Night. The Li Family Mansion!
The Li family had just finished dinner. Since they’d spent quite a bit of time with Huang Lixing and the others that afternoon, the mushroom harvest had been slightly delayed.
By the time all the members’ mushrooms had been processed, it was already past eight o’clock in the evening.
After dinner, the entire Li family sat in the living room chatting, the topic still revolving around Huang Lixing and his wife’s donation of 100,000 yuan to the school.
Earlier during dinner, Li Yi had already explained his relationship with Huang Lixing.
Of course, Li Yi didn’t mention any of the mysterious details.
He simply said that when he went to the city a few days ago, he happened to do Huang Lixing and his wife a huge favor—essentially saving their entire family’s lives.
As for the rest, he didn’t say anything.
“Xiao Yi, does that Mr. Huang really plan to spend 100,000 yuan to build a school in our village?”
Second Sister Li Lan still found it hard to believe and asked for confirmation again.
“Yeah, the project’s already been approved. Construction will start soon, and then the villagers will have their hands full!” Li Yi said with a smile.
“Huh? What does this have to do with our village members? Are they going to make us help build it?” Third Sister Li Na asked, puzzled.
“It’s not about helping out—it’s about hiring!”
“Hired?”
“Yeah, a project this big requires a lot of workers, and it’s not feasible to bring them in from elsewhere—the costs would be too high!”
Li Yi continued, “So the construction workers for this school will most likely be hired from the nearby villages!”
“If they’re hiring, that means they’ll have to pay. Is there really such a good deal?”
“I’d say so,” Li Yi replied.
At that moment, Second Sister spoke up again: “That Mr. Huang is quite an interesting fellow. You helped him, so he should have thanked you directly, but instead he used the money to build a school!”
“It was my idea!”
“Yours?”
“Yeah. Actually, he wanted to give me the money from the start, but I turned it down!”
Li Yi continued, “I thought it would be nice to use that money for a good cause—as a way of praying for their children, and for my and Xiaoxue’s children too!”
Li Shankui, who had remained silent the whole time, suddenly said, “That’s great. You did the right thing!”
With his father’s approval, Li Yi felt a bit pleased.
But Second Sister said with a hint of regret, “That’s a hundred thousand yuan! If we’d given it all to Xiao Yi, our family would’ve become a hundred-thousand-yuan household overnight, and we wouldn’t have to take out a loan anymore!”
Tang Xue smiled and said, “Second Sister is such a money-grubber, but I think he did the right thing!”
Li Na added, “I think Xiao Yi did the right thing too. Once the school is built, everyone in the village will be indebted to our family!”
Second Sister glared and said unhappily, “So it turns out I’m wrong for standing up for Xiao Yi? You’re all good people, and I’m the only one who’s money-hungry!”
Li Yi smiled and said, “No, I know you’re just looking out for me, Second Sister. It’s just that there’s some money we can take, and some we shouldn’t.”
“Sigh, I just feel that you’ve done them such a huge favor, yet you didn’t get a single benefit out of it—it all went to outsiders. I feel it’s a waste for you!”
Just then, their mother, Zhang Yuehong, suddenly said, “Oh, right. When you guys went out earlier, two young men brought some things in, saying they were for Xiao Yi!”
“What was it?” Li Yi asked immediately.
His mother pointed to several red gift boxes in the corner of the room and said, “They’re over there. They must be some pastries!”
Li Yi immediately jumped down and carried the gift boxes up onto the kang.
The gift boxes looked familiar—they were local pastries that people usually brought during festivals or for engagement and wedding ceremonies.
However, as he picked them up, Li Yi noticed that the weight of these gift boxes was noticeably different—they were much heavier than the pastries he had ever bought.
Under the puzzled gazes of the others, Li Yi untied the string on one of the boxes.
But when Li Yi opened the box and saw what was inside, everyone was stunned.
The gift box was filled to the brim with cash—all brand-new 100-yuan bills.
“Wow… why is it all money?”
“My goodness, how much money is that?!”
“This… this is way too much…”
Li Yi immediately opened the other gift boxes as well and found that they were all the same as the first one—filled with money.
Although Li Yi had already guessed as much, he was still somewhat shocked.
Afterward, the family took all the money out of the gift boxes and counted it carefully.
A full 52 stacks of ten-yuan notes—a total of 52,000 yuan!
Li Yi guessed that the gift boxes could only hold that much; otherwise, given Huang Lixing’s character, he surely wouldn’t have sent just this amount!
After the initial shock subsided, his mother suddenly asked, “Xiao Yi, what should we do with this money? Maybe we should send it back. It makes me a little uneasy!”
At that moment, everyone’s gaze fixed on Li Yi.
After all, the money was a gift from him, so whether to accept it or not was ultimately up to Li Yi.
Li Yi thought for a moment and said, “Let’s keep it!”
Tang Xue asked in surprise, “Didn’t you say you couldn’t accept their money?”
Li Yi smiled and said, “I couldn’t accept it the first time they offered it, but this is the second time they’ve given it to me. If I don’t accept it now, it wouldn’t make sense!”
Although he didn’t know what Huang Lixing was thinking, he knew that his decision to leave the State-Owned Hotel that very day had made his stance quite clear.
Yet Huang Lixing had still come, and had even given him 50,000 yuan—clearly, this was a genuine gesture.
If he didn’t accept it, he would feel somewhat uncomfortable, even a little uneasy.
Besides, while fifty thousand yuan was an astronomical sum in the eyes of his parents and Tang Xue, to Huang Lixing, it was merely a drop in the bucket.
“All right then, if you say I should take it, I’ll take it. It’ll save us from having to take out a loan from the credit union!” Tang Xue said.
However, Li Yi just smiled and said, “Why not take out the loan?”
“Oh, so you mean we’ll take the money but still take out the loan?” Tang Xue asked, somewhat surprised.
“Yep!”
“But… but we can’t possibly use that much money!”
“How could we not use it? I’ll issue a notice tomorrow: from now on, we’re lifting the twenty-jin limit per household. For the autumn harvest, we’ll buy whatever the villagers harvest!” Li Yi said.
“Aren’t you worried this will affect grain production?”
“The autumn harvest is almost here—what’s there to worry about? At worst, we’ll just stop collecting mushrooms during the harvest season,” Li Yi said.
Previously, due to funding constraints—and to prevent villagers from spending all their time picking mushrooms and wild produce to make money—Li Yi had set a limit of twenty pounds per household per day.
Now that they had the funds, and since the village’s grain production hadn’t been affected, Li Yi decided to go all out.
Second Sister was obsessed with making money, and Third Sister was just as money-hungry, so they both agreed to Li Yi’s idea without a second thought.
Soon after, the Li family quickly reached a consensus on the matter!