blogombal 038 Wine Bureau
038 Wine Bureau
Qiqi had just sat down next to Yu Wenhao when I pulled her up again, shouting loudly:
"Punishment drink, punishment drink, or don't sit down."
Kiki said, "I'll drink it for my brother."
I glared at her and said, "Get out of here!"
Er Mao also shouted, "Don't be so nice, you really have the nerve to sit here. We've been waiting for you for so long!"
San San nodded at me with her chin and said to Yu Wenhao, "Drink up, this guy's here. You can forget about driving tonight. Drink as much as you want."
Yu Wenhao looked at me and asked, "What do you want to do?"
"Of course it's just for a stroll," the King exclaimed. "In Yongcheng, I wasn't allowed to speak or move. Now that I'm here, I can't let loose and indulge myself a little."
"Get out! You're just a community director, not even an official, and you call yourself corrupt? You think you're qualified to be corrupt? Stop trying to make yourself look good," Yu Wenhao scolded.
"Hey, hey, don't be so sure. You can't believe it. I'm not some lousy community director like you in Hangzhou. My power is not something I'm bragging about. Even the director of a regular bureau in Yongcheng can't compare to me," the king said smugly.
I've said this more than once, and it's not meant to be boasting. Because it's a community transformed from a village, the resources and authority of the original village are now in their community. If the original villagers want to build houses, the approval authority for homesteads still rests with them.
Almost all of the village's land has been requisitioned, but the mountains remain. Standing in Yongcheng Town and looking around, the mountains along the Xin'an River, as far as the eye can see, all belong to their village, which is now part of the community.
Including their village, it had been an urban village for quite some time before the village was converted into a residential area. Many houses in the village are now located in Yongcheng City, and the villagers make a considerable income from renting them out every year.
As the community director, I have plenty of money, manpower, and resources. It's truly incomparable to those ordinary bureau-level units that are just empty shells.
"I've started another big project, and that's why I'm here today," the King said to Yu Wenhao.
Yu asked, "What project?"
"Drink, drink, drink up, sit down, and I'll tell you later." I kept him in suspense.
Yu Wenhao drank his wine and sat down. I then told him that they had just received approval for a land conversion project, which involves converting some of the original mountain and gentle slope wasteland in the village into farmland, and then selling the farmland quotas to Hangzhou. This would increase the amount of residential land available for sale in Hangzhou.
"Wow, there's such a thing? So this is how the quotas are generated when Hangzhou is developing like a sprawling pancake?" Yu Wenhao asked.
"Of course." I pointed at Er Mao and said, "Do you think they sit in the office all day doing nothing? They're always thinking about how to find loopholes in their own schemes."
"Get lost, it's none of my business!" Er Mao cursed.
"An investment of over 800 million, tell me, buddy, aren't we rich this time?" I excitedly asked Yu Wenhao.
"What are you posting? Don't post something that lands you in jail," Yu Wenhao said. "If you go in, I'm not coming to bring you prison food."
"I'm not going either. Let him fend for himself," San San said.
I laughed heartily: "Don't worry, if I wanted to go in, I would have gone in long ago. It's not like I haven't been called in for questioning before. Damn it, I'm a local big shot. Every department has to deal with me. When the head of a department gets dismissed, the Discipline Inspection Commission and the Procuratorate will come to talk to me and ask about my relationship with them. I say, at most, we have a relationship of eating and drinking together, nothing more."
"I'm not that stupid. I'm not going to do something that benefits someone else. If this project goes through, my family will earn hundreds of thousands more in dividends alone, and it will be earned honestly. Why would I be greedy? We have plenty of delicious food and good wine at home, why would I want to eat stale rice?"
Qiqi asked me, "Are the conditions in your village so good?"
"Of course, every year the village distributes dividends, regardless of age, each person receives over 100,000 yuan, year after year."
"Oh my god, we don't have a single penny in our village!" Qiqi exclaimed.
"You can't compare them," Er Mao said. "The rural areas here in Hangzhou, Wenzhou, and Yiwu are basically like this. If I could, I would like to go to these villages and be a farmer, but unfortunately they wouldn't want me."
Qiqi pouted and pretended to cry as she said to Guaren, "Waaah, Guaren, please help me find someone from your village, even a cripple or a fool, I'll marry him."
The others laughed, and I said, "It's no use. Even if you marry someone from our village, you can't transfer your household registration. You can register your household in Yongcheng, but you can't get into our community."
"Then why would I marry a ghost!" Qiqi said.
"Come on, let's drink!" San San called out, and everyone raised their glasses, clinked them together, and drank them down in one gulp.
After putting down her cup, San San said to Yu Wenhao, "Don't worry, a lot of people are paying off their loans early these days. Banks even have long queues for early loan repayments. Why don't you join the queue and pay off your loan? That way, your monthly burden will be lighter."
"I don't have the money, I can't pay it back," Yu Wenhao said.
"I have it here, I already told you," San San said.
"You'll take me?" Yu Wenhao asked San San. "I'm in debt to the bank anyway, and I'm in debt to you anyway. After thinking about it, owing to the bank is more reliable."
"Why?" San San asked.
"I owe the bank, and as long as I make my monthly payments on time, the bank won't bother me for twenty years. But if I owe you, what if you turn on me tomorrow and demand repayment? I'd be driven to my death by you."
As Yu Wenhao spoke, Er Mao and Guaren chuckled, while San San cursed, "You son of a bitch, you think I'd turn against you? You're really asking for it!"
Yu Wen laughed and said, "Even if you don't turn against me, I owe you money, so I'm your grandson. I don't want to be your grandson."
"Fine, fine, you're my grandpa. I won't lend money to anyone else, but you're the only one I'm begging you to borrow money from, okay? I'm your grandson," San San said.
Yu Wen smiled and then said seriously to San San, "Really, there's no need. San San, you've had it tough too, and your money didn't fall from the sky."
"My money didn't fall from the sky," were San San's exact words. This guy has made a lot of money over the years, and after he became rich, many people came to him to borrow money. College classmates, high school classmates, junior high school classmates, even elementary school classmates and former neighbors would find all sorts of excuses to borrow money from him, which made him very distressed and annoyed.
He complained to Yu Wenhao and Er Mao that money is the most untouchable thing. Whether you lend it or not, you'll offend people. If you don't lend it, people will definitely hate you, and you'll offend them. But if you lend it, you'll still offend people when you ask for the money back.
San San didn't say anything, but Yu Wenhao and Er Mao knew that some of their high school classmates must have asked San San for help.
San San publicly stated in their high school classmates' group chat:
"My money doesn't fall from the sky. If you need to buy a house, a car, or renovate, and you want to borrow money from me, don't even ask. Let me state this upfront: I won't lend you any money. Otherwise, it'll be awkward for everyone if I refuse. Of course, if any of you are starving, you can come to me, and I'll give you money for food. But that's all we'll talk about."
Wang Zhanyang immediately chimed in from below: "You idiot, what are you pretending for! Just because you have money doesn't mean you're all that!"