After thinking it over and over, William Brooks still couldn’t come up with a good solution, and time slowly slipped away as he pondered.

Bang bang bang!

The knocking at the door startled William Brooks. John Smith appeared at the door once again, but this time there was no smile on his face. On the contrary, he gave William Brooks a meaningful look.

“Molly, your classmate is so impressive, yet you don’t tell your uncle the truth. Tell me, if I’d known, I would have gone to the big bookie and placed a bet too. Forget four hundred thousand—even four million, I could have made a profit.”

“Uncle Smith, what are you talking about? What four million? What happened? Oh, did the lottery results come out? Uncle Smith, did I win?”

Mary Foster was smart, but her acting was over the top. William Brooks could spot the flaws at a glance, let alone John Smith.

Seeing the meaningful look in John Smith’s eyes as he left, William Brooks understood that this had left a hidden worry for him. Now, he could only hope that before the The Foster Family went bankrupt, he would already have the strength to make John Smith wary.

Chapter 8: Surprised or Not? Unexpected or Not?

“William Brooks, let me tell you, in all my life I’ve never been talked to like that. I’m not taking advantage of you—here’s 180,000 out of the 360,000. From now on, we’re strangers.”

At the entrance of the hotel, watching Mary Foster’s proud figure walk away, William Brooks could only give a wry smile.

What a tsundere little princess.

What does 180,000 yuan in cash look like? It means that, apart from the money, William Brooks’s backpack could only fit one or two books. On the county town’s road, under the dim streetlights, a boy rode a little electric scooter—no one knew that his backpack held 180,000 yuan in cash.

A little after nine in the evening, when William Brooks got home, he found the lights in the living room still on, and his parents seemed to be arguing about something.

“I don’t get why you’re so stubborn. What’s the use of those few acres of land? Why not trade them with someone in the village? At least we could get a plot by the road, and in a few years, we could build a house.”

“Sell them for what? Those are a few acres! How much could we get in a trade?”

“That’s still better than letting them sit idle.”

Parking his scooter and walking to the door with his backpack, William Brooks heard his parents arguing inside. Suddenly, he slapped his forehead in frustration and said, “Land? Right, how could I have forgotten about that?”

William Brooks realized he had forgotten something big—something huge for his family.

Before this year’s Spring Festival, his family still had five acres of land. The land had belonged to his grandfather, and when his father and uncle split the family property, they got five acres at the foot of the mountain.

Back then, it didn’t seem like much. People were still diligent in those days—wherever there was land, they would farm it, never letting it go to waste.

But as crop prices fell and the state abolished the requirement to hand in grain, much of the land was gradually abandoned. The plots behind the mountain in the village were almost all left uncultivated.

The young people all went out to work—who would stay home and live off a few acres of land? The elderly only grew enough for themselves and didn’t need to farm so much.

“Mom, I think Dad is right. We shouldn’t sell the land.”

William Brooks hid his backpack and walked into the living room, speaking up directly.

“Xiaowang, what do you know? Trade the land behind the mountain for a plot by the road—even if it’s smaller, we could use it to build a house in the future.”

At that time, the land policies weren’t so strict, and it wasn’t a big deal to use farmland to build a house.

“You’re just a kid—why are you getting involved in this? Go back to your room and study,” Dad Brooks said, though he actually agreed with William Brooks’s opinion.

“Dad, Mom, why don’t I understand? Not only should we not sell our land, we should rent all the other abandoned land behind the mountain too.”

William Brooks didn’t care about his parents’ attitude. He pulled up a chair and sat down, joining the family meeting.

“Rent all the abandoned land? What for?” Dad Brooks asked instinctively.

“Dad, didn’t the county get new leaders this year?” William Brooks didn’t answer directly, but smiled and asked.

“Yeah, the county secretary and mayor were both replaced in the second half of the year. But what does that have to do with renting land?”

“Of course it matters.” William Brooks wasn’t worried that his father wouldn’t understand—he was only afraid his father wouldn’t give him a chance to speak. Now, he had successfully piqued his father’s curiosity.

No one knows a father better than his son.

William Brooks knew his father well. He’d been a grassroots civil servant all his life. Although he never got promoted, he was always interested in officialdom. After William Brooks went to college, he often heard his dad talk about which family had an official, and how that made their family prosperous.

It’s a common trait among civil servants—everyone’s a secret personnel director.

“These two new leaders are pretty young, right? I mean, compared to previous ones, they’re much younger. Naturally, they want to climb higher, and to do that, they need some real achievements. Now, the country is paying a lot of attention to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. The higher-ups will definitely focus on this area.”

Mr. Brooks listened with a furrowed brow. He vaguely sensed something, but just couldn’t figure out what his son was getting at.