Wei Jia and her group arrived at the town government building a little after five in the afternoon.
According to Tianhai's work system of nine to five, it should have been time to clock out by now, but quite a few staff members were still bustling in and out of the entire town government building, looking busy.
Because the winter sky darkens earlier, some offices had even turned on their lights.
Clearly, Bai Rui was the first to step forward and introduce the group's identity to the deputy town mayor. The middle-aged man leading the group immediately approached Wei Jia enthusiastically, shook hands, and said: "President Wei, President Li, it's truly an effort for you to come all this way to our remote and impoverished area."
Speaking, he introduced himself: "I am the deputy mayor of Wangshui Town, my last name is Liu, and beside me is Director Wu of the Social Affairs Office, who is usually in charge of our town's educational management work. And this is Principal Huang, their school needs help."
With Town Mayor Liu's introduction, both Wei Jia and Li Jing shook hands and greeted the others.
Li Jing noticed that although the three held positions, each had dark, weathered skin and thin bodies; if they exchanged their jackets and shirts, they wouldn't be much different from the farmers by the roadside.
Maybe only Town Mayor Liu, who wore glasses, had some scholarly air, but when Li Jing shook hands with him, he found that Liu's hands were also full of calluses.
"It's just about dinner time now, I've already asked the canteen to prepare meals, if you don't mind, let's eat first."
Though he said this, in reality, eating dinner at the canteen had been discussed long ago.
The deputy mayor had originally planned to host them at a restaurant in town, but upon finding out, Wei Jia instructed Bai Rui to let them know eating at the canteen would be fine, so the canteen was chosen.
The canteen there wasn't small or large, but was lined with fixed, long tables and benches fixed to the ground, arranged neatly in the hall, looking very much like the student canteen from Li Jing's past schools.
"I apologize, our canteen's conditions are average. Normally, we'd prepare private small tables, but ever since the regulations from above, these have gone."
Town Mayor Liu explained apologetically and then signaled Director Wu and Principal Huang to quickly bring the dishes over.
Although the setting was a bit rudimentary, seeing the steaming plates brought out, Li Jing estimated they must have specially stir-fried these dishes in small pots just for their group.
The dishes were steaming hot, with a full aroma, showing the chef's skills weren't bad at all.
"These are all simple home-cooked dishes, please don't mind."
Town Mayor Liu warmly invited everyone to take a seat and introduced: "These dishes may look ordinary, but the ingredients are fresh, rural produce, healthy and organic, without pesticides."
Town Mayor Liu knew that for Wei Jia and her team from Tianhai, no matter how high-end or precious dishes they made, it might not catch their eyes, but if they talked about the quality of ingredients, Tianhai's restaurants might not be any better than here.
"Even though it's dinner, there's a rule not to drink alcohol on workdays, please excuse us."
After sitting down shortly, Town Mayor Liu, along with Director Wu and Principal Huang, raised their teacups and stood to toast everyone: "Firstly, on behalf of Wangshui Town, I sincerely thank President Wei and President Li for coming, if there's anything lacking in our hospitality, feel free to point it out, and we'll do our best to improve."
"You're too kind, Town Mayor Liu, our main purpose is to investigate the school situation, the simpler the formalities, the better."
Wei Jia also raised her cup and took a sip of tea, setting the tone for the meeting with her first sentence.
This was also her usual style, no unnecessary talk, no procrastination, always getting straight to the point in meetings.
Upon hearing this, Town Mayor Liu's expression changed slightly, nodding immediately: "That's even better, it seems President Wei is a pragmatist. In that case, we won't be ceremonious either."
He turned and looked at Director Wu beside him: "Director Wu, why don't you provide President Wei and the others with a brief introduction of our situation here."
Director Wu never picked up the chopsticks, and upon hearing the leader's order, he immediately pulled out some documents from his old briefcase, flipping through them as he introduced:
"As previously mentioned when communicating with your company, the main issue is at the school where Principal Huang was previously located. Due to the very old buildings and last year's extreme torrential rain, many buildings collapsed, and the remaining ones are now dangerous structures, making it impossible for students to attend classes there."
Director Wu presented several pages of photos from the documents, passing them to Wei Jia and Li Jing.
Li Jing glanced over them and was surprised to see the school in ruins, with several old buildings collapsed to the ground.
If not told it was a school, Li Jing might have thought it was an abandoned village.
Wei Jia raised an eyebrow: "After so long, is it still here? No repairs? Where did the school's students go then?"
Wei Jia's questions were as sharp as her personality. With just a brief introduction, she pointed out three key issues.
"Our town's primary school has never collected any fees; tuition, learning materials, and book fees are all funded by the town."
Before Director Wu could respond, Town Mayor Liu began explaining: "Normally, just covering these costs for the school stretches our budget thin, leaving no extra funds for repairs.
The buildings at this school are decades-old, and repairing them after the collapse has little meaning. We've had a budget assessment done, and the cost for repairs isn't much different from rebuilding."
At this point, Principal Huang added: "The school's students are temporarily squeezed into another primary school in town, but the number of students is severely exceeding the capacity.
Not only is it far and inconvenient for our students, but it also affects the original students' schooling at that school."
"That's right, our town has two primary schools, meant to serve the educational needs of children from the north and south of the town. Now that the northern school has problems, having northern students attend the southern school is a major issue in terms of distance."
Town Mayor Liu forced a bitter smile: "Furthermore, the kids' homes are extremely scattered, even attending the northern school involved early mornings and late returns, with no way to go to the southern school. So, many kids have stayed home and haven't attended school this year..."
Talking about the town's difficulties, Town Mayor Liu and the others seemed to have endless grievances, continuously disclosing the town's situation to Wei Jia, Li Jing, and others.
Although there seemed to be an intention to elicit sympathy from Wei Jia and her group, after going through the documents, Li Jing knew that what they said was likely not far from the truth.
After all, they would also conduct an on-site investigation, and there was no point in the locals lying.
After the conversation with them, it was already past seven in the evening, and they agreed to conduct an on-site investigation the next day.
Most of the dinner was spent discussing matters, so neither party ate particularly well, which made Town Mayor Liu and the others especially apologetic.
He then personally drove Li Jing and others to the local hotel in town.
Due to Wangshui Town's strained finances, there were no proper hospitality conditions available, so he took everyone to the safest and cleanest hotel in town and paid all the expenses in advance.
Once Town Mayor Liu left, Wei Jia and the others began organizing their luggage and officially checked into their hotel rooms.
Although it was the best hotel in town, both the environment and facilities were far inferior to an ordinary hotel in Tianhai.
However, thankfully, following Town Mayor Liu's instructions, the hotel's service was very warm, and the rooms were quite clean.
Aside from being a bit old and cramped, there weren't any other faults to be found.
Since there were many vacant rooms at the hotel, Wei Jia and Li Jing booked single rooms, while the rest mostly shared double rooms.
In the room, after Li Jing had finished tidying up, he wanted to turn on the TV but found only a few local channels, which didn't interest him.
He glanced at the time; it was only a little after eight in the evening, which was too early for a night owl like Li Jing.
Unable to resist, he stepped out of the room, glanced towards Wei Jia's room, and, without hesitation, walked straight over.