Su Ling put down his pen and calmly observed the other villagers in the office. They had different expressions and were whispering to each other, but no one stood up and said anything fair.
Su Ling looked at Zhang Cuihua's pleading eyes calmly. The village chief was away today, and the village committee only had Deputy Director Li Yue'e and a clerk. Before he could figure out the situation, he couldn't be biased.
However, as the "boss" who pays the salary, Su Ling doesn't want to be a sucker for no reason. After all, no one's money comes from the wind.
Su Ling said to Li Yue'e in a gentle manner, "Director Li, calm down. It's really hard for you to count the attendance of more than 200 villagers by yourself."
No one can resist a handsome man with soft words, and Li Yue'e is no exception. She said in a gentle tone, "The job of supervisor is thankless and easy to offend people. I didn't want to do it at first, but I am the only cadre in Shixi Village who graduated from high school. Mr. Su Er trusts me and hired me with a high salary. Naturally, I can't let him down. Xiao Su, you don't know that I get up early and go to bed late every day, going up and down the mountain, four or five times a day. Not only do I have to count everyone's working hours, but I also have to check whether their work is done correctly and well. Occasionally, if I make a small mistake and get resentful, I can only swallow my anger."
She poured out a bunch of bitter words like pouring out beans. Su Ling listened patiently and nodded slowly: "Manual statistics are indeed tedious. I want to think of a way to introduce some high-tech products to make management more accurate, more convenient, and more systematic."
Li Yue'e hesitated: "High... high-tech products must cost a lot of money, right?"
Su Ling said: "Money is not a problem, as long as the thing is useful."
Seeing that her problem was not being solved, Zhang Cuihua cried out in grievance, "Brother Su..."
Su Ling suppressed his goosebumps and said to her gently, "Don't worry, wait a minute. The office computer records everyone's attendance details. If anyone has any objections later, we can check them together."
Zhang Cuihua was surprised to hear this and asked, "Really...really?"
She doesn't know anything about computers, but she's willing to wait a little longer as long as she can get her working hours back.
So she stood up and stood aside. Li Guo came up and sat opposite Su Ling. He rubbed his rough black hands and said with a simple smile: "Hello Mr. Su, I am Li Guo."
Su Ling picked up the pen and ticked Zhang Cuihua's name, then ticked Li Guo's name. "There are objections to your and Zhang Cuihua's attendance. Wait aside for now."
Li Guo looked at Li Yue'e anxiously. Li Yue'e said to Su Ling, "Isn't Zhang Cuihua the only one who has objections? Li Guo's should be fine."
After saying that, he winked at Li Guo, who immediately responded, "Yes, yes, I have no objection, no objection."
Li Cuihua leaned against the wall and looked at Li Guo with contempt.
Everyone knew that Li Guo was Li Yue'e's younger brother. Every time Li Yue'e recorded attendance, she would give her younger brother the extra hours. Everyone else was just angry but dared not speak out, allowing Li Yue'e to embezzle Mr. Su's money. Mr. Su was truly kind, knowing that Li Yue'e was protecting her brother, but he didn't care. Now that Mr. Su had taken over, Li Yue'e, taking advantage of his new arrival and lack of understanding, had actually added so many hours to Li Guo's work, clearly confident that Mr. Su had no evidence and no way to investigate.
Su Ling picked up the thermos cup on the table, drank it slowly, and asked Zhang Cuihua: "Just now you said that Li Guo's working hours were reversed with yours, are you sure?"
Zhang Cuihua gritted her teeth, ignored Li Yue'e's threatening look, and said affirmatively: "Yes, his and my working hours are reversed."
Su Ling said to Li Guo: "Since Zhang Cuihua insists that there is a mistake in her and your working hours, I can't pay you for the time being."
Li Yue'e frowned and raised her voice, "I record it manually every day and have Xiaoye input it into the computer the next day. How could there be any mistakes?"
Xiao Ye is a clerk sitting in front of a computer. When she heard Li Yue'e mention her, she said softly, "Director Li gives me the statistical table. After I enter it into the computer, I check it three times to ensure there are no mistakes."
Su Ling twisted the lid of the thermos cup, stood up and asked Xiao Ye: "Which statistical software are you using?"
Xiaoye clicked on the WPS Office icon on the computer desktop. "This is the Excel spreadsheet."
Su Ling understood, asked her to stand up, and sat in front of the computer himself. He held the mouse elegantly, found the detailed statistical table, and double-clicked it to open it.
"Xiao Su, what are you doing..." Li Yue'e approached with a puzzled look on her face.
"I see that Zhang Cuihua and Li Guo are both very anxious, so let's check the details first." Su Ling entered the WPS software skillfully and found that he was logged in. The corners of his mouth rose slightly.
Originally, he wanted to save face for Li Yue'e and send the other villagers away first, and let the remaining two deal with it privately. However, she was sure that she was not wrong, so don't blame him for being rude.
It's not that he believed everything Zhang Cuihua said, but Li Guo's face was full of guilt. He was not a fool, so how could he not see it?
Of course, if Li Yue'e had selfish motives, she must have tampered with the details in the computer, and the printed form is the best proof. However, she may have only a superficial understanding of computers, especially WPS, which has cloud services and can find historical versions within a month.
"Check it, check it, let her see it once she's done," Li Yue'e said confidently. She had Xiaoye modify the spreadsheet yesterday afternoon, so the new data would overwrite the old. There wouldn't be any problems for anyone who checked.
Although Xiao Ye is a clerk in the village committee and often deals with electronic documents, her computer skills are limited to this. So when she saw Su Ling skillfully find a month's historical records, her face turned pale.
Su Ling opened the documents for today, yesterday, the day before yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and quickly searched for the records of Zhang Cuihua and Li Guo. After comparing the four tables one by one, he said, "Director Li, please come and take a look. In the records before the day before yesterday, Zhang Cuihua had been working eight hours a day. By three o'clock yesterday afternoon, her working hours had dropped to six."
Li Yue'e opened her mouth in surprise. "How...how could this happen? What's going on? Xiaoye, yesterday I asked you to calculate everyone's total working hours. Did you make a mistake and mix up Zhang Cuihua and Li Guo's working hours? How careless! You're paid 800 yuan a month, and you work for me like this?"
Xiao Ye's face was pale, his fingers tugged at the corner of his clothes, he stood there timidly with his head down, allowing Li Yue'e to scold him.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Director Li, I... made a mistake in operation and caused misunderstanding..." She choked.
Zhang Cuihua was vindicated, feeling overjoyed. She looked at Su Ling with admiration. When she heard Li Yue'e scolding Xiao Ye, she curled her lips and said rudely, "Didn't Director Li just swear that I'd go home for lunch? Why is he now saying Xiao Ye made a mistake?"
The other villagers were whispering among themselves, and Li Yue'e, visibly embarrassed, slammed her hand on the table and shouted, "I record over 200 people every day. Isn't it normal to make mistakes occasionally? I was just looking at the final printed form and was misled by Xiaoye."
Xiao Ye, who had taken the blame, wiped away her tears silently. Director Li's mention of her salary was a blatant threat: if she dared to expose this matter, she would lose her salary.
Su Ling saw everything, but didn't get involved. He printed out a new total form, sat back down, looked at his watch, and said, "It's almost noon. Let's settle the wages first so we can go back and eat."
Li Yue'e stole a glance at Su Ling, and seeing that he didn't pursue the matter, the heavy burden on her heart felt a little relieved.
After receiving his salary, Su Ling left the village committee and walked home.
In the morning, there was more than 1.4 million yuan in the account from selling tea. After the salary was paid today, there was only more than 700,000 yuan left. After deducting some miscellaneous expenses, there was still about 600,000 yuan left, which was twice as much as the same quarter last year.
With this calculation, tea growing seems to be quite profitable. However, if the losses in previous years are included, 600,000 is only enough to cover the costs. It will not be considered a real profit until this time next year.
My second grandfather rented a mountain to grow tea, provided jobs for Shixi Village, and led everyone out of poverty and into prosperity. It can be said that he did his best.
He had a good relationship with the village chief and trusted the village committee, which was why he entrusted the important task of management and supervision to the village committee cadres. However, everyone has selfish motives, and Li Yue'e's behavior of enriching herself and fleecing others was certainly not the first time. He didn't know whether there had been any previous disputes, but since he had encountered them today, he couldn't just sit back and watch.
Most of the villagers in Shixi Village are simple and kind, easy to get along with, and are not averse to Su Ling, an outsider. Only a small number of them are petty and like to take advantage of others for their own little piece of land.
Li Yue'e was one of this small group. If she continued to supervise, Su Ling would be worried. He had to think of a foolproof plan to solve the problem.
Walking along the gravel path and passing a field, Su Ling stopped.
In front of him was his family's ten acres of land: seven acres of paddy fields and three acres of vegetable fields. Late April was the perfect time to plant rice, and while other families had already begun planting, his fields were still bare, with nothing planted.
Second Grandfather passed away in February, missing the sowing season in March. Without seedlings, there was no way to plant rice. The village chief felt that it couldn't be wasted, so he consulted with other villagers and asked whoever had extra seedlings after planting to share them and give them to Su Ling.
Su Ling naturally couldn't take it for free, so he was willing to spend money to buy it and also wanted to hire someone to plant the rice. At present, the farm work he could do was limited to the vegetable garden in the backyard, so planting rice, a difficult action, was not on his mind.
When Su Ling returned home and just entered the yard, he heard a babyish "woof woof" voice.
When the little dog saw its owner, it jumped on the grass with its four short legs, wagged its tail, twisted its butt, and ran over happily.
"Woof woof, woof woof~"
"KING, are you taking good care of the house?" Su Ling squatted down, picked up the little guy who rushed over, and rubbed its little head. "Have you gained weight? Why do you feel heavier?"
"Woof——" The puppy stuck out its tongue and wanted to lick Su Ling's face, but Su Ling leaned back to prevent it from licking him.
"Woof!" The puppy was unhappy.
Su Ling patted its bulging belly, put it back on the ground, and tapped its head. "Did you steal some food, huh?"
"Woof!" The puppy indicated that he didn't understand, raised his front legs, and wanted to be hugged.
"Exercise more after eating, otherwise you will grow into a fat dog." Su Ling scratched its chin, stood up and walked into the house.
The little puppy had no choice but to move its four short legs and follow him.
Su Ling entered the restaurant and looked in the corner. Sure enough, the dog bowl there was spotless, with nothing left. Before leaving in the morning, he had fed King some dog food. Worried that he would be late at noon, he put more dog food in the bowl before leaving. But King, this little glutton, didn't let himself get in the way and started eating right away.
Touching his hungry stomach, Su Ling prepared to make lunch.
The meat, fish, and shrimp in the refrigerator were almost gone, and the vegetables, which Aunt Liu had sent three days ago, were a bit wilted from sitting around for so long. He cooked a plate of braised pork and some greens, and ate them with white rice.
The puppy smelled the fragrance, squatted upright, tilted its head, and hoped that Su Ling would give it a piece of meat.
Su Ling picked up the braised pork and stuffed it into his mouth maliciously in front of it.
"Well, you're too small to eat it."
"Woof!" The little puppy felt wronged and lay on the ground.
Su Ling gently touched its little butt with his feet. The little puppy whimpered, and its attention was diverted. It curiously played with its owner's feet.
After dinner, Su Ling went to the backyard to water the vegetable garden.
Last week, he found a packet of seeds in the kitchen cabinet and, not caring what kind of vegetable it was, he planted it according to the instructions in the planting guide. He watered it every day, but after six days, it seemed like it hadn't sprouted yet.
Su Ling half-knelt down, trying to dig up the soil to take a look. Suddenly, a small sprout came into his sight. He was pleasantly surprised and reached out to touch it carefully.
The vegetables he planted sprouted!
The author has something to say: Our baby Ling has finally started growing vegetables! Hahahaha~
PS: Leave a message in this chapter and you will get a red envelope~ The more words you have, the more points you will get for the article!
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