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Chapter 635: Chapter 625: Calling for Help (Additional Update 5 for Haide Laoxue)
Shen Yunfang directly used the money she had just borrowed to pay the 880,000 yuan, and then she officially leased the land, which would belong to her alone for the next seventy years.
After renting the land and the mountains, Shen Yunfang began to arrange to hire workers, as it was already May. If she acted quickly, she could still plant something this year. Profit was definitely not possible, but she hoped to cultivate as much land as possible and grow crops like soybeans that would enrich the soil. By autumn, if she could earn back the labor costs of the workers she hired, she would be satisfied.
Since she couldn’t personally farm the land herself, she planned to hire a few people to manage the farm long-term. Of the many people she knew, the first ones she thought of were Wang Dashuan and his wife, and then Chen Jing and his wife. As for Big Sister Li and her husband, Yunfang hadn’t considered them yet, because business cooperation on a short-term project was different from hiring workers. Yunfang was afraid that future conflicts would be difficult to handle, so she tried to avoid involving her own relatives in the business.
She discussed this matter with Li Hongjun, and since she didn’t plan to stay at the farm all the time, she needed to find a trustworthy person to manage it. In the end, the couple decided to ask Chen Jing and his wife. After all, Wang Dashuan and his wife were rather lively people who had widened their horizons doing business in the Capital. During the New Year, they had hinted that they still wanted to venture out on their own in the future, so it seemed inappropriate to ask Dashuan. Chen Jing and his wife, although they had been involved in business, were not the adventurous type and were well suited to a more peaceful life. Therefore, both felt it was worth giving Chen Jing and his wife a try.
Of course, just getting Chen Jing and his wife over was far from sufficient. Given the vast expanse of land and mountain to be managed, it would require a lot of workers, especially since Shen Yunfang had ordered several tractors, the number of people needed for the first year of reclamation could not be few.
Once Li Hongjun learned about Shen Yunfang’s hiring conditions and wages, he took on the task, assuring her that he would find her a reliable and capable group of people within half a month.
Seeing Li Hongjun like this, Shen Yunfang didn’t say anything. She knew her man was planning to recruit some of his less fortunate comrades to help them out. Shen Yunfang was offering a tempting base salary of fifty yuan per month, and she had also decided that during the reclamation period, she would add one yuan to the wages for every mu of land cleared. Therefore, a hardworking laborer could earn at least seventy to eighty yuan a month here.
Keep in mind, the work wasn’t purely manual—she had several tractors.
Afterward, Shen Yunfang spent a week measuring her contracted land and mountains with her feet to get a clear idea of its extent. Then, she holed up at home, spending another week to draft the entire farm’s business plan.
Her idea was to build a comprehensive farm where not only grains would be produced, but also livestock raised, aiming to form an ecological recycling system. This would not only develop a green farm but also reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Because the farm covered a large area, it was impossible to complete all the construction within a year. She had to take things slowly and arrange the construction schedule for each part so that the farm could be up and running as soon as possible.
Of the eight hundred and forty mu of wasteland, she planned to reclaim seven hundred mu as farmland, with four hundred mu being converted into paddy fields and two hundred mu for other grains as needed. She intended to build greenhouses on the remaining hundred mu for off-season vegetables, fruits, and so on.
Of the remaining one hundred and forty mu, she planned to use forty mu for the residential area, building a three-story dormitory complete with a dining hall, a bathhouse, and a biogas digester to provide electricity for the residential area. The remaining one hundred mu would be dedicated to livestock farming, aiming to raise chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, cattle, sheep, fish, and so on.
As for the mountain, she planned to consult her former teacher or professors from her school to see which species of trees would be most economically valuable. She would plant trees on the mountain and also had the idea of planting honeysuckle from the base to halfway up the mountain. Besides providing a decent economic return, it would also become a trademark of her farm. If things went well in the future, she also wanted to develop agritainment.
Of course, these were all Shen Yunfang’s plans, and there would surely be many difficulties in implementation. But as long as she kept working hard, she believed she could definitely build the farm of her dreams.
After finishing the design, she showed it to her family. Pangpang and Manman couldn’t understand it and just joined in the excitement. In the end, they both nodded earnestly, as if to say that mommy’s drawings were very good. Li Hongjun took the design very seriously, studying it for a whole day, and after discussing the parts he found unreasonable with his wife, the blueprint for the large farm was settled upon through their mutual consultation.
With her family’s support, Shen Yunfang energetically set out to find a construction team. The first task to complete this year was to build the dormitory in the residential area. She couldn’t let Li Hongjun’s workers toil in the fields by day only to sleep on the streets at night, so the dormitory had to be built as quickly as possible. The fence also needed to be erected to make clear to everyone that this land was now privately owned and that it would be best for outsiders to keep their distance.
These were tasks that required professional construction teams.
"Alright, I’ll take you to school today. It’s almost time to eat," Shen Yunfang said after finishing her meal, quickly beginning to tidy up.
"If you’re busy, I can take the kids." Li Hongjun knew his wife had things to do today; he felt sorry for her and wanted to take on the task of sending the children to school.
"No, I want mommy to take me," Manman was the first to express dissatisfaction. It had been many days since mommy had been too busy to take her to school, and she wasn’t happy about it.
Shen Yunfang tapped her daughter’s little head with a hint of annoyance, "You’re so big now, others go to school by themselves, and you still need your brother to take you every day. Why such clinginess?"
Actually, the two children had become very familiar with the family courtyard area. A week after school started, it was always Pangpang who took Manman to school every day. However, Manman loved to act spoilt, and quite often, she would ask her dad to pick her up or drop her off.
During this time, Shen Yunfang was very busy, either running around outside or making plans at home. She had indeed neglected the children somewhat. And now, little princess Manman was not pleased.
"No way, I want Mommy to take me." Little princess Manman twisted her body and snuggled against her mom.
"Alright, alright, Mommy will take you. Mommy will take you," Shen Yunfang really had no way with her little daughter, but such a small request she couldn’t bear to refuse.
"Li Shichen, Li Shichen, are you ready yet?"
"Ready, in a moment," Pangpang, hearing his friends calling loudly from downstairs, quickly stuffed the bun in his hand into his mouth, then slid off the dining table and ran to the living room to grab his backpack before dashing downstairs.
"Brother, brother, wait for me." Seeing her brother running, Manman also hurriedly tried to stuff the bun in her hand into her mouth all at once, but her mouth was a little small. After several attempts, she couldn’t get it in. In the end, she simply took the bun out of her mouth, put it on the table, and came down from the dining table to grab her little pocket.
"Aren’t you letting Mom take you?" Pangpang was a good brother. Even though he was in a rush, he stopped when he heard his sister’s call.
Only then did Manman remember she had just asked her mom to take her. She was conflicted, wanting Mom to take her and also wanting to walk and play with her brother.
The whole family watched her struggle. In the end, Manman chose her brother over her mom, "I don’t want Mommy to take me, I want brother."
"Okay, then hurry up," Pangpang stood at the door, waited for his sister to get her things, then took her little hand, and the siblings went downstairs together.
Shen Yunfang watched the whole thing and, after the children left, continued to clean the dining table with a blank face.
"What’s wrong?" Li Hongjun asked tentatively. He could tell something was off with his wife’s expression. 𝚗𝚘v𝚙𝚞b.𝚌𝚘m
"Nothing," Shen Yunfang replied listlessly, "just feels like the kids are growing up and don’t need me anymore."
Li Hongjun saw his wife pouting and couldn’t help but laugh disapprovingly, "You know, sometimes you’re as petty as a needle eye."
Shen Yunfang turned and glared at him fiercely, as if to say, who are you calling petty?
"What, you don’t agree? Look at how other kids go to school, not hovering around their parents. Aren’t they usually off causing mischief in packs? As parents, we have to give our children freedom at this time. That’s right, the space you always talk about, you need to learn to let go, to let the children grow on their own."
"Hmph, you really seem to have grown up, spouting all these grand principles so easily." Shen Yunfang pouted, slightly unconvinced. Usually, these were the words she would say, but now it seemed to be the other way around.
Li Hongjun stood up, pulled his wife close, and kissed her on the face, "Isn’t this all thanks to the good education from my wife?"
"Just keep talking."
