The Tempting Road to Becoming an Official

"I've suddenly decided to go to Chagang Village."

Chen Fang said.

Guo Zheng didn't seem too surprised by this decision, he just uttered, "Oh," then turned the motorbike around and headed in another direction.

This response pleased Chen Fang.

Being new to Fuguang Town and unfamiliar with the place, almost everyone in the town government was Yuan Zhenting's person, and he had yet to grasp where Li Yong stood.

Yesterday, he had intentionally told Guo Zheng he wanted to go to Songlin Village, just to see if Guo Zheng was a pawn placed by someone close to him.

From Guo Zheng's current reaction, he probably hadn't betrayed him.

Before they set out,

Guo Zheng stressed that the motorbike had a powerful engine.

Indeed, the engine was powerful.

When Guo Zheng twisted the throttle to unleash the beastly power,

Chen Fang watched in person as an uncle humming a tune pedaled his bicycle leisurely past them.

"Whizzed past" is the only way to describe it.

Because the difference in speed was just too apparent.

After the uncle overtook them, Guo Zheng also felt humiliated, leaned forward like a racer trying to show his real strength.

The motorbike did not cooperate, shaking violently as if in protest.

Helpless,

Guo Zheng had to give up.

"Xiao Guo, based on our speed, can we make it before dark?"

Chen Fang asked.

Guo Zheng gritted his teeth and said, "Leader, rest assured, it's less than twenty kilometers to Chagang Village, we'll definitely make it before nightfall."

Chen Fang looked up at the sun, which had just risen.

He said, "Xiao Guo, how about we stop a tractor going to Chagang Village?"

"Leader, wouldn't that be a slap in my face? Hold tight, I'm going to speed up."

Having said that.

Vroom... Vroom... Vroom...

The motorbike began to roar violently.

Frightened, Chen Fang immediately hugged Guo Zheng's waist.

Then there was a bang, and after a puff of black smoke from the exhaust pipe, the motorbike completely broke down, motionless.

Even so, Guo Zheng didn't give up, squatting down to check it, repeatedly reassuring Chen Fang that it would be fixed soon.

In the end, the two of them flagged down a tractor going to Chagang Village.

Having set out early in the morning, by the time they got off at Chagang Village, it was nearly noon.

This time in Chagang Village,

Chen Fang just wanted to walk around casually.

Firstly, to investigate the scale of tea plantation in Chagang Village, secondly, to see how the villagers lived, and thirdly, he wanted to hear first-hand from the villagers about the land being occupied by Songlin Village.

Chagang Village is the second-largest village in Fuguang Town.

With more than 1500 households, the population is around 6000 people.

This number, compared to four or five years ago, has decreased by at least two thousand.

Entering the village,

most of the houses were still ordinary brick and tile constructions.

There were even many partly wooden structures, posing significant safety risks.

Guided by Guo Zheng, Chen Fang also went to see the Chagang Elementary School and other infrastructure. Xu Lianyun was right; almost all resources were skewed towards Songlin Village.

He had read in the reports that three years ago, Songlin Elementary School completed the construction of a new teaching building. Not only did the entire school have a plastic track, multimedia classrooms, and a brand new library, but even the standards of the canteen were higher than those of their town government's canteen.

Meanwhile, Chagang Elementary School's main building was a two-story dangerous structure.

Forget multimedia classrooms and a library, the playground wasn't even paved, full of pits and uneven terrain, likely unusable after a rain.

The disparity was truly vast.

As for other municipal constructions, it was a world of difference.

As a provincial-level model rural village,

Songlin Village had parks, fitness equipment, street lamps, and surveillance, but in Chagang Village, by rough estimation, it was lagging behind by more than thirty years at least.

"Xiao Guo, have you heard about the armed conflict that occurred between the two villages four years ago?"

"I was still in university at the time, not graduated yet, but I did hear my parents mention it,"

said Guo Zheng.

"Oh? Then what is the reason for the fight, according to your parents?"

Chen Fang asked.

Guo Zheng pondered for a moment before saying, "There have always been two versions, and no one can clarify which is true. Most people say that the people of Chagang Village were jealous and wanted to snatch the bamboo forest from Songlin Village to grow tea, and they started the trouble, leading to the later fight."

"And the other version?"

"The other version, which is whispered about, is that Songlin Village wanted to take over the hilltop of Chagang Village and dug up the ancestral grave of the Cui family from Chagang Village on the hillside. This outraged the Cui clan, and they started fighting."

The two versions matched up with what Chen Fang had heard before.

It seemed that there was a really big problem with this matter.

"Let's go take a look at the tea plantation."

One after the other,

they walked to the tea plantation in Chagang Village.

At first glance,

the greenery was overwhelming.

It was refreshing to behold.

Although it wasn't the harvest season, the air was filled with the fragrance of tea leaves, and Chen Fang's gloomy mood gradually lightened.

"Leader, look over there."

Suddenly,

Guo Zheng pointed down a small path.

Chen Fang focused his gaze and saw,

a black sedan stopped in the middle of the road, and a young man in a suit seemed to be making a phone call.

"Let's check it out."

The reason the two of them were suspicious

was that the path here was truly unsuitable for driving; once a car came in, there wouldn't even be space to turn around.

Moreover, as they walked along,

this was the first car they had seen in Chagang Village.

Upon closer inspection,

Chen Fang felt it looked familiar.

Suddenly, he remembered that this black sedan was the same Mercedes that had come with Xu Lianyun's Coaster yesterday, wasn't it?

Why was it here?

The young man in the black suit next to the sedan appeared to be the driver.

He fiddled with his cell phone incessantly.

He seemed very anxious.

Looking at the sedan again,

one of the tires had sunk into the mud, and from the mud rolled up onto the car body, it was clear that the vehicle was stuck.

"Buddy, there's no signal here,"

Chen Fang said.

The young driver glanced at Chen Fang and asked, "Fellow, can you tell me where I can find a landline phone nearby?"

"There should be one in the village."

Chen Fang pointed towards a distant spot with his hand.

The young man looked off into the distance and said, "Fellow, I'm unfamiliar with this area and can't find the village. Could you trouble yourselves to take me there?"

After speaking,

he seemed to remember something.

He took out a hundred-yuan note from his pocket and offered it to Chen Fang, saying, "Please help me, my car is stuck and I can't move it. I need to call for help immediately."

"No need for money, Xiao Guo, you take this brother to the village. I'll wait for you here,"

"All right."

Guo Zheng agreed and quickly took the driver down the mountain.

Chen Fang bent over and peered inside the car window.

The inside of the car was empty.

Could it be that the big boss didn't go up the mountain?

While he was pondering what was going on, he suddenly heard a cry for help.

The cry for help was very faint.

It seemed to be coming from the top of a tea garden ahead.

Although it wasn't very clear, Chen Fang could still tell that it was a woman crying for help.