Chapter 67: Four Business Lines

For the past month or so, Yu Yang had been so busy that he lost track of days and nights.

Now that he finally had a rare moment to calm down, he wasn't in such a rush to figure out what new crops to plant.

Inside the living room of his small Western-style villa, he washed his tea sets and wiped down the ebony tea table—a gift from the bald, chubby fellow in Nanhe Fan County after the suppression of bandits in Shiliying. Then, he brewed a pot of 1994 Pu'er tea, picked up his cup, and leaned back on the sofa.

"Chinese chives, lettuce, garland chrysanthemum, water spinach."

His advantage lay in accelerating the growth rate of crops and then using a larger planting area to mask the sheer volume of yield.

As long as these four types of vegetables were planted, they could be harvested crop after crop.

By then, the genuine plastic greenhouses would be harvested twice a day to boost production.

The fake plastic greenhouses would also be planted and harvested once every seven days to maintain the illusion and fool outsiders.

The logic was similar to growing bean sprouts.

Additionally, the genuine plastic greenhouses could be used to cultivate a batch of strawberry saplings, litchi saplings, and watermelon vines.

They would then be transplanted into the excess fake plastic greenhouses, left unattended for the time being, and simply awaited harvest.

Just as he was deep in thought.

The township head hurried in, panting, "Xiao Yu, quick, quick, quick, lend me a few excavators."

"What for?"

"Old Dong is leading some leaders from the provincial government on an inspection tour of Pingdong Lake. I'm worried they'll spot the highway off-ramp."

"Inspecting Pingdong Lake?"

Yu Yang suddenly remembered mentioning the leasing of Pingdong Lake to Old Dong yesterday.

Holy crap, was this efficiency a bit too high?

"Don't just stand there daydreaming! Send over a few excavators first so I can dig up that slope. Otherwise, if word gets back to the provincial government, even Old Dong won't be able to save me."

"You're overthinking it. Old Dong wouldn't save you in the first place."

"..."

"What are you panicking for? Everyone knows Shiliying is lawless; what's wrong with an extra highway ramp? Who knows, even if you set up traffic lights for a four-way intersection, they'd probably turn a blind eye."

"Really?"

"Let me ask you, would leaders from the water conservancy bureau care about traffic accidents?"

"As if they have nothing better to do."

"Well, there you have it."

The township head finally understood. "No wonder the road administration leader came to buy bean sprouts that day, glanced at the ramp, and didn't say a word."

"Duh, he's not with the highway management agency."

"The highway management patrol car came to Shiliying back then, saw us leveling the slope, did a U-turn, drove away backward, and never came back... Put that way, really nobody cares?"

"As long as you don't go onto the highway to block traffic or use an anti-aircraft gun to shoot at the highway, absolutely nobody will care."

Yu Yang shrugged, walked up the stairs to the roof of the villa.

Then he opened the trunk of his AMG W124, took out a long-barreled telescope he had bought in Liaocheng, and gazed into the distance toward Pingdong Lake.

Old Dong was indeed leading a dozen middle-aged and elderly men, standing by the lake and discussing something.

Every now and then, they pointed at the lake's surface.

Every now and then, they pointed at the prefabricated ballastless track rectangular blocks around the boat docks.

Every now and then, they pointed at the plastic greenhouses near the distant brick kiln.

Occasionally, they would look back at the dilapidated Shiliying.

...

"Taishi was never large to begin with, and the available resources are limited—just a mountain and a lake. Since Mount Tai can become the pillar of Taishi's tertiary industry, I believe that Pingdong Lake, spanning up to 700 square kilometers, can also become the mother lake of our primary industry, breeding a series of agricultural, aquatic, and sideline products to breathe new life into Taishi's sluggish economy."

"Old Dong, it's not that we don't want to help you, but Pingdong Lake is simply too crucial. It affects multiple towns and cities downstream. Take this year, for instance—without Pingdong Lake, the water level at Luokou in Dongshan Prefecture would have flooded up to the third floor. Tell me, do you expect us to hand it over to a private individual?"

"This year's flood was a once-in-a-century event; we can't base policies on anomalies. Furthermore, the water volume in the Yellow River has been decreasing year after year, which is an undeniable fact. Pingdong Lake's role is no longer what it used to be. Most importantly, commercializing Pingdong Lake will only benefit Dongshan's economy, with no downsides."

"Economics isn't everything."

"In that case, I'll just bypass you all and go straight to Beijing?"

...

Yu Yang couldn't hear what Old Dong and the others were chatting about. After observing through the telescope for a moment, he returned to the living room, intending to resume his tea-tasting.

The township head had already left, and the chairman of the Municipal First Construction Company had arrived at some point.

"Big Boss, what do you think of my comrade-in-arms' daughter?"

"Are you moonlighting as a matchmaker now?"

"Isn't this a wonderful thing?"

"Not connected, and not interested."

"Alright then, what do you think of my daughter?"

"???"

"Seriously! She served in the military for three years and is 22 this year. Look at this photo—full of heroic spirit, a heroine who yields to no man. Even though she's a bit older than you, a woman three years older brings home mountains of gold."

"I'm your boss, yet you want to become my father-in-law? Are we supposed to drop all formalities from now on?"

"That's fine, I don't mind."

"Go back to your work."

As he spoke, Yu Yang picked up his buzzing brick-sized mobile phone and pressed the call button.

"Hello? It's me, Yu Yang."

"It's me."

Old Dong's voice came through the receiver, continuing, "I talked to the provincial authorities about Pingdong Lake today. They are reluctant to open it up to outsiders, but I have a way to handle it—only, our weight isn't heavy enough."

"What kind of weight?"

"Not just economic."

"Understood. Influence."

"Good, I know what to do."

"???"

Yu Yang held the phone that had just been hung up on him, his head full of question marks.

Then it dawned on him.

So he basically came to me to solve a riddle?

Sure enough, finishing high school really makes a difference.

The chairman of the Municipal First Construction Company also heard the sound from the phone. "Pingdong Lake?"

"Yeah, I plan to lease it."

"It'll be tough. Even with Old Dong stepping in, it's not guaranteed they'll convince the higher-ups."

"Judging by what he said, it seems our influence isn't enough."

"Then what are you planning to do?"

"I was still pondering which vegetables to add earlier, but now it seems I'll have to scrap the original plan."

"Oh?"

"I plan to launch a 'vegetable basket' initiative, ensuring that at the very least, our folks in Dongshan can add two green dishes to their New Year's Eve dinner this year."

To secure Pingdong Lake, even top-tier Big Brother was putting in effort; he couldn't afford to hold everyone back.

Otherwise, if they saw him slacking off and losing motivation, how could he ever get them to hand over the municipal government compound in the future?

Yu Yang took out an A4 sheet of paper and listed a series of vegetables.

Chinese chives, lettuce, garland chrysanthemum, water spinach, pea shoots...

Rapeseed, mustard greens, bok choy, milk cabbage, baby cabbage, broccoli...

Potatoes, onions, Chinese yams, purple sweet potatoes, tomatoes...

Bell peppers, chili peppers, sweet peppers, large red peppers, millet peppers...

Cucumbers, green cucumbers, bitter melons, calabash gourds, papayas, wax gourds, towel gourds...

Flat beans, sweet peas, green beans, snow peas, long cowpeas...

Along with a few fruits, such as strawberries, lychees, grapes, and watermelons...

"We don't necessarily have to plant all of these; the main goal is sheer volume."

"In addition, we need to build the Sanyuan brand."

"For instance, reintroduce the hotpot vegetable gift package."

"As it happens, the DIY blacksmith shop isn't short on steel; worst case scenario, we manufacture a few simple hotpots fueled by alcohol or smokeless charcoal, and include them as a gift for an extra 5 yuan with the package."

"Then there are semi-finished dishes. We can launch a New Year's Eve dinner series... No, wait, we'll prepare all the dishes for the seven days of the Chinese New Year for our customers: what to cook today, what to cook tomorrow, and which ones to use when guests arrive."

"Similarly, since the DIY blacksmith shop has plenty of steel, we can also craft simple vegetable-shopping handcarts for our customers, giving them away for free once they purchase a certain amount of semi-finished meals."

"Finally, the fruits."

"Ancestor-worship fruit platters, New Year's Eve fruit platters, Spring Festival fruit platters, and homecoming fruit platters."

"By then, we'll use the DIY blacksmith shop to make flat, rounded metal plates, fill them according to the platter type with half a catty of strawberries, half a catty of melons, half a catty of grapes, and a bunch of lychees. On top of that, we'll grow and roast some peanuts, grow and boil some edamame, and grow and pop some corn..."

"Even after the customers finish eating, they can keep the metal plate bearing the Sanyuan logo and pass it down through generations."

"These four business ventures will be more than enough for us to make a fortune this Spring Festival, while simultaneously growing big and strong and boosting our influence."

"The troublesome part is how to schedule the planting tasks."