A young man from another world returned to his hometown.

Chapter 71 Ideological Clashes and the Criticism of Medieval Lords

"Wow, sister, look at this!"

"Sister, sister, is my chicken coop crooked too?"

Lin Jiayao and Lin Yecheng exchanged a glance. What was going on? The office door was pushed open, and Mu Jiuzhang walked in, followed by a group of children.

"..."

Lin Jiayao's brain once again activated its high-frequency thinking mode.

"May I ask who you are?"

"Mu Jiuzhang, Wei Changfeng's student, is here to help you with the planning."

"You...you are Elder Wei's last disciple! How old are you?"

Lin Jiayao blurted out the question, then realized a second later that he shouldn't have asked it and quickly corrected himself.

"Oh no, I mean, you look really young..."

"Did you think he was an older man?"

Lin Jiayao looked embarrassed. Mu Jiuzhang nodded, didn't ask any more questions, and turned around.

"It's too late today, I'll go to my lodgings first. Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, the leader in charge of this area in your town will be called here for a meeting."

"Huh? This..."

Lin Jiayao scratched his head.

"Are you in such a rush? You must be tired from the journey. Why don't you rest first...?"

"If they can't come, then forget it. I'll just go back to the countryside."

"!"

Lin Jiayao immediately stood at attention.

"Yes! Absolutely! I'll go to Old Ma's house right now!"

The next morning, at the Mixue Building.

Section Chief Ma sat in his chair with a puzzled look on his face.

"Jiayao, why did you drag me here so early in the morning? What's the matter?"

Lin Jiayao came closer.

"Old Ma, Old Wei has invited a master."

As they were talking, the meeting room door was pushed open, and Mu Jiuzhang was wearing sportswear today.

"Brother Ma, this is Professor Mu, Dr. Mu Jiuzhang, Elder Wei's last disciple."

Section Chief Ma was stunned for a moment, then quickly stood up and stretched out his hands.

"Hello Dr. Mu, just call me Lao Ma."

"Okay, let's begin."

Mu Jiuzhang sat down in the main seat. She opened her laptop and projected a satellite map of Guanzhen and the surrounding villages. The map was covered with dense markings of several colors, which made Section Chief Ma's eyes dizzy.

"This is……"

"This is a rough current situation analysis diagram that I made last night based on publicly available satellite images and existing planning sketches."

Mu Jiuzhang spoke.

"Red represents the developed areas, yellow represents the planned areas, blue represents the water system, and purple represents... the problem areas I marked."

The entire screen is purple.

"..."

Lin Jiayao's smile froze.

"I won't go into detail today. I need to spend a few more days going down there to see the actual situation."

"Section Chief Ma, I have a few questions for you."

"Please tell me, please tell me."

How is sewage treated in Guanzhen?

"Well, right now it's mainly individual household septic tanks, and there's a simple pipe network in the town..."

"Besides the national highway, are there any plans for secondary roads and branch roads within the town?"

"Not for now, we mainly rely on national highways and historical side roads."

What are the future solutions for industrial wastewater treatment?

"..."

Section Chief Ma's smile froze. He turned to look at Lin Jiayao, who also turned to look at him. The two stared at each other, their faces saying, "I thought you had thought of that."

"..."

"I understand. I'll drive here first, then I'll head down to the village."

She walked to the door and then turned back.

"Lin Jiayao, this afternoon, please compile a list of all the contracts you've signed, project budgets, personnel details, and land permits for me. I'll go to the countryside to take a look first."

After she finished speaking, she turned and left. Section Chief Ma slumped his back in pain.

"How could I have been so unaware that our town had so many problems?"

Lin Jiayao gave a wry smile.

"We're all the same."

……

Over the next few days, Mu Jiuzhang began her rural research trip to Tiancun and the surrounding villages.

A few days later, Mu Jiuzhang locked himself in his temporary residence and spent a day organizing all the data from the past few days before dialing Wei Changfeng's number.

On the other end of the phone, Wei Changfeng was clearly still awake; there was the sound of turning pages in a book.

"Jiuzhang, why are you still up so late?"

"Teacher, I've finished my investigation."

"Oh? How is it? Tell me."

Mu Jiuzhang slammed his hand on the table.

"Based on my field visits over the past few days, teacher, I have reviewed the operations of this investment genius."

I call it "unplanned spending that led to systemic chaos."

Wei Changfeng, who was about to drink water on the other end of the phone, almost choked when he heard this.

"Ahem... Jiuzhang, your assessment is quite straightforward."

"I'm talking about the town's planning."

Mu Jiuzhang pulled up the files she had compiled.

"Isolated development, lacking macro-level planning."

Teacher, look at the map I sent you. The leaders of this town are a complete idiot. They think they're playing a simulation game and can just click on the commercial and industrial areas. But they have no idea that when building a city, you have to first draw up the road network and divide the city into zones.

The entire town of Guan has now been turned into a chaotic hodgepodge of functions.

Opposite the middle school are shops, and next to it is a cold storage and transfer center, a mix of commerce, industry, and education.

Once the factory opened, trucks, motorcycles, and pedestrians all crowded onto the national highway.

Wei Changfeng paused for a moment.

"...That's true."

"Infrastructure is severely disconnected."

They spent money to build a cold storage facility, but didn't even plan for the most basic sewage treatment plant and garbage transfer station.

The town's current capacity is simply insufficient to handle the large-scale emissions from the future factory.

"So, from now on, we'll just dump the wastewater into that fishpond to raise turtles?"

On the other end of the phone, Wei Changfeng couldn't help but chuckle.

"Good heavens..."

"Seeing the trees but not the forest, making industrial layout decisions on a whim."

Those returning now are mostly locals, first-generation migrant workers aged 40 to 55, and young people aged 18 to 35 with low levels of education. They possess basic skills, but their thinking is severely rigid. There aren't many young people in the town with a high school education or above.

What's even more terrifying is that after the technical school was built, it started graduating three years later, with over a hundred new graduates every year.

Teacher, do you think the current industry can support more than a hundred people each year? Giving people education and broadening their horizons, but not providing them with the treatment they deserve—isn't that just asking for trouble?

"...Nine Chapters, to be honest, I did consider this issue at the time. I think your requirements are a bit too high. I discussed it with the town leaders. The planned factory can create about a hundred jobs. Based on the investment in his industry, the town should be able to accommodate three factories in the future. Are we going to be so concerned about the future that we ignore the three hundred opportunities right in front of us?"

"Teacher, I have a different view from you. Development is like a boulder rolling down a mountain. He is a rich man. He could have used his money to enjoy himself, but he used it to build his hometown, which I admire. However, once all the trucks in the town are put on the gas and driven to compete in the market on the highway, they fail because of poor planning. The consequences of this are far more serious than not pushing that boulder down at all."

Wei Changfeng let out a long sigh.

"You really are like that. My idea here is to resolve the problem as it develops. Let's put this disagreement aside for now and discuss it when we meet in a few days."

The master and apprentice were having a heated discussion, clearly unable to guess that Lin Yan simply wanted to help those around him casually during his retirement.