I chose one of four options at the start, and I chose the number one clan in Lingnan.

Lin Dayou pushed open the door to the top-floor office of Lin's Supermarket No. 1.

He was wearing coarse cloth work clothes, and his old liberation shoes were covered in yellow mud. Lin Fu followed him in and casually closed the solid wood door.

Lin Ting sat behind his large desk, on which lay a county town planning map. He drew a large circle in the eastern part of the map with a red pen.

"Grandpa, things are busy at the ancestral hall." Lin Dayou walked to the table and reported, "The clansmen have received their dividends and have some extra money in their hands."

Several families were discussing demolishing the mud-brick houses in the village and rebuilding them into red brick bungalows. You called me here because there's a big project to be done?

Lin Ting tapped the table with his fingers. "The renovated adobe house is too small. If the Lin family wants to establish itself in the county town, we need a large area of ​​housing developments."

"Uncle Dayou, take a look at this document." Lin Ting pushed a brown paper bag over.

Lin Dayou picked up the paper bag, pulled out the documents inside, and the words "Jiangjing Haoting" were printed in bold black characters on the paper.

Below was a long list of debts. Lin Dayou flipped through two pages, his face twitching slightly. He put the document back on the table and shook his head repeatedly.

"Grandpa, we can't take this job. Jiangjing Mansion is a bottomless pit." Lin Dayou pointed to the numbers on the document.

"That out-of-town boss absconded with 100 million yuan of pre-sale funds and fled overseas. Now there are more than a dozen half-built piles left on the construction site."

Exposed to wind and sun, the steel bars were all rusted. There were 20 million yuan owed to building material suppliers, and 30 million yuan owed to more than a dozen contractors for their projects.

Lin Dayou counted on his calloused fingers.

"The construction site's iron gates were all welded shut by workers demanding unpaid wages. The county government was in a panic, searching everywhere for a big boss to take over. But who would dare to take it on?"

This famine of fifty million alone could drain the Lin family's savings, not to mention the money for the subsequent construction.

"Go on," Lin Ting said.

"It's technically impossible," Lin Dayou said, pointing to the renderings on the document.

"Fifteen 30-story high-rise residential buildings. The bricklayers in our Tazhai village only know how to build red brick walls. The tallest they've ever built is a three-story villa."

For a 30-story frame-shear wall structure, the foundation needs to be dug more than ten meters deep. What if groundwater seeps out? What if the foundation pit collapses?

The bricklayers in our village have never even touched a tower crane. If we force it, we're risking the lives of our entire clan to fill the hole.

Lin Dayou became increasingly anxious as he spoke, sweating profusely. He was telling the truth. The older generation tended to prioritize stability, fearing losses and taking risks.

Lin Ting opened the bottom drawer of his desk, inside which was the physical object that the system had just materialized.

A thick stack of architectural blueprints, and several A4 sheets of paper filled with densely printed formula parameters.

These are cutting-edge technologies that have transcended time. Lin Ting threw this pile of materials in front of Lin Dayou.

"What if we don't need to tie steel bars?" Lin Ting asked.

Lin Dayou was stunned. He reached out and picked up the top sheet of paper, bringing his eyes close to the paper to examine it carefully.

The drawings do not depict traditional reinforced concrete structures; they represent a complete set of quick-build light steel modular drawings.

The walls, floors, and load-bearing columns are all prefabricated into standard modules in the factory.

After being transported to the construction site, they are assembled using special high-strength bolts. It's just like a child building with blocks.

Lin Dayou had been a bricklayer for thirty years. He understood the value of these blueprints.

"Where did Grandpa get these blueprints?" Lin Dayou's voice was tense as he traced the lines on the blueprints with his fingers.

"The load-bearing design of this steel structure overturned the old rules, with all the beams and columns being manufactured on the factory assembly line."

Even the exterior wall insulation layer and wiring conduits are pre-embedded in the prefabricated modules. When you arrive at the construction site, you don't need hundreds or thousands of workers to tie the thick steel bars.

"As long as the workers know how to tighten screws and drive a scaffolding truck, they can build a building!"

Lin Ting pointed to the sheets of A4 paper. "Take a look at the recipe."

Lin Dayou picked up the formula sheet, which showed the proportions for special high-strength concrete.

The raw materials are all the cheapest river sand, slag and ordinary cement, but a special chemical additive is added.

"It will dry and solidify in twelve hours. The hardness will reach the military-grade explosion-proof level." Lin Dayou read out the parameters on the paper, his hands trembling.

Ordinary concrete needs to be cured for more than half a month before the formwork can be removed, but this formula can achieve strength in just half a day.

"Grandpa, with these blueprints and formulas, we can cut our building material costs by more than half. Fifteen buildings, which originally took two years to complete."

"With a few more cranes, we can top it out in three months!" Lin Dayou was increasingly surprised as he calculated.

Lin Ting stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.

"I'll settle the 50 million yuan debt of Jiangjing Mansion. Once we get the land, we'll rename it Lin's New City."

Lin Ting looked out at the street. "A few days ago, Lin Qiang from the third branch of the family resigned from his job at an electronics factory in the south and came back."

Lin Qiang met a girl who wanted an apartment in the county town. He couldn't afford the down payment, so the engagement fell through. Have you heard about this?

Lin Da nodded. "I heard that the fourth aunt of the third branch cried at the entrance of the ancestral hall."

They say the young men of our Lin family are bullied while working away from home, and can't even find wives when they return.

Lin Ting turned around and looked at Lin Dayou.

"Tens of thousands of young people from Tazhai work outside the village. They work on assembly lines and live in leaky rental houses."

The Lin family's business has now expanded significantly, including five supermarkets, a farmers' market, a sand quarry, and plans to build a cold chain storage center in the future.

These industries need to be managed by our own people; I can't let all of the Lin family's money flow into outsiders' pockets.

We need these young people to come back and help. I'm bringing them back, but we also need to give them a place to settle down and make a living.

Lin Ting tapped on his desk. "Once Lin's New City is built, take half of it out and sell it at market price to recoup the cost and profit."

The remaining half will be sold at cost price to the younger members of the Lin family who are returning to their hometown. I want every member of the Lin family to have a house in the county town.

Lin Dayou was so moved that his eyes reddened. His great-grandfather was not only helping the Lin family make money, but he was also building an impregnable fortress for the Lin family's descendants.

"Grandpa! All the more than a thousand bricklayers in Yitang will stop what they are doing today and will be at your command!"

"Anyone who dares to slack off, I'll whip them!" Lin Dayou stood up straight and shouted back.

Lin Ting nodded and looked at Lin Fu, who had been standing to the side.

"Lin Fu, how much money can we still use in the public account?" Lin Ting asked.

"Including the net profits of the five supermarkets over the past few days, plus the surplus from the original sand quarry and farmers' market, there are 14 million in cash in the company account," Lin Fu reported.

Lin Ting walked back to his desk. "Withdraw ten million. Go to the county land management bureau and find the person in charge of the Jiangjing Haoting project."

Lin Fu stepped forward. "Grandpa, how should we talk?"

"The county is more anxious than anyone else right now. Those workers demanding their wages are going to the building entrance every day to put up banners. This is a hot potato."

Lin Ting picked up the walnuts on the table, twirled them in his hands a couple of times, and said, "Tell them that the Lin family will step in to take over."

We'll take on the debt, but the land price must be incredibly low. The surrounding two hundred acres of wasteland must also be allocated to us.

If they don't agree, let them deal with those contractors themselves.

Lin Fu put the documents into his briefcase. "Understood, I'll take care of it right away."

At 3 PM, in the office building of the County Land Management Bureau.

At the end of the third-floor corridor, the office door of Project Manager Wang was tightly closed.

You can hear slogans being shouted from loudspeakers on the street outside from inside the corridor.

It was a group of contractors leading their workers outside the land management bureau demanding unpaid wages; the noise was incredibly disruptive.

Lin Fu, carrying his briefcase, walked to the office door. He raised his hand and knocked on the wooden door.