The village chief's little complaint vanished completely when he heard Gu An'an's next sentence: "Are you serious? Your uncle wants more pine nuts?"

Seeing the excited village chief, Gu An'an nodded, "Yes, the factory workers all say that our produce is fresh and delicious. Uncle Li is very happy. Since the Dragon Boat Festival is coming soon, he's thinking of getting a batch of pine nuts as a welfare gift for the workers. But the quality has to be good, it has to be this year's new crop, otherwise..."

Fresh pine nuts have an oily aroma, while aged pine nuts, while not completely devoid of oily aroma, are just less appealing.

“Okay, okay, no problem. We have them in our village. I guarantee they were just picked up before the New Year.”

Actually, there's no such thing as aged food. Given the current state of their village, any aged food would have been eaten long ago.

"And those shriveled ones also need to be picked out," the village chief's wife reminded them again.

"Yes, yes, we have to pick out all the bad ones."

These things are usually picked up for our own consumption. Actually, they are all good ones; the bad ones have rotted in the mountains. However, Uncle Gu, who is a educated youth, is a benefactor of their Xiaowang Village, so they must be treated with the highest standards.

"An'an, how can I thank you enough? If it weren't for you, how could such a good thing have happened to us?"

Gu An'an waved her hand, "The pine nuts were given to us by you, Village Chief. If anyone should be thanked, it should be you. The villagers in our village are better off than those in other villages because of your dedication to serving the people."

The village chief was almost blown away by these words, but at the last moment, reason pulled him back down.

"Hehe! Gu Zhiqing is so nice to talk to. Alright, I'll go and inform everyone first."

Just when he was about to intercept Gu An'an halfway and gossip about her, he suddenly received such big news. He couldn't remember anything else and only had one thing on his mind.

Pine nuts can be sold for money now!

"Oh dear! Those two boys have eaten half of my pine nuts."

“You still have half left. My husband didn’t bother picking them last year because he thought it was too much trouble to crack them open. My child and I picked a little bit from the neighborhood to keep for ourselves.”

"Haha! We have a lot of this stuff at home. My husband loves our daughter and knew she likes it, so he brought back a bunch. My little girl is definitely a lucky star."

"Oh dear! Village chief, why didn't you say this could be exchanged for money sooner? This has caused so much trouble!"

Village Chief: ...I only found out about ten minutes earlier than you, so don't try to pin everything on me.

"It has to be last year's pine nuts, no old ones, no shriveled ones, otherwise you can forget about this kind of good thing coming your way again."

"Okay, okay, we understand."

In just two or three minutes, the group of people who had been chatting under the big tree all ran away. The village chief looked at the empty old tree and nodded in satisfaction, "We still need to find them something to do."

After saying that, he went to inform the other families with his hands behind his back, and by the way mentioned that this order was placed by Gu An'an's uncle.

The meaning is clear: keep a close eye on people, and know who you shouldn't offend.

Everyone said they knew; they weren't fools, how could they offend the God of Wealth?

The former residence of educated youth.

Since Zhao Hu and Chen Jianguo dismantled the firewood, they took away most of it. It's because none of the educated youth in the educated youth compound, except for Wang Erzhuang, were diligent. They just waited for others to feed them all day long.

Sure enough, not long after, they ran out of firewood.

While others go to the mountains to pick wild vegetables to earn money after work, they are different; they go into the mountains to collect firewood, and if they don't collect firewood for a day, they won't have anything to eat.

It wasn't that they had to pick them up themselves; in fact, they could have exchanged them in the village for a little money if they wanted to. But these guys were all cunning and scheming, so they were never willing to pay, and the matter was left unresolved.

Lin Qingqing was the one who went out to collect firewood today. She had just dragged a few pieces of firewood back when she heard that Gu An'an had saved Wang Laonian's paralyzed wife. She couldn't believe it at all.

Why should she? Just because she looks like a vixen?

Lin Qingqing dragged the firewood back to the educated youth compound, but she still couldn't believe it. So she made a special trip to Wang Laonian's house and found that she really did see a woman standing next to Wang Laonian.

Although she had never seen her before, it wasn't hard to tell from the onlookers that the person was Wang Laonian's wife, who had been paralyzed for over ten years.

"I just got here and heard that Gu Zhiqing admitted it, saying that he happened to save your wife. Old Nian, stop keeping it to yourself, what exactly happened?"

When Wang Laonian heard that Gu An'an had admitted it, he couldn't hold back any longer and recounted the whole story.

"It's no coincidence! You all know what my wife was like before. It took Gu Zhiqing several months to win her over. He's really capable."

Qiaomei is also a loyal fan of Gu An'an. "Without Gu An'an, I wouldn't be where I am today. She is our benefactor. If anyone tries to bully Gu An'an in the future, please tell me. I will fight them even if it costs me my life."

As she said this, Qiaomei's eyes reddened. Only she knew how desperate it was to lie in bed waiting to be served.

And every word she just said came from the bottom of her heart.

"My God! Little Gu, the educated youth, is really good at this..."

Just as someone was about to praise Gu An'an as a living goddess, they were stopped by the people around them. These three words were not allowed to be uttered.

“Our Xiaowang Village must be a blessed place, otherwise how could we have attracted Gu Zhiqing?”

"That's true. Gu Zhiqing is so capable. We won't be afraid of anything in the future."

The village chief happened to walk by and immediately chimed in, “Our village has a barefoot doctor, and it’s also close to the commune hospital. If there’s a problem, we should solve it ourselves. After all, Gu Zhiqing is still a child, and he can’t solve every problem.”

He made his point clear beforehand to prevent anyone who wanted to take advantage of Gu An'an from targeting her.

Sure enough, someone disagreed and said, "Village chief, with a doctor as skilled as Gu Zhiqing, why do we need to waste money at the hospital?"

The village chief's good mood was ruined by those words. "Who told you that Gu Zhiqing's medical treatment was free? Old Nian, did you say that?"

Wang Laonian immediately shook his head, "I've emptied my pockets, how could I say I don't want any money?"

"They've emptied their pockets?"

Qiaomei immediately nodded, "Everyone knows about my problem. If I really go to the hospital, my family's savings will definitely not be enough. So my husband and I will work harder to earn money and try to give the remaining money to Gu Zhiqing as soon as possible."

Upon hearing that Gu An'an's medical treatment also required money, everyone was immediately speechless.

Since it costs money anyway, it's better not to bother Gu Zhiqing with every little problem. Otherwise, the village chief will definitely punish them, and it's not worth it.

The village chief gave Wang Laonian and his wife an approving look before getting down to the real reason for their visit.

"When I told you not to bother Gu Zhiqing, it wasn't just to protect her; it was more about thinking of everyone's best interests."

Everyone: ...Do you think we believe it?

"Don't you believe me? Do you know what good news Gu Zhiqing just told me?"

Remembering the things Gu An'an helped the village sell, some of the smart ones were already getting excited, "Village chief, is someone else going to buy things from our village again?"