Chapter 8

  Cheng Huiling's face was ugly, she glared at Cheng Zihan fiercely, and couldn't figure out why this stinky girl seemed to have changed suddenly, usually afraid of herself to death, now actually dared to defy her.

  After the commotion, Lai Ying also understood who took the money, but after all, Cheng Huiling was her daughter. Her own daughter stole her own money, and if she said it out loud, she would still lose face, so she didn't continue to make a fuss about going to the village chief's place. She just gave Cheng Huiling a cold stare and said, "You come with me!"

  Cheng Huiling glared at Cheng Zihan before following Lai Ying into the room.

  Cheng Hai took Cheng Zihan to apply some medicine, while Li Lan was busy driving the few hundred ducks back to the backyard.

  All this fuss has wasted quite some time.

  In Cheng Zihan's memory, the batch of ducks raised by Li Lan only had a dozen or so left in the end. They didn't even make back the money they spent buying ducklings. After Cheng Hai helped her treat her wound, she followed him to the backyard.

  It's called the backyard, but it's actually just a small piece of empty land surrounded by a bamboo fence, with an area of about five square meters. A large group of ducks are crowded together in a dense mess.

  Cheng Zihan took a casual glance and immediately understood why only a few ducks had survived. In such an environment, even if you were a duck, you would rather die than survive.

  The land next to the duck farm is a vegetable field secretly cultivated by several nearby families, if discovered, they will come and dig up all the vegetables.

  Cheng Zihan casually took a look and found that the vegetables inside were all easy to grow and didn't require much maintenance. The surrounding weeds hadn't been dealt with, and some of them had even grown better than the vegetables themselves.

  Cheng Zihan shook his head again. At this age, the land in the village was still owned by the country, and private individuals could not open it up at will. However, Cheng Shi Hao's family had a piece of land behind the village, which was allocated to him when he first arrived in the village. It was a whole mu of land, making them a small landlord in the village.

  Other lands are usually arranged by the village collective for people to cultivate, and even what to plant has rigid requirements, and cannot be planted according to one's own preferences.

  Every year in April and May, the land next to the river embankment is put up for auction. The land is only about 2-3 mu (about 0.13 hectares) in size, but it's divided into dozens of small plots for villagers to bid on. However, each plot doesn't require much money, and although it's called an auction, the village has already set a clear price for each plot.

  Cheng Zihan calculated the time, and the bidding time seemed to be approaching. Qin Kexiu told her to think of a way to get the usage right of that piece of land by the river, but there was no clue yet.

  Cheng Zihan was staring blankly at the ducks on the ground, Li Lan saw her and patted her, shouting in a bad mood: "What are you doing stupidly? Don't do your homework? Your classmate came while you were sleeping and said to do those homework, all copied down for you."

  Cheng Zihan finally came back to her senses. Right, she still had to do her homework, elementary school second-grade homework, just thinking about it made her head ache.

  But now, after all, he was only eight years old, and no matter how reluctant he was, these things still had to be done. He could only follow Li Lan back into the house, take out his books, and obediently do his homework.

  What is called homework is just copying characters and words, doing a few exercises after class.

  Cheng Zihan easily solved it, then lay on the dinner table thinking about how to get the usage right of that piece of land by the river.

  Cheng Hai was sitting on one side smoking a dry cigarette, while Li Lan was sitting next to him doing some needlework she had brought back. The two of them chatted occasionally.

  "In a few days, the land by the river will be auctioned off." Cheng Hai said calmly after taking a drag on his cigarette.

  Li Lan nodded, and the work in her hand did not stop. Every year was like this, they would come back to plant peanuts and sweet potatoes on a piece of land, and this year was no exception.

  Cheng Hai fell silent for a moment, then added: "I don't know what the villagers are thinking this year. They actually want to take out that entire piece of land for competitive bidding, and it's not even a one-year usage period, but has been changed to ten years."

  "What? So long? Isn't that going to cost a lot of money?" Li Lan was still heartbroken about the money.

  Now she can only get a salary of over 200 yuan per month, plus Cheng Hai's monthly salary, the two people have a total of over 800 yuan per month. Every month, they also need to give money to Lai Ying and Cheng Shihao, and there are two young children at home who need to be supported, this little money is really tight.

  If it's just a normal investment, it would be around 20 yuan, which isn't a lot of money. However, now they want to invest in the whole land and it has to be for at least 10 years! Calculating this way, it will cost a lot more. At the very least, it will be two or three thousand.

  Cheng Zihan listened on the side, but her eyes suddenly lit up, "Dad, let's bid for that land."

  Cheng Hai listened to Cheng Zihan's words, looked at her in surprise, and shook his head: "This investment is not feasible. Without 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, we can't afford it. Our family doesn't have that kind of spare money right now. The land there is only suitable for growing sweet potatoes and peanuts, nothing else. By July or August, the water will rise, and all the land will be flooded. Whatever you plant will die, and the invested money will be wasted. You're still in school, and one semester costs 5,000 to 6,000 yuan. Plus, there are other expenses. This is not something we can afford."

  Cheng Zihan also fell silent after listening to Cheng Hai's words. She was also aware of the current situation at home, and if there were two or three thousand yuan in savings, that would definitely be available. However, taking out so much money at once to invest in a piece of land with no value was indeed not very possible for their family.

  What can be done about it? Such a rare opportunity, should I give up?

  Money, money, money! Oh, if I could make that much in a short period of time.

  Cheng Zihan sighed and lay down on the dinner table again, sighing.