The villagers of Xiajiagou finally understood why the village committee was suddenly buying toon sprouts at a high price. It was for this reason.
They cast furtive glances at Lin Fan and Chen Ziming, then quickly averted their eyes, afraid of provoking their displeasure.
These were the gods of wealth; they couldn't afford to offend them!
"Xia Liping, weren't you going to sue me?"
After Xia Deya reprimanded everyone, he turned his attention to Xia Liping, who lay on the ground refusing to get up.
"Go ahead and sue me, sue me all you want. I wish they'd arrest me."
Xia Deya adopted a defiant posture and sighed.
Lin Fan spoke up, "Uncle Deya, I was willing to help connect things on behalf of your wife. Now, it seems..."
He shook his head. "Perhaps I was wrong to help. Let's forget about this."
"I apologize to everyone, I meant well but caused trouble."
Lin Fan clasped his hands in greeting and then said to Chen Ziming, "Manager Chen, I apologize to you too for making you come all this way for nothing."
Chen Ziming laughed heartily, "It is already a great honor to have met Mr. Lin."
The villagers immediately panicked.
This was bad!
If these two left, who would they sell their toon sprouts to?
Sell to the small vendors nearby?
The difference between two yuan per jin and forty-eight yuan per jin was more than twentyfold!
"Sixth Uncle, say something."
"Uncle Six, please quickly..."
"Please don't leave, sirs, that's not what we meant."
The villagers were as anxious as ants on a hot pan.
"You're not going to cause any more trouble?" Xia Deya asked sternly, maintaining his authority.
"We didn't mean to cause trouble in the first place."
"Liping, what are you doing? Are you not embarrassed enough? Get up quickly!"
"How can you behave like this in front of outsiders!"
"Liping's mother, I'm not saying this to you, but how do you usually discipline your daughter? She has no manners at all!"
Someone, unable to stand it any longer, turned their anger towards Xia Liping.
Others chimed in, scolding Xia Liping and her mother.
"I..." Xia Liping, covering her swollen face, retorted indignantly, "Xia Deya hit me!"
"You deserved it!"
"Why didn't he beat you to death!"
"You embarrassing disgrace, get out of here! This is not a place for you to throw tantrums!"
A few strong villagers pulled Xia Liping up and dragged her outside.
"You... you're all ganging up on me!" Xia Liping wailed, her mouth twisted in pain.
"What are you crying for? You're shaming Xiajiagou!"
"Hurry up and take her home, get her out of our sight."
"Liping's mother, you go too."
All the villagers' attitudes did a complete 180-degree turn. They pointed at Xia Liping and her mother, their faces filled with disdain and disgust.
"What about my toon sprouts?" Xia Liping's mother hesitated, reluctant to move, and voiced the crucial question.
Being hit was one thing; her slap wasn't seriously injured.
But they couldn't let her and her daughter not sell their toon sprouts because of it!
This was money for nothing. Together, she and her daughter could pick dozens, even hundreds of jin of toon sprouts a day, which was thousands of yuan!
"I'll help you weigh them. You should go first, don't upset the big boss."
Someone who was on good terms with them persuaded the mother and daughter to leave.
The village committee compound quieted down. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"Jin Mengxiang, you are a resident of Xiajiagou. As long as you don't want to leave, no one has the right to drive you away," Xia Deya said seriously.
He said this mainly for the others to hear.
"Thank you, Uncle Deya." Jin Mengxiang was overjoyed, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Xiao Cheng!" Xia Deya looked at Xia Cheng. "How is your head injury?"
"It's nothing, Uncle Six." Xia Cheng smiled honestly, unconcerned about his injury.
As long as Jin Mengxiang wasn't bullied, his injury was insignificant.
"It's a wound on your forehead. You can't be careless. If there's a scar left, you might not be able to find a wife."
Xia Deya said this and then glanced meaningfully at Jin Mengxiang.
Jin Mengxiang's face immediately flushed red, and she quickly turned her head away, her cheeks burning with embarrassment.
Xia Cheng was even more pathetic, his face as red as a monkey's backside. Even the healing wound on his forehead reopened and bled anew.
"Everyone, go back." Xia Deya glanced at his watch. It was only twelve o'clock. "If you're hungry, go home and eat. If you can hold on, pick more toon sprouts. Time waits for no one."
"Understood."
Reminded, the villagers came back to their senses.
They said their goodbyes in a hurry and rushed back to the toon sprout forest.
Xia Deya watched them leave with a smile, then turned around and said, "Sorry to have made you witness such a scene. We country folk are unsophisticated and always involved in petty troubles."
"Uncle Deya, I'm from the countryside too. I've seen it all. It's the same everywhere," Lin Fan said with deep feeling. "When people have enough to eat, they know propriety. The common people are just too afraid of poverty."
"Indeed," Xia Deya sighed.
Perhaps for wealthy people, a thousand or eight hundred yuan was just the cost of a meal, or not even enough to buy a piece of clothing.
But for the villagers of Xiajiagou, this money could feed the whole family for a month, with even some left over.
Chen Ziming offered comfort, "Don't sigh, both of you. I will do my utmost to make Xiajiagou's toon sprouts a brand and sell them to all the major cities in the country."
"When everyone lives a better life, they will remember your kindness."
"One can only hope so."
After the previous incident, Xia Deya was now hesitant.
There was some truth to the idea that some people were in positions without doing anything, just passing the time.
Do more, make more mistakes. Do less, make fewer mistakes. Do nothing, make no mistakes.
If he had stayed a leisurely village secretary, no one could have faulted him.
But now, with the village's toon sprout business just starting, a significant disturbance had already occurred. Who knew what else would happen?
"Sixth Uncle!"
"They're fighting!"
"Someone's here to steal the village's toon sprouts, and it's turned into a fight!"
A middle-aged man rushed over, shouting frantically.
"What?!" Xia Deya's relieved heart sank again.
It was unclear how the rumors spread, but people from nearby villages were saying that Xiajiagou's toon sprouts could prolong life, and that eighty-year-old men who ate them would have more children.
Some even claimed that the small stream in Xiajiagou flowed from a gold mine upstream, accumulating countless gold in the ground over time, which the toon sprout trees absorbed. It was said that picking toon sprouts would allow one to refine gold at home.
Various absurd and bizarre rumors spread like wildfire. Ironically, the villagers of Xiajiagou were still picking toon sprouts, which only added credibility to the rumors.
The people from neighboring villages, without asking any questions, would start picking as soon as they saw others doing so.
People are prone to follow the crowd. What everyone else is scrambling for must be something good.
In an instant, the entire Xiajiagou resembled a sieve riddled with holes.
Xia Deya was overwhelmed. He had barely managed to drive away a group from the East Village before a group from the West Village snuck in from another direction.
"Villagers! Our Xiajiagou really has no gold!"
"If there was gold, we would have already gone digging in the mountain. Isn't that faster than picking toon sprouts?"
"These toon sprouts really can't cure all diseases. People in Xiajiagou also get sick and die; no one lives any longer than others."
"Please, listen to me!"
Xia Deya, helpless, could only grab a megaphone and shout hoarsely in all directions.
The outsiders simply wouldn't listen.
They understood the logic, but no one was willing to leave.
"If there were no benefits, would the whole village be picking toon sprouts?"