Chapter 25: Desperate People Emerge from Desolate Lands

Liao Peng was taken aback by Lin Shi's question.

He had never inquired about it.

Liao Peng, being a smooth operator, immediately thought of something upon Lin Shi's inquiry and promptly took out his phone to call the Taoist priest they had just met.

Thirty minutes later, Lin Shi, Liao Peng, and the plump Taoist priest were seated in a restaurant.

The plump Taoist priest, while earnestly stuffing meat into his mouth, spoke indistinctly:

"The situation is as such, I didn't mean to hide it, it's just that I've been really short of money lately."

After saying this, he guiltily glanced at Lin Shi.

Lin Shi's expression was calm, with no discernible joy or anger.

It turned out that the Taoist priest had purchased the land five years ago.

According to his account, he wanted to find a geomantically auspicious site to build a Taoist temple, and thus he set his eyes on that hill.

He first spent a considerable amount of money to pave a cement road, followed by the construction of the temple, and everything went smoothly during this process.

The plump Taoist priest originally thought he would spend his twilight years in this temple.

Unexpectedly, not long after the temple was completed, villagers from the village at the foot of the hill, along with a few others, came to his temple.

They claimed that the hill was the dragon vein of their village and that the Taoist temple was suppressing their dragon vein.

The land was originally acquired from the villagers, and the Taoist priest had made it very clear that he intended to build a temple.

At that time, the villagers did not mention that the hill could not have a temple built on it.

No one stopped the construction process.

Yet, only after the temple was completed did they raise the issue.

The construction of the temple had depleted most of the Taoist priest's savings, and it was absolutely impossible to demolish it.

At first, the Taoist priest ignored these villagers; his temple was legal and compliant, and there was no way these villagers could force a demolition.

However, things were not as simple as he thought.

Firstly, from then on, villagers guarded the cement road at the foot of the hill every day, preventing any vehicles from going up the hill.

The Taoist priest established the temple to attract worshippers, and without them, he lost a significant source of income.

Then there were the elderly women who came to the temple's entrance every day to curse and berate.

They couldn't be driven away or scolded, and the Taoist priest was greatly troubled.

After several negotiations with the villagers, he ended up paying 20,000 yuan, and the matter was settled.

He thought it was over, but a month later, villagers blocked the road again.

The Taoist priest, furious, confronted the village head.

The village head shamelessly claimed that the 20,000 yuan was for the previous month, and from then on, they would demand 20,000 yuan per month from him!

This infuriated the Taoist priest, and he immediately called the police.

However, when the police arrived, over 400 people in the village, from the elderly to the very young, all testified that the money was a gift from the Taoist priest to the entire village.

From this, it was evident that the villagers were not new to such schemes.

The 20,000 yuan involved extortion, which could be prosecuted.

But after receiving the money, each household divided it among themselves, with each person getting only 50 yuan.

50 yuan was not enough to file a case, and the police could only mediate.

Afterwards, the harassment intensified; every day, several elderly women in their seventies and eighties would ride on the villagers' tricycles to the temple's entrance to curse, demanding 100 yuan each to leave.

Call the police? They would cry and claim they had fallen in the temple and demanded the Taoist priest take responsibility.

Helpless, the Taoist priest closed the temple, essentially shutting himself in, but he still couldn't escape these troublesome villagers.

Occasionally, the temple would experience power and water outages, either due to severed wires or blocked pipes.

Needless to say, it was the villagers' doing.

Later, the Taoist priest spent money on surveillance cameras and caught the person who cut the wires.

He handed the individual over to the police, thinking he had gained the upper hand, but he didn't expect that this action was like poking a hornet's nest.

From then on, the villagers became even more relentless.

Their tactics were endless, and he, a single person, was exhausted both mentally and physically, fighting against 400 people.

In the end, he had no choice but to abandon the temple and seek another way out.

...

After listening to the fat Taoist's story, Liao Peng felt both angry and guilty, even a bit afraid to look at Lin Shi:

"I'm sorry, boss, I didn't inquire clearly..."

He was receiving such a high salary from Lin Shi, yet he had messed up the task, feeling deeply ashamed.

"I'll go check if there's any other suitable place.

I'll buy this land myself, and the boss can deduct it from my salary."

Lin Shi glanced sideways.

This actually made Lin Shi look at Liao Peng with a new perspective.

Although the annual salary he offered Liao Peng was 500,000, it was nothing more than an empty check.

The money hadn't been received yet, yet he was willing to use a 500,000 annual salary to make up for the mistake.

This was not something an ordinary person would have the courage to propose.

Lin Shi waved his hand:

"No need, let's just take this land.

It's late today, you contact a reliable construction team first, and we'll start tomorrow."

Now it was Liao Peng and the fat Taoist's turn to be shocked.

"Boss, this..."

"I have a solution, just do as I say."

Lin Shi stood up, ending the meal.

This matter actually didn't need to be resolved at all.

Would Lin Shi be afraid after the shelter was built?

The answer was naturally no.

By the time the shelter was completed, at least two months would have passed.

The extreme cold would have already left these villagers scrambling to take care of themselves.

And dealing with evil people, Lin Shi had a lot of experience; as long as he was more evil than them, it would suffice.

"Wait a minute!"

The fat Taoist forcefully swallowed the food in his mouth, and with greasy hands, he took out a yellowed booklet from inside his robe.

"Young man, you're a good person, and I've done you wrong.

This booklet was what I used for strengthening my body before.

Now that the Taoist temple is gone, I've decided to return to secular life.

This booklet isn't that important to me anymore,

so I'll give it to you.

I always feel that you're quite to my liking."

Lin Shi frowned at the yellowed booklet with obvious grease stains, but seeing the sincere look in the fat Taoist's eyes, he eventually took it.

"Thank you."

After leaving the restaurant, Lin Shi went to the hotel where he was staying and spent the whole night drawing the shelter design that he had already constructed in his mind.

The upper half of this design was a semi-circle, exposed above the ground, and the lower half was a square basement.

From an architectural perspective, a circular building is beneficial for reducing wind resistance and is more solid and sturdy.

From a heat transfer perspective, a circle is the shape that emits the least heat, which is more conducive to insulation.

The people who once lived in the Arctic built semi-circular snow houses for this very reason.

The outermost part of the building would be welded with an alloy, and Lin Shi planned to use the explosion-proof steel plate walls commonly used by banks inside, with a thickness of at least one meter.

Inside the steel plate walls, he would add a layer of the most cold-resistant temperature control material, followed by the normal three-proof materials.

Lin Shi planned to build a fireplace in the middle of the circular building, which could be used for heating when it was inconvenient to generate electricity.

A smoke vent would be made on top for ventilation.

There would be an electrical circulation system both above and below the building.

Lin Shi hadn't considered the water issue.

Because extreme cold would freeze all the water pipes, Lin Shi planned to dig a well in the courtyard after the shelter was built.

The details of the design still needed to be modified by professionals.

But that was the general idea.

After finishing the design, as Lin Shi was about to go to bed, he caught a glimpse of the booklet he had casually placed aside.

It was the one given to him by the fat Taoist.

Out of curiosity, he picked it up and started flipping through it.