Chapter 257: The Whole Village Backs You Up

Bai Wei had already thought of an excuse regarding the source of the money.

"Village Chief, I went to Yanjing to attend an Antique Exhibition, and I also donated precious heirlooms from my family to the museum."

"The museum was very grateful, and they told me that they would cover the money for investing in the Qingshan Village school."

"As for this one hundred million, I will negotiate with the museum; if they feel it is too much money, I will reduce a few facilities."

Bai Wei did not state things definitively, only mentioning negotiation to avoid arousing suspicion.

The Village Chief was extremely excited upon hearing this and grabbed Bai Wei's hands.

"Bai Wei, you really are the treasure of our village, attending an Antique Exhibition and building a school."

"The development of our village depends entirely on you."

He was not flattering her; he was speaking the truth.

Qingshan Village had always been very poor, a village famous for its poverty for miles around; many villagers relied on the weather for their livelihood, knowing only how to grow and sell vegetables, and often failing to sell them.

At the very beginning, it was Bai Wei who collected vegetables from the whole village, driving the villagers to earn money.

Later, she acquired the winery, greenhouse vegetables, and invested in the Vegetable Base... revitalizing the village's economy and allowing several households to get rich following her.

She also joined the Archaeology Team, and the Archaeology Team built an office and a cultural exhibition hall in the village.

From then on, the city began to value Qingshan Village and had already issued a plan to invest in building a highway and turn Qingshan Village into a tourist village.

Once Qingshan Village becomes a tourist village, the villagers will all develop along with it.

If not for Bai Wei, it would have been impossible for the village to develop so quickly.

Being able to see the earth-shaking changes in the village, the old Village Chief was filled with joy.

In the backward Qingshan Village, the lives of the villagers were finally getting better day by day.

Hearing that Bai Wei was investing in building a school, the villagers gathered around to watch the excitement also let out a cheer.

In the countryside now, news is no longer as blocked as it was in the past.

Everyone in the village knows that if you want children to escape poverty, the only way is to study!

Everyone wants their children to attend good schools, but there really isn't a decent school in the nearby villages, and good teachers from the city are unwilling to come to this godforsaken poor village to teach.

If the children in the village want to attend a good school, they have to go to the town.

But the town is so far away, and sending a child to the town to study costs the family quite a bit of money.

Everyone has the heart but lacks the strength; many villagers with poor finances have to resign themselves to fate, and some even simply let their children drop out of school early to help with chores at home.

Especially for girls in the countryside, their families are even less willing to send them to town to study.

Now that the village is going to build a school, and a beautiful, impressive school like those in the city at that, all the children in the village will be able to study in the future; how could everyone not be happy?

The villagers were happy, and the children cheered.

Everyone crowded around Bai Wei, thanking her in a hubbub of voices.

"Girl Bai, you are the most capable person in our village!"

"The children in the village can attend a good school from now on, thanks to you."

Some villagers took out candies and snacks, stuffing them hard into Bai Wei's hands.

There was also a little girl who took a lollipop she couldn't bear to eat out of her pocket and put it into Bai Wei's hand.

"Sister, thank you."

Bai Wei's hands were soon full of things.

Peppermint candies, corn cobs, roasted sweet potatoes, wild ground melons... and even a piece of pork belly...

There were too many villagers sending things, and even Bai Wei couldn't tell who had sent what.

The items were very simple, all the most common food in the countryside, but they revealed the simple and sincere feelings of the villagers.

The old Village Chief was smoking a water pipe on the side, laughing heartily.

"Take them; the people in the village have been looking forward to a school for many years, looking forward to it until their eyes were almost blind."

"You built a school for the village, which means giving the villagers' children a future; everyone is grateful to you."

A villager chimed in.

"It's fortunate that Bai Wei wasn't snatched away by the people of Xiaohe Village to go back and acknowledge her ancestors, otherwise where would we get such a good thing? The school wouldn't be our village's either."

As soon as the words fell, the villagers began to shout in a hubbub.

"Bai Wei is a person from our Qingshan Village; no one is allowed to have designs on her."

"Back then, the Bai Family was jumping up and down to sever ties with her; I think the Bai Family is blind! Such a good girl Bai Wei is; if she were born in my family, I would definitely cherish her every day."

"Severing ties, well severed! If you ask me, those blind things in the Bai Family are morally corrupt and aren't even fit to carry Bai Wei's shoes."

"If the people from the Bai Family dare to come to the village to harass Bai Wei again, we will beat them every time we see them! The whole village will go together and beat them until they are looking for their teeth all over the floor."

The villagers worked together, determined to protect Bai Wei.

The Village Chief stepped forward, his face serious.

"Bai Wei, if anyone gives you trouble in the future, you call me!"

"I want to see who dares to bully you! Bullying you is bullying our Qingshan Village! Our whole village will back you up!"

Bai Wei understood the Village Chief's subtext.

It meant that if the Bai family members came to cause trouble again in the future, the villagers would never let them off lightly.

Bai Wei was very moved.

There is a saying that distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors.

Looking at the sincere faces of the villagers before her, Bai Wei really felt that the Bai Clan, with whom she shared the same blood, was not as reliable as the people in the village!

The scale of the school was too large, and the total cost of construction could not be estimated for the time being.

Several designers took their computers back to the city first, saying they would send the plans to Bai Wei after they were designed.

After seeing off the designers from the construction company, Bai Wei immediately opened her mobile banking app to check the balance on her card.

The remaining balance was two hundred and seventy million.

Looking at the balance on the card, the excitement Bai Wei had just felt vanished in an instant.

She was out of money!

Over in Beijiang, she had been continuously sending supplies, sending vegetables, meat, chickens, and ducks...

Supporting one hundred and eighty thousand people for a long time was no small expense, and it was a constant drain, requiring a large sum of money for food and daily necessities almost every month.

Although there was still nearly three hundred million on the card, seventy million would soon have to be spent on repairing the Warehouse.

The total cost for repairing the school had not come out yet, but it would be at least one hundred million as a baseline.

One hundred and seventy million would be gone in the blink of an eye.

Furthermore, after finishing the school, she still had to buy desks, bunk beds for the dormitories, computers for the computer lab...

The Vegetable Base still needed to buy seeds, consumables... and the experimental fields still needed to purchase various equipment...

She also had to allocate a research fund for Zhu Sheng to study cold-resistant vegetables.

Over in Daliang, the one hundred and eighty thousand soldiers of the Northern Frontier Army were still waiting for her to make clothes.

It was fortunate that there was no fighting in Beijiang; if a war were to break out, she would have to spend a massive fortune buying equipment and weapons!

Everything here was all about money.