Chapter 332: New Year Festivities

“You guys, get lost, all of you! Is your money going to get deducted from me speaking for a while?” The Village Chief laughed and scolded. In the end, he did not read a stomach of drafts and just shook his ledger. “Nannan, Zhixia, and I checked this ledger together yesterday. I will not say how much profit there is, lest I’d scare you to death. Let me just say that the dividends you can receive – everyone can at least have this figure.”

The old village chief wriggled his eyebrows and stretched out a finger.

This look made the people below who were waiting anxiously gnash their teeth.

This Village Chief’s antics were too despicable!

“Village Chief, could it be ten taels?”

“Impossible! Last year, each of us got at least fifty or sixty taels of dividends. Moreover, Nannan has just said that this year’s profits are even better than last year’s. It’s definitely not ten taels. I guess it’s one-one hundred taels!” When the man uttered one hundred taels, his voice turned strained.

“One hundred taels! Most probably!”

“Definitely! Aigoo, then my family will be able to renovate the new house for my grandson to marry this year!”

The audience was boiling.

Another wave of discussion burst into a clamor; the entire shop was tumultuous.

Fu Yuzheng stood beside Liu Yusheng and felt deeply touched at the sight of it.

She had never seen such a scene before, where the boss, the workers, and the whole village came as one, like a family, lively and happy.

She couldn’t see workers trembling with fear and acting serviel towards their boss. There wasn’t also a trace of hidden distance, estrangement, and wariness between them. 

They were so harmonious that she felt it unreal, as if she were dreaming.

Even in a dream, ordinary people could hardly dream of such a scene, right? 

People here regard Xinghua village as their home. All the villagers were family members. The winery was all their cause, the glory they created themselves, as well as their pride.

No wonder. The Xinghua Village Winery was so popular throughout Nanling, but no matter what methods outsiders used, it was impossible for them to pry the various recipes of Xinghua Village winer out of the villagers.

Who would sell out their own stuff? Who would betray their own glory?

In particular, she could not find a trace of greed in those genuine smiling faces, in those pairs of honest and kind eyes.

They were really easy to satisfy.

A monthly salary of ten or so taels of silver, and a dividend of a hundred taels at the end of the year; as long as they could feed and clothe their families and weren’t lacking food and drink, they seemed to have nothing else to ask for.

But a hundred taels of silver in the capital was just a meal-money for the powerful and noble.

Afterward, Fu Yuzheng smiled and looked across those sincere and honest smiling faces, smiling from her heart.

The Xinghua villagers weren’t fools, but they cared nothing about the satisfaction brought by money. What they treasured most was the precious affections between people.

That was why they lived a simple and happy life.

Like Liu Yusheng.

If she had been a little ambitious, she would have reaped both fame and fortune with her ability.

But she didn’t. She was always quiet, and after ensuring that her family had no worries about food and clothing, she settled down to do what she liked to do.

Fu Yuzheng didn’t know whether people influenced the environment in the village or the environment influenced the people.

There was no question, however, that she liked it there. 

A burst of cheering in front of her interrupted her thoughts. When she looked up, she saw that the village chief, Liu Jinfu, had begun to distribute the dividends. The first person took a hundred taels of silver bills and more than twenty taels of broken silver. He also carried a large parcel of annual gifts and a large piece of pork, and joyfully walked into the crowd of onlookers to give the things to his family.

The village chief methodically read the workers’ names. One by one, they went forward to receive their share of the welfare and then walked back into the crowd.

Instead of leaving immediately, they stayed to continue to participate in this year-end buzz.

It was not until everyone had received their fair share that their large group of people marched in unison towards the village.

On the other side of the Qing River, by the bank where the withered grass was rotten and frozen, some people craned their necks to survey the bustle across the river.

This scene has been a frequent occurrence every year in recent years.

Xinghua Village was getting richer and richer, better and better, so there weren’t a few in the surrounding villages who were jealous and envious.

Especially the village which was only  a river away from Xinghua Village; the villagers’ eyes were red with jealousy.

But they couldn’t do anything about it.

The Xinghua Village winery was opened by wealthy people in the capital. Not to mention, the Xinghua blessed child was now a County Lady; she was a higher existence that they couldn’t afford to offend.

They could only sigh across the river.

As days passed by, they witnessed the other side of the river booming and increasingly progressing.

Yet they always remained in the same place, and even worsening. The villagers were getting poorer and poorer. 

If there was no bad blood between the villages, it might be a different story now.

Unfortunately, it was too late for regrets.

The New Year’s Eve was approaching day by day, and every family in Xinghua Village has surplus money in their hands now. They were getting more and more generous. You could hardly see the buckle and search circumstances of a few years ago.

Especially now that they had received their dividends; the New Year festivities were bustling with excitement.

Posting Spring Festival couplets, decorating windows with paper-cut flowers, hanging up big red lanterns, preparing festive firecrackers, killing chickens and geese to make New Year cakes…

Every corner was filled with gaiety.

Liu Yusheng took Fu Yuzheng and walked home with her grandparents. They passed through various yards and past vegetable gardens, but all they heard was laughter along the way.

On the roadside, there were children tied with ram-horn braids gathered in one place to throw firecrackers.

They untied the long hanging firecrackers, dismantled them one by one, lit and threw them. Listening to the frightening popping sounds, the children convulsed into laughter. This was a favorite entertainment for children during the New Year.

There were also naughty kids among them. When they saw cow dung on the side of the road, they directly stuck firecrackers on the cow dung  and lit them. They waited until the sound of the explosion and watched the cow dung splash.

If not for Liu Yusheng’s timely pull, Fu Yuzheng wouldn’t have been spared. 

For this scene, Fu Yuzheng could not come back to her senses for a long time. She could hardly suppress the twitching of the corners of her eyes.

A curse soon erupted in the roadside vegetable garden. A woman, who was still carrying a radish which she had just uprooted, chased after the group of children and tried to scold them. “You bastards! Playing with cow dung again! Isn’t it dirty? The new clothes you have just worn are now filthy. If you don’t have any clothes to wear when the New Year comes, you’ll come crying again!”

“Auntie, we have already avoided it, so we won’t ruin our new clothes!”

“Auntie, you have a foul smell on your body, and you are stained with cow dung! Go home and change your clothes!”

The children laughed and scattered, unafraid of the woman’s scolding. Her scolding always sounded ferocious, but she was all talk and no action. The village aunts love them!

“These little brats!” Watching the children run away, the woman turned back, laughing and scolding. Where was there anger on her face?

“Firing after the horse, it’s all because you’re spoiling them!” Grandma Liu quipped.

“For such big whelps, scaring them is enough. I can’t really beat them, can I?” The woman didn’t shy away, and instead laughed cheerfully. “Auntie, hurry home and prepare charcoal fire. We will all come to your house to make New Year’s cake later. Your yard is big enough to accommodate a lot of people sitting close together! This kind of snack is Nannan’s favorite. We’ll cook it while we’re warming by the fire, and you can eat it right away. “