Chapter 168: Pigs Don’t Know Their Place
When Lu Yigui arrived at Zhu Yingning's house, Zhu Yingning and Shen Fei were squatting at the door drying peanuts.
Lu Yigui, hunched slightly, hands behind his back, poked his head in and silently watched them pour the boiled peanuts onto the bamboo sieve. As he watched, he offered a reminder: "Don't put them in the sun after boiling. Just put them in a little and let them dry in the shade."
It scared both girls.
Zhu Yingning looked up and recognized Lu Yigui as the elderly friend of Zhen Yuhua, the grandmother who had helped Li Hengyu the day he choked. She nodded and greeted him, "Hello, Granny Lu."
"Good, good, good, you all." Lu Yigui walked in, stepped over the threshold, and stood by the door. "Xiao Zhu and Xiao Shen, I came here today to tell you something."
"You go." Zhu Yingning stood up, pulled a low stool from the side, and motioned Lu Yigui to sit down.
Lu Yigui waved his hand to indicate it wasn't necessary. "I'll be leaving after I'm done. You can just stand and talk. Didn't you save Hengyu a few days ago? I told Yuhua that it was a life-saving favor, a favor that must be repaid. I gave her a lecture, and she agreed. She wanted to treat you to dinner, but she couldn't bring herself to ask, so she asked me to come and treat you. She bought a pig from a relative in the next village and plans to invite you to dinner tomorrow night. You should also notify Xiaowen so that she can come over to show her support."
Zhu Yingning was a little surprised. Chen Fei was also stunned and said, "That won't work. We can't take even a single needle or thread from the people."
"Where is the needle and thread? It's just a meal." said Lu Yigui.
Chen Fei realized that she might not understand this metaphor, so he said bluntly: "We can't eat your food for free."
This involved a question of conduct. Chen Fei attached great importance to the integrity of her nascent political career. Furthermore, with the precedent of Wen Wenxu being falsely accused of helping to repair a fan before her, she was terrified that someone would report her during this meal.
Lu Yigui thought she was being polite, so he grabbed her hand and kept saying she was a good child. He also said they were very sensible. What was a big deal about having a meal? Everyone would be happy after eating.
It wasn't until Shen Fei firmly refused several times that she realized she really didn't want to come. Her face immediately turned a little embarrassed, and she said awkwardly, "You are too polite, child. We have already paid a lot of money to buy pork, and you still don't come. Isn't this giving us no face? Xiao Shen, listen to me, don't make things difficult for your mother-in-law Zhen. She is a frugal person and rarely invites guests once a year. Don't refuse her kindness."
Seeing the atmosphere was a little tense, Zhu Yingning stepped forward and said, "Grandma Lu, it's not that we don't want to accept your kindness, but our status is rather special. We are helping you not because we expect anything in return, it's just a small favor. But I also understand your feelings and don't want to disappoint your kindness. How about this, you go back first, I'll report to the branch secretary, if he agrees, we'll go as guests, if he doesn't agree, forget it. It's a rare opportunity to buy pork, you should eat more of it yourselves, especially to give Hengyu some nourishment to calm him down. What do you think?"
After the conversation, Lu Yigui's expression relaxed a lot. He kept saying, "You young people are too polite" before leaving.
After she left, Shen Fei sighed, "Captain, you are really good at talking. I feel like you are born to be a cadre." Then he said worriedly, "But I really don't want to go."
Wen Wenxu just came out of his nap: "Where are you going?"
After hearing what happened, he also became hesitant. Finally, both of them looked at Zhu Yingning, waiting for her to make a decision.
"I'll go ask the branch secretary." Zhu Yingning changed his shoes and went out.
Wang Shengju also lived in the village, though a little far from them, one in the south and the other in the north. However, the village was so small that it only took a few minutes to reach the end. She knocked on the door, and after receiving an answer, she walked in and saw Wang Shengju sitting at the desk by the living room window, practicing calligraphy.
"Xiao Zhu, come here and take a look at how my handwriting is." Wang Shengju picked up the rice paper he had just written on, admired it in the sunlight, and looked intoxicated.
Zhu Yingning said, "I don't understand calligraphy, but your handwriting looks very majestic and much better than mine."
"Hey, you are such a sincere kid. If my handwriting is worse than that of your elementary school student, wouldn't all my years of practice be in vain?" Wang Shengju teased her with a smile, and asked her what brought her here.
Zhu Yingning recounted the entire story and asked him what to do so as not to hurt the public's feelings while being safe enough.
Wang Shengju pondered and said, "Just go and eat. This is a good opportunity to integrate with the local people. Don't let them think you are difficult to get along with. Only by integrating with them can you carry out your work more smoothly in the future. However, you can't go empty-handed. Find out the price of the pork. After the meal, return the money to Zhen Yuhua and say that this meal is yours. You will be staying here for a long time, and there will be plenty of opportunities for her to treat you back. This will give her face and avoid any gossip."
After listening to it, Zhu Yingning thought it made sense. He went back and told Chen Fei and the others about it. They also thought it made sense. So the next night, the three of them not only brought money, but also bought a bag of fruit.
The meal consisted of Zhen Yuhua, Li Hengyu, Lu Yigui, and the other three, a total of six people. Seeing them coming, Zhen Yuhua was overjoyed, as if there had never been any grudges between them, and she warmly welcomed them to her table.
After sitting down, Wen Wenxu and Shen Fei didn't know what to say. They tried to keep smiling the whole time and listened to Zhu Yingning skillfully greeting the two old people.
Li Hengyu sat in the living room, screaming and slurring his words: "Meat! Meat!"
Zhen Yuhua said, "The meat is almost ready. I just eat meat every day!"
She brought out three plates of meat from the kitchen: one plate of pig's feet, one plate of stir-fried meat with garlic chives, and one plate of pickled cabbage and pork stewed with vermicelli.
This took a lot of effort, and Zhu Yingning quickly stood up to help.
Li Hengyu jumped up from the ground when he smelled the aroma of meat. He reached out to take some meat from the plate, but Zhen Yuhua hit the back of his hand with chopsticks. He then withdrew his hand with a squeaking sound, shouting, "Meat! Meat!"
Zhen Yuhua picked a piece of pork bone from the vermicelli noodles and gave it to him to suck, then sent him away. She called to Zhu Yingning and the other two, "Eat it, eat it, try it now." Lu Yigui also said, "Oh, the smell is making me salivate. I tell you, this is good pork, you can't get it anywhere else. Hurry, hurry, eat it while it's hot!"
The two of them urged them to pick up their chopsticks. Zhu Yingning refused in vain, so she had to pick up a piece of stir-fried meat with her chopsticks and put it in her mouth to chew slowly.
Zhen Yuhua urged Chen Fei and Wen Wenxu to start eating: "You two should eat too."
"Okay... Thank you, Grandma Zhen." Wen Wenxu was the second one to pick up the chopsticks. He paused in mid-air for a moment and finally picked up the pig's feet.
Before he could even hold the slippery pig's feet firmly, Zhu Yingning, who was sitting next to him, stood up and shouted, "Pork!"
Chen Fei & Wen Wenxu: “?”
After a few seconds, Wen Wenxu came to his senses and thought that the pork had been poisoned. Zhu Yingning had noticed something and was warning them. He was so scared that he quickly threw back the pig's foot he was holding and frantically tried to rescue Zhu Yingning: "Captain! Captain, spit it out! Quick!"
Zhen Yuhua & Lu Yigui: “?”
Zhu Yingning didn't vomit. She stared at the dish of pork with her chopsticks, her fingertips trembling slightly with excitement: "I...I know!"
"What do you know?" Shen Fei looked confused.
"I know what local specialties are here!" She was so excited that she spoke incoherently. She pushed Wen Wenxu and picked up Chen Fei's bowl, "You guys try this pork!" As she spoke, she put a few pieces of pork into Chen Fei's bowl, and then snatched Wen Wenxu's chopsticks and quickly picked up a few pieces for him as well.
After picking up the food, I saw that they were slow to react and hadn't started eating yet, so I decided to just go all out and stuffed it into their mouths, "Try it."
Chen Fei and Wen Wenxu were forced to stuff their mouths full of pork, each covering their mouths as they chewed.
The pork is tender and firm, with a subtle texture that's neither too soft to chew nor too hard to break your teeth. Most importantly, while lacking any mutton smell, it has a natural, meaty aroma that becomes more pronounced the longer you chew.
While Wen Wenxu and Shen Fei were tasting the pork in confusion, Zhu Yingning had already started to inquire with Zhen Yuhua and Lu Yigui, asking them where the pork came from and which villagers nearby were raising it.
Zhen Yuhua said, "My younger sister's family raises pigs. This kind of pork is not a rare commodity here. People in several nearby villages all raise it. In the past, everyone raised it for their own consumption and sold the leftovers to make a living. Now that life has improved, fewer people raise pigs themselves, and most of them are elderly and children. Who has the energy to do it? No one in our village raises pigs, and only a few households in the neighboring villages still do."
"If I let you raise it, do you know how to do it?"
"Of course!"
Lu Yigui also laughed out loud: "We relied on this to make a living when we were young, how could we not know how to do it? Ask the elderly in the village, I'm sure everyone knows how to raise it."
She took out her notebook and wrote down the addresses of several households in the neighboring village that they mentioned raising pigs. After writing it down, she went to see Chen Fei and Wen Wenxu again: "We will go for a field investigation after we finish eating."
Shen Fei understood what she wanted to do, but was still a little confused: "Captain...will this work?"
"Yes!" She nodded vigorously.
**
Although the pork was indeed delicious, Chen Fei and Wen Wenxu could not help but have doubts about its uniqueness and development prospects. After all, they had been investigating in the village for so many days, but they had not seen anything that was presentable. As a result, they had formed a deep-rooted impression that this place was poor and remote, and poverty was an inevitable fate.
But Zhu Yingning was very optimistic. As a team member, it was naturally not appropriate for him to pour cold water on the captain. During the investigation, they still followed suit pessimistically.
The more I investigate, the more I discover—hmm? It seems there's something to it.
First, let's talk about the pork farming method. The pigs here are not kept in pens, but are semi-wild. During the day, the villagers release them into the mountains to forage for food on their own. In the evening, they are put back in the pens and given a snack.
The appearance of the pigs was also slightly different from the white and plump domestic pigs they were used to seeing. The pigs here were smaller, slimmer, and had darker skin, but not as dark as black pigs.
The next day, they returned, following the villagers and carefully observing their pig-raising process. Zhu Yingning even followed the pigs, meticulously photographing and recording what they ate. She explained that these pigs ate differently from the ones back home, and that perhaps the differences in breed and foraging habits contributed to the tastier pork.
After returning home, she sorted out the information and began to plan the next steps.
"I want to invest in buying some pork samples from villagers and send them to the provincial food inspection institute for nutritional analysis," she said.
Wen Wenxu and Shen Fei were stunned when they heard this.
"Just because we think it tastes good doesn't mean anything, because taste is a very subjective thing. It must be supported by quantitative data to show that this pork has more nutritional value than ordinary pork. Only then can everything else go smoothly. Otherwise, it will be a waste of time," she explained.
"If the inspection report proves that this pork is indeed worth marketing and promoting, I will submit it to the township and county governments to apply for funding and policy support. I will then work with several surrounding villages to establish a small-scale breeding cooperative within the village to test the feasibility of collective breeding. If feasible, we will not only invite university students from agricultural and forestry universities to conduct research here, but also attract investment and attract regulated manufacturers or breeding companies to establish large-scale farms here."
"If the farm is successful, it will not only provide jobs for young people here and attract them to return home, but it will also benefit the elderly, allowing them to invest and share in the dividends."
She had clear ideas, thinking about the long-term future and having a clear plan for current actions. Wen Wenxu and Shen Fei were stunned when they heard this.
At this time, the National Day holiday was only two or three days away, and Zhu Yingning immediately made a decision: "I won't go back this National Day. I'm staying here."
As early as a few days ago, Zhu Zhiwei, Zhou Tianqing and Liu Guifang called her one after another and asked her about her plans for the National Day and whether she planned to visit them. Her answer at the time was "let's see". Now that she has made the decision, she naturally has to inform them so that they don't worry.
Zhu Yingning called them one by one to explain the situation.
Liu Guifang was a bit angry after hearing this, saying that she didn't even go home when she lived so close. She was raised so much, but she was even more neglectful than her husband. Zhu Zhiwei told her to take care of herself and not overwork herself, and to relax appropriately afterward. Zhou Tianqing said she believed her judgment was right, and if she needed any help, she could ask, as she might have connections she could help with.
"I was thinking of letting you and Ruirui meet up. How long has it been since you last saw each other?" Zhou Tianqing sighed with a wry smile before hanging up the phone. "You two are so busy, one is always busy. Finally, he's free this National Day, but you're busy again. Oh, poor Jia Baoyu, I've become like that. Baochai and Daiyu take turns coming. 'If I'd known she was coming, I wouldn't have come,' right?"
Zhu Yingning sneered helplessly on the other end of the phone.
After hanging up the phone, she devoted all her heart and soul to the next work, and promptly bought pork from villagers in the next village and sent it to the research institute.
It was already night when Zhu Yingning returned to her accommodation. She used her key to open the door and was surprised to find that the lights were still on.
She glared at Shen Fei and Wen Wenxu who were sitting at the coffee table in the living room: "Why haven't you left yet?"
Today is the last day of September and tomorrow is National Day. As far as she knows, they both bought tickets for this afternoon.
"Well..." Wen Wenxu chuckled, touched his nose, and said, "Captain, as a member of the team, I don't think it's a good idea to leave you here alone to work hard while we go home and reap the fruits of our labor."
Chen Fei said, "I already took a long vacation from mid-August to early September. I don't think it's necessary to go back for National Day. I would feel guilty if I went back."
Zhu Yingning didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "I'm not staying here to add pressure to you, nor am I using my actions to morally blackmail you. You don't need to do that. Take a vacation when you need it. Only when you're fully rested can you start the subsequent work. I've already thought about how to exploit you after National Day, really. You don't have to feel guilty at all. I'm worried that you'll hate me then."
Wen Wenxu laughed and said, "Captain, you are wrong. You didn't add pressure to us. You gave us motivation."
Chen Fei nodded and said, "We all came here with the intention of doing practical things. Captain, I'm not afraid of you laughing, I'll tell you straight, my grandfather was a veteran of the Korean War. The reason I asked for leave in August, and the reason I was able to get it, was because he passed away. He lived to be over 90 years old. It was a happy funeral, and the country took into account the contributions of soldiers and approved me for such a long leave."
"I chose this career because my grandfather always taught me to be open and honest. But after arriving here, to be honest, it's completely different from what I imagined. It was a huge blow to me. I called my mom, and she told me this was reality. She said my previous ideals were purely student-like, and that learning to be perfunctory and tactful was the way to go in the workplace. I really wanted to refute her, but I couldn't think of any reason. But Captain, you gave me a reason to refute her."
Chen Fei looked at her, a firmness emanating from the cold eyes behind her glasses. "I want to tell her that student mentality isn't a bad thing. The world will only progress if there are young people who don't know the immensity of the world and believe that everything in the world is at their feet. And I want to be one of those young people."
The young heart is full of passion, like a wildfire, impulsive and reckless yet full of vitality.
After she finished speaking, the air was silent for a few seconds. Zhu Yingning's heart was shaken. Just as she was about to say something to express her feelings, she saw Wen Wenxu staring at Chen Fei and said in shock: "Fuck! What? Your family is so powerful!"
“…”
The atmosphere was gone in an instant.
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The author has something to say: There will be no updates tonight at 10:30, two-in-one.
Maybe three will be able to appear tomorrow.
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