blenderwars Chapter 164 Xiao Tao has made something of herself!
Chapter 164 Xiao Tao has made something of herself!
Li Xiaotao cleared her throat.
"What did Zhan Laosan just say? Did he say that without him, the melons in our Li Family Village would rot in the fields? That we're just peasants, with no cars and no roads?"
The room fell silent; everyone held their breath.
"Now I'm telling you all!" Li Xiaotao suddenly waved her hand, pointing in the direction the truck had disappeared, "Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, three large Jiefang trucks from the county transport team will be in the village on time to pick up melons!"
"boom--!"
The crowd erupted instantly, the noise nearly lifting the roof off the brigade headquarters.
Three trucks?! My God, that's an incredible amount of cargo!
"The county transport team? That's a regular army! Compared to them, Zhan Laosan is nothing!"
"Xiao Tao's really made something of herself! She's really made something of herself! She can even get a car from the county to run!"
Li Xiaotao gestured with her hands to signal everyone to be quiet.
She knew very well that emotions alone were not enough at this time; there had to be rules and procedures.
Farmers today are most afraid of chaos; once chaos breaks out, even good things can turn into bad things.
"Quiet down, everyone! Listen to what I'm about to say!"
Li Xiaotao raised her eyebrows, adopting the air of a leader, "We've found the vehicles, but let's be clear from the start. They're a large fleet, they value efficiency, they can't be picking through each vehicle one by one like Zhan Laosan did. We have to oversee things ourselves!"
She held up one finger: "First, the whole village will be divided into sections, and every household can go pick melons now! But there's a limit: 500 jin per household for now! No more! Don't stuff unripe melons in. If anyone picks unripe melons just to make up the quota, ruining our village's reputation, the convoy won't come anymore, and the whole village will smash their pots and pans!"
"Five hundred jin?!"
Li Fugui quickly did the mental calculations: "This truck can carry four or five tons, so three trucks would be over ten thousand tons... Wow, that could clear out all of our first batch of ripe melons!"
"Second!" Li Xiaotao continued, "Once the melons are picked, each family should use their own carts to haul them to the village entrance and line up according to their production team! We'll weigh them all and load them onto the trucks together! I, Li Xiaotao, am making this clear: as long as the melons are good, we'll buy as many as we can, and the price will remain the same as before. After deducting the transportation costs and losses for the trucking team, everyone will receive at least twice as much as what Zhan Laosan offered!"
"Twice as high? That's six points? Or even seven points?"
This sent the crowd into a frenzy.
Everyone present was a farmer; who didn't know the ropes?
Three cents is hard-earned money, six or seven cents is like finding money on the street!
If this truckload is taken out, each family can earn an extra several tens of yuan!
These days, a few dozen yuan can buy big items for the family, a few new outfits for the children, or several meals of fatty meat!
"Xiao Tao! You're a living Bodhisattva!"
"Listen to Xiao Tao! Anyone who dares to stuff raw meat in their mouth, I'll be the first to break their legs!"
"Hurry! Hurry! Let's go home and pick melons! Pick them quickly!"
Just moments ago, Lijia Village was lifeless and dejected, like a wilted eggplant, but now it was as if a ladle of boiling oil had been poured over it, and it was completely boiling over.
The men carried their shoulder poles home, while the women dragged their children to the fields, all with smiles on their faces.
In the courtyard, Li Youtian was left all alone in the blink of an eye.
The old man stood there, his legs still a little weak.
He watched his daughter's composed figure as she walked away, and his eyes suddenly welled up with tears.
When he was surrounded and cursed by hundreds of people, he felt like his life was over and his face had been trampled on.
Now, he's kept his position as Party Secretary!
Li Youtian's back is straighter than before!
This is all thanks to his good daughter!
The setting sun hung crookedly on the back mountain of Lijia Village, making the dirt road leading to the village entrance appear very long.
Li Weimin walked with incredible speed and agility, feeling as if he were about to fly, even though he was pushing a heavy, empty cart.
The old cloth bag tied around his waist was heavy with the large sums of money he had saved up over the past few days, along with stacks of loose bills.
With each step he took, the money bag slammed against his hip joint, causing sharp pain, but he felt sweeter than if he had drunk honey.
"Weimin, slow down! My old back is about to break!" Li Dalin, who was following behind, also stopped and was panting heavily as he pushed the empty cart.
"Second brother, hurry up! My wife is waiting at home."
Li Weimin didn't turn his head; his mind was filled with the strange, hesitant expressions of the old and young men by the roadside when he entered the village.
Just as they entered the village, Er Gouzi, who usually didn't get along with Li Weimin, surprisingly smiled at him and even offered him an unfiltered cigarette, calling him "Brother Min." This startled Li Weimin so much that he almost pushed the car into the ditch.
"Does this look right?"
Li Dalin, panting heavily, looked on with awe. "I just heard Li Juan say at the village entrance that Taozi scolded that bastard Zhan Laosan away and is even going to bring in the county's transport team. I never even dared to dream of making this much money!"
The two rushed to Old Li's house, but before they even entered the yard, they heard a huge commotion inside.
"Weigh it! Make sure you're all right! Not a single ounce of meat can be missing, and not a single ounce of melon can be missing either!" Liu Xiaocui's voice was now more effective than the commune's broadcast in Lijia Village.
Li Weimin pushed aside the young people who were watching the commotion at the door, and once he entered the courtyard, he was completely stunned.
In the courtyard, dozens of strong laborers were busy at work.
The empty baskets on the ground were piled up like a mountain, and the big guys were using thick hemp ropes to tie the handles.
Li Xiaotao moved a small stool and sat in the middle of the courtyard. In front of her was a borrowed accounting table. Holding a ballpoint pen in her hand, she calmly wrote down her accounts on the yellow straw paper distributed by the production team.
"Wife!" Li Weimin managed to squeeze out the words.
Li Xiaotao looked up and saw that it was her husband who had returned. The tense lines on her face softened slightly, but she didn't stop talking: "You're back? Put the money in the house. Ask my dad to bring out that big steelyard. We need it tomorrow morning."
"Hey! Hey!" Li Weimin didn't dare to utter a word, and dragged the heavy cloth bag into the house.
Once inside, he bolted the door and, with trembling hands, dumped the cloth bag onto the kang (a heated brick bed).
"Splash—!"
That was the sound of banknotes hitting the kang mat, like a series of thunderclaps in the quiet room.
The bundles of "Big Unity" coins were dark brown, interspersed with blue five-yuan notes, purple one-yuan notes, and countless small, fluffy coins.
Li Weimin's eyes widened in disbelief.
He could earn at most a few dozen yuan in cash after working in the production team for a year.
But now, there's at least a hundred of these piles on the kang (heated brick bed)!
"Second Brother, tell me, are we dreaming?" Li Weimin asked, his voice trembling as he touched the money.
Li Dalin came in too, and seeing the pile of money on the kang (heated brick bed), his Adam's apple bobbed loudly: "What dreams! This is all from selling it for a penny a pound at the market today! Weimin, Taozi's brain is really sharp, no wonder she's my sister!"
Just as I was marveling at this, Li Xiaotao's clear voice came from outside the window.
"Weimin, what are you dawdling for? The whole village's vanguard is waiting for the leader's cigarette!"
Li Weimin quickly grabbed a few boxes of "Daqianmen" cigarettes and rushed out.
In the courtyard, Li Youtian couldn't sit still any longer.
He walked back and forth in front of these dozens of young men with his hands behind his back. Although he was still worried about the convoy, he did his best to maintain appearances.
"Folks! Little Tao has found the right path today; she's really bringing honor to our Li Family Village!"
"Old Li, you've truly achieved great things in this life!"
"That's absolutely right! Party Secretary, from now on you can just stay home and wait to hold your grandson and smoke cigarettes. In all these years of our Li Family Village, who has ever produced someone who can flatten the threshold of the county transport team?"
"Secretary, tell me, what kind of incense do you usually burn for our ancestors? I'd like to buy a couple of bundles to offer as an offering!"
"Yes, Party Secretary, which direction does your family's ancestral grave face? I'll bury my father next to your family's ancestral grave sometime tomorrow."
"You brat, your old man isn't dead yet!" An old man next to him picked up his pipe and was about to hit the man on the head.
The people around burst into laughter!
These words made Li Youtian feel like he was floating on air.
He tried to suppress his smile and deliberately put on a stern face, but the smugness in his eyes and brows was impossible to hide.
"That's right!"
Li Youtian slammed his pipe heavily onto the sole of his shoe, struck a match with a hiss, and took a deep drag on the flame.
He exhaled a thick cloud of white smoke, squinted behind it, and drew out his words, adopting the air of an elder:
"Don't let her talk back to me fool you. She's a member of the Li family, and none of hers are cowards. If this were a few years ago, she'd be a general in the making!"
He glanced around at the men who were filled with envy, and raised an eyebrow smugly:
"Without me, her father, backing her up, would this little brat dare to challenge that old fox, Zhan Laosan? I made it clear to her beforehand that as long as we were in the right, I'd stand up for her even if the sky fell, and that's why she dared to run wild!"
Li Youtian tapped his pipe. "Old Zhan wants to eat our blood and sweat? No way! Tomorrow morning, the big trucks are coming into the village. If anyone messes up, don't blame me, Old Li, for being ruthless!"
"Don't worry, Party Secretary! We know exactly what we're doing. We'll pick the melons and pile them up at the village entrance before dawn!"
"That's right! Anyone who dares to fool us, I'll tear their roof off!"
The atmosphere had built up to this point, and the entire Li Family Village started operating like crazy.