Damn it, I'm surrounded by childhood sweethearts

More than a month after Hong Kong announced the complete eradication of the SARS virus, Chuxi Village finally lifted the ban that allowed people to leave but not to enter. Xu Qingfan couldn't help but feel sentimental, thinking about how the people from that era faithfully followed the orders from above, unlike more than a decade later when all sorts of odd characters and incidents could arise. After half a year away, the Xu family of three finally returned to Chuxi Village. Li Meijuan was running the convenience store today, and after repeated invitations from Yao's mother, she finally agreed to Yao Jiping's kindness. Because Yao Jiping waived three months of her rent, Li Meijuan felt obliged to help out in the store and clean up. As the village's first four-wheel vehicle, Xu Aiguo's arrival at the entrance of the village in his car attracted many villagers who stopped to watch. The moment the car stopped, even before the engine could be turned off, the villagers surrounded it to see the spectacle. "Grandma!" Xu Qingfan squeezed through the crowd and ran straight towards his home. True enough, his grandparents were already waiting at the doorway, "My dear Xiao Fan, grandma has missed you so much!" his grandmother said, doting on him with a big hug as he ran towards her. "Grandpa, Uncle!" he said, smiling at the two men after releasing the hug. "Good that you're back, good that you're back," his grandpa replied cheerfully. "What nonsense are you talking, 'good that you're back?" Grandma looked dissatisfied as she glared at Yao Shulun. "Go cook your meal; Xiao Fan is too lazy to argue with you!" The couple had bickered for half a lifetime already, and Xu Qingfan was well accustomed to it. "Come, Xiao Fan, take a look—what's this?" Grandpa took a packet of lotus leaves out of his trouser pocket. Xu Qingfan opened it to find mulberries and wild strawberries of every color, which made his mouth water unconsciously. "Thank you, Grandpa!" Xu Qingfan received it happily, finding these simple wild fruits even more precious after having experienced the wider world. "Dad, Mom, Brother!" Yao Jiping came over joyfully with bags big and small. "Why did you buy so much stuff? We have everything at home!" Grandma complained. Yao Jiping was completely immune to her remarks, happily pulling out items from the bags: "Dad, this is for you—one a day, they say it's good for the liver..." "The small crayfish business is so profitable, yet you never mentioned it, tsk tsk tsk~ you've even bought a small car now!" "Shulun's family is really flourishing, what with a fridge and a color TV, and now even a vehicle with four wheels!" "..." Jealousy is a common disease; it surely wouldn't be missed wherever one went, and as expected, it didn't take long for people to start making snide remarks. "Smoke, smoke, how much money have you made? You're not the only ones who've sold crayfish before—just a few dimes per jin, and you've made tens of thousands!" Once a person gets money, their whole demeanor changes; with just a few words, Xu Aiguo's confident presence silenced everyone. "And you say you haven't made any money, you've even got a small car!" "Yeah, tsk tsk, this cigarette sure has a kick, much better than the dry tobacco I smoke!" "What's the big deal about driving a small car? I'm just working for someone. The little over ten thousand yuan I made from the crayfish has all been put into this piece of scrap, and I owe the bank over a hundred thousand yuan; I have to pay back over two thousand yuan in interest every month! I'm driving day and night to earn my fares. I haven't even paid this month's dues yet. If any of you have some spare cash, lend me some, I..." "Ha, the weather's nice today, it's been a long time since I dried my millet at home!" "Tsk tsk tsk, Xiao Xu, don't wear such a big hat if you don't have a big enough head!" With a shake of their heads, the group left, their very souls seemingly elevated just from confirming that Xu Qingfan's family hadn't managed to turn their fortunes around. "Kun, you lowlife, aren't leaving? Want to stay for a meal, huh?" Seeing that everyone else had left but Yao Jiankun was still there, Grandpa cursed him without courtesy. "Isn't Xiao Jiping right there? There's a village committee election next month—vote for your Uncle Kun, I'll give you thirty yuan each!" Yao Jiankun said with a sleazy grin, rubbing his hands together. If it had been a year ago, Yao Jiping might have been tempted by the thirty yuan, but now, being worth a million, she saw him as nothing but a joke. "Are you going to scram or not? If you don't, I'll kill you with this hoe!" Yao Shulun raised the hoe at the door, ready to attack. "You cursed thing, what are you so proud of!" the loathsome Kun cursed as he backed away, grumbling. "All right, Dad, why bother getting angry over such people? It's unnecessary!" After Kun left, Yao Jiping helped her father back into the house. "Him, village chief? Pah!" Speaking of Xu Qingfan, he had a deep impression of this despicable Kun. According to his grandfather's description, the man had been lazy and indolent since the days of the commune, single-handedly corrupting the entire village's ethos. Over the years, he had not lessened his involvement in petty theft, and it was rumored that he even got his leg broken once for peeping at another man's wife taking a bath. Yet ironically, such a man had become a billionaire twenty years later, recognized as an outstanding entrepreneur representing Chuxi Village. His rise to riches was as simple as it gets, securing the position of village chief in next month's village cadre election with his money, and then over the next five years, selling off every bit of communal property in the village! What? You ask why nobody reported him? His cunning lay in convincing the villagers that he was only renting out the property, and he kept only half the money from each sale. He shared little bits with other cadres, and the rest was given to the villagers as New Year bonuses. With New Year bonuses to look forward to every year, who would think about reporting him? Flush with cash, his son soon impregnated several girls in the village, leading to widespread resentment among the villagers. Yao Jiankun thought this would not do, as he had several more years of money to plunder. Not wanting his son's actions to spoil his plans, he decisively sent him to Yan City for education. Considering his idle funds, he scooped up seven or eight properties in the inner ring before 2008. Just like that, he turned into a billionaire after twenty years. In his past life, every time he thought about how he had studied hard for over a decade only to end up as a research dog, while the other man... He, Xu Qingfan, had never lived the life of the wealthy nor dared to imagine what that man would do. [I must ruin that old coot's dream of becoming village chief!] Xu Qingfan stepped back, growing angrier the more he thought about it. "Grandpa, why don't you run for village chief too?" Xu Qingfan asked innocently. "That... I'm not cut out for that stuff. If I really took the position, wouldn't I just be hogging the pit without taking a dump?" Yao Shulun hesitated to say. "Grandpa, if everyone thought like you, wouldn't that scoundrel Kun end up as village chief?" "Go away, kid, don't use such coarse language!" Yao Jiping chastised Xu Qingfan on the spot with a slap to the head. "Being a village chief is good. It would make contracting a fish pond convenient!" Xu Aiguo suddenly spoke up. Clearly, he was still harboring dreams about his fish pond. "Dad, I think it's feasible too. We don't want that scoundrel Kun to become village chief and turn the village into a foul place!" Yao Jiping echoed from the side. Yao Shulun suddenly felt uncertain: "Could I really do it?" "How will you know if you don't try? Look at my convenience store, it's doing well. We're not short of money at home right now. Dad, if you want to try, just go for it!" "Ha! Can't you see yourself for what you are, trying to strut around pretending to be grand?" The grandmother mocked coldly from the side. "Damn it! Who are you calling a poser? I could be a county chief, let alone a small village chief!" The grandfather slammed his hand on the stool, stood up, and cursed. The whole family was laughing at the show. The grandmother really knew how to handle the grandfather. "Mom, didn't that guy just now say he's giving thirty yuan per vote if people voted for him? If grandpa doesn't make a gesture, he might not be able to compete with that guy, right?" "Ha! You think I can't compete with that lame-leg?" Yao Shulun said with a scornful laugh. "Dad, it's because you didn't give any gifts in the past that our family got some lousy fields," Yao Jianjun, the eldest uncle, spoke up, a rare comment from him. "Dishonest tricks! The societal ethos has been corrupted by those types of people!" Yao Shulun slapped his thigh in anger. "Grandpa, that's exactly why you should become the village chief. Only then can we rectify the village's morals. If that Kun fellow becomes chief, who knows what will happen." "Alright, alright, we'll take care of the gifts. You just stay out of it, Dad," said Yao Jiping, who worked in a textile factory since she was sixteen and naturally understood how society worked. Without benefits, who would help you? Especially in the countryside, promising someone a hundred thousand a year later wouldn't be as effective as giving them ten yuan on the spot during the vote. And so, the decision to run for village chief was settled. With the financial backing of his own family, it should be almost a sure win. [I never thought that one day I could boast aloud: My grandpa is the village chief!] Xu Qingfan daydreamed. (PS: Running for village chief ties in with subsequent career developments; it's not filler. Guess without prize: aside from drawing comics, what's the protagonist's first career?)