointed director of the National Tobacco Bureau.

Seven years passed in the blink of an eye. Just before he died, the old village chief took his sonʼs hand and left him with two dying wishes: one was to take good care of Ge Village, and the other was to not forget to go to Jing City to kowtow to Director Zhu if his son ever came into money.

”Why bring up things from so many years ago? I came today to buy some rice seeds from you,” Zhu Shijun didnʼt mention that the thirty thousand Yuan resulted in an accusation against him for embezzlement at the disciplinary inspection department. Instead, he steered the conversation towards the acre of land behind his house. Rice seeds are different from the regular rice harvested by farmers; they need to be carefully selected, and the grains must be full, with high survival and ear-bearing rates per plant.

After hearing this, the village chief was somewhat troubled: ”Director Zhu, you must not be used to eating the grain we grow here in the mountains; you canʼt use our villageʼs grains.” Different soils produce different grains; Leigong Mountainʼs terrain is fragmented and steep. The moderately fertile soil is all concentrated on slopes with a twenty-five degree incline, which according to national soil and water conservation regulations, are not allowed to be cultivated.

The terraced fields the villagers cobbled together are fragmented, and the rice grown is barely enough to meet the villagersʼ daily needs. The village chiefʼs stomach is used to the local soil; he isnʼt picky. But Director Zhu and his granddaughter are obviously not used to it.

It was the concern for his granddaughterʼs increasingly gaunt face that made Zhu Shijun want to improve Xiao Xianʼs dietary conditions as much as possible.