As the people of Chu County were still anticipating the various beauties that would come with the completion of the Hero’s Road, the people of Shagou witnessed firsthand the construction of the Shagou Marsh Special Aquaculture Farm on the Heigao Ridge. Row after rows of neatly arranged and carefully tended fish ponds, viewed from afar, resembled a chessboard. For generations, the people of Shagou had made their living by fishing and rearing, but had they ever seen such a large-scale aquaculture farm before? One group of villagers after another came from Yuduo, Huangpi, and Sanwang to see what the Shagou Marsh Special Aquaculture Farm looked like. Truth, they still found it hard to believe that after just one winter, those several thousand mu of reeds had turned into a series of fish ponds. Such a transformation was truly magical.

    Whether magical or not, shortly after the beginning of spring, the launching ceremony of spring seedlings from the Heigao Marsh special aquaculture farm was solemnly held in Heigao Marsh. All the leaders of the county’s four sets of teams, the main heads of various departments, commissions, and bureaus, the deputy secretary and deputy mayor of the city in charge of rural work, and the head of the provincial agriculture, forestry, and fishery bureau were invited to participate in the spring seedling launch. When the leaders released the gourdful of tadpole-sized fish larvae into the pond and watched the fresh life swim in the pond, the villagers around spontaneously applauded.

    While Liu Chengyin was taking on the relevant leaders from the city and province, Ding Zhengqing, the Secretary of the County Discipline Inspection Commission, was also taking in the comrades from the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commissions. Recently, the provincial-municipal leaders and provincial-municipal discipline inspection departments had received the letters from the people, reflecting that Liu Chengyin, Secretary of the Chu County Party Committee, played favoritism in the expansion project of the Hero Road in Chu County, allowing his classmates to undertake the project, so that he could obtain hidden benefits from it.

    The people’s letters were written to the main leaders of the provincial party committee and the provincial government, and more leaders and departments in the city received letters from the people. In order to be responsible for a young leading cadre, the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commission decided to form a joint investigation team, stationed in Chu County, for a close investigation. During the investigation, the county commission for discipline inspection should cooperate fully, not only to do a good job of confidentiality——not to bring negative impact to Comrade Liu Chengyin’s work in Chu County——but also to choose the investigation object, to ensure that the problems reflected in the people’s letter could be verified as soon as possible, so that the higher party committee could make a decision on whether to adjust the Chu County leadership group or not.

    Although Liu Chengyin was the object of the joint investigation team of the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commissions, as the head of Chu County, the joint investigation team still wanted him to meet with the members of the team politely. Liu Chengyin naturally wanted to hold a banquet to entertain them, but the comrade in charge of the investigation team declined politely. The reason was that the task of coming to Chu County this time was special, and time was tight, and the requirements were high. Therefore, the banquet would be exempted. The comrades of the investigation team also said that there would be opportunities in the future. The comrades of the investigation team repeatedly greeted Secretary Liu and said that they would not attend the banquet, not because they despised Secretary Liu, but because of their special tasks. Liu Chengyin naturally couldn’t force it. But when he left the investigation team’s hotel, he thought something was wrong. Were they targeting me? The idea suddenly popped out of his mind, and he was frightened into a cold sweat.

    The joint investigation team of the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commissions was stationed in Chu County, and Liang Shangjun soon received the news. In a moment of carelessness, he fell off the ladder while climbing over the courtyard wall, sprawling on his back, knocking the back of his head against the brick floor, that tore his scalp. He was afraid that it would be difficult to answer when asked, and he was very depressed when he remembered that his nephew’s general manager position had been removed from his post, and that his own county magistrate could do nothing. Originally, the former old secretary retired, and he was very likely to take it over as the county party secretary. Relevant parties and leaders had all disclosed it to him. “Work hard,” they said, “Ready to shoulder a heavier burden.” He was then the county magistrate; and obviously, the heavier burden was to be the secretary of the county party committee.

    In fact, leaders might sometimes not necessarily know everything. Taking the example of being a county party secretary, why was it harder than being a county magistrate? Although the county party secretary was the top leader of the party committee and had more leadership responsibilities, the county magistrate also needed to bear leadership responsibilities. In daily work, in emergencies and for difficult tasks, the county magistrate often needed to take the lead and the county party secretary directed from behind. Most of the time, it was the county magistrate who directly faced conflicts and difficulties! Therefore, the real heavy burden should still be on the county magistrate.

    Liang Shangjun thought that he had been working as the county magistrate for several years, and had an opportunity to take it over, but he didn’t seize it, feeling unhappy in his heart. Actually, it was not that he didn’t catch it, it was that he couldn’t catch it at all. The superior suddenly transferred a naïve kid from another place to lead the large county with the population of a million. In Liang Shangjun’s opinion, it was really not serious and jest a bit about serious things.

    Although he was a college student, there was nothing remarkable about his graduating from college. “Because at the county level it was necessary to rely on hard work, it was not feasible for a person to have a diploma alone.” Although he was once the deputy secretary of the municipal party committee, Qingjiang City was a county-level city with only a few hundred thousands of  people, not even one-third of Chu County.

    Moreover, Liang Shangjun also learned that Liu Chengyin’s position as the deputy secretary of the municipal party committee in Qingjiang depended on his father-in-law’s relationship. He was only in his early thirties, young and promising, energetic and resolute, daring to innovate and explore. In Liang Shangjun’s view, this was simply irresponsible for one million people in Chu County. As the old saying went, downy lips made thoughtless slips. A young man who managed a small county seat with a population of several hundred thousands in Qingjiang (although Qingjiang was a county-level city, in the eyes of Liang Shangjun, was a small county) was to siwashit. If something went wrong, it was not a big deal. It was easy to turn around when the boat was small. He came to Chu County to be a leader, which was not easy. If he didn’t dowell, his days of cries would becoming. Sooner or later, he would pack up and leave.

    When Liu Chengyin first took office, Liang Shangjun, who was the county magistrate, often greeted him with a smile and respectfully addressed him as “Secretary Liu.” However, in his heart, he never took this young man seriously. He wanted to see how this young county party secretary would sweep his new brooms.

    Let it go at that: Liu Chengyin was really the man whose lips were bound to make slips. Shortly after taking office, he actually promoted the former county party secretary’s assistant to become the party secretary of Yangshan Township. It was really unbelievable. No matter what, the former mayor’s assistant was certainly the old secretary’s person. What kind of move was this to promote such a person? Young men liked the innovation. If you wanted to innovate, you could’t follow the old path of your predecessors. You needed new ideas and new tricks. To put it bluntly, you needed to deny the old system of your predecessors and come up with your own new system, so that you could win the support of the team members and make them convinced. Promoting the former secretary’s assistant couldn’t be considered innovation in any way.

    Although Liu Chengyin’s actions caused some reactions in the top and bottom of Chu County, there was no major conflict of interest with Liang Shangjun, and the former leader had a good relationship with Liang Shangjun. Therefore, when promoting Qiu Zhiwei, Liang Shangjun voted in favor at the standing committee of the county party committee. Next, the shareholding system reform of the county’s urban development company suddenly cut off one of his key men and even his own nephew. This made Liang Shangjun feel that Liu Chengyin, as a newcomer, was too ruthless in his routed decency.

    Not only that, but in later work, Liang Shangjun found that this young man was very strong-willed, a bit of swashbuckler, implementing several major initiatives in a row, which surprised the members of the Chu County leadership team——the newly- arrived Secretary Liu, despite his youth, was decisively short of tergiversation.

    As soon as he took office, he broke the original administrative divisions and classified the forty-five districts and towns in the county into three categories of good, medium, and poor for economic work, making the leaders of these districts and towns feel like they were sitting on a chair with nails, unable to sit still but for work. It was a brilliant move. Developing Heigao Marsh, such a large project, was completed under his command in just one winter, turning thousands of acres of water into the refined breeding ground. Hero Road, currently underconstruction, would be a model praised by the citizens after its expansion. If things continued like this, what would I, Liang Shangjun, as county magistrate, have to do?

    If Liu Chengyin wanted to take the roles of both Party Secretary and County Magistrate by himself, then I’d see how broad and sturdy his shoulders were and if he could bear the weight! Push me not to a dead end. To put it bluntly, even desperate dog would jump over a wall.

    From the beginning, Liang Shangjun had made up his mind to adopt a non- cooperative attitude towards Liu Chengyin. On it, Liu Chengyin came to his place and took away his county party secretary position. So he didn’t want to please Liu Chengyin or cooperate with him. As a county magistrate for so many years, Liang Shangjun certainly couldn’t be so spineless and groveling. However, Liang Shangjun understood the way of being an official, and he couldn’t be too hard with Liu Chengyin. Even if they did not cooperate, they still needed to be strategic.

    The opportunity arrived. The expansion of the Hero Road was such a big project, and it was suspicious that Liu Chengyin handed it over to his classmates. Liu Chengyin had been in Chu County for over a year and should have made such significant progress that his predecessors’ reputations had been overshadowed. If everything went too smooth, what was the role of ME, the county magistrate?

    Several individual business owners were incited by his people and caused a commotion. These people were short-sighted, never thought of writing a letter. Liang Shangjun personally planned it at 8 cents per letter, and it worked——the provincial and city disciplinary inspection commission officials were really summoned. No dumb with me, Ding Zhengqing. I knew you were Secretary Liu’s person. Did you think I hadn’t known why the provincial and city disciplinary inspection commission officials were coming to Chu County?A joke. I knew the ins and outs of this matter, so you didn’t need to tell me. The problem was, how could we make some trouble while the joint investigation team of the provincial and city disciplinary inspection commission was in Chu County, and gave Liu Chengyin another fire, so we’d expose all of his wrongdoings.

    Liu Chengyin realized that the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commissions might come for him——nothing more than the people had written to the province and the city——the leaders made instructions and sent an investigation team to learn the situation. This was the routine working method of the leading cadres; he, Liu Chengyin, a small county party secretary also did so, to some important letters and visits for instructions, assigned, the deadline to reply. It could indeed solve some problems at the grassroots. Of course, there were also some false things, with a clear understanding, the facts were clear, and the problem would be solved.

    Although Liu Chengyin initially thought of someone from the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commissions to investigate himself, he was frightened into a cold sweat. He was not afraid that the provincial and municipal discipline inspection commissions would find out any corruption issue, but rather a bit out of his expectation. In the past year or so since he came to Chu County, he had been working diligently and tirelessly; he still set out from the reality of Chu County and really wanted to do something practical for his hometown elders. In ordinary times, he often heard praise, and when carrying out his work, there was nothing that the members of the four sets of leadership in the county did not support. Several things had been done, and the people in the city and countryside were all complimenting each other, indicating that the people still recognized Liu Chengyin’s actions. How could someone suddenly write a letter from his people? Based on his many years of work experience, the letters by the people must have touched the leaders of the province and city. Otherwise, an investigation team would not have been sent to Chu City.

    Liu Chengyin couldn’t think of anyone who wrote this letter from the people, was it one person? There seemed to be more than one person. So, how many people were there, or who had conflicts with himself? He hadn’t been in Chu County for a long time, and he hadn’t had personal grudges with anyone yet. So was it a contradiction in work? He had just thought about it, and Liu Chengyin felt that he had never encountered resistance from the four teams in the county in his work. If to insist on offending a man, it was to remove the nephew of County Magistrate Liang from his position as manager of the urban construction and development company. This was not designed by him in advance, but was necessary for carrying out the work. There was no way to do this. If he did not do so, there would be no way to change the shareholding reform of the Urban Construction and Development Company, and he would not be able to carry out other work in Chu County in the future.

    Fortunately, County Magistrate Liang had no complaints about this matter, let alone any requests from Liu Chengyin. Moreover, at the founding meeting of Chushui Urban Construction and Development Co., Ltd., County Magistrate Liang personally announced the appointment of General Manager Tan Saihu and issued an appointment letter to Tan Saihu. To be honest, Liu Chengyin expressed his gratitude to County Magistrate Liang for his understanding and support of his work more than once. He expressed his gratitude at a working meeting, spoke during a toast to County Magistrate Liang at the wine table, and also spoke during a private exchange of views with County Magistrate Liang on certain matters.

    In this way, Liu Chengyin really couldn’t think of anyone he had offended in his work. However, he believed that a clear conscience was not afraid of shadows. He thought that apart from having some personal emotional issues, he was impeccable in other aspects. Moreover, since Lu Xiaoying loved him so much, she would never betray him emotionally or do anything harmful to him. He firmly believed in this, no matter what happened or when.

    With these thoughts in mind, he had some things on his mind that he couldn’t share with Su Hua, let alone his aging parents. He thought of Lu Xiaoying, whom he had always called “Xiao Yingzi.” He decided to go to Yuduo Town.

    After Yu Duo Town became famous throughout the county due to the development of Heigao Marsh, Fang Guojian, the party secretary of the town, suddenly became a news figure. He constantly accepted interviews from the county newspaper, county radio, and television stations. Considering the importance of Heigao Marsh Special Aquaculture Farm and the exemplary role it would play in the Shagou region in the future, upon the proposal of Secretary Liu of the County Party Committee and an unanimous approval of the Standing Committee of the County Party Committee, Fang Guojian would concurrently serve as Secretary of the Party Committee of Heigao Marsh Special Aquaculture Farm. The head of the farm was appointed by a deputy director with professional and technical skills from the county fishery bureau.

    Fang Guojian’s part-time job made Qiu Zhiwei, the party secretary of Yangshan Township, who previously had political advantages over him, a bit restless.

    Since Secretary Liu arrived in Chu County, Qiu Zhiwei had won the trust of Secretary Liu and continued to make progress, hoping to climb up another level.

    To be true, Qiu Zhiwei had always been grateful to Secretary Liu. According to the convention, Qiu Zhiwei was the secretary of the previous county party secretary. When the previous party secretary stepped down, Qiu Zhiwei’s political life could basically be ended. He never thought that Secretary Liu did not put an end to his political life, but changed the previous comma into an exclamation mark. This immediately aroused Qiu Zhiwei’s enthusiasm for work, and also raised his political expectations.

    Qiu Zhiwei had an advantage over Fang Guojian when he moved from the county party office to work in Yangshan Township. Although they were both young and competitive among the 45 party secretaries and township leaders in the county, after a winter of battle, tens of thousands of migrant workers in the whole county participated and dug up the breeding farms, Fang Guojian became the party secretary, even though it was a part-time job. Qiu Zhiwei still felt the difference.

    The Part-time work might become full-time. Currently, an administrative rank of department could be elevated to assistant section level. Everything depended on whether Fang Guojian, who also served as the Party Secretary of the breeding farm, could successfully launch the first batch of spring seedlings, and whether they could introduce new breeding products in the summer and autumn. If the breeding farm could achieve significant expansion and improvement in scale and efficiency within two years, and played a leading role in the aquaculture of the whole county, then there was no need to worry about the promotion of the secretary and the farm director, and so worried not about the Secretary and the head of the farm not to be promoted. It was not difficult for Secretary Liu to identify the assistant section level for a leading aquaculture enterprise in the county. Qiu Zhiwei certainly knew this.

    Fortunately, there was no way out. At a time when Qiu Zhiwei was at a loss and racking his brains to regain more political leverage than Fang Guojian, God gave him a great gift: an ancient site was discovered in Qijia Village.

    As Qijia Village was located in the suburbs of Chu City, in addition to some grain fields, there were also some stacked fields specialized in growing vegetables such as rape, radish, taro, onion, garlic, and ginger. The villagers who grew the grain fields had nothing to say. Just like ordinary grain farmers, they had to plant rice and wheat twice a year, sow and fertilize, apply medicine to control pests, and manage the fields. Each step must betaken care of. If it was lost, it would affect the harvest of the crops. After a hard year, wheat was harvested in summer and rice was harvested in autumn. After the villagers had reserved enough of their rations, they could sell them to the Ximen Grain Depot in the county seat.

    This was different from a few years ago when the emphasis was on correctly handling the relationship between the state, collective, and individual during large- scale farming. When villagers turned in their harvested grains to the state and collective, they were left with very little. It was common not to have enough to eat. Nowadays, the villagers’ task of purchasing and selling grains was not as heavy, and with scientific farming, they had surplus grain. Those with intelligence started to do business by buying and selling grains. During harvest season, they used boats to collect grains from every household, collecting grains in one hand and paying money in the other, buying and selling immediately. With surplus grains, villagers could earn some more pin money at home.

    However, even if they could sell excess grains, their annual income from the growing grains was still much lower than that of growing the vegetables. Some might say that everyone should grow vegetables instead. For the fields where grains were grown, one crop of rapeseed could at most be grown, which could be sold as rapeseed or vegetable oil, which could make good money. But for growing other vegetables, it did not work.

    Growing vegetables requires piling fields (in low humid areas along the lakes or river networks in southern China, the fields suitable for cultivation were formed by excavating soil from deep trenches or small rivers). Vegetables had high water requirements, especially newly planted seedlings, whether they were green vegetables, radish, taro, or onion, garlic, and ginger, which must be watered every day. If it were to grow in a large field, with several or more acres connected into one piece, and the water could not enter, it would be really troublesome to rely on manual lifting of buckets to water. It was much easier to grow crops instead.

    If it were the stacked fields, it would save such trouble. The so-called fields were surrounded by water on all sides. It was not difficult to water the vegetables in such fields. Generally speaking, the area of a pile was not too large, and the smaller ones just a few metres. The larger ones could be a kilometer wide. In this way, as mentioned earlier, if you wanted to grow vegetables, you needed to have a mound field. This pile of farmland was not something you could have if you wanted it. The entire Qijia Village, which included less than a dozen households in Chen Dapeng’s group, was planted with the stacked fields.

    Who was Chen Dapeng? Perhaps because there had been no news about him for a while, let me repeat a few words here. This person had an uncle who worked in the county. Through his uncle’s connections, Chen Dapeng once gave a large white goose to Secretary Liu of the county party committee on the Mid-Autumn Festival last year, causing a “big white goose” incident in the county government, which caused quite a stir. However, when those government officials saw old Chen and Liu’s son carrying a basket of eggs and a large white goose, walking and shouting in the government courtyard, no one ever thought that Old Chen was suffering for his nephew. Chen Dapeng’s real identity was the deputy director of the village committee in Qijia Village.

    Suddenly, there was a loud “thud”, and the big,burly Chen Dapeng fell to the ground in the field. He tried to sit up, but his foot slipped and fell into the ditch between fields with a “splash.”

    It was only spring, and summer was still far away. The women nearby laughed  heartily and said, “Director Chen, you should take a cold shower with that water.” They knew that the ditch wasn’t very deep and couldn’t drown a person. Besides,  Chen Dapeng was a strong man who could swim. Falling into the water was not a  big deal,he could just endure the chill.

    The women were giving suggestions without considering the practical difficulties and challenges. In early spring, the river water was quite cold. Chen Dapeng was frantically kicking his legs in the water, trying to climb onto the bank as quickly as possible. Little did he know that the more he tried, the worse it got—— not only did he kickoff his shoe, he was also fiercely jabbed by an extremely sharp object, causing him a great deal of pain and probably puncturing his skin. Chen Dapeng reached out to touch his foot, but was jabbed again by the same object. Some people might suggest that he should have climbed out of the river quickly, given how cold it was. However, at this moment, the pain had become the primary concern for Chen Dapeng. Once the pain set in, he didn’t feel the cold anymore. Who could have guessed that this one touch would reveal a shocking revelation?

    When Chen Dapeng brought the strange object that he had poked his own foot with to the cultural station, the stationmaster exclaimed, “Treasure, treasure!” As for what exactly the treasure was, the stationmaster admitted that he was not very knowledgeable, but based on his limited knowledge of archaeology, he knew that Chen Dapeng had stumbled upon something valuable.

    So, accompanied by the station master, Chen Dapeng went to the county museum and found an expert in archaeology. After carefully examining the object with a magnifying glass two or three times, the museum expert told Chen Dapeng that it was a fragmentary fossilized deer antler that dated back thousands of years. As for the exact age, further analysis by a specialist would be needed to determine a precise answer.

    Experts at the county museum believed that this matter was of great importance, so they immediately reported it to the museum director. The director promptly reported it to the cultural bureau chief, who then reported it to the county party committee and government leaders. The issue quickly became a big deal.

    County committee Secretary Liu personally instructed that the artifact be well protected. He immediately arranged for the authoritative experts from the province to come to Chu County for authentication, and ordered for the site where the artifact was found to be protected promptly. The individuals involved were to be commended, and a record of the discovery should be made to ensure first-hand, valuable information was preserved.

    Chen Dapeng suddenly became a well-known figure in Yangshan Township, becoming a great hero. This was because an authoritative expert sent by the province had identified the ancient elk antlers he had discovered as a sub-fossil of an elk antler, with a history of over 5 000 years. What a concept to grasp——a fossil that’s over 5 000 years old! The expert further explained that it was probably from the Neolithic Age. This greatly widened Chen Dapeng’s horizons and enriched his knowledge.

    Soon, the provincial government dispatched a professional archaeological team to Yangshan, and the fields of Chen Dapeng’s house in Qijia Village became the excavation site for the team. County secretary Liu requested that Yangshan Township must actively cooperate and carry out logistical support work. As the secretary of the township party committee, Qiu Zhiwei was like a shot of adrenaline, filled with passion and energy, and organized a specialized work team to support the archaeological excavation, serving as the leader of the group.

    Chen Dapeng noticed that since the archaeological team entered Qijia Village, Secretary Qiu had undergone a slight change. Usually, when Secretary Qiu came to the village to inspect and guide the work, he was always dressed immaculately, wearing a pair of shiny black square-toed leather shoes. The village cadres and officials couldn’t help but envy him when they saw him. They whispered, “When can we have such style as Secretary Qiu? He’s truly worthy of being a cadre.” As Qijia Village’s deputy director of the village committee, Chen Dapeng had witnessed this situation more than once.

    However, Chen Dapeng was unaware that whenever Secretary Qiu went into the city to attend meetings or report to the leaders, he always took off his shiny leather shoes and wore a pair of semi-worn yellow rubber shoes. Sometimes, he even had his pants legs rolled up and not letdown. One time, the county held a meeting for department heads and township party secretaries. Qiu Zhiwei was late for some reason. Although he was only a few minutes late, County Magistrate Liang had just started the meeting when Qiu Zhiwei rushed to the door of the meeting room and said, “Excuse me” in a respectful manner.

    However, since Secretary Liu announced this order, other county leaders had been reporting the good news to him and the atmosphere at meetings changed drastically. Unexpectedly, the usually astute Qiu Zhiwei became the first person to stand outside the meeting room and shout “Excuse me.” Qiu Zhiwei’s shout of “Excuse me” wouldn’t have been a big deal. But as soon as he did, dozens of eyes in the meeting room turned to him all at once. Someone couldn’t help but laugh out loud. As it turned out, Qiu Zhiwei was wearing a pair of old, yellow military boots with worn-out soles——which was okay. But what was funny was that he had rolled up his pant legs and didn’t roll them back down.

    County Magistrate Liang was not pleased when he saw him and snapped, “Don’t  embarrass yourself at the door, go find a seat. Okay, let’s start the meeting now.” Since then, Party Secretary Qiu Zhiwei’s busyness became well-known throughout  the county’s departments, bureaus, and townships.

    Despite criticized by County Magistrate Liang, Secretary Qiu’s almost ruffled demeanor received recognition from Secretary Liu. Liu felt that a township party committee secretary who could be so busy that he had to roll up his trousers and hurry into the meeting hall at least showed that he was focused on his work and could get along with grassroots cadres and masses. Little did Secretary Liu know that Qiu Zhiwei, wearing old yellow military boots in front of him, wore black leather shoes in the countryside. This reflected the truth that even the most astute leaders sometimes overlooked things. Secretary Liu’s impression of Qiu Zhiwei was undoubtedly inaccurate, as he failed to discover Qiu’s other side. It was evident that few people could truly understand a person comprehensively. In this world, the most complicated and difficult to understand and catch was no other than humans.

    Now Qiu Zhiwei had changed. Ever since the archaeological team arrived at Qijia Village in Yangshan Township, he had taken off his always shiny black leather shoes and put on his old yellow military rubber shoes that he only wore when he went to the city. Except for urgent tasks in the county, he spent almost all of his time at the archaeological excavation site in Qijia Village.

    At the moment, it was the season of blooming flowers, and the members of the provincial archaeological team were digging in the ridges of the fields. Looking around, wow, it was so beautiful. The mounds of rapeseed flowers floated on the water like floating flower boats, shining brightly under the spring sun. The green chives, onions, garlic and other vegetables intermingle with the golden rapeseed flowers, resembling pieces of jade floating on the water, exuding a charming green light, adding a touch of fairytale colour to this field.

    There were several young interns who followed the teachers to conduct the archaeological excavations deep in the mountains. They had never done archaeological excavations in such a beautiful water town before, so they were extremely excited. They kept saying how beautiful it was.

    The old expert shook his head at the students’ excitement and asked, “Do you young people only think that the scenery here is beautiful? Have you not noticed how supportive the local people are of our archaeological excavations? Before your, director Chen Dapengis the hero, he discovered this treasure trove, the village party secretary Qiu runs around for us many days, doing the work of a small assistant. As the highest leader here, he is so beautiful, don’t you think? In my opinion, the beauty of the terraced fields in Yangshan is nothing compared to the beauty of the cadres and masses with beautiful hearts and minds.”

    Qiu Zhiwei responded, “As residents of Yangshan Township, we are willing to  provide full logistical support for this archaeological exploration. We will cooperate  with necessary measures and provide unconditional support for this endeavor.” As the Party Secretary of his town, Qiu Zhiwei then demonstrated his authority by  showing the experts his commitment to the project.

    He considered that the influence of Fang Guojian’s special aquatic farming could not possibly compare to the ancient Yangshan archaeological site that was being excavated right in front of them. The experts mentioned that this was a relic from the Neolithic era. It pushed the history of Chu County back by more than two thousand years. It was not an exaggeration to say that this discovery in Yangshan rewrote the history of Chu County. Thinking about this, Qiu Zhiwei thought of someone: Chen Dapeng.

    At the suggestion of Qiu Zhiwei, the Party Secretary of the township, the Party Committee of the township decided to appoint Chen Dapeng, the Deputy Director of the Village Committee of Qijia Village, where significant discoveries were made at the Yangshan archaeological site, as the Director of the Yangshan Township Cultural Station, with a rank equivalent to that of a department head. From the date of the issuance of the document, the Village Committee was requested to relieve him of his position as Deputy Director of the Village Committee in accordance with relevant procedures.

    Chen Dapeng’s family was overjoyed upon the news. He immediately told his uncle Chen, who worked in the county seat. The elder Chen was naturally delighted. “Well, that’s great! Your nephew finally got rid of the mud on his feet and became a civil servant. He should work hard, especially during the excavation by the provincial archaeological team in Qijia Village. He shouldn’t be afraid of hard work. In the future,he should also respect Secretary Qiu. As the saying goes, “When someone does you a kindness, you should repay it with gratitude.” Secretary Qiu helped him become a civil servant with just a few words. How could he not show respect? One should have a conscience.”

    In his own office as the manager, Lao Chen made a phone call to his nephew, who had just become the head of the cultural station, for the first time, and gave him a long lesson and multiple reminders. Finally, he promised to finish his work as soon as possible and return to Qijia Village to have a lively chat with Chen Dapeng’s family. Lao Chen made a special note to drink a few more glasses with Chen Dapeng’s father and get along well with him.

    Sitting on a wooden chair in the office of the village cultural station, holding a phone with a dial-up rotary dial instead of the crank telephone used by the village committee, Chen Dapeng felt that everything was different. Of course, he readily agreed to his uncle’s request. Whenever his uncle had time to come back to their hometown, he would call him in advance to prepare and make sure to keep his uncle company. If possible, he asked his uncle to inform Secretary Qiu and invite him to the event. That way, Chen Dapeng’s family would be even more honored.

    At his nephew’s request, Lao Chen naturally promised and said it was just a matter of inviting the township committee’s Secretary Qiu to dinner. It was nothing difficult.