Chapter 233

Qian Youyu's construction team really did arrive at Laoyingzui in a week. According to the experts' initial survey, the water plant's intake point was at the mouth of a small stream flowing down from Laoyingzui Mountain. A water pool about three mu in size needed to be expanded to about eight mu, and ten intake wells two hundred meters deep needed to be drilled around the pool. The factory buildings would be built around the pool, occupying thirty mu, with one office building and two employee dormitories to be built as well.

Looking at the water plant's plan, it was about half a li away from the new town government, with a thirty-meter-wide avenue to be built in between, named "Suxi Avenue."

The arrival of Qian Youyu's construction team worried Sun Demao to death. His four excavators had been lying there like four turtles, having not taken a breath for a month. Sun Demao told the excavator operators to go home and wait for orders, while he squatted in his shack every day, waiting anxiously for the provincial expert group to visit again.

Without orders from the province, not even a blade of grass was allowed to be moved at his construction site. This was the county's instruction, and also the city's requirement.

Watching Qian Youyu eager to start construction, Sun Demao crawled out of his shack, walked over to him with a sleazy expression, and said sourly, "Boss Qian has good luck; maybe you'll dig up eighteen stone coffins too."

Qian Youyu spat and said, "Boss Sun, you're just a crow's mouth. I, Old Qian, don't have any other skills, but I have great fortune. Just you wait, in two months, I'll make it so you won't even recognize this as Laoyingzui."

Sun Demao laughed with disdain, tucked his hands into his sleeves, exhaled, and said, "If it weren't for the incident at my construction site, you wouldn't even be able to tell this was Laoyingzui right now."

The two of them went back and forth, neither willing to yield. The two, who had already clashed over grabbing construction projects in Hengyue City, were now tied to the same chariot of Suxi Town. Whether they would live or die, neither of them had any idea. They could only rely on exchanging barbed words to fill the emptiness in their hearts.

Qian Youyu had a blueprint and a schematic in his hand, and the entire construction was clear and well-defined. Therefore, on the third day after the construction team arrived, they planted a red flag by the water pool, set up an incense table, slaughtered a pig, paid respects to heaven, earth, and ancestors, and with a shout, began construction.

Qian Youyu had to worship the gods for the groundbreaking. The plan sat on Guo Wei's desk for a day, but in the end, he didn't go. I was afraid Qian Youyu would have thoughts, so I went to the construction site quietly by myself, bowed before the incense table, burned three sheets of spirit money, picked up a shovel, shoveled two scoops of dirt, and sprinkled it on a white marble foundation stone, indicating that the groundbreaking ceremony had the government's approval.

As soon as the groundbreaking ceremony ended, I said goodbye and prepared to return; there was a winter conscription meeting in the town, and I had to go back to attend it.

For people in the countryside, joining the army was the best choice to change their destiny. For a child with a rural household registration, there were only two ways to change their destiny for life. One was to study and get out through exams, and the second was to join the army, working hard and without complaint in the military, perhaps getting a chance to change their destiny. Therefore, rural conscription was a war without visible smoke.

Before coming to the groundbreaking ceremony, the Town Armed Forces Department Head had asked me for instructions, saying that this year's soldiers had high requirements, all going to the Beijing Garrison, soldiers who would protect the central leaders, and perhaps even flag-raising soldiers. If people from the village went to Beijing in the future and saw someone from their own village standing under the national flag, who knows how much glory it would bring to their faces.

I laughed and said to him, "They aren't even the same branch of service, how can they stand guard?"

The Armed Forces Department Head laughed along and said that this year's soldiers must be politically qualified, so he wanted to invite me to speak at the conscription mobilization meeting.

Guo Wei knew I had just returned from the construction site, and seeing me, he only asked one question: "Has it started?"

I nodded and followed him into the conference room.

The militia battalion commanders, village secretaries, and village directors from each village were crowded together, joking with each other, but when they saw us enter, they stopped and waited for the meeting to start.

When the township held meetings in the past, Liu Quan would always ask the cafeteria to add a few dishes and insist on treating the village cadres to a meal before they left. Under Guo Wei, he stopped treating them to meals and changed it to issuing subsidies—one hundred yuan per meeting. When Liu Quan held meetings, there were always a few village cadres who wouldn't attend for various reasons, but under Guo Wei, as long as there was a meeting, not a single person would be absent; even if they were sick, they would rush over.

Later on, as long as the township didn't hold a meeting for a while, the village cadres would shamelessly inquire about when a meeting would be held.

Guo Wei coughed deliberately, and the conference room became so quiet that you could hear a mosquito fly by.

I raised my eyes to scan the venue and found that Zhao Dequan was sitting in the front row this time, with Pan Shurong sitting beside him. These two people used to sit in the very back row of the venue when attending meetings, just like when they went to the county with Liu Quan. This time, both of them were sitting in the front row, dressed in bright clothes, with reserved smiles on their faces, making the other village cadres feel ashamed.

Pan Shurong was now the legal representative of the oil pressing plant, and Zhao Dequan represented Laoyingzui. What kind of place was Laoyingzui now? It was the location of the new government and the birthplace of the mineral water factory.

Guo Wei focused on the policy significance of this conscription, and incidentally reminded the village cadres to complete various withholdings and pooling before the end of the year. The implication was that villages that didn't complete the withholding tasks would have their conscription quotas canceled.

The village cadres naturally wouldn't want to lose their annual power opportunity. Every year when they conscripted soldiers, the cadres' mouths would be oily for a few days, and the cigarettes tucked behind their ears would all be Furongwang.

Pan Shurong was a man who had served in the army; he was actually the best propaganda. If he hadn't served in the army, he wouldn't have been able to join the Party, and if he hadn't joined the Party, he wouldn't have had the chance to be a village cadre, and if he hadn't been a village cadre, where would he have had the chance to be a legal representative?

The Armed Forces Department Head laughed while counting on his fingers the people from Suxi Town who had achieved success after serving in the army. Speaking of himself, he was a soldier in the self-defense counterattack back then; eight people from the township went, and only he returned, while the other seven were sent to Marx by a single shell.

Many people knew the Armed Forces Department Head's story. When they first went to the battlefield, the Armed Forces Department Head was nervous; when he was nervous, he had to go to the bathroom, so he ran under a dirt bank to relieve himself. Before he could even finish, he saw a shell screaming in mid-air. He couldn't care about anything else and threw himself onto the ground with a thud. After the sound, he saw hands and feet flying everywhere in the sky.

The Armed Forces Department Head, whose face had turned white with fear, didn't dare to look at the severed limbs falling beside him. He closed his eyes and brushed off the things that had fallen on him, but felt his hand being held. He opened his eyes and saw it was actually an arm, and the fingers were still moving.

The Armed Forces Department Head screamed in terror, threw the arm away in a panic, felt his face was very hot, reached out to touch it, and his hand was full of blood; he fainted immediately.

The Armed Forces Department Head wouldn't talk about this part of history. He had left the battlefield after that time, not even stepping half a step into the red soil. The Armed Forces Department Head was able to leave the battlefield that time because a piece of shrapnel had sliced off one of his ears.

When his wounds healed, the war was over. He wore a big red flower on his chest to receive his rewards, got his household registration settled, and was assigned to the township government as the Armed Forces Department Head, where he had worked for decades without moving an inch. That war gave him a nickname he was proud of, called "No-Ear."

"No-Ear's" agitation was actually superfluous; Suxi Township had always had a tradition of sending sons to join the army. Although that war had left seven fresh lives in a foreign land, this did not stop the enthusiasm of Suxi people to join the army. Because what they saw in their eyes was not seven lives, but the glory of the Armed Forces Department Head. After the Armed Forces Department Head "No-Ear" finished speaking, he encouraged everyone to applaud and said he wanted to invite me to speak.

I was basically familiar with all the village cadres sitting below, and I had watched several of the militia battalion commanders become village cadres. Some of these village cadres had a history of being village party secretaries longer than my age, and two of them were following in their fathers' footsteps, controlling the fate of all the young men in the village.

Just as I was about to speak, the mobile phone tucked into my waist rang. I wanted to press it and not listen, but my eyes swept across the phone screen and I discovered it was Qian Youyu calling. My heart skipped a beat; I was terrified that the accident at Sun Demao's construction site would repeat itself!

I pressed the answer button, and Qian Youyu's voice, stuttering with nervousness, came through: "It... it... it's terrible, something... something happened."

My head immediately felt empty, and my hands and feet almost started to tremble. Calming my mood, I said seriously, "What happened? Tell me slowly."

"It's terrible," Qian Youyu said with a trembling voice. "Come quickly, come quickly, it's a huge matter. It's chaotic, it's chaotic."

"What exactly happened?" I shouted, my brow furrowing.

There was a commotion in the conference room, and Guo Wei tapped the table to make them quiet.

"Gold... gold came out," Qian Youyu finally expressed what he meant.

My heart gave a start, and I quickly asked, "Speak clearly, what gold came out?"

"A piece of dog-head gold, dog-head gold, it's as big as a fist."

"Dog-head gold?" I was baffled. Dog-head gold dug out of Laoyingzui? What kind of place was this? The mystery of the eighteen stone coffins hadn't been solved yet, and now there was talk of dog-head gold; this was too surprising!

"Stop construction immediately! Protect the scene well," I ordered him, then turned to Guo Wei and said, "Secretary Guo, dog-head gold was dug out at the water plant construction site. The scene is a bit chaotic now, and it needs to be controlled."

When the village cadres below heard that gold had come out, not one of them could sit still. Zhao Dequan was even more restless, rising several times to leave, only to be shouted down by Guo Wei.

I sat up straight and said seriously to the village cadres, "Everyone go to the construction site together, protect the scene at all costs. Whoever causes a problem, I'll take their head."

Guo Wei nodded in agreement. The village cadres followed behind me, swarming out of the conference room. Seeing Sun Demao's minibus picking up passengers, I cleared all the passengers off the bus, told the driver to drive to Laoyingzui, and on the way, I called Hao Qiang, asking him to reinforce Laoyingzui.