Liu Shouren is someone who sticks to his goals with unwavering persistence, no matter how challenging they may be.
Feeling confident about turning the muddy marshlands by the river into paddy fields, he immediately convened a meeting for all the community members. After gaining over seventy percent support from the members, he began frequently visiting his little sister and brother-in-law, who are experts, to seek advice.
Shuzhen thought with a shock: While inducing plants to grow is her forte, converting dry land into wet rice fields is like a frog jumping into a well—she has no idea!
Her guidance could at best come from the scattered farming textbooks she hastily skimmed during university. While theoretical discussions are fine, when it comes to actual planning, all she can really do is shrug.
Not having the necessary skills to undertake ceramic work, she gave her brother an embarrassed smile, confessing her competence was only in theories.
Liu Shouren laughed, "It’s good to have theoretical knowledge. If you can write a proposal that gets approved by the higher-ups, we’re halfway there. The rest is for us to feel our way forward, bit by bit. Even if in the first couple of years the yield is low, we’d have accomplished a great deal by turning land that used to flood nine years out of ten into fields of gleaming rice!"
His wife is still in her confinement period, and Lianshan isn’t about to let her overwork herself.
Even himself, he’d prefer staying home to take care of his wife, coaxing their increasingly adorable daughters and sons, and playing little games with his eldest.
After all, weren’t they originally specialized in optimizing and increasing grain production?
Converting dry land to wet isn’t exactly their field!
Feeling like his brother-in-law was forcing the issue, Lianshan tried to pass the buck: "It’s always better to have more heads than one. Why not visit the school? Don’t have to rely on the three indifferent educated youths, there still are Wu Hao, Wei Lai, Dong Shu—real talents from proper universities. Looking at these people who’ve been sent down here, each has their own strengths.
Brother, why not gather wisdom from everyone, because after all, utilizing everyone’s talents is essential!"
Quickly go gather some wisdom and don’t keep interrupting our happy married life.
"Well said! My husband is so clever, how is his mind so quick!" As soon as Lianshan finished speaking, Shuzhen excitedly slapped the bed. "I used to worry about how to further improve Uncle Wu’s family conditions. Keeping them at school teaching, as slowly the village members move beyond the literacy class standards, the need for teachers diminishes.
Moreover, everyone was once elite in their fields, yet merely being used for enlightening kids and helping members become literate. It’s like using a cannon to shoot mosquitoes, truly wasting talent and watching precious jewels gather dust!
Now, with the dry-to-wet conversion matter, they can absolutely pitch in ideas. Even if clueless, following the climate is helpful!
Those good with writing can help draft proposals, and those excellent in math can assist in measurements. Just with careful thinking, almost everyone can shine brightly here.
If the project succeeds, all of it will obviously be credited to you, brother!
If lucky, if one of them flies high from this, achieving liberation from the sent-down labor days will be an extra joy, won’t it?"
These people are potential future big shots. For the current kindness, the gratefulness will definitely be like return of a flood later. Much like Victory and her husband and Grandpa Jiang, who consider them close family due to numerous times offering unconditional help.
Of course, Shuzhen hopes it’s Uncle Wu who gets this opportunity.
After all, his only beloved daughter married into the Liu family, deeply connected to her brother with plans to start a family. He is naturally an anchor and ready-made support for the Liu family!
Hmm, with Uncle Wu and Victory’s support, even if Dai Weiguo comes like in the past life to snatch her son, she wouldn’t need to worry. She could easily flatten him with a mere hit.
Lianshan smirked, reminding his idealistic wife to stay realistic. Not to waste too much effort and hope because great hope can lead to great disappointment. For years, except for Grandpa Jiang, no one has been successfully rehabilitated.
"The challenge of rehabilitation is high, but mainly to let them contribute wisdom and strength in this conversion. When the production increases significantly, no need to mention any unseen rewards or affirmations from above. In the village, they are bound to gain more recognition and respect." In fact, Liu Shouren aimed exactly for this.
He had no grand desire for rehabilitation, just hoped his father-in-law’s status in the village would elevate, allowing him to care less and avoid the distance he maintained, fearing his identity might trouble the couple, thus sparking his sentimental pregnant wife to tears now and then.
Having made up his mind, Liu Shouren didn’t linger. He turned and exited the room, riding his bicycle toward the school.
He first checked with his father-in-law, obtained a groundbreaking piece of praise from Wu Liguo—who typically didn’t regard him highly. Only then did Liu Shouren summon the ten sent-down staff and three educated youths, two guys and one girl, for a brief meeting.
Over half an hour of discussion and questions, Liu Shouren saw what it meant to have hidden talents everywhere.
Among the total of ten sent-down staff, aside from his gun-slinging father-in-law and capitalist Old Yang sharing no insights on irrigation, the remaining eight had ample opinions to express.
Dong Shu, graduated from Q University’s Literature Department, took over drafting the proposal task; musical talent Wu Hao claimed his math was solid, offering help on surveying and computations. Of course, Wei Lai, formerly Mayor of H City, was most impressive—he had supervised medium-scale reservoir constructions, transforming disaster-prone areas into vast fertile land.
With such precious experience, the most they could transform by the great river would be eight hundred acres of dry land—easy under his lead.
Liu Shouren was delighted. His little sister was right: Brother-in-law is indeed smart! In employing talents, he must learn well as a brigade leader and accountant himself!
Lianshan snorted: "I just said it casually; mainly couldn’t stand you always visiting to bother me and my wife with all sorts of trivial matters. Accidentally hitting on Uncle Wei’s glorious achievements—that’s purely coincidental, okay?"