"Hmph!"
Tian Mengyao looked up and glared at Lin Fan with a cold face, snorting, "You are a rotten apple that spoils the whole barrel!"
"Okay, okay, I'm the rotten apple, the worst in the whole village."
Lin Fan had no choice but to admit it.
Why argue with a little girl? Whatever she said, he would just accept it.
"Yes!"
Tian Mengyao poked Lin Fan's chest with her small fist, "It's good that you know yourself!"
Lin Fan put on a look of not caring about the consequences, nodding, "You're right, I'll definitely change in the future."
"You..."
Tian Mengyao originally had a lot of angry words to say, but seeing Lin Fan's indifferent attitude, she suddenly felt it was pointless.
"Phew..."
Lin Fan breathed a sigh of relief.
She was indeed childish, and even as the village secretary, she was still a big child.
Lin Fan pulled over a chair and sat in front of Tian Mengyao, smiling and asking, "Secretary Tian, can you tell me what good idea you have?"
"I don't want to say it!"
Tian Mengyao turned her head away, not looking at Lin Fan.
Lin Fan placed his hands on her knees and pushed them gently, coaxing her like a child, "Tell me, I'm a native of Luofeng Village after all, maybe I can help perfect your idea."
Tian Mengyao let out a soft hum, then turned back, looked at Lin Fan, and said in a low voice, "I want to dig a well at the Baishi Spring on Luofeng Mountain, and then divert the water down the mountain to cover the medicinal herb planting base with a comprehensive drip irrigation system."
"That's a good thing!"
Lin Fan endured the heartache and readily agreed.
Digging a well shouldn't cost much, but a drip irrigation system, and a comprehensive coverage, sounded expensive!
"You agreed?"
Tian Mengyao no longer pretended, her face full of joy.
Seeing her smile and no longer acting like she was going to quit, Lin Fan patted his chest firmly and said, "Agreed, why wouldn't I agree?"
"With a drip irrigation system, planting medicinal herbs will be much easier. Anything that benefits the villagers, I will never object!"
Tian Mengyao hummed indignantly, "Then why did you just... act like that?"
Lin Fan waved his hand and said with a smirk, "Isn't it that under the inspiration of Secretary Tian's noble and great spirit, I have reformed and started anew!"
"Stop joking with me!"
Tian Mengyao kicked Lin Fan, "See if you dare to act like that towards me again, hmph!"
"I absolutely won't. From now on, whatever ideas you have, just go ahead and do them. If you're really not sure, we'll discuss it together. Also, I will fully support you in terms of money."
Lin Fan had finally appeased her and didn't want to provoke her again.
She thought for a moment and suggested, "I inquired at the town. If the cooperative is solely funded by you, it might be difficult to get the procedures done. Why not have your sister-in-law join in as a shareholder? At least it will be acceptable on the surface."
"No problem!"
Lin Fan was delighted.
He never thought that one day his sister-in-law would become a shareholder. That was great!
Lin Fan patted Tian Mengyao's leg and said with a smile, "You should also take a share."
"Me?" Tian Mengyao pointed at herself in disbelief.
Lin Fan nodded, "Yes, I see you running around, doing the most work. It's not right not to give you some shares."
Tian Mengyao shook her head repeatedly, "No, no, I didn't pay any money, how can I get shares for free?"
"Of course, you can. The village committee doesn't have the money to pay you a salary, so this is what you deserve."
Lin Fan sighed and continued, "I guess your daily expenses are all paid out of your own pocket."
"We, the people of Luofeng Village, are honest. How can we let you pay out of your own pocket for working for the village?"
"You're embarrassing all of us in the village!"
Lin Fan got up and stared at Tian Mengyao's beautiful eyebrows, continuing, "How about this, you take shares worth twenty thousand yuan, as a token of our appreciation."
Tian Mengyao looked up at Lin Fan for a moment, then nodded, "Alright then, it's you who offered it, not me who forced you."
She wasn't greedy for twenty thousand yuan. Given her family background, not to mention twenty thousand, even two hundred thousand wouldn't be a big deal.
However, she had put in so much effort, and it was only right and proper to get some return.
The return could be anything, even just a word of thanks from the villagers would make her feel a sense of accomplishment.
"It's settled then. I'll ask my sister-in-law later about how many shares she'll take, and we'll discuss it then."
Lin Fan thought: Song Yue is from Wangjia Village next door. She can't hold shares in the Luofeng Village cooperative. If she's forced to give her some shares, there will definitely be gossip.
"Well, then, that's it for now."
Tian Mengyao's tone was filled with a little happiness.
Lin Fan smiled. She was just a little girl. She had been crying buckets just now, and now she was as happy as a bird flying freely.
"What are you smiling at?"
Tian Mengyao noticed him smiling and glared at him reproachfully.
He spread his hands, "I'm not smiling at you, I just suddenly thought of something happy."
Tian Mengyao stood up and said angrily, "I'm not talking to you anymore. You think about your happy things yourself."
As she spoke, Tian Mengyao had already walked downstairs.
Lin Fan followed her and saw her all the way to the main entrance.
"It's getting late, you should go to bed early. Anything that needs to be done can wait until tomorrow."
Lin Fan reminded her.
"Got it!"
Tian Mengyao turned around, tilted her small chin up, and snorted, "You don't need to remind me!"
"Little girl."
Seeing her so cute, Lin Fan couldn't help but reach out and rub her little head.
"You're not allowed to touch my head, I'm your village secretary!"
"Yes, yes, yes."
Lin Fan was indifferent and still looked casual.
"Hmph~"
Tian Mengyao let out a delicate snort and walked away with her chest puffed out.
"I'm truly dedicating myself to the public, working until my dying day!"
Lin Fan felt deeply emotional.
Who would have thought that Secretary Tian, who was usually so beloved by the villagers, would throw a childish tantrum in his clinic tonight? He coaxed and coaxed, and it took him a long time to finally calm her down.
...
Meanwhile, after Zhou Yi fastened the last button for Professor Li, she asked, "Teacher, why did you go to Fengyu Canyon back then, and what did you encounter in Fengyu Canyon?"
Professor Li took a deep breath, then sat down on a chair and poured himself a glass of water.
He drank the whole glass of water in one gulp and remained silent for a long time before he finally recalled, "It was too terrifying. Even now, when I recall it, I still feel as if it was all a nightmare."
"Back then, I was still a student under twenty years old."
"One day, several high-ranking officials from the government came and said that an ancient tomb from the Xia Dynasty had been discovered in Fengyu Canyon, and asked my teacher to lead a few students to investigate."
Hearing this, Zhou Yi suddenly froze and said, "The Xia Dynasty period, Tianjiang was still desolate, and besides, wasn't the Xia Dynasty in the central region?"
"That's right, we only realized later that we had been deceived."
Professor Li took a deep breath and continued, "And so, my teacher and I, along with my five classmates, were secretly escorted into Fengyu Canyon by a group of armed soldiers."
"We went all the way down to the valley floor, and then those people started to explore everywhere."
"Among them was a young man with long hair. He just lay on the ground and listened with his ears, and he could tell where the ground was hollow, where it was solid, and even where there were traps."
"It was then that we realized something was wrong."
Zhou Yi exclaimed and blurted out, "They weren't government officials at all, but tomb robbers!"
Professor Li nodded, "That's right, but it was too late."
"They used explosives to blast open an opening in the rock face."
"But before the dust settled, seven people slowly walked out of the opening."
"Seven people?" Zhou Yi was completely bewildered, "What seven people?"
Professor Li's old eyes flickered with fear, "To be precise, they shouldn't be considered human."
"Not human?" Zhou Yi was even more confused, "What do you mean?"
Professor Li stood up, walked to Zhou Yi, and continued, "They were all wearing armor similar to what immortals wear in modern TV dramas. The shape of their armor was all the same, but the colors were different."
"One of them, a woman wearing white armor, claimed to be one of the Eight-Headed Evil Gods, named Yu Zhixin!"
"She smiled at those tomb robbers, and those tomb robbers went crazy. They ripped off their clothes, rushed to the surrounding trees, and desperately rubbed themselves against the tree trunks."
"They didn't stop until they bled to death!"
"My teacher and my five classmates suffered the same fate."
Zhou Yi was stunned for a moment, then asked, "Then why were you alright?"
Professor Li chuckled, "I was too lucky. That Yu Zhixin told me to tell all the people in the world that they, the Eight-Headed Evil Gods, were going to recreate the Great Desolation!"
"After she finished speaking, the seven of them instantly transformed into seven light spheres of different colors and flew away."
Professor Li gave a self-mocking laugh for a while, then stared into Zhou Yi's eyes and asked, "Funny, isn't it? Is it more absurd than modern Xianxia dramas or fantasy epics?"
"But this is true, a thousand percent true event!"