In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 311 Second Uncle's Confusion About the Future
"I recently took that BMW to the oil city for some work, and since my second uncle should be in the oil city project compound, I came over to check on him." Yu Dawei explained, then raised his chin, "What's up with that guy?"

"Sigh, it's all because of my second sister-in-law. At the beginning of the year, she insisted that her older brother work with my second brother, but he's done nothing right. He can't even handle a small thing." The bald man glanced back at the other person's back and subconsciously spat out a mouthful of phlegm. "Someone like him still wants to learn to be a contractor from my second brother. He can't even do the work of a foreman."

Yu Dawei patted Si Tuzi on the shoulder: "It's their family matter, why are you so concerned? Sooner or later, your second uncle will find out what kind of person they are."

"Sigh, Second Brother is too shrewd. That's why he called me from Luhe Town to oversee the work." Fourth Baldy took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Why is this old guy so timid? If Second Sister-in-law hadn't threatened Second Brother with divorce last year during the Spring Festival, Second Brother wouldn't have agreed."

"That serious?" Yu Dawei clicked his tongue. "By the way, how's the situation here?"

"Overall it's alright, they're all brick-and-mortar houses, not too difficult, it's just that people are hard to manage." The bald man got angry just thinking about Lao Xiao, and took a deep drag on his cigarette. "Your second uncle is in the project compound, if you want to find him you can just go there."

"Okay, you go ahead and get busy then." Yu Dawei said, then turned and drove towards the project site in the Xueyuan New District in the distance.

When they arrived at the gate, there was an old security guard, dressed in tattered clothes, loitering outside. When he saw Yu Dawei driving in, he quickly reached out and stopped him.

"What are you doing?" The old man, with a few hairs on his head fluttering in the wind, frowned deeply as he asked Yu Dawei.

"Are you Uncle Zhang from Minquan? I am Dawei." Yu Dawei rolled down the car window and glanced at the old man.

He had seen this old man before; he was from the same village as his second uncle and was his neighbor next door. He had seen him once before when he went to Minquan.

Yu Dawei was a bit dumbfounded. How was he supposed to work? All his relatives and neighbors had come.

"Oh, Dawei, wait a moment, I'll open the door for you right away." Seeing that Yu Dawei was an acquaintance of Hou Wanqiang, the old man didn't dare to make things difficult for him and quickly walked to the big iron gate and opened one of the two doors.

"Thanks, sir." Yu Dawei thanked him and drove the little red car into the courtyard.

The entire courtyard was surrounded by prefabricated houses, with the middle one being two stories high. Not far to the right was the parking area. Yu Dawei parked his car, took out two bags of fruit from the back seat, and then stepped inside.

Arriving at the far east end of the first-floor corridor, Yu Dawei found the general manager's office and knocked on the door.

"Come in." A familiar voice came from inside.

"Second Uncle." Yu Dawei pushed open the door, and Hou Wanqiang was sitting in his office chair, smoking and staring silently at a sketch.

The office is about 50 or 60 square meters, which is quite spacious. There is a single bed for resting in the distance, with brand new bedding folded up on it.

Near the south-facing window, there is a row of black leather sofas, next to a money tree about half a person's height, with a watering can on one side of the pot.

Second Uncle Hou Wanqiang sat in the boss's chair, with a red lacquered solid wood table in front of him and two black leather chairs opposite him.

On the wall behind my second uncle, there is a painting with the four characters "鹏程万里" (meaning "a bright future") hanging on it.

The overall office exudes an air of luxury, and compared to the project office at my third uncle's place, it's like night and day.

Thinking back to when his third uncle was working in Luhe Town, he was only using a discarded desk from an elementary school and a creaky stool. Yu Dawei felt sorry for his third uncle for three seconds.

"What brings you here?" Second Uncle looked up and saw that it was Yu Dawei. He then put the cigarette butt in his mouth into the ashtray and rubbed it. "Have you finished with things at the factory?"

"I guess the handover is done." Yu Dawei casually put the bag of fruit on the leather sofa next to him, plopped down opposite his second uncle's large desk, and looked at it with some admiration: "Second Uncle, this place is pretty good. My third uncle will be jealous if he sees it."

"What's he jealous of? I told him to set up the office like that back then. After all, if a boss comes over, how can he stand seeing a shabby office?" My second uncle is very good at interpersonal relationships. He was wearing a black woolen overcoat on the outside and a thick blue jacket on the inside.

"How many more people did your factory hire later?" Second Uncle reached out and grabbed a teacup from the table, handing it to Yu Dawei. He then picked up the teapot and poured Yu Dawei a cup of hot tea.

“Five, and then two more were added.” Yu Dawei took the teacup and took a sip. “Those five used to work at the Eighth Bureau Equipment Factory. Later, the Eighth Bureau Equipment Factory laid off staff, so I took over their jobs.”

“They all work shifts during the holidays, and a few of them are from Daqing. The next two are road roller operators I hired. One is a recent technical school graduate, and the other is from Chuhua. They're not really relatives, but they came to me relentlessly after the New Year.” Yu Dawei sighed as he said this, “Anyway, I haven't paid them yet, so I'll just use them and see how it goes.”

"Sigh, hiring people is such a headache." Hearing the dilemma in Yu Dawei's tone, and thinking of himself, Second Uncle couldn't help but sigh in empathy, and subconsciously picked up a cigarette from the pack and lit it.

“I used to know only a few people in the village, quite a few of them my age, so I took them out to try their luck. Now that people in the village see I'm doing well, they all want to join in the fun.” Second Uncle exhaled a puff of smoke, picked up his teacup and took a sip. “When I went home at the end of last year, everyone in the village who had even a slight connection to our family came over.” “I don’t know where they got the idea that I was going to build a house this year, but they kept asking me if I could sell one of them cheaply, some even offering to work for them to pay for the house. It’s getting more and more outrageous.” Second Uncle raised the corners of his mouth and sneered.

"You've seen Old Zhang from the gate, right? He's our neighbor."

Yu Dawei nodded: "I've seen it before."

"After the New Year, this guy saw I was leaving and begged me to find him a job so he could do some work and earn some money. Do you think I don't know what kind of scoundrel his family is? This old man is either causing trouble at his eldest son's place or begging for food at his youngest son's place." The second uncle's eyes were full of disdain. "If it weren't for our years of neighborly relations, I would have sent him away long ago."

“I recently heard that this old man, relying on his position as a gatekeeper, has started extorting bribes from certain individuals. I haven’t arrived yet, but I’ll come when I do…” Second Uncle’s eyes were gloomy as he took a deep drag on his cigarette.

Yu Dawei has witnessed his second uncle's current state; he is entangled in all sorts of matters, big and small. Compared to his second uncle, he is nothing.

"Take it slow, Second Uncle. Nothing can be accomplished overnight," Yu Dawei offered a few words of simple comfort.

Upon hearing this, Hou Wanqiang couldn't help but sigh: "Dawei, marriage is just a shackle, it's really meaningless."

Every time he comes home, there's either an argument or the build-up to one. His wife seems to have no idea how much she's sacrificed or fought for the family.

His two sons were even more outrageous. They didn't dare to utter a sound when he came back, which made him furious. Sometimes he even wondered if these two timid kids were really his own.

“Second Uncle, the main problem between you and your second aunt is the lack of communication. Neither of you feels secure, especially your second aunt. What does a housewife know? All she knows is taking care of the children. And all she cares about is how much money you're making, so she's definitely afraid you'll go out and have a good time.” Yu Dawei understood his second aunt's feelings all too well, just like Han Jingfan back then.

"Sigh, Dawei, if someone like me who works in engineering couldn't understand all sorts of people, I wouldn't need to be in this industry. But your second aunt really doesn't understand me." Second Uncle said, puffing out smoke as he held a cigarette between his right fingers, "Life is getting more and more complicated."

"At the beginning of this year, when we were about to start construction, everyone was clamoring to put my brother-in-law in a minor supervisor position on the construction site. That guy's totally not cut out for it; he's useless at everything and ends up with nothing to show for it." The second uncle's eyes gleamed uncertainly. "Recently, Fourth Baldy has helped him smooth things over a lot. If we let him continue like this… I'll probably lose this whole project! How am I supposed to explain this to the authorities then?"

Yu Dawei fell silent because he knew that the real major shareholder of this project was the government officials in the oil city who provided the funding and land.

It's considered a residential compound for the families of officials in the oil city. His second uncle had mentioned to him before that if this project was done well, he would have the opportunity to participate in the residential compounds near various oil refineries in the future.

The oil city has a total of thirteen production areas, from Oil Production Plant No. 1 to Oil Production Plant No. 13.

Currently, the oil production in the oil city is still at its peak, making the expansion of the residential compound an inevitable necessity.

It seems that my third uncle accumulated capital rapidly back then because of the construction of family housing for several oilfields, and eventually won all kinds of bridge and road construction projects.

Wanqiang Group's influence can be seen in the construction of various parks and office buildings.

"Sigh." Uncle Er stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray with a complicated expression, then looked up at Yu Dawei and said, "Don't leave tonight, have a drink."

"Have a drink, my alcohol tolerance is... better than before." Yu Dawei was about to boast, but when he saw that the person in front of him was also a heavy drinker, he reluctantly withdrew his bragging courage.

Afterwards, Yu Dawei began to talk about his own situation, which was Xu Huang's current situation. He wanted his second uncle to give him some advice on how to get Xu Huang to willingly integrate into the new environment.

My second uncle's advice was to make your presence felt in front of the other person more often, gradually building rapport and eventually becoming close friends, so that the other person would consider you a friend. Later, you could use greater benefits to bind them to you, and perhaps the other person would choose to compromise because of their awkward situation.

However, his second uncle also suggested that he discuss it with his third uncle when he had time, as the latter might have a simpler and more direct solution.

When it comes to manipulating people's hearts, the second uncle doesn't have the same ruthlessness as the third uncle.

As they chatted, night fell. The second uncle wanted to grab a quick bite in his office, so Yu Dawei drove out to buy some cooked food.

When Yu Dawei came to see his second uncle this time, his biggest discovery was that his second uncle had lost his sharp edge. He was like a small boat on the sea, drifting and swaying, as if he could be capsized by a wave at any moment.

Although he didn't know how his second uncle survived in his previous life, now that Yu Dawei had encountered him in this life, he couldn't just sit idly by.

Yu Dawei believes he can manage to have a drink and a chat with him.

(End of this chapter)