You Meng, somewhat puzzled, "If you're not going to build a breeding farm, then what do you need this place for?"
"Just stay here."
"There's no need to make such a big place. And if you want to move in, it will take a long time and a lot of effort to clean up. There are places to live inside, but the conditions are too poor. It's better to just stay in Tongshi Town. If you want to experience rural life, you can occasionally go to the surrounding mountains for a stroll."
"I still want this place."
"Fine, whatever. We can't get through to the farm owner, let's go to his house and check."
Then You Meng drove his minivan, carrying Xiang Kun, towards an area in the village with more buildings.
When they arrived at the farm owner's house, no one was home. A short while later, a man who looked to be in his thirties, wearing a linen short-sleeved shirt, loose cloth trousers, flip-flops, Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist, and a gold chain and jade pendant around his neck, stopped his electric scooter by the roadside and asked You Meng, "Meng, is this the friend you mentioned wanting to buy that farm?"
You Meng nodded and said, "Yes, this is my good brother Xiang Kun." Then he introduced the man to Xiang Kun: "This is Liu Caifu, the deputy director of Chongyun Village. The owner of the breeding farm is from the same clan as him."
Liu Caifu glanced at the locked gate in front of them and said, "Liu Big Guy took his wife back to her parents' house. They probably won't be back for the next couple of days. Have you contacted him?"
"I couldn't get through on the phone. I thought I'd definitely be able to find him if I came over," You Meng said, somewhat annoyed.
"Want to sit over there for a while?" Liu Caifu said, pointing to a three-story building not far away.
"That's good. I was just about to ask about the environmental permit procedures for that farm."
Liu Caifu rode his electric bike ahead, followed by You Meng in his minivan carrying Xiang Kun.
"This Director Liu is quite influential in Chongyun Village, and he also has many businesses in Tongshi Town. He has eight shops on the commercial street where I run my business. He has a wide network of connections and probably knows people in the environmental protection department as well. If you really want to open a breeding farm here, it would be beneficial to get along well with him." You Meng quickly introduced the situation of Liu Caifu, the deputy director of the village, to Xiang Kun in the car.
Xiang Kun knew that most village cadres were not civil servants, but rather non-full-time, unemployed village committee managers who assisted township governments in carrying out rural work. Therefore, many village cadres in rural areas were quite influential and respected in their villages.
This Liu Caifu is clearly that kind of person too.
As soon Xiang Kun and You Meng entered the yard after parking the car outside, a large gray dog that had been tied up inside immediately stood up and began to bark.
Xiang Kun glanced over and met the eyes of the big gray dog. The deep, mellow bark that was brewing in the dog's throat turned into a whimper as it shrank to the side.
You Meng was puzzled and said to Liu Caifu, who had brought out the tea set, "Director Liu, does your dog have a cold? It just coughed once?" Indeed, the sound was only halfway out of its throat before it abruptly stopped, sounding just like a cough.
Liu Caifu glanced at his usually reckless dog, who was suddenly acting rather timid today, but didn't seem to care. He said to You Meng, "I've already said, there's no need to call me Director or Deputy Director in private. Just call me A-Cai or Brother Fu."
After sitting down and starting to make tea, Liu Caifu listened to You Meng's question about the farm's environmental permit system and said, "Mr. Xiang bought that farm, is he also going to raise pigs? If so, then the environmental permit system is basically out of the question."
Xiang Kun said, "We won't raise pigs, but we might raise rabbits, chickens, ducks, and maybe a few cows."
Liu Caifu was surprised. "Why is it so complicated? This isn't a breeding farm, it's a family farm, isn't it? If it were just rabbits, depending on the scale, if it weren't too big, there might be some qualms. After all, it's far from the drinking water source, not a tourist attraction, and the town doesn't have any development plans yet."
As he spoke, Deputy Director Liu then explained some basic knowledge about environmental impact assessments to them. He explained that environmental impact assessment reports are divided into report forms, report tables, and registration forms, with the approval time and difficulty decreasing in that order. Report forms require a 60-day review period, while registration forms will receive a response within 15 days.
If the number of pigs exceeds 3,000, or if the area involves environmentally sensitive zones, a report is required; if the number exceeds 100, a report form is required. In terms of rabbits, 30 rabbits are counted as one pig.
Given the condition of that land, let alone 3,000 pigs, even 300 wouldn't pass the registration process. If it were a small-scale rabbit farm, there might be a slight possibility if a registration form was issued.
"The main problem is that Liu Big Guy secretly built the farm and introduced breeding pigs before being discovered. He only went to the environmental assessment company to get a supplementary report after it was discovered, but it wasn't approved, so he had to quickly sell the breeding pigs. With his past actions as a precedent, even if you have a small-scale farm, it might be difficult to get approval from the environmental authorities. If you're sure you want to take over, I suggest you invest in the infrastructure construction after the environmental approval is approved. In that area, if the environmental approval isn't approved, it should be demolished directly. Don't cause disputes later and make things look bad." Liu Caifu didn't hide the facts just because the original farm owner Liu Big Guy, was his relative; he was really telling the truth.
Because his family had previously run a livestock farm, Liu Caifu went on to talk about some potential pitfalls and unsolvable problems that livestock farms might encounter, and he also described Xiang Kun's plan to open a livestock farm as "impractical."
These words really dampened Xiang Kun's desire for that piece of land by more than half. He had previously consulted the owner of the Belgian meat rabbit farm, who described opening a small farm as very simple, with little initial investment and very simple site requirements, making him overlook many issues.
In fact, Xiang Kun never really planned to set up a large-scale breeding farm, because he couldn't manage it all by himself and would have to hire people. He didn't even intend to sell the rabbits he raised; he just wanted to continue to struggle with "difficult sales and poor management."
The so-called breeding farm was just an excuse for him to raise a certain number of livestock and poultry. After all, he expected his "food intake" to increase rapidly in the future. The consumption of four or five meat rabbits a week might not be much, but once it reached a dozen or even dozens of rabbits, he wouldn't be able to support it without a relatively high base. There had to be a reason for raising so many rabbits.
He originally thought that he had already thought a lot about it, having consulted people who ran meat rabbit farms and researched a lot of information online and read a lot of "experienced advice".
But now it seems that I was too simplistic. I hadn't actually done many things, and relying solely on superficial inquiries and research would inevitably lead to many mistakes and omissions.
Then other plans immediately popped into Xiang Kun's mind, such as acquiring that piece of land and turning it into a farm stay? But that would seem to require hiring a lot of people, and entertaining guests would be quite troublesome; you can't just turn away guests when they come to your door.
"Why did Mr. Xiang decide to open a breeding farm in our Chongyun Village? Where did Mr. Xiang work before?" Liu Caifu asked with some curiosity.
Xiang Kun didn't hide anything and simply gave a brief introduction to the projects he had worked on at his previous company and the parts he was responsible for.
"Isn't that great? The internet, AI, big data—aren't these all trendy things right now?"
"The competition is too fierce. Our company chose the right entry point, but the timing was bad. If we're slow at one step, we'll be slow at every step."
After listening, Liu Caifu sighed, "That's true. The internet industry is just too much of a bubble. The future economy will still depend on the real economy; the real economy is the pillar! Agriculture and animal husbandry are the foundation. Think about it, if one day the whole world suddenly ran out of electricity, computers, cell phones, and all kinds of electrical appliances, we wouldn't necessarily die, but without food, vegetables, and meat, that would be unbearable... However, Mr. Xiang, to be honest, your profession is quite different from animal husbandry. I suggest you switch to another industry."
Xiang Kun had already been planning to find a particularly remote location to open a rabbit meat restaurant that wasn't doing very well, focusing mostly on takeout, opening the shop whenever he felt like it, and taking two fixed days off a week to justify buying large quantities of rabbit meat. However, hearing Director Liu's words made him somewhat uncomfortable. After all, before his mutation, he had always been a technology enthusiast and admirer, believing that the internet could forge a better future and be the foundation for all industries. Therefore, he couldn't help but say:
"Actually, I haven't given up on my profession. The main reason I asked my brother You Meng to help me find a place for a farm is not to raise poultry and livestock to sell and make money, but to study the technology of combining the Internet, AI and automated farming."
"Oh? Automated farming is easy to understand, but how does it combine the internet and AI? Is it about selling the products on e-commerce platforms?" Liu Caifu asked with a smile.
You Meng looked at his friend with some confusion, as he hadn't heard him mention these things before.
"Of course it's not that simple!" Xiang Kun looked at the two of them intently, his mind racing, but his mouth never stopped, as if he had already thought it through, "Even rabbits of the same species, fed different feeds, raised in different locations, and using different breeding methods, will have individual differences, resulting in slight variations in meat quality. We can train AI through the observation and recording of various data, allowing it to provide targeted breeding plans based on the meat quality we want, and then implement these plans through automated breeding equipment."
"For example, if we want some rabbits to have stronger hind legs and a chewier texture, we can assign them fixed training tasks. If we want their meat to be more tender, we can prepare targeted nutritional meals for them."
"We can even regulate the breeding rabbit stage, finding the most suitable time for conception and littering, and statistically analyzing the differences in taste among the resulting meat rabbits. Of course, we can also analyze the characteristics of male and female breeding rabbits based on the condition of the meat rabbits at market, and what changes they will bring to the final meat rabbits, thus enabling targeted pairing."
"These will all become big data, connecting with other fully automated rabbit farms across the country to share resources and allocate suitable breeding rabbits."
"Customers can customize their rabbits online according to their own tastes or preferred types, obtaining the rabbits that best suit their tastes or cooking methods."
"They can even intervene directly, making minor adjustments to the breeding plan, breeding the meat rabbits they want themselves, and participating in the process."
"For example, some rabbit meat is best for grilling, some rabbit meat tastes best with chili, some rabbit meat is perfect for stewing, and some rabbit meat is suitable for canning."
Liu Caifu and You Meng were both stunned, and even forgot to pour more tea.
Xiang Kun had also stood up at some point and was pacing back and forth in the yard, gesturing with his hands from time to time to help express his meaning. Only the big gray dog was very obediently huddled in the corner, looking like it was about to die of sleep but was trying hard not to fall asleep.
Xiang Kun's mind was now like a high-speed train that had accelerated, going faster and faster, thinking more and more. He was no longer just making things up, but had begun to express some of his real fantasies.
"... So, our establishment of a rabbit farm there was actually a pretense. Our real purpose was to create an artificial intelligence and internet-based animal husbandry research institute, starting with the breeding and raising of meat rabbits, and gradually extending this technology to other areas of animal husbandry..."
"... In the future, we will also introduce relevant equipment for gene research, hire professional personnel with high salaries, and establish professional laboratories..."
"... In the field of computers, because there will be a large amount of data, we will also establish professional data centers and research and development facilities..."
"... Those data and application methods can be used not only in aquaculture, but also in many other areas, and supporting facilities will emerge accordingly..."
"... Our research will no longer be limited to the field of aquaculture, but will expand to all aspects. We may even be able to drive technological progress throughout society and lead the direction of the times..."
"... At that time, there will be a lot of construction here, not only the breeding farm, but even the entire Chongyun Village will be included. We want to transform from an research institute into a research center, and then from a research center into a dedicated scientific research base..."
After an unknown amount of time, when Xiang Kun finally stopped, sat down, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it, You Meng and Liu Caifu slowly came to their senses, but the shock and anticipation in their eyes remained unchanged.
"Can it really become like that?" Liu Caifu murmured.
Xiang Kun said, "Right now, it's just a dream. The farm probably won't be built. We'll have to think about it more carefully..."
However, as he finished speaking, he suddenly noticed four fervent gazes fixed upon him.
Oh no! Did I just get too emotional?
Xiang Kun resisted the urge to slap his forehead and recalled his emotions just now. It seemed he had been fantasizing about how, if he were to acquire a large amount of wealth in the future, he would build a private research center for himself, with all the researchers secretly working for him. The research would not be about combining breeding techniques with the Internet and AI, but rather about his own various special abilities, and based on the research results of these special abilities, he would find the root cause of his mutations and how to guide the mutations more efficiently and safely.
However, emotionally, what they can perceive through their own "Emotional Assimilation" is probably only those imagined infrastructure achievements, right?
With his guidance, leading them to consider a research center that combines the internet and AI with aquaculture technology, there shouldn't be any problem.
Seeing that it was getting late, Xiang Kun politely declined Liu Caifu's offer to stay for dinner and continue discussing the "grand plan," and drove back to Tongshi Town with You Meng.
Even after the car had driven quite a distance, Xiang Kun could still see Director Liu standing at his door, looking at them with reluctance, through the rearview mirror.
You Meng was driving, was equally excited, his eyes practically shining, and his voice was full of enthusiasm. "I knew it! I knew you couldn't be the kind of person who couldn't stand being in a big city and wanted to go to the mountains to live a secluded life! I knew you were ambitious, you must have big aspirations and grand ambitions! Just thinking about Chongyun Village becoming a research base, thinking about how future technology will be led by this place, makes me so excited I want to shout!"
Xiang Kun resisted the urge to wipe away the non-existent cold sweat on his forehead, pondering the impact of this "Emotional Assimilation."
If there's no "Emotional Assimilation" at play, it wouldn't be too hard to tell that what he said was just wishful thinking and boasting, with too much of it being empty promises. Even if You Meng and Liu Caifu don't know much about the internet and AI fields, they would definitely be skeptical, especially after he came up with the idea of leading technological development. They would definitely think it's unrealistic, since he's just one person, not Tencent, Baidu, or Alibaba. Where would he get the manpower, resources, and money to realize such a grand idea?
Based on the effects of previous instances of "Emotional Assimilation," once time has passed and the effects of "Emotional Assimilation" have disappeared, when they actually hear the same things again, they will make a more accurate judgment and will no longer be influenced.
However, judging from the replies to the WeChat Moments of the people who listened to music in the bar that Tang Baona screenshotted, even after the effect of "Emotional Assimilation" has disappeared, when people recall that memory, they are still in the state of "Emotional Assimilation" and will not realize that there is anything wrong with their emotions.
In other words, when You Meng and Liu Caifu carefully considered what Xiang Kun had said that afternoon, they wouldn't suddenly realize: This guy was just bragging!
Instead, I still think: That makes so much sense!
Of course, if someone else said the same thing, they would still think that person was an idiot.
However, Xiang Kun still hoped that the two of them could forget their conversation that afternoon as soon as possible, and he was also prepared to give up the land for the rabbit farm and find another place to set up a rabbit meat restaurant.
It was nearly six o'clock when they returned to Tongshi Town, and You Meng's excitement had mostly subsided. However, he didn't realize that there was anything strange or inappropriate about his previous reaction.
There were still few diners at "Youlong Restaurant," with only three people eating at one table. You Meng's nephew had already prepared all the dishes, so he didn't need to do anything after returning.
The two went straight to the kitchen, Xiang Kun asked his nephew You to take out the marinated bamboo rat meat. As he processed it, he explained the process to him.
Knowing that You Meng's good friend was going to cook bamboo rat meat himself, his wife also came to the kitchen to "watch". Even the waitress, with the boss's tacit permission, ran to the aisle next to the kitchen and kept peeking in.
Today's chapter has been under consideration for a long time, so I posted it late, keeping everyone waiting. Thank you to the helmsman "ll", and to my book friends, Wow, Wow, Good-tempered Bad Man, Earth, Water and Wood, Sleepy Sleep, Book Friends 201706062133029 40. Book Friends 20170606213302940, Book Friends 20170606213302940, Hell Mingshi, Book Friends 20181201120821676, Bei Wa, SF Express is the most awesome, five-speed fan reward.