Chapter 90: Asking for Too Much

The issue with the Qi Field caused by the terrain was not difficult to solve.

Just as his father Su Cheng had calculated earlier, wanting to save money and get a bargain, by setting aside seven or eight meters or even ten meters wide on one side of the road, the problem could be easily resolved. At that time, the northern end would be blocked by the south wall of the Pingyang City Railway Bureau, and the accumulated road sha would sink to the north of the South Ring Road, unable to form a sharp southward thrust. At the very least, it wouldn’t affect this area east of the road. To the south, the Erdaokou toll station served as a barrier. The East-West South Ring Road flowed past like a great river. The agency sales site could open two doors to the northwest. Encircled by the intersection of the South Ring Road and National Highway 107, it perfectly matched the highly auspicious terrain of having a mountain at the back and facing water.

Just as the father and son were surveying the desolate land full of withered grass, snow-filled pits, and uneven ground, a middle-aged man slowly rode up on a bicycle and stopped in front of them.

“Are you Su Cheng and Su Chunfeng?” the middle-aged man asked with a smile.

“Ah, yes,” Su Cheng responded. “I am Su Cheng.”

This middle-aged man looked to be around forty years old. He wore a very ordinary dark blue cotton overcoat and a dark blue cotton hat, resembling a worker in uniform from some state-owned enterprise. Because he wore glasses and had fair skin, he appeared rather scholarly.

After propping up his bicycle, the middle-aged man politely extended his right hand first. “Hello, Comrade Su. I am Xu Xiangdong, the mayor of Erdaokou Town.”

“Ah?” Su Cheng was startled and quickly shook the other’s hand, saying, “Hello, Mayor Xu, hello.”

“I heard you wanted to lease the land here, is that right?”

“Yes, we wanted to rent a small piece to open a storefront…” Su Cheng replied somewhat timidly with a simple, honest smile—even though the family’s financial situation was good now, facing a mayor who personally came to discuss land rental made Su Cheng feel somewhat inadequate. After all, from his perspective, they wouldn’t be renting much land, so why trouble a mayor to come? And if you only rent a couple of acres, wouldn’t the mayor just laugh at you?

At this moment, Su Chunfeng, who had been left aside, proactively stepped forward. With a smile, he extended his right hand and said, “Mayor Xu, hello, I am Su Chunfeng.”

“Ah, hello.” Xu Xiangdong was somewhat surprised but still smiled and shook hands with the young man before him.

“It’s so cold outside. There happens to be a restaurant over there. Shall we go talk there?” Su Chunfeng pointed with a smile across the way. Beside the row of storefront buildings running south to north along National Highway 107, there was a small two-story restaurant.

A trace of surprise flickered across Xu Xiangdong’s expression. He smiled and nodded. “Alright.”

Only then did Su Cheng snap out of it and hurriedly said, “Right, right, let’s go talk over there…”

“Dad, you drive. I’ll walk with Mayor Xu,” Su Chunfeng said with a smile, then gestured with his hand. “Mayor Xu, shall we go?”

“Let’s go.” Quite satisfied, Xu Xiangdong turned around, kicked open the bicycle’s kickstand, and pushed his bicycle toward that direction. As he walked, he looked at Su Chunfeng with considerable appreciation and asked kindly, “Young man, how old are you this year?” His first impression of this child was very good—polite, mature, steady… The key was, he knew how to handle things, much better than his father. At the very least, he understood that the roadside in this freezing cold was really not a place for discussions.

“Seventeen by Chinese reckoning,” Su Chunfeng answered with a smile, then asked, “Mayor Xu, roughly how much land is available for lease here?”

Xu Xiangdong laughed. “A little over seventy acres. What? Want to rent all of it?”

“Oh no, we can’t afford that,” Su Chunfeng said with an embarrassed look, speaking honestly.

“Haha.” Xu Xiangdong laughed heartily.

This piece of land adjacent to the South Ring Road was originally a plot with extremely prominent conflicts. In the early 1980s during the land reform period, the nearby Hongluo Village and Chipanying Village clashed several times in large-scale conflicts and fights over the ownership of this land. Later, to properly handle the matter, the Nancheng District government of Pingyang City, in the name of planned regional construction, directly transferred the land use rights to the Erdaokou Town government.

Well, since letting the two villages share it equally wasn’t acceptable, now no one could argue anymore. In the end, it all belonged to the state.

Two years ago, when Pingyang City built the new South Ring Road, it took up a large part of this land, which also saved the hassle of dealing with villagers and village collectives. The compensation funds went into the town government’s finances.

Currently, over seventy acres remained, temporarily idle.

Due to Pingyang City’s current construction plans, which focused mainly on eastward and westward development, after the southern ring road was built, within the jurisdiction of the Erdaokou Town government, even the area north of the ring road was nominally part of the city, but most of it was still villages. To the south, it went without saying, there were still vast expanses of farmland. Therefore, this idle land really wasn’t on many people’s radar and held little hope of being included in urban expansion plans.

Regarding this situation, Chen Xian had briefly explained over the phone to Su Chunfeng—the location was good, transportation was convenient, and the rental price would definitely be very cheap.

The price was for them to negotiate with this Mayor Xu Xiangdong themselves.

Chen Xian couldn’t directly participate in negotiating the rental price, but since he had used his connections to give a heads-up, the price would surely be even lower.

And for the Erdaokou Town government…

This land was just sitting idle anyway. To put it bluntly, as long as the lease period wasn’t long and the area wasn’t large, Xu Xiangdong could directly lease it privately to Su Cheng for use. Putting the money into his own pocket wouldn’t be a problem. In these times, a mayor skimming a bit of profit from this unattended idle land wouldn’t cause any issues at all.

Since it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, the restaurant hadn’t started business.

However, with Mayor Xu’s arrival, the restaurant owner, of course, warmly welcomed them. Hearing they were there to discuss some matters, without them even asking, he vacated a private room on the second floor and brought tea.

“Mayor Xu.” Su Chunfeng took out a pack of Hongtashan cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Xu Xiangdong—these were a gift from Zhao Shangang when he came to pay New Year’s greetings on the first day of the lunar new year. His father Su Cheng had been reluctant to smoke them much. Today, when coming here, Su Chunfeng had tucked a pack on himself and reminded his father to bring a whole carton in the bag he carried. Enthusiastically lighting the cigarette for Mayor Xu, Su Chunfeng asked, “How is the rental price for our piece of land calculated?”

Xu Xiangdong looked at Su Cheng with a chuckle, then at Su Chunfeng, and teased, “Which of you father and son is in charge here? Huh? Haha.”

After all, Su Cheng was an adult. He had fought in wars, taken lives, and traveled north and south doing business these past two years. Having some money made him much more confident. So after the initial nervousness, seeing his son’s manner and behavior being so adept at handling things, he had already relaxed a lot. With a smile, he said, “Hey, not afraid of you laughing, Mayor Xu, I’m a rough, uncultured fellow… But this kid is in high school, his mind is sharp, he knows a lot. So it’s the same talking to either of us, I’ll just listen on the side. To be honest, isn’t it still up to you in the end?”

This last, subtly flattering remark that hit the nail on the head pleased Xu Xiangdong inwardly. He laughed and said, “Alright then, let’s get straight to the point. This land is part of our Erdaokou government’s planned development land. It’s currently idle. Renting some to you isn’t a problem. The rent is one thousand yuan per acre per year.”

One thousand yuan!

That was really cheap.

But considering the times, how much was a mayor’s salary?

How much could you earn from farming an acre of land in a year?

So calculated that way, one thousand yuan per acre per year wasn’t exactly cheap either. But don’t look at it from a business perspective… After all, they weren’t planning to go through the formal procedures at all, right?

Su Cheng almost couldn’t stop himself from agreeing immediately. Renting three acres for a year would only be three thousand yuan! Renting it for ten years would only be thirty thousand! But seeing his son frowning in thought, he held back the words of agreement that were about to escape his lips. He took a cigarette from the table, lit it, and pretended to think.

At this moment, Su Chunfeng’s heart was also extremely pleasantly surprised.

But hearing the price from Xu Xiangdong’s mouth being so cheap, other ideas immediately flashed into Su Chunfeng’s mind—it wasn’t just about renting two or three acres for an agency sales site and storefront for Combine Harvesters anymore. After a brief contemplation, he asked in a somewhat probing tone, “Mayor Xu, if we rented more land, for a longer period, could it… be a bit cheaper?”

Xu Xiangdong couldn’t help but laugh. “Young man, this isn’t haggling over business deals.”

Su Cheng immediately felt somewhat embarrassed and chided, “Chunfeng, don’t talk nonsense… We aren’t planning to rent much land anyway, don’t make things difficult for Mayor Xu.”

Xu Xiangdong nodded.

Actually, if not for the sake of Chen Xian’s network of connections, as the mayor of a town, Xu Xiangdong couldn’t be bothered to personally come and negotiate such a small matter—even though Chen Xian had lost in political struggles and had to retire early to protect himself, someone as cunning, shrewd, subtle, and deceitful as Chen Xian had, over the years, built up a broad network of political connections in Pingyang City. Otherwise, after his retirement, why hadn’t his son Chen Yufan been affected? In fact, he had been promoted from Township Head to Township Party Committee Secretary?

Su Chunfeng smiled and shook his head, using his eyes to signal his father to stay calm. He had a plan in mind. Then he said to Xu Xiangdong, “Mayor Xu, you just said this land is about seventy-plus acres… I think, if the price is right, maybe we could rent all of it. And rent it for ten or eight years, even decades would be fine.”

“All of it?” Xu Xiangdong was taken aback.

Su Cheng was shocked and hurriedly said, “Chunfeng, what nonsense are you talking!” He thought his son was just being childish, showing off in front of a mayor.

“I’m serious,” Su Chunfeng said. “Mayor Xu, please consider if it could be cheaper. We could consider renting all of it.”

Xu Xiangdong’s expression immediately became somewhat serious and displeased. “Young man, you might as well say you want to buy the land use rights outright.”

“We wouldn’t dare,” Su Chunfeng said with a laugh. “Renting is renting. This is state government land, after all… But, Mayor Xu, we could lease the land use rights under the name of the town government providing the land and us investing for joint development. We could commercially develop and utilize it. This way, it could increase fiscal revenue, avoid idle waste of land resources, and promote local economic development. Don’t you think that’s reasonable?”

Su Cheng was utterly bewildered by this.

Xu Xiangdong, however, frowned. After a brief thought, he smiled somewhat dismissively. “Young man, let’s hear it. How would this cooperation work?”