Under everyone's watchful eyes, Qiao Xia picked up her wine glass and splashed it accurately and ruthlessly onto President Zhu's face.

He wiped his face, angrily saying, "Fine, fine, you sit here. I'm not putting up with this anymore. I want to see how much money you can come up with."

Without any hesitation, Qiao Xia walked straight to the chair, wiped the footprints off it, and plopped down. "I don't like beating around the bush, and I don't play those drinking games."

Qiao Xia glanced around and said, "If I'm not mistaken, you've come to the mayor to ask for money from the donations allocated by higher authorities."

The crowd spoke up one after another, "We've come to Mayor Wu to demand an explanation. Everyone says that every mountain has its difficulties, so why is Mangshan given 500,000 yuan, while we only get 200,000 yuan?"

Niu Ping'an, who had been sitting by the door listening, got anxious when he heard this. "What? They allocated 500,000 yuan to Mangshan? Mayor Wu, that's not fair of you. You can't show favoritism just because your family is from Mangshan."

Qiao Xia glared at him coldly. Niu Ping'an carefully slapped his mouth, then closed the door and left. But the people inside had already been mobilized again and began to condemn him.

"Yes, isn't this abusing your power for personal gain? I think you're a very selfish and incompetent mayor. If you ask me, we should elect the mayor ourselves. I think Boss Zhu would be a better choice."

Standing behind Qiao Xia, General Manager Zhu said sarcastically, "What kind of talk is this? As if I have some ulterior motive for doing things for the villagers? Aren't all my donations to the mountain villages based on my conscience?"

"If you ask me, I, Zhu, may have many faults, but at least I treat all my fellow villagers equally and have no selfish motives."

Hearing this, Qiao Xia finally understood. It turned out that President Zhu had always wanted to usurp power, and today was a trap set up by him for Mayor Wu.

Qiao Xia tapped the table with her chopsticks, and the entire private room instantly fell silent.

Taking this opportunity, Mayor Wu said, "Since everyone has doubts about where the money went, I will report to you on where the money went."

"The Tanghulu Charity Foundation has donated a total of 6.71 million yuan to our town."

The announcement of this amount caused an uproar at the scene, as it was more than the total amount they had previously obtained from coal mine owners.

"Then why did they only give us 200,000 to the people on the mountain?"

"What about the rest of the money? You didn't use it all to subsidize the Mangshan mountain, did you?"

Mayor Wu slammed his hand on the table. “Our Pingkang Town has a total of 32 mountains. Including Mangshan, the total value is 6.7 million RMB. I divided the remaining 10,000 RMB equally among the 52 businesses in the town. Each of them will receive less than 200 RMB.”

The people at the table fell silent, and many lowered their heads in shame.

But some people still objected, saying, "That Mangshan took what's equivalent to two and a half of our mountains. We have to give them an explanation, right? Our mountains are barren, but aren't we poorer than Mangshan?"

"That's exactly right, your way of dividing it is completely unreasonable."

After being questioned repeatedly, Mayor Wu lost his temper and shouted in the local dialect, "We live in our mountains, and everyone here only knows how to scheme for your little piece of land!"

“People donated this money so the children could go to school, but your village was afraid that if the children went to school, they would become wild and run away, so you refused to let them go to school. Your village burned all the textbooks that people had so kindly donated…”

“If you take the money but won’t even build a school, why should they give you the money? Right now, Mangshan has the most students among all the mountain areas. When the big bosses come to see the school, won’t they have to go to Mangshan? Shouldn’t they get more money?” Mayor Wu said his true feelings in one breath.

“Um…” Qiao Xia silently raised her hand.

Someone muttered under their breath, "The villagers in the mountains are barely surviving, where would they get the money to build schools for the children?"

Qiao Xia raised her hand again, "Um..."

Mayor Wu earnestly explained, "So when the time comes, I'll take you on a trip around Mangshan. With the remaining money, you can repair your houses or buy things to at least get through this winter. It's your insistence on climbing Mangshan."

"It sounds nice, but who knows if it's true?"

"If you don't believe me, go ask him yourself when he arrives, and see if what I said is true."

Qiao Xia suddenly stood up, the chair scraping against the floor with a loud thud. "I am the big boss you all talk about."

"Uh...ah?" Mayor Wu's pupils dilated in shock, never expecting that his bluff had been overheard.

Niu Ping'an then poked his head out from behind the house and said, "I can testify that what she said is true. That foundation belongs to her maternal grandfather, and she came here to supervise it."

Mayor Wu exclaimed, "Why didn't you tell me about something this big sooner? Why didn't you bring the person here directly?"

Niu Ping'an also felt very wronged, "I didn't know at first. I just saw her dad vomiting badly, so I asked them if they needed a ride. They said yes. I asked them where they were going, and they said they were going into the mountains. How was I supposed to know things would turn out like this?"

Mayor Wu quickly adjusted his expression, picked up the bottle of liquor on the table, and said apologetically, "I'm really sorry, you've seen the situation on the mountain, we really couldn't do anything about it..."

Qiao Xia quickly pressed her hand down, "Don't drink if you can't handle it. I don't mean to blame you. I'm just here to tell everyone that I've decided to build a school in town. It will be free from elementary to high school, and the top ten students in each grade and those who show significant improvement will receive scholarships."

"To make it easier for children to go to school, I will build roads for every mountain in Kangping Town."

General Manager Zhu scoffed, "Anyone can talk big. Do you know how much it would cost to build roads to all thirty-two mountains?"

Qiao Xia ignored him and looked into Mayor Wu's eyes, saying, "If you're willing, we can draft a contract right now, and the 5 billion will be in our account tonight."

"How much? Fifty billion?" Many people's hands were trembling as they held their wine glasses.

Even Mayor Wu swallowed hard. She tried to calm herself down and carefully said, "I can't sign this contract with you."

Qiao Xia looked at her, puzzled. "Why?"

Mayor Wu said with a wry smile, "To be honest, in the six months since I took office as mayor, I have traveled to all thirty-two hills in the town and met with many big bosses. They all gave the same answer: it is impossible to make money from the hills."

The people at the table immediately started arguing. Even these uneducated people knew that if you want to get rich, you must first build roads. Of course, they were unwilling to turn down a good thing that was offered to them.

“5 billion is no small amount. If you really want to invest and make money, you can start by building roads in the town. Once the town makes money and the tax revenue increases, I will find a way to build roads in the mountains.” Mayor Wu’s gaze was firm.

Qiao Xia retorted, "Who said I was doing this to make money?"

"Then you are..."

"To do charity!" Qiao Xia answered firmly.

[It is the responsibility of every tycoon to help others get rich first. Congratulations, host, for triggering a side quest: Help the residents of Pingkang Town escape poverty and become the top-ranked conscientious entrepreneur of the year. Quest reward: To be unlocked.]