Soon.
The convoy arrived at the resort.
However, trucks like these could only park in the resort's parking lot. There was no road leading farther inside.
Qin Lin parked his three-wheeler, and Wangcai leaped down, staying close by his side.
"Mr. Qin, should we unload everything here in the parking lot?" Zhao Liyuan came over to ask.
"Yeah, unload it here." Qin Lin nodded. This was the only place where they could unload the goods.
Zhao Liyuan began unloading with his crew. Unloading was charged separately, and they had already signed an electronic contract before coming.
Qin Lin headed into the resort.
Wangcai whined twice and hurried after him, looking around and whining as they went. The dog was very curious about its new surroundings.
Seeing this, Qin Lin smiled. "Wangcai, this will be your territory from now on. Are you happy?"
Wangcai seemed to understand its owner. It whined twice, then suddenly took off running. Along the way, it sniffed some of the plants, then lifted its leg with satisfaction and marked them.
Qin Lin watched the dog in astonishment. Had it already claimed the place as its territory?
At the resort,
there were already several more people besides Gao Yaoyao. They were all former employees who had come over after receiving Gao Yaoyao's message yesterday. They had been waiting for a while.
Jobs were hard to find these days, and the resort paid fairly well for Youcheng, where the average salary was only three or four thousand yuan. None of them wanted to be unemployed.
"Here's the new boss!" Gao Yaoyao introduced Qin Lin to the others as soon as she saw him arrive.
The others looked at their new boss curiously, too.
He was young and had a dog with him.
That was their first impression.
"Boss!" Gao Yaoyao hurried over to greet Qin Lin.
Qin Lin asked, "Gao Yaoyao, which one is Master Lin?"
"Master Lin, the boss wants to see you." Gao Yaoyao immediately called out to a dark-skinned man in his fifties.
Master Lin stepped forward. Before Qin Lin could speak, he said, "Boss, I can work for you, but you have to let me save those two ginkgo trees. You can't cut them down."
The request left Qin Lin stunned.
When people made requests of their bosses, they usually asked for a raise. This was the first time he'd heard someone ask for this.
Gao Yaoyao quickly explained, "Boss, there was a period of political turmoil in the past. Master Lin's family was targeted, and because this place was so remote, his grandfather brought the whole family here to escape. They lived beneath those two ginkgo trees for a long time, and his grandfather died under one of them."
"After things settled down, Master Lin's father took the family back. Master Lin used to take on every exhausting job here because of those trees."
"Master Lin, I agree to your request. We can sign an employment contract later. For now, come with me to the parking lot. I have something I need you to take charge of." Qin Lin had never intended to cut down those two dead trees. He now understood why Master Lin had done every kind of work at the resort: he had been trying to protect the trees.
It was a deeply cherished bond, the kind older generations found hard to forget.
People like that were usually loyal and trustworthy.
Qin Lin took Master Lin to the parking lot.
Curious, Gao Yaoyao and the other employees followed them.
When they reached the parking lot, Zhao Liyuan had already unloaded some of the bougainvillea plants.
"Boss, are these the bougainvillea you bought? They're so beautiful!" Gao Yaoyao exclaimed. The flowers had clearly caught her eye at first glance.
The other employees were just as captivated. They couldn't help going over to take a closer look. The bougainvillea really were beautiful.
Even Master Lin, a man of his age, was drawn to the flowers. People of every age liked beautiful things. He asked, "Boss, are you planning to create a sea of bougainvillea at the resort?"
Qin Lin nodded. "That's right. I'm planning to create a bougainvillea sea across about thirty mu. More than fifteen thousand bougainvillea plants will be delivered over time. Master Lin, Gao Yaoyao said you're experienced in planting flowers, so I'd like you to be in charge of this."
Master Lin was taken aback. "Boss, do you think I'm a workhorse? Thirty mu and fifteen thousand plants? I can't do it alone. You'll have to hire more people!"
Qin Lin knew perfectly well that Master Lin couldn't handle thirty mu and more than fifteen thousand bougainvillea plants by himself. They would definitely need to hire gardeners or experienced farmhands to transplant them.
Master Lin had clearly misunderstood. Had the previous person in charge of the resort exploited him so badly that he was still wary?
Qin Lin had never intended to make Master Lin transplant all the bougainvillea alone. He had experience in this kind of work, so Qin Lin only wanted him to supervise.
"Master Lin, I'll hire more people to help with the transplanting," Qin Lin explained. "When they arrive, you can keep an eye on them. Once the flower sea is in place, I'll also hire two gardeners for regular, long-term maintenance."
Only then did Master Lin nod and promise to supervise the workers properly.
The 178 bougainvillea plants were soon unloaded.
Qin Lin gladly paid the remaining balance and added, "Manager Zhao, I'll need you to come again tomorrow. And for the next month, I may need your help every day."
"Just give me a call, Boss Qin," Zhao Liyuan said readily.
Transport was a tough business these days, and it wasn't easy being in charge of a convoy. He wasn't about to turn down work that had practically landed in his lap.
He did wonder why Boss Qin had shipped everything to a warehouse instead of bringing it straight here. But if there was money to be made, it wasn't his concern.
After all, some rich people had peculiar habits.
His own boss had a strange quirk. He already had a house, but secretly bought another one. He had a wife at home but rarely slept with her, often making excuses to go on business trips so he could sleep alone in the other house.
Wasn't that just having too much money and time on his hands?
After Zhao Liyuan and his crew left, Qin Lin briefly interviewed the resort's former employees. They seemed all right at first glance; none of them made him uncomfortable on sight. He could take his time getting to know them better.
The employment contracts were more of a headache. He had no experience with them, so in the end, he found the resort's old contract template. He planned to print it out and use it for now, then sign the contracts with Gao Yaoyao and the others tomorrow.
After that, he followed Master Lin around the resort's five hundred mu of land. They had to choose a suitable spot for the thirty-mu bougainvillea sea.
After more than an hour, they finally decided on a plot north of the resort's main hall.
Since they were creating a sea of flowers, the thirty-mu plot needed to be wide and open, with as little variation in elevation as possible. Too much of a slope would create gaps and spoil the dense, continuous effect.
Once they had settled on a location, Qin Lin returned to the county seat and hired the best-regarded construction company he could find to handle the project.
Companies in Youcheng offered a mix of services, and this one also agreed to find gardeners experienced in transplanting flowers, as well as skilled farmhands. Labor alone would cost four hundred yuan a day per worker.
After signing the contract and paying a deposit, the company sent people to the resort to conduct a preliminary inspection right away. They didn't finish until dusk.
But once night fell, the bougainvillea in the parking lot became a problem.
The plants were quite valuable, so Qin Lin had Chen Dabe, the former security guard, keep watch through the night. It would also give him a chance to see what kind of person Chen Dabe was.
With everything arranged, Qin Lin prepared to return to the county seat. Now that work on the bougainvillea sea was underway, he could use this time to settle the debts his family owed.
Word would eventually get around to people they knew that he was running a resort, especially those who were owed money by his family. If the debts remained unpaid, some might wonder why he had money to run a resort but not repay them.
His parents' friends and relatives had been the ones to lend them money. They had done so out of kindness, and even if they wouldn't think that way themselves, people around them might stir up trouble.
By the time he paid them back, some things might already have changed.
People were complicated, after all.
So he had to repay every debt. Then, even if people found out he was running the resort, they would see it differently.
As he thought this over, Qin Lin picked up his phone and opened his contacts. He had saved the names of everyone his family owed. Aside from the fifty thousand yuan owed to Qin Ren's father, and after deducting the installments paid over the past year, they still owed more than 330,000 yuan.
Qin Lin called the first person on the list. As soon as the call connected, he said, "Uncle Ergen, have you eaten... You have?... Could you come over to my place tonight?... Yeah, I've made some money. I'd like to pay back the money my dad owed you first..."
After hanging up, he called the next person. He kept going until he had called every creditor and invited them over. They were all elders from the same village.
Strictly speaking, it would have been more polite for him to visit them and return the money in person.
But he wanted to put his mother's mind at ease. She still kept his father's portrait displayed, and every day she'd say that until the family had paid back all the money, she wouldn't be able to see him marry and have children, and his father wouldn't be able to rest in peace.
After putting down the phone, he went to the warehouse. He took some ordinary wild fish out of the game and put them in the water barrels on his three-wheeler, then covered them with a cloth and drove back to the residential complex where he lived.
Uncle Ergen and the others would have finished dinner by then. If he was inviting them over, he should at least bring them a small gift.
The ordinary wild fish were quite heavy, and made a fine gift.
By the time he got home, Lin Fen had already prepared dinner and was waiting for him.
"Dinner's ready," Lin Fen called. Once Qin Lin had sat down, she asked, "Xiao Lin, why are you so late today? How's your agritainment business going?"
"It's about to get up and running. I'll be a little busy for a while," Qin Lin replied.
Lin Fen reminded him, "Xiao Lin, I know you're busy, but don't neglect Moqing. She's such a good girl..."
She didn't finish what she was about to say. She was naturally worried that if such a good girl became someone else's daughter-in-law, she'd never find another one like her.
But she felt even more helpless because there was nothing she could do. Their family was a complete mess, weighed down by debt. Her son didn't have a house or a car. How could Zhao Moqing's parents agree to let her marry into their family?
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