Rebirth of the Godly Prodigal

Since Hong Dali had made his announcement, everything was subsequently easy—

Speaking of which, these children had made everyone around Hong Dali very interested in them. After the village chief had gotten the children to stand in their positions, the group started happily picking children. Mu Yuxi picked a group of children that often had novel ideas. Ling Xiaoyi, on the other hand, chose those that liked to calculate numbers. Catherine naturally picked a few children that had clear enunciation abilities. Looks like she was planning to teach them English.

The eight big lackeys each picked a few of the remaining children. Speaking of which, ever since Hong Dali appeared out of nowhere as the family’s Rookie King of the Year, and coupled with the legend of Big Turtle the Black Tortoise and those businesses that he’d started up, his exuberance was already starting to be mimicked by all the other hedonists. This created a very big problem—there weren’t enough lackeys…

After all, there were only a certain number of people suitable to be lackeys. Not everyone could be a lackey. Thus, the small lackeys trained by these eight big lackeys would definitely be very sought after. Ling Xiaoyi even called several big aristocratic families in Tianjing City, and these aristocratic families that had young children all expressed their need for a few small lackeys—their loyalty would definitely be stronger if it was cultivated from young…

What happened afterward was interesting. The crosstalk actor, Hao Jian, was the best in currying favor. Thus, he decisively chose a few humorous small children and planned to teach them how to act in comedic performances. The singer, Qi Chenfeng, chose a few with good voices. The basketball star, Li Yangfan, chose a few tall ones. And actor Huang Xin chose a few good at performing.

The most interesting one was the car racer, Luo Fei. This fellow naturally couldn’t ask children to go car racing. But he also had quick wits as he chose a few agile and meticulous children with quick reflexes to go and play with remote control cars…

Then, the last child was Little Mo Mo. He directly pulled along a few little children who were good at playing with remote control airplanes. Looks like they would be part of the future Gundam mobile team!

Tang Muxin stared blankly at the children that had instantly been separated. Hong Dali patted her shoulder and comforted. “Xinxin, don’t be anxious. We can wait until we finish high school…”

Thus, the final decision of where this batch of children was assigned to had been made.

Hong Dali said, “Since they’ve all been allocated, then we’ll go back first. Village chief, in the future this will be my territory. If there’s any matter, you can just give Mayor Su a call. Whoever dares to touch my land, I’ll fight with them to the end!”

This was an aristocratic young master. Currently, looks like after the road here had been renovated, it would solve the financial problems of the villagers very quickly. The village chief was extremely grateful to Hong Dali as tears rolled down his face. “Young Master Dali, really… I’m so grateful to you! We don’t have many good things in our village. Why don’t we give you some mushrooms? They’re all plucked from the mountains and dried under the sun. It tastes really good when you soak it in water.”

“Sure!” Once Hong Dali heard of mushrooms, he smiled. “Then bring some for me. I’ll try them at home.”

Speaking of which, once he heard of mushrooms, he’d think of Ti Qi from League of Legends. Afterward, Hong Dali said, “Mushrooms are good. I think I can get Chuyin to start making explosive mushrooms…”

Everyone present, including the village chief, stared warily at him. Hong Dali sheepishly smiled and said, “Ah, don’t look at me like that. I’m only saying it for fun, for fun…”

Very soon, the villagers brought all the mushrooms that had been dried, stunning Hong Dali.

There were really quite a lot of mushrooms discovered by the villagers. Hong Dali didn’t know much about mushrooms, but fortunately, Tang Muxin was more knowledgeable and easily identified many types. “The Chaga mushrooms that grow on the white birch tree, the butter mushrooms that grow under the trees, the white oil mushrooms in the forest, the Coprinus comatus by the river, the Wood blewit from the small bushes, the Enoki mushroom from the forest, the Old Man of the Woods mushroom on the hillsides… Village chief, you really have many types of mushrooms in the mountains here!”

She browsed through them for a while again. “Gosh, this is a Monkey Head, a Monkey Head mushroom! I’d never thought there would be a Monkey Head mushroom here!”

“Um… Miss, we have many mushrooms here. If you’d like, in the future we’ll send more of them over to you.” The village chief was rather curious. Because of the inconvenience of transport, these mushrooms could be said to be the usual main food of the villagers. But why was this Missy overreacting so much?

Alas, Tang Muxin didn’t answer, but instead mumbled, “Most wild Monkey Head mushrooms grow in forests not as dense and where the air circulation is better, with a higher temperature of about 20°C in the surroundings. Look at this… It’s really the case!” As she spoke, Tang Muxin looked at Hong Dali as if she’d discovered a treasure. “Dali, we struck it rich this time! Monkey Head mushrooms are one of the four most famous dishes, the other three being bear’s paw, sea cucumber, and sharks fin. You know, right? The mountains here actually produce Monkey Heads!”

“Oh, that’s not bad.” Hong Dali touched his chin and thought for a while, then he said to the village chief, “Village chief, have you sold these Monkey Head mushrooms in the city before?”

“No,” The village chief shook his head. “Not many of these are produced, so they can’t be sold. Thus, all our households would dry some of them, and take them out and eat them only when there are important guests or some weddings or funerals.”

“Is that so…” Hong Dali smiled. “Then, in the future, don’t sell these Monkey Head mushrooms. Pluck them and give some to me. I’ll let my dad and mum have a taste of it!”

“Of course, there’s no problem with fulfilling Young Master Dali’s instructions.” The village chief was just scared that Hong Dali would not care about the village in the future. Now that he saw Hong Dali liked this mushroom, his mouth couldn’t close from smiling as he waved with his arm. “Everyone, whichever household has this Monkey Head, take them all out. Young Master Dali says he likes it!”

Upon hearing that Hong Dali liked this Monkey Head mushroom, everyone instantly ran into their houses. Not long after, they all gathered with a full 20 kg and more dried of Monkey Head mushrooms…

Tang Muxin stared in bewilderment. “Dali, this… this is really not few!”

“Hoho, I didn’t think that there would be a surprise.” Hong Dali was very happy. “See, that’s the benefits of nature. If such a large area of forest is destroyed, what a pity it would be!” As he spoke, Hong Dali expressed his gratitude to the village chief. “Village chief, then I’ll not stand on ceremony. We’ll go back first. When there’s time, I’ll come again!”

“OK, Young Master Dali. Goodbye.” The expression of the village chief was like a little wife who had suffered from injustice. “Please don’t forget us…”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. Then we’ll go back first!”

Now that everything was settled, and the television program had more or less been filmed, the group instantly boarded the plane and went back.

On the plane, Hong Dali sighed. “Aiya, so many mushrooms would be able to feed us for many days. Not bad, not bad, haha!”

Tang Muxin sighed. With such a big area of forest, in the future, all the delicacies like Monkey Head mushrooms would probably be able to be eaten like snacks. Would it be so nutritious till they had nosebleeds every day?

…

Hong Dali and the rest elatedly returned to Chenhui Building. At the same time, in the mayor’s office on the twelfth floor of Tianjing City’s government building.

“Mayor Jiang, why did you call me today? What’s the urgency?” Once Hong Weiguo entered the mayor’s office, he curiously asked Mayor Jiang. “Is there good news again?”

Mayor Jiang had a square face, thick eyebrows, and big eyes, and he looked almost the same as Zhu Shimao 1. Once he saw Hong Weiguo enter the office, he hurriedly looked outside, and upon seeing that there weren’t anybody around, he instructed his secretary, “Xiao Wang, I have some important matters to discuss with Mr. Hong. Nobody is allowed to enter.”

Secretary Xiao Wang: “Yes, Mayor Jiang.”

Hong Weiguo was shocked. After only he and Mayor Jiang were left in the office, he asked, “Did something big happen? You usually aren’t so easily alarmed.”

Mayor Jiang was silent for a moment, then he said, “Actually, this is considered a national secret. But we are quite close to each other, so I’m taking a huge risk in telling you about this. Do not leak it out!”

“So serious!” Hong Weiguo was instantly shocked.

What kind of person was Mayor Jiang? He was within the core circle of the nation’s power structure. He was definitely a high official, and one sentence from him could often affect the entire direction of a big matter. And now he’d said this. Looks like this matter was definitely not a small one!

“Weiguo, tell me first. Exactly how much of land have you bought at West Fourth Loop?” Mayor Jiang was silent for a moment, then he asked.

“The land at West Fourth Loop?” Hong Weiguo frowned and perplexedly said, “Back then, I bought 1.2 billion yuan of land. Did anything happen? But that’s not right, what would happen over there? I’ve gone through all the legal procedures to buy the land. You know that I never avoid taxes or get involved in illegal matters.”

“It’s not a problem with the land.” Mayor Jiang lit up a cigarette for him and Hong Weiguo, then slowly said, “Tell me first. How many pieces of land have you developed at West Fourth Loop? How much money have you invested in it currently?”

“For those pieces of land, I invested around 200 million of construction funds.” Speaking up to this point, Hong Weiguo was very helpless as he said, “But that was in the past. Now, all the land at West Fourth Loop has been sold by that prodigal Dali of mine.”

“What the heck!” Upon hearing Hong Weiguo’s words, Mayor Jiang let out a classic exclamation—Why did I say ‘again’ 1?

After all, Mayor Jiang was usually very composed. Seldom did he show any signs of surprise.

This time, it was Hong Weiguo’s turn to be shocked. “Old Jiang, why are you so alarmed again. Back then, Dali just sold the land out of the blue. But the price is quite good, around 8 billion or so. I earned quite a lot as well, so I just left this matter like that. Anyway, it’s already sold, so I didn’t think much of it.”

Speaking up to this point, Hong Weiguo suddenly felt strange and asked, “But it shouldn’t be the case. Dali is always stirring up things, but this shouldn’t be the reason you called me here for, right? After I bought those pieces of land, I already put them all under Dali’s name. It doesn’t have anything to do with the government whether he sells it or not!”

Mayor Su was a stable and dependable person. Since he took the initiative to call him today, it definitely wasn’t a small matter.

But that wasn’t right, the mayor wouldn’t go and intervene in however Hong Dali played around with the land under his name, right?

Footnotes:

A Chinese comedian

A classic line from the movie ‘A Chinese Odyssey