Three or four years ago, Li Long's goal had only been to live a decent life and avoid ending up with nothing to show for it, as he had in his previous life.
Now, though, he wanted to pursue an even better life. However modest Li Long might be, he knew he was practically a model figure in the Fourth Team. Calling him the richest man not just in the village, but in the entire township, would not be an exaggeration.
He was now an example to many people, and quite a few were following his path to prosperity. Some who had missed the chance to weave Taibazi were catching fish at Little Haizi to sell in Stone City, or even venturing into the mountains to dig for fritillaria.
At present, getting rich through farming alone was very difficult. Sideline work was the biggest source of cash.
Most people following Li Long's path might earn a little spending money selling fish, or some hard-earned cash in the mountains. Some would be caught by the Forestry Team and come back empty-handed.
But there were always a lucky few whose efforts earned them sums they had never imagined.
And so more and more people came to understand that they could not just keep their heads down and scrape a living from the soil. To make money and live well, they had to find other avenues.
If they worked the land, growing grain alone would not do; they needed cash crops, and the Li family had already blazed that trail. If they did not want to work in the fields, they needed to find the right path, and Li Long had set an example there too.
Li Long himself knew that, over the next forty years, there would only be one golden decade