Why can't the reading room and gym, which are rarely used, be converted into a childcare center?
The company doesn't have enough funds? The labor union has so much activity budget every year; just skip a couple of meals or organize a couple more hiking trips!
After leaving the food factory and passing through a covered walkway, you arrive at Jiang Xiaoman's own company.
His company not only needs to consider its own business, but also the future development of e-commerce in the entire village and even the whole town. Therefore, he occupies the entire Building 2 in the industrial park by himself!
The first floor is divided into two parts: a new tea factory and a warehouse. The original tea factory was not demolished and will continue to be used. This industrial park will serve as the main factory, primarily responsible for the high-end production line of Langshan small tea cakes, as well as some research and development needs.
Jiang Xiaoman had another plan he hadn't told anyone: if the market demand for his small tea cakes continued to grow, he intended to acquire land in other parts of the town to build factories. However, at that time, it wouldn't be solely his own investment; he would partner with other villages to jointly invest in building factories, which would also help boost the economies of other village collectives.
The second floor is the Langshan native honey processing plant that he and Shanyan jointly run.
Now their local honey production is increasing, but the main production and bottling are still in the original old factory. What has been moved to the industrial park are the company's offices, live broadcast room, warehouse and high-end product production line.
Half of the third floor was given to the embroidery workshop, and the other half is the e-commerce incubation base that Jiang Xiaoman has always wanted to build.
Even today, Jiang Xiaoman remains true to his original aspiration: to get more young people from Langshan into the e-commerce industry. This way, more people in the village will earn money, their living conditions will improve, and he can fulfill his father's expectations. He can then retire gracefully, having managed these businesses to provide enough for his father and Uncle Baichuan to live comfortably in their old age.
In addition to these two factory buildings, the industrial park also has a canteen, an auditorium and a dormitory area. However, the land approved by the county was too small at the time, so the dormitory area was actually built outside the industrial park. It was a piece of land that the town later approved for them separately.
Considering the possibility of future property disputes, Jiang Xiaoman and Shan Yan discussed it and decided to pool their money and lease the land for thirty years!
In that case, for at least the next thirty years, no matter how the ownership of the industrial park changes, this dormitory building will belong to these few families. Even if the factory stops operating in the future, such a large building could be converted into a hotel or guesthouse.
After the industrial park opened, their lives didn't change much. Jiang Xiaoman even took some time to go with Jin Chengjie to the county investment company to bring back the employees they had entrusted to the company for recruitment.
However, Jiang Xiaoman was slightly surprised when she received the list of proposed employees and their resumes from the city investment company.
"Teacher Qu?"
Jiang Xiaoman had almost forgotten about that stubborn and awkward substitute teacher from back then.
To be honest, Jiang Xiaoman had rather complicated feelings about Qu Jingjiang.
I admire his courage in staying in Langshan to support rural education, but I don't quite agree with his idealism of "sacrificing his family for the greater good."
Jiang Xiaoman admits that he is a little selfish. He always believes that if a person cannot even take care of his closest family members, then he should not talk about the great cause of the country.
This isn't a time of war; if young people don't defend their country, the nation will perish. If that day truly comes, Jiang Xiaoman won't care about Jiang Youliang anymore; he'll surely sacrifice everything for the nation.
In peacetime, it's really unnecessary for someone like Qu Jingjiang to abandon his parents who need his care and come to Langshan to teach.
As it turns out, the teaching at Langshan Primary School was not affected after Qu Jingjiang left. On the contrary, it unexpectedly developed better because of its miraculous recovery.
Now the school has a brand-new, modern teaching building, and the county education bureau has also selected outstanding teachers to support education in the mountain village. The school's educational environment is even better than when Qu Jingjiang was there. Even Jiang Xiaoman had almost forgotten about the substitute teacher she had spent some time with. How come he came back after taking the exam?
Moreover, they didn't apply for Langshan Primary School, but for a technical position at their e-commerce incubation base.
Wait a minute! Isn't Teacher Qu a teacher trainee?
Jiang Xiaoman was speechless when she saw that her undergraduate major was statistics on her resume.
So, Professor Qu, with such a great major, why didn't you go to an internet company and make a lot of money?! Why did you choose to teach in a rural area?!
He wasn't saying that teaching in rural areas was bad. In fact, the students at Langshan Elementary School still miss Teacher Qu quite a bit. Teacher Qu taught math so well that even Jiang Xiaoman always thought Qu Jingjiang was a teacher-training student who taught math.
The problem is that you are a top student in statistics, and you could have gone to work for a big internet company with an annual salary of hundreds of thousands, which would have been enough to hire several math teachers for Langshan, right?
Jiang Xiaoman didn't understand!
But this does not prevent him from admiring Qu Jingjiang, a selfless and good person.
Worried that Teacher Qu would abandon his parents again, Jiang Xiaoman quickly called his uncle, hoping that Jiang Baichuan could help persuade Teacher Qu. No matter what, his parents had worked hard to raise him and now they needed their son to support them in their old age. Did he really want to abandon his parents just to come to the mountains to teach?
To put it bluntly, Langshan doesn't really lack teachers willing to volunteer.
However, Mr. Qu's parents only had him as their son.
Jiang Baichuan was also confused when he received the call. He asked Jiang Xiaoman if there was a mistake. He remembered that after Qu Jingjiang went back, he seemed to have found a new job in his hometown and had transferred money to him several times, saying that it was to be donated to the school.
However, by then the county's subsidies for Langshan Primary School had been allocated, and Jiang Baichuan was also learning live-streaming e-commerce from Jiang Xiaoman. He and the two new teachers were making the school's account very successful, so the school had no shortage of money and he didn't want Qu Jingjiang's money.
Not only did Jiang Baichuan not ask for money, but he also sent Qu Jingjiang several things, mostly local specialties that have been selling well in Langshan in recent years. When Qu Jingjiang saw that he refused to accept money, he also bought stationery and other things and sent them over a few times.
Jiang Baichuan hadn't seen this kid send anything in the last few months, and he thought he was too busy with work to contact him. Turns out he was secretly preparing for the exam.
"That kid... forget it, don't worry about it, I'm going to call him and yell at him!"
Jiang Baichuan hung up the phone and then called Qu Jingjiang.
Unexpectedly, this kid managed to extort money from me.
"Principal, I've already resigned from my job and will be reporting for duty tomorrow!"
"Oh, by the way, I'm bringing my mom with me. Could you help me rent a house in the village first? Guesthouses are too expensive, I can't afford them, hehe~"
Jiang Baichuan: "..."
...
Qu Jingjiang hung up the phone, and thinking of the simple and warm-hearted people of Langshan, a warm smile involuntarily appeared on his lips.
Everyone says that Langshan is a poor and miserable place, but no one knows that those years in Langshan were the happiest time of his life.
Thinking of this, the slight smile that had just appeared on Qu Jingjiang's lips gradually disappeared.
He didn't tell Jiang Baichuan that his father wouldn't have died suddenly if it weren't for these so-called relatives.
Although Qu Jingjiang's parents were from the countryside, they were both capable. The couple started by selling breakfast at the market and gradually built up an agricultural supply store. Later, they saved up money to buy a house in the city, making them one of the better-off families in the countryside.
The problem lies with the house that Mr. Qu bought for his son.
Your relatives are all hoping you're doing well.
There are also those who hate that you have it and laugh at that you don't.
Qu Jingjiang's father was in a rather unfortunate situation, having a biased mother and two troublesome younger brothers. Although he and his wife had been supporting their elderly parents for many years and occasionally helped their brothers' families, he was richer than his brothers, which was his original sin.
Originally, the two younger brothers would only occasionally use their parents' names to ask their older brother for money, but when they heard that their older brother had actually bought a house in the city for his unmarried nephew, both families suddenly became interested in something.
They didn't know that Mr. Qu had taken out a mortgage of one million yuan to buy a house for his son's wedding, but that didn't matter!
All they knew was that Qu Jingjiang had a house in the city, while their children could only rent a place to live.
How could my older brother be so biased?
Jingjiang, that kid, didn't find a proper job to earn money after graduation. Instead, he went to some remote mountain village to be a substitute teacher! I heard he only earns a thousand yuan a month, which isn't even enough to support himself.
It's a shame that my older brother spent so much money to send him to school!
They might as well use that money to get their son a wife.
The two sisters-in-law, one on each side, supported Old Lady Qu as they sat in Qu Jingjiang's agricultural supply store, crying and making a scene. They grabbed any customer who came in to buy something and complained to them, saying that their son/elder brother was heartless, that they had bought a house in the city but would rather leave it empty than let their nephews live there, and that they had ruined the Qu family's agricultural supply store so much that even customers dared not come in to buy anything.
Qu's mother was so angry that she kept wiping away tears at home. She wanted to call her son, but she was afraid of disturbing his work. She never expected that her husband would have an accident in the short time she hesitated.
Old Mrs. Qu has always been unreasonable. When she saw that her eldest son absolutely refused to give up the house in the city for the three brothers to use together, she stood up and rammed her head against her son.
Rural old ladies only know a few tricks for throwing tantrums, and Old Lady Qu was used to them. Who knew that it was raining that day, and the ground behind the Qu family's shop, where miscellaneous items were piled up, was particularly slippery with moss. When Old Lady Qu bumped into him, he lost his footing and fell heavily to the ground, headfirst.
A pool of blood instantly spread across the surface of the moss...
Old Mrs. Qu was terrified. She didn't know what the old woman was thinking. Her first reaction wasn't to help her eldest son up and take him to the hospital, but to urge her two daughters-in-law to take her home quickly, and she even tried to pretend that nothing had happened.
At that time, Mrs. Qu was so angry with her mother-in-law that she ran upstairs. When she heard the noise stop downstairs, she assumed that her mother-in-law and two troublesome sisters-in-law had left. When she ran downstairs, she found her husband lying in a pool of blood, barely breathing...
After Mr. Qu was taken to the hospital, the truth could no longer be hidden. Mrs. Qu quickly called her son. Knowing that the mountains and roads in Langshan were steep, she was worried that her son might have an accident if he rushed on the road. So she lied to Qu Jingjiang and said that Mr. Qu had just fallen ill.
By the time Qu Jingjiang rushed back, his father was already dying.
Because Mr. Qu died in a deep coma without leaving a will, Mrs. Qu felt guilty for a few days after he passed away. She discovered that her daughter-in-law seemed unaware that she was the one who knocked down her eldest son.
She sent her two sons to the hospital to check on him. When she learned that her eldest son was still unconscious, Old Lady Qu started shaking again and complained of chest pain at home.
She went around telling people that if her eldest son passed away, she and her husband would have no one to take care of them in their old age. The implication was that the shop and house left by their eldest son should not only be given to his daughter-in-law and grandson, but also to her and her two younger brothers.
At the time, Qu Jingjiang and his mother were at the hospital with Qu's father. When Qu's father passed away, Qu Jingjiang returned to his hometown to report the death and found that the locks on the store had been pried open. His second and third uncles were busy selling things in the store, and his grandmother was sitting at the door, directing her two daughters-in-law to kill and pluck chickens.
Needless to say, the chicken that was killed was definitely one of his mother's chickens. Old Lady Qu would never bear to eat the chickens she raised herself.
During that period, Qu Jingjiang was too busy to contact Jiang Baichuan.
He was busy burying Qu's father, busy taking back the store that belonged to his family, and also protecting his mother from being bullied by Qu's mother... The only thing he was fortunate about was that the house his father bought for him was still under construction and he hadn't received the keys yet, so his two uncles hadn't gotten their hands on it.
But Old Lady Qu kept causing trouble, making the Qu family's agricultural supply store unable to stay open. At the end of last year, while Qu Jingjiang was away, Old Lady Qu went to his eldest daughter-in-law's house to demand alimony and pushed his mother off the building, breaking her leg. In a fit of rage, Qu Jingjiang disregarded his mother's objections and insisted on transferring the Qu family's agricultural supply store in the rural town to someone else, taking his mother with him to the city where he worked.
But he underestimated his relatives' greed. Not long after moving to the city, when Mrs. Qu went back to the countryside to visit her relatives, her two uncles actually followed her there again...
What angered Qu Jingjiang was that even after his mother had been bullied like this, she still advised him to simply give half of the money from selling the store to his mother.
His mother is so naive! Does she think that by settling the alimony payments to his grandparents in one go, they will stop harassing them?
Dream on! Once they discover that making a fuss can squeeze money out of their eldest daughter-in-law, their grandmother, second uncle, and third uncle will never let them off the hook again.
After all, it's hard work to earn money. But if you can take advantage of Qu's mother's soft-hearted and trouble-averse nature, and she comes every now and then to take some money back home to spend, then wouldn't the mother and son become an inexhaustible blood bag for the entire Qu family for a lifetime?
Qu Jingjiang originally planned to find a job in another city and take his mother far away, preferably not to come back for several years, hoping to outlive his biased grandmother to death!
Just then, he stumbled upon a job posting from the industrial park...
Qu's mother was reluctant to let her son give up such a good job and go to work in a small county town.
At this moment, Jiang Xiaoman's original plan gave Qu Jingjiang an idea to persuade his mother—
"Mom, the big internet company I work for usually lays off employees when they turn 35. You don't want to see me unemployed in middle age, do you?"
"The city investment company I applied to this time, although it has the name of a company, it is a proper state-owned enterprise, a secure job with no worries about income!"
"Although I'm currently on the non-tenured side, my major will give me a significant advantage when I take the civil service exam for a permanent position..."
When Qu's mother heard that her son had the opportunity to take the civil service exam, her worries immediately turned into joy.
Her husband is gone; her son is her greatest hope for the rest of her life. As long as her son is successful, she'll support him even if he has to go to the remote mountains, let alone the county town.
The elderly woman never expected that her words would come true. The day after she and her son reported to work in the county town, they were handed over to Jiang Xiaoman, who had come to complete the handover procedures, by people from the city investment company.
Normally, this kind of temporary assignment procedure should be handled by the new employee at the industrial park.
However, Jiang Xiaoman was worried that if they found out that they were going to Langshan for a temporary post, they might think that their place was too poor and refuse to go. So she specially asked Shan Yan to drive his newly bought Land Rover and rent a brand new minibus from the passenger transport company to pick them up.
They put on quite a show.
Qu Jingjiang looked as if he had seen a ghost.
"Jiang Xiaoman, are you throwing money away? There are only a few of us, and you still want to charter a bus? We can take the bus back to the village ourselves; it only costs ten yuan per person!"