Despite being incredibly wealthy, I want to be a prosecutor.

The executive suite at the guesthouse was a decent place to sleep.

After getting up, Zhou Hong wandered around the small county town.

Most of Anxia County is mountainous, and even the area around the county seat is characterized by loess plateau topography.

The county town has earthen cave dwellings on loess slopes.

Since the reform and opening up, and especially in recent years with the rapid development of China's economy, Anxia County has experienced increasingly severe population loss, particularly among young people, who are reportedly rarely seen in rural areas.

Anxia County has a small population to begin with, with a registered population of over 4, but the actual resident population is probably less than 3.

The so-called county town actually consists of only a few buildings, all concentrated in the county government area, including the guesthouse, the public security bureau, and the department store, all of which are state-owned.

The two-story department store, which has been restructured in most other places, remains unchanged here, as if time has frozen in the 1970s and 80s.

The goods inside were unremarkable, and the state-run sales clerks chatted and ate sunflower seeds, acting superior and completely ignoring customers.

In other places, such a department store would have gone out of business and been sold to a private individual long ago, but in Anxia, ​​no one is willing to take it over.

The county's consistent decision has been to resolutely preserve the county's only commercial building. As a result, Anxia Department Store has been receiving government subsidies, which are part of the annual poverty alleviation funds from the impoverished county.

It represents the commercial facade of a county town.

……

As I walked out of the department store, Fang Ting was waiting outside.

"I didn't expect you to get up so early today." Fang Ting smiled. She called at 9 o'clock, but Zhou Hong said he was shopping at the mall.

She was wearing a blue and white tracksuit and white sneakers; she was simple yet beautiful, like a graceful lily.

Her classmate, Mr. Zhang, went back home that day, but he left the Xiali car behind, and Fang Ting drove it over.

Although the Xiali car was old and worn out, private cars were still extremely rare in Anxia County.

There are now just over ten million private cars in China, including various work vehicles such as vans and small trucks.

As for private cars, the price is just over 4 million. In county towns, those who own private cars are definitely wealthy, let alone in Anxia, ​​a long-standing impoverished county.

"Let's book a place. I'll see if there's a suitable one and prepare one too, since we'll inevitably have to come here in the future."

Fang Ting smiled slightly: "You seem very confident."

"As long as I'm willing to compromise, things should be fine, but I feel like your dad is about to make his move."

"Don't think so badly of my dad! He's different from others!" Fang Ting said with some dissatisfaction, and for the first time, she stood on the opposite side of Zhou Hong.

"Maybe!" Zhou Hong smiled and got into the car.

……

Since the housing reform in the late 1980s, more than ten years ago, Anxia County has only launched two housing projects.

The second housing development was launched two years ago in a prime location in the county town, right between the department store and the county government. The original bungalows were factory dormitories, so there was no question of demolition. They just pushed the buildings aside and started building them. It seems that the former secretary invited the developer from the city, and the land was given to them very cheaply.

The prices are very low, but almost two years have passed and the vacancy rate is still extremely high. The main street between the department store and the county government building is lined with residential buildings, with more than a dozen neat three-story shops. I don't know how many have been sold, but only one is open for business, which is an eyeglasses shop.

One has to admire these southerners who sell eyeglasses; they really manage to open eyeglass stores in every corner of the country.

One of the storefronts is now a sales office, with a large red paper sign outside that prominently displays the words "20% Off Storefront".

In fact, the sales office initially released various reports of properties being sold out, with demand exceeding supply and a constant stream of visitors from other places.

But it didn't work. All the tricks commonly used outside didn't work. In the end, they had no choice but to return to the true nature of the market and honestly offer discounts.

Of course, saying "two-fold discount" is actually a comparison with neighboring counties and cities.

Zhou Hong smiled as he looked at it. "Hegang in this era?" But Hegang is still a prefecture-level city. Anxia built this community just to save face, completely violating economic principles. Compared to his hometown, Dongning County, the prices are much worse.

……

After looking at the storefront and apartment buildings, Zhou Hong returned to the sales office and within minutes had alerted the developers in the city.

In this residential complex, all the apartment buildings are four stories high. After discovering an apartment building with a 100% vacancy rate, Zhou Hong immediately decided to buy the entire building.

There are two apartments on each floor, and the apartment building has four entrances, for a total of forty apartments.

The prices varied from the first floor to the fourth floor, with the final average price being over 40,000 yuan per unit, totaling over 172 million yuan. Zhou Hong asked for a discount.

Soon, Boss Zhu called.

Zhou Hong waved his hand, refusing to take the phone that the sales manager respectfully handed him. "I'm just checking if it's a good deal. Even if I buy, I'll do it under the company's name. The company isn't even registered yet."

The sales manager was so angry he almost twisted his nose. Although he looked young, his manner of speaking and his clothes made him seem like a decent person. But he never expected that the sales manager would be so inhuman. He was about to be scolded to death by the boss.

The boss was already in a bad mood, and the bank was chasing him for loans every day. He was going to die because of developing this "Century Home".

This land was acquired at a bargain price. Although it's in a poor county, it's still a prime location. If it doesn't appreciate now, it will never appreciate in value.

Moreover, the former leaders of the county helped the boss obtain a loan with a very low interest rate and made many promises.

But unexpectedly, the things promised by the former leader, such as the further renovation of this neighborhood, the introduction of supermarket-style management to revitalize the department store, and so on, were not realized before the former leader was transferred. The new secretary doesn't care about the mess left by the past, and the bank also felt that things were not good and tightened its credit, causing the boss's new project to break the funding chain. Now he is in a state of panic every day. Do you still dare to mess with him?

The sales manager was on the verge of tears.

"Okay, there's a term called 'top-tier pricing,' which is another way of calculating prices. I'll talk to him about it when I have time."

Zhou Hong stood up leisurely; he had already heard about the situation here from Fang Ting.

Back in the Xiali car, Fang Ting shook her head, "I didn't expect you to be so wicked."

Zhou Hong smiled and said, "Haste makes waste. Actually, I have a new plan."

He looked at the system interface.

"A Long-Standing Mission: A Great Act of Kindness"

"On my first foray into this barren land, a desolate place where all industries have withered, how can we ensure that the people can live and work in peace and contentment?"

"Task completion condition: Help Anxia County's number of households exceed 50,000, ensuring that they have enough to eat and wear."

"Task Rewards: Generous, calculated and determined by the system based on your completion status."

The system's wording was rather harsh, Zhou Hong shook his head helplessly.

However, since the system is incredibly generous and says the mission rewards are plentiful, it must be something extraordinary.

Of course, the task is also very difficult and cannot be completed in just one or two years. As the system has determined, it will take many years.

Take the population as an example. If there are 50,000 households, that would be 200,000 to 300,000 people. Especially if the system only counts households based on the registered residents of the county, then it would be even more difficult to count.

However, let's take it slow; in any case, we're doing a good deed.

Fang Ting's phone suddenly rang. She frowned when she saw the number, but when she answered, a man's urgent voice came through the receiver.

Nowadays, telephones don't have such good privacy protection technology, and the man's voice was loud, so Zhou Hong heard it all.

"You, you shouldn't talk nonsense!" Fang Ting was caught off guard and was furious. With a sullen face, she quickly pushed open the car door and got out to answer the phone.

Zhou Hong scratched his head. Another person who thought he was a liar had received some information. He anxiously reminded Fang Ting that he was a liar who talked nonsense.

Fang Ting hung up the phone shortly after and got into the car with a displeased expression.

"Boy friend?"

"No." Fang Ting glanced at Zhou Hong. "You heard that, right? Don't mind it, I know who you are."

Zhou Hong smiled: "Really? Who am I?"

Fang Ting was taken aback, not expecting him to actually ask that question. After thinking for a moment, she said, "Well, how should I put it? You're very rich, but it doesn't feel like the money is yours. That's the feeling I get."

Zhou Hong smiled but didn't say anything. Indeed, he had always felt like he was spending the system's money. Fang Ting, this girl, had a very sharp intuition.

"Maybe that's what happens when you have a lot of money. The money becomes just numbers and loses its meaning." Fang Ting tried to understand this young, mysterious tycoon.

Zhou Hong shrugged. "Yes, actually I'm not interested in money. The happiest time of my life was when I had to ask my mom for money to buy a 1-cent popsicle."

Fang Ting stared at him in astonishment, her expression strikingly similar to that of a certain Bei Bei.

"There's still some time before lunchtime. Tour guide, where are you taking me?" Zhou Hong calmly bore the weight of Versailles.

"Oh, I want you to meet someone in Anxia County. Do you know that there are more than twenty children in this county among those you sponsor?"

Zhou Hong smiled and said, "Is that so? Then shall we meet them both?"

"The others are all too far away, many are on the other side of the mountain, but there is one who is about to take the high school entrance exam, and I think she will definitely get into the county's top high school. The exam is only a few days away, and I am here, so I called her over. She is staying in a hotel room with me. We are in a four-person room on the second floor, but I booked the whole room."

Zhou Hong was taken aback. "Your county's high school entrance exam schedule is a bit unusual." He added, "You're staying at a guesthouse too? A four-person room? The conditions aren't very good. I thought you were staying in your dad's dormitory."

"My dad's dorm room is just a rented one-bedroom apartment, it's too small for him." Fang Ting shook her head. "That's not the point. You should meet this child. After the high school entrance exam, if you don't want to continue supporting her, I'd like to take her in. She was originally one of my paired sponsors, I've been supporting her since college, but then you started helping many people, and I had my own selfish reasons for handing her over to you. I want to save up some money over the next two years to support her through college, and not with the mindset of a poor student. I think that's very good for her mental health."

"She's just like my younger sister. When my dad was first transferred to Anxia, ​​I had just finished the college entrance exam and came to visit. That's how I met her. She was so young then, and she was selling wild fruits on the street. The industrial and commercial bureau broke her scale, and she cried her eyes out... I asked her and found out that she picked wild fruits from the mountain to sell, and she borrowed the scale from her neighbor. She just wanted to earn enough for her textbooks next semester. She wanted to continue her studies, but her family didn't have any money. She almost got spotted by a tiger because of those wild fruits. There were lots of wild fruits on that mountain, but there was a big tiger, and even adults didn't dare to go to that mountain."

Zhou Hong was taken aback. "Tiger? South China tiger?" If the tigers native to this area are South China tigers, then the Zhou tiger incident, which caused a great uproar a few years later, once shocked the entire internet. In 2012, China declared the South China tiger extinct, but now, are there really still South China tigers?

Fang Ting looked helplessly at Zhou Hong, who had gone off on a tangent again, and really had no idea what was wrong with his brain.

"Never mind, it seems you're not interested. I'll take you to see the local Medicine King Temple instead."

Zhou Hong snapped out of his reverie. "No, no, let's see her. By the way, your father has been in Anxia for six or seven years, hasn't he finished his 'gilded' training and is about to return to the provincial capital, Tong'an?"

Now we know that Fang Ting's father, Fang Tongsheng, is the executive deputy county head of Anxia County and also a member of the county party committee. He is one of the big shots in the county, which is a huge leap for a deputy county head.

Fang Ting rolled her eyes: "I'll take you to see the Medicine King Temple, and you can have lunch with Xiao Hui!"

"Sis, you look quite cute when you roll your eyes," Zhou Hong said with a smile.

Fang Ting started the car and ignored him completely.