Chapter 86: Building the Road, Building the Road
The new vehicle’s battery only had a 60% charge.
However, the owner guaranteed, “It can drive for at least 80 kilometers! If it doesn’t, you come find me!”
Jian Xingxia believed this. Old Chai had strongly recommended this 1,500-yuan super-large battery because he had verified it himself. The owner said Old Chai’s model could drive for 150 kilometers, which was a bit exaggerated, but for Old Chai’s mill cargo deliveries, it could solidly cover 120 kilometers. In a small mountain village, that was more than enough.
Hauling a cart of rice, flour, oil, bran, and chaff, 120 kilometers allowed one to make a round trip through two or three neighboring villages. Jian Xingxia was highly satisfied.
She had an advantage over Old Chai too—her electricity cost nothing, as she could charge it fully at home at night. In a tiny place like Jinmen Town, let alone 150 kilometers, even 120 kilometers was enough to run a full lap around the area.
Jian Xingxia rode the vehicle to pick up her courier packages. Before she even reached the pickup station, Auntie Lu called her.
“Xiaxia, where are you?! The construction crew is here, saying they’re going to build the road!”
Auntie Lu was practically scared out of her wits. How many days had it been since Jian Xingxia returned? Normally, throughout the entire year, a freight truck would only come twice—either when someone was building a house or during the home appliances countryside exhibition sales. Yet this was already the fourth time a truck had come to Jian Xingxia’s place! And this time, two came at once!
Hearing this, Jian Xingxia hurriedly grabbed her packages and sped back in her new vehicle.
Oh my god! Wasn’t the system upgrade reward supposed to be automatic like the second floor, finishing in a flash with a whoosh? Why on earth did a construction crew show up?
The new tricycle was indeed formidable. It even had air conditioning, so driving under the fierce sun wasn’t hot at all.
Jian Xingxia drove all the way back to the village, which was exceptionally lively right now. The moment she appeared, she was blocked by the villagers.
“Xiaxia, why are you building a road all of a sudden?”
“Xiaxia, where did you get the money? Just buying these materials alone costs a fortune.”
“And you’re setting up a greenhouse too? You’ve barely farmed any land, yet you’re already putting up a greenhouse?”
Jian Xingxia was thoroughly overwhelmed. Where was she even supposed to begin explaining?!
Left with no choice, she simply deflected everything. “It’s not me building it. I leased the land to someone else, and they want me to manage a homestay for them.”
The villagers were skeptical. “In this deep mountain ravine of ours, someone actually wants to open a homestay?” Lu’an Village wasn’t some historical site or tourist attraction.
But a small number of people believed it. “That might not be true. I heard that several neighboring villages have returned farmland to forests, saying they’re going to develop some kind of eco-tourism.”
“Yes, yes, yes! Eco-tourism!” Jian Xingxia quickly chimed in.
Someone else asked, “Xiaxia, who did you lease the land to? Was it that friend who visited last time?”
Before Jian Xingxia could speak, someone nearby beat her to the answer.
“I bet it absolutely is! Xiaxia’s friend is incredibly wealthy!”
“Right! For the free-range chickens raised at my house, Xiaxia’s friend said regardless of size, she’d buy them all for two hundred a head!”
“The dried radishes dried by my family aren’t worth anything, yet she still gave fifty yuan!”
“Cough, you guys don’t know, do you? The sunglasses worn by Xiaxia’s friend—I saw them in an advertisement before. Eight thousand eight hundred a pair!”
“Whoa!” Everyone was stunned.
When Liang Chengcheng came, she had bought things and wanted to hire an auntie, practically buying out all the local specialties and agricultural products, and she paid very generously. Everyone had long known Liang Chengcheng was rich. It was just that the local customs of Lu’an Village were pure and honest; no one deliberately discussed it, nor did anyone harbor shady thoughts behind her back.
If two large flatbed trucks hadn’t driven into the mountains today, everyone wouldn’t have pried. But now that someone mentioned Jian Xingxia was paving a road and installing a greenhouse, everyone remembered.
For such a grand undertaking, it was undoubtedly Liang Chengcheng without a doubt. After all, Xiaxia had only had this one friend visit in the half-month since she returned, and she happened to perfectly fit the traits of being “wealthy” and “knowing how to enjoy life.”
Jian Xingxia: “Mmh… uh… heh… ha…” She hummed and hawed through it.
Sorry, Big Orange, just let me borrow your name for a bit.
As Jian Xingxia gave a few vague responses, the people from the flatbed trucks walked over. One person stepped down from each of the two trucks, completely straight-faced and businesslike as they verified her name, address, and other information, signed the papers, and commenced work.
Uncle Hu followed behind, frantically approving various procedures. But in truth, it was merely going through the motions. First, Jian Xingxia wasn’t touching public territory; it was purely her own land. Second, she wasn’t touching residential land plots and there was no extra expansion; it was building an agricultural greenhouse. Uncle Hu had no reason not to approve it.
Furthermore, since Jian Xingxia returned, the village had become much livelier and more convenient, and it even allowed the villagers to earn a bit of pocket money. Although it wasn’t much, each household staying behind in the village earned one or two hundred, and the ones who earned more brought in four or five hundred.
City folk might feel this money was nothing—just a meal or two. But for the elderly and farmers staying behind in the countryside, without farming subsidies, selling the grain from a mu of land might not even fetch a few hundred yuan. Uncle Hu and the few village officials secretly hoped Jian Xingxia could remain in the village. Having a college student in the village benefited the entire community.
Therefore, they didn’t block her in the slightest, instead rushing to help Jian Xingxia fill out the forms, register, and issue approvals. Fortunately, the paperwork wasn’t difficult and was completed very quickly.
Meanwhile, the construction crews on the two trucks had already started working. The villagers all followed along to watch the excitement. Lu’an Village hadn’t been this lively in a very long time. Ever since Jian Xingxia came back, fresh things happened every few days.
Jian Xingxia also followed the construction crew. She discovered that the crew members on these two vehicles were exactly like the workers who installed the solar energy system previously—they were all laborers from another world!
Although they all carried a rigid, unsmiling expression and spoke only when absolutely necessary, Jian Xingxia noticed that when the villagers asked too many questions and the crew members didn’t know how to respond, they would quietly cast glances at the other crew members for help. The other more mature, senior members would smoothly squeeze over. They would either give a simple response in two or three words, or find a reason to ask the villagers to step back a bit to facilitate their construction.
There were also warm-hearted people, like Uncle Hu and his group, who felt that paving the road in the village was a good thing and wanted to pitch in to help. But they were all rejected by the construction crew.
“We have professional equipment and materials. No assistance is required.”
“To ensure construction safety, please step back outside the warning line.”
They truly were professional. The villagers obediently retreated outside the warning line.
Because the road construction crew blocked the path, the villagers couldn’t enter the mountain to watch the other crew build the greenhouse.
Jian Xingxia observed from the side for a bit. She noticed that although the construction crew members looked slightly tense, their handling and execution were highly professional. It just felt like the shovels in their hands were remarkably easy to use. Gathering soil on the spot to fill pits or flattening the small pebbles to pack the road felt as simple as sweeping a floor.
The villagers even asked how many days it would take to finish the road. The crew said three days.
The villagers surprisingly didn’t harbor any suspicions either, merely nodding. “That’s pretty good. You’re using quick-drying cement, right? My son works on construction sites outside, and he said they use quick-drying cement nowadays.”
Someone else saw the construction crew holding special materials, mixing them and filling them into the gaps, and explained to the other villagers very professionally, “This is that new type of material. I’ve seen it on Douyin before; it’s just like expanding foam. You squeeze it on, and once it dries, it turns hard and exceptionally sturdy.”
The other villagers nodded one after another. “Advanced, indeed advanced.”
Jian Xingxia: “…”
Great, she didn’t need to worry about how to explain it anymore. The traits of the rural elderly being easily fooled and simultaneously able to accept all kinds of bizarre new things formed a perfect closed loop at this very moment.
