Chapter 179 Ambition: Everything is Born for Me
“!”
She turned to look at Xu Sirui in surprise, "You knew it was her that brought me here?!"
The man folded his arms and hummed lazily, his expression both smug and asking for favors.
He and Shao Yanjun didn't know each other. They were just hearing each other's names because they went to the same high school. It was only after hearing Zhang Lin's tip a few days ago that he found out that there was a secret flash mob event of theirs here tonight.
Shao Yanjun was dressed in pitch-black clothes and big black sunglasses, with his hair tied up in a high ponytail on top of his head, like a sky rocket. The other members of the band were dressed similarly, carrying guitars and basses on their backs, and walked in in a staggered manner. At first glance, they looked like a flock of crows passing through a gust of wind.
She led the band members, looking straight ahead, toward the bar's stage, where a drum set and vocal poles were already set up. As they passed Zhu Yingning, she casually raised her left hand and produced a pen and a pad from nowhere. She signed her stage name with flourishes, slapped it on her desk, and continued walking, unconcerned about whether she wanted it or not, pushing her hard.
Zhu Yingning stared at the ferocious note and laughed silently, then carefully put the note with the signature into his pocket.
This scene is very magical when you talk about it in detail. She was eating a durian pizza that others didn't want in a bar. Next to her was the man who had just sued his father. On the stage was her high school classmate who had not seen her for many years and was secretly traveling. Everything was weird, but it made people feel relaxed and happy.
She gave a piece of pizza to Xu Sirui and watched Shao Yanjun and others on the stage adjusting their instruments and testing the microphone.
After about three or five minutes, Shao Yanjun cleared his throat while holding the microphone and said to his companions, "Let's start with someone else's song to warm up the room."
"Okay, whose is it?" her companion replied.
"The Beatles?" someone suggested.
"All you do every day is talk about your lousy Beatles," someone complained.
"So are you coming or not? Hey Jude?"
"Come, come, come."
When the melody sounded, Shao Yanjun's singing voice also sounded simultaneously, which was similar to the voice in Zhu Yingning's memory but different. After years of polishing, her singing skills became more mature and experienced, with a long-lasting gentleness and hope, like the whispers between friends.
Hey Jude, don't make it bad.
Take a sad song and make it better.
Remember to let her into your heart,
Then you can start to make it better.
...
The bar door was open, and when they sang "Hey Jude, don't let me down," two girls peeked in from the doorway and said, "I hear someone singing the Beatles?"
The boss sat by the door and raised his glass towards them: "Would you like to come in for a drink?"
Two girls came in, smiling shyly, pushing each other. They walked to a table under the stage and sat down. One of them looked at the dark figures on the stage and hissed, "Why do they look familiar to me?"
Her friend covered her mouth, her eyes widening. “They look like the band that appeared on the variety show before!”
"Ah?! Is this true? Isn't Lily a fan of theirs? Send her a message!"
"You send it, I want to take a picture."
Everything that happened next felt like a dream. Zhu Yingning remembered simply throwing the leftover takeout packaging into the trash can at the bar's back door. When she returned, the bar, which had previously only had a few people sitting there, was suddenly packed. People were rubbing shoulders with each other. You stepped on my feet, I pushed on your legs, our arms intertwined, like countless new branches, winding straight up into the air.
Screaming, pushing, singing, jumping... The small bar was bustling with activity, the lights were flickering, the streamers were flying everywhere, the drum beats and the singing were blasting up from the soles of her shoes, causing her chest to resonate violently, and her heart was buzzing with the beats.
After Shao Yanjun and his friends finished singing the Beatles' songs, they switched to singing their own songs. Perhaps for this reason, more and more enthusiastic fans flocked to the bar.
She was squeezed in and out by the crowd, like a shell at the ebb and flow of the tide, sometimes washed ashore, sometimes swept by the current into the dim seabed. Standing on tiptoe, she looked at their seats. Xu Sirui was no longer there. Where had he gone?
She turned her neck with great effort, trying to find Xu Sirui's figure among the crowd, but what she saw was a sea of colorful ribbons.
"Xu Sirui——" The voice calling him was drowned out by the shouts and music of the crowd.
She was at a loss and was about to squeeze outside to find a place with fewer people to call him, when someone grabbed her clothes by the back of the neck from behind and dragged her out like a chicken.
“…”
Without looking back, I knew that only Xu Sirui could do this chicken-catching trick.
He carried her out the back door and put her on the open ground. He held her waist with one hand and fanned the side of her neck with the other hand. He asked her, "Are you still going to stay here?"
"No, there are too many people." Zhu Yingning felt a little overwhelmed by the situation. "Since we've already met Shao Yanjun, let's go somewhere else."
It was obvious that Xu Sirui was also not interested in crowded occasions. He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this. Seeing a new fan rushing into the bar from the back door, he was afraid that she would be squeezed by others, so he pulled her closer to him and asked her where she wanted to go.
Because they were so close, his warm breath brushed against her eyelashes as he spoke, like a gentle, intermittent breeze. She froze for a moment, then looked up to see his gorgeous lips and dark pupils so close to her. She had been thinking about saying she'd seen a food court nearby while riding in the car, and why not go there? But she forgot what she was going to say, and after a few seconds of silence, she slowly and mechanically recited the draft.
"Okay." Xu Sirui lowered his eyes and searched for the address of the food street, then turned around and led the way.
Although it was a weekday, at this time, the number of people in the food court was even greater than that in the bar just now. Xu Sirui walked diagonally behind her, raising his hand from time to time to block people for her.
The strange feeling of being alone came back, and Zhu Yingning racked her brains to find some boring topics while stuffing food into her mouth.
When she talked about her business trip these days, her words were filled with genuine distress.
"You can tell me in detail." He looked into her eyes.
"that is……"
She confided in him the various problems she had encountered with different companies in the past few days. Hearing this, Xu Sirui chuckled twice: "Let me summarize it. The problem you are facing now is that you can't convince them to open a farm in your village, right?"
"Yeah." She nodded.
"If you want my opinion, it's actually very simple," he said calmly. "Let's use data to prove the necessity of opening a farm in your area. That's it."
"But what type of data should we use? We are not profitable yet, so we will definitely not be able to convince them with efficiency. If we just give them predicted efficiency, I guess they won't be convinced. It's such a big company, and every aspect is very mature. How can they possibly believe the big rosy pictures we paint?" She lowered her eyebrows and scratched at the outer packaging of the octopus balls with her nails.
This was a little unconscious movement she made when thinking about something, something she had been doing since high school. Xu Sirui found it funny. He reached out to rescue the octopus balls that she had nearly broken, picked up a whole one with a toothpick and handed it to her, saying casually, "That's up to you to figure it out. You're the one who understands this project best."
"...Okay." She took it and took a half bite.
**
It was almost eleven o'clock when we returned to the hotel. Shen Fei had just finished taking a shower and was lying in bed playing with his phone. Hearing Zhu Yingning come in, he was startled: "Captain? I thought you wouldn't be back until the early morning."
"I'm afraid I'll come back too late and wake you up." Zhu Yingning squatted in front of the suitcase looking for clothes to take a shower.
She went to the bathroom to take a shower, finished her shower quickly, cleaned the bathroom, and squeezed out toothpaste to brush her teeth.
Chen Fei continued playing Candy Crush to the sound of water washing up. When she was almost done with a round, she suddenly saw Zhu Yingning running out of the bathroom with foam in his mouth. His eyes widened, his expression both excited and hesitant, and he mumbled to her, "...I have an idea."
After she finished the level, she looked up and asked, "What's your idea?"
"What do you think...we should invite students or experts in agriculture and forestry to study the diet of our village's pigs?" she said, her eyes sparkling. "If we can prove that these pigs must eat local plants to grow such delicious meat, or if we can prove that the local soil contains the trace elements essential for these pigs' growth, or even if we can prove that the content of these trace elements in the local soil and water is higher than elsewhere, maybe we can convince them to set up a farm here."
Shen Fei was stunned for a few seconds, then lowered his head in thought: "...It seems like an idea."
Let the data speak for itself; there won’t be any better data than this.
**
Zhu Yingning was incredibly proactive. After returning to the village after her business trip, she immediately set about contacting the agricultural and forestry students and their mentors with whom she had worked as a volunteer during her undergraduate studies.
Most of these students were already in graduate school, busy with their own projects. They said this was a great project, and while they didn't have the time to participate, they could recommend one of their undergraduate juniors. Undergraduate students couldn't resist a free research project, so a team quickly formed and arranged to come for a sampling survey in early January, led by their advisor.
"It's not easy, it's not easy..." Wen Wenxu was so excited that he wiped away tears frequently after hearing the good news.
Zhu Yingning thought he was lamenting how difficult it was to make progress on their project, but unexpectedly he said, "Our place is finally welcoming some young, vibrant lives. It's so hard! I need to prepare well... Yes, yes, I need to absorb their vitality and yang energy."
"?"
She smiled bitterly and said, "You make us sound like three old monsters."
But what Wen Wenxu said is not wrong. Living in a mountain village with a serious aging population, although they are not the youngest people here, they are the youngest among the young and middle-aged laborers. They do small things like helping the elderly grandparents with physical work and big things like comforting the empty hearts of lonely elderly people. Whether it is physical or emotional, they have been continuously supplying nutrients to the elderly in the village, just like soil provides nutrients to the roots of trees.
Over time, mental fatigue was inevitable. Looking back, she had to admit that the few times she had met Xu Sirui over the past few months were like fish leaping out of the water to breathe before the rain, a rare break in her busy days, giving her a chance to leap out of the water and breathe.
On the day when the students from the Agricultural and Forestry College arrived, Wang Shengju dressed up and came out to greet them with Yan Zi and Er Zhu.
The investigation lasted for five days. The village committee specially provided accommodation space for the college students and also prepared a separate room for the leading teacher.
For five days, whenever they finished their own work, Zhu Yingning and the others would go over to assist the university students with their research and brief them on the village's developments. The young freshmen and sophomores were full of energy, beaming with laughter wherever they went. Even in the evenings, they'd invite them to play board games or tell ghost stories in the dark. Not to mention Wen Wenxu, even Chen Fei secretly told her, "Captain, I feel like I've aged ten years."
Zhu Yingning deeply agrees.
Five days later, after bidding farewell to the university students who came to investigate, the village fell silent again. She cleaned their rooms and said to Chen Fei and Wen Wenxu who came to help, "Our village needs more young people."
"That's the logic." Wen Wenxu bent down to pick up the trash on the ground. "It's to attract young people to return home and start businesses. Sigh... I know all the policies by heart, but it's easier said than done."
"It's difficult, but we can do it." She described her future vision to them. "Once the farm is established, we can support the development of local e-commerce. Then young people will definitely be willing to return home. The village committees also need fresh blood. Sister Yan and Brother Zhu are good, but they lack passion for their work. If young people join them and lead them, perhaps they will be more motivated. Conversely, they can also provide experience for the young people."
"What a big piece of cake, Captain! You're filling me up." Wen Wenxu touched his belly.
She laughed: "You don't believe me?"
The afternoon sun was just right, casting a shimmering light on the remnants of fresh snow outside the window, like the reflection of a lake. Zhu Yingning stood with her back to the light, her face a shadow, a circle of fine light surrounding her, her smile a halo.
Wen Wenxu thought that if someone didn't know their captain well, they might be easily deceived by her plain appearance and occasional rigid and outdated dogma, thinking she was law-abiding, honest, and without great ambition. But once they got to know her in depth, they would find that she was actually a very arrogant person.
He tried to save a village, boost the local economy, and support the local people.
Isn’t this crazy enough?
Her frivolity is hidden under her simplicity. Only by removing the dirt outside inch by inch can we see what is wrapped inside - her burning and brilliant ambition.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
