Chapter 374 - 374 Disputes
When someone walked along the river and investigated the cause along the way, they found out that the people of Houtu Village had secretly changed the river course. The river that was supposed to flow to Qinghe Village had actually flowed to another place…
“Su Hua, don’t go too far!” More than a dozen people had gathered at Qinghe Village’s side. At this time, a red-faced person spoke to the residents of Houtu village.
“What about me? Xia Liang, only you people of Qinghe Village can strike it rich? Do we, the people of Houtu village, deserve to be poor for life? That doesn’t make sense, does it?” the person addressed as Su Hua replied calmly.
“You’re cutting off our source of income. An animal like you deserves to be poor!” Xia Liang’s face was still flushed as he shouted angrily.
“Xia Liang, calm down!” Wen An pushed up his glasses and hurriedly walked over while speaking loudly.
“Chief, the people of the Houtu village have gone too far!”
“They’re just jealous that we make more money than them!”
“Chief, the people of the Houtu village are too much. Without the river water, it’s a big problem to irrigate the crops every day. They did it on purpose!”
…
“Alright, everyone, quieten down.” Wen An looked at the emotional residents of Qinghe Village and felt a headache coming on.
“Mr. Su Hua, what’s going on?” After silence fell, Wen An looked at Su Hua and asked with a smile.
“Village Chief Wen, I admire you very much for leading the Qinghe villagers towards a path of prosperity in such a short period of time. However, our Houtu village also wants to develop and changing the river course is also out of necessity. After all, our Houtu Village is not small and there are many unused wastelands. We need to develop it now and it’s the peak period for water usage. I hope Village Chief Wen can understand where we’re coming from.”
A young man from the Houtu Village group slowly walked to the front of the crowd and said with a smile.
“After all, the law does not state that the villages upstream must give way to the villages downstream. Although it has been a tacit agreement since ancient times for everyone to share the river, there is no clear rule. It is just like how Qinghe Village does not have to bring us along on the road to prosperity,” the young man spread his hands and continued.
It was reasonable and irrefutable.
Although it was immoral, it was not illegal.
For a moment, the people from Qinghe Village looked at each other, not knowing what to say.
Wen An looked at the young man from the Houtu Village and could not help but push up his glasses.
Wen An’s intuition told him that he had encountered a difficult opponent.
“Indeed, this friend from the Houtu Village is right.” Wen An nodded in agreement.
“But as you said just now, since ancient times, the area that the river flows through has been used by the nearby villages. By doing this, doesn’t it mean that the villages upstream of the river can also treat you the same way?” Wen An asked.
“This isn’t something that Village Chief Wen needs to worry about; we’ve already reached a consensus,” the young man said indifferently.
“What!” Wen An’s heart skipped a beat when he heard this reply. The other party’s words contained a lot of information.
This was enough to show that it was not only Houtu Village that was dissatisfied with Qinghe Village.
This was not good news.
What made Wen An even more puzzled was why these villages suddenly came together overnight and wanted to put pressure on Qinghe Village at the same time.
“May I ask who was the one who initiated this?” Wen An asked this question without thinking.
“Of course it’s Zhou…” When the people of Houtu Village heard Wen An’s words, a smug expression immediately appeared on their faces. They were about to say the name of their leader, but they immediately realized that something was wrong and did not continue.
“As expected,” Wen An had already made a rough judgment in his heart.
The Houtu Village Chief was called Zhao Gang, but the leader’s surname was Zhou.
“How about this? Can you guys make an exception and open up a river channel first? I’ll go and discuss it with your village chief, okay?” Wen An said after some thought.
“The chief is sick. He’s not here.”
“Oh? That’s not what your villagers said earlier. They were very unyielding and said that they would use poles to smack us to death. You’ve changed your attitude so quickly?”
“You have money, what are you afraid of? Why not use tap water? To lay modern irrigation facilities? If you really can’t, you can hire people to work for you. You have money anyway!”
“You people from Qinghe village are not the same as us. With your income level, you should live in the city instead of the countryside.”