The working group's leader was Lin Chaojun. He often led teams on this sort of assignment and was quite experienced in measuring land.
Team 4's land shared a characteristic common to most of Northern Xinjiang: it was flat, with fairly uniform plots, making it easy to measure. In Lin Chaojun's estimation, they might finish the job in less than five days.
That afternoon, after Xu Chengjun took Lin Chaojun and the others around the area, he insisted on taking them to a restaurant in the County Town to welcome them, but they refused. Xu Chengjun was very enthusiastic and insisted on treating them, so they eventually compromised and ate at a restaurant in the Township.
That evening, at the Township guesthouse, Lin Chaojun gathered everyone for a meeting.
He spoke first. "We've come here with an assignment: to measure the village's land. Judging from our walk around today, it shouldn't be difficult.
"The village should have around ten thousand mu of land altogether. There's one issue we need to consider. As everyone saw, almost a third of those ten thousand mu has already undergone irrigation improvements.
"From what we understand, that project was also run by our department. It's a support project, and they're continuing with the improvements. The question facing us is whether we should report this."
One of the men said rather dismissively, "We're responsible for measuring the land. The final decision isn't ours, so we should report things as they are. We'll state the actual situation in our report and let our superiors decide."
One of the women was more observant. After some thought, she said, "I think this Director Xu is extremely enthusiastic. He's also experienced at dealing with people. He definitely won't want us to report things as they are.
"When we measure the land,