Chapter 300: Chapter 300 Recruiting on the Spot
Tang Xiaowei stirred the paint bucket in her hands, "Your dear wife nagged and begged me for several days, insisting that I come over and paint for you, what choice did I have?"
Chen Yu suddenly felt a little embarrassed, as if every time he expanded his shop, Tang Xiaowei would come over to help.
"You\'ve worked hard! By the way, now that the expansion into a mall is complete, I want to set up a membership system. When it\'s ready, I\'ll give you a VIP card, and you can eat for free here for life."
Tang Xiaowei immediately became excited, "At least you have some conscience! But a lifetime of free meals won\'t satisfy me, you also have to reserve a room for me specifically."
Chen Yu smiled slightly, "Of course, that\'s possible!"
Tang Xiaowei put the stirred paint bucket aside and carefully climbed down the ladder.
"By the way, I recently got a case from the relevant departments in the capital, Zhou Team asked me to do the portrait, but from one single image, I ended up drawing thirteen different ones, and each one matched a specific person!"
Chen Yu frowned, having been a portrait artist himself, he was well aware of the intricacies involved. If there was one blurry surveillance image, one could only draw a single portrait through visual restoration. If there were any deviations, the resulting portrait wouldn\'t match anyone in the database.
For Tang Xiaowei to draw thirteen distinct portraits in one go, all matching specific people, was simply impossible.
Unless that video was fake!
"There\'s something like that? But Zhou Team hasn\'t approached me recently."
Tang Xiaowei sighed, "Originally, he wanted to find you, but it seemed that you were tied up with a task, so they had to call me in to make up the numbers."
Chen Yu understood, it must have happened during the time he was undercover.
As an outsider, he should be assisting Zhou Shengtao right away, but his shop and factory had been expanding recently. If he didn\'t pay attention now, there could be big problems.
"Do you have a copy of the video?" Chen Yu asked after some thought.
"Yes, I do!" Tang Xiaowei immediately took out a USB drive and handed it over.
Chen Yu didn\'t hesitate, taking it and putting it in his pocket.
"Then I\'ll go back and study it. If I can draw the portraits, I\'ll send them directly to you."
Tang Xiaowei didn\'t ask further, simply added some ingredients into the paint bucket and climbed back up the ladder.
Chen Yu then greeted Chu Hong and took Hou Jianchang home.
The next morning at ten o\'clock, Chen Yu and Chu Hong arrived at the train station.
Chu Hong\'s hometown was in a remote mountainous area of the Sichuan-Shu region, and even if you flew, you could only reach a secondary city nearby, after which there was still a bumpy ride to get there.
Taking the train was different. Three years ago, aiming to support the development of the mountainous area, the authorities built a train station in a small town near Chu Hong\'s hometown.
Chen Yu bought two first-class sleeper tickets and then boarded the train with Chu Hong.
Though the train compartment wasn\'t very large, the first-class sleeper with only two beds was quite comfortable.
But once Chu Hong entered the compartment, she seemed a bit uncomfortable.
"Brother Yu, we\'re just going back to hire people, there\'s no need to buy such expensive berths. Let\'s return them, and I\'ll just take a hard seat."
Chen Yu smiled helplessly, "The tickets are already bought, and the train is about to leave, how could they possibly issue a refund now? Besides, you\'re on a business trip right now, everything can be claimed on your travel expenses, so just sit back and relax."
Chu Hong was still somewhat uneasy, after all, she came from a poor background and couldn\'t help feeling a bit inferior.
When she had first left her hometown, the best seat she had ever bought was a hard seat, and sometimes she could only get standing-room tickets.
Now this way of traveling really made her feel unexpectedly flattered.
"Brother Yu, I will definitely work hard in the future!"
This sudden pledge caught Chen Yu off guard.
"Hey, you\'ve got me at a loss here! Go take a nap, we still have eighteen hours before we reach our destination."
With a somewhat perfunctory response, Chen Yu laid down on the bed and fell asleep.
The journey went smoothly, and at five o\'clock the next morning, they arrived at the station, but to reach Chu Hong\'s mountain village, it would take at least another two hours.
Chu Hong found a donkey cart near the train station and headed straight for the village with Chen Yu.
The mountain road was indeed rugged, and even Chen Yu couldn\'t bear the jolting, feeling as if his bones were about to fall apart.
When Chen Yu arrived at the village, he found many people gathering at the village entrance, they were gathered in small groups, some playing chess, others gossiping.
As soon as they saw Chen Yu and Chu Hong, they almost simultaneously stopped what they were doing, and several elderly women came over.
"Oh my, Xiaohong, did you make a fortune outside these past few years? How come you brought back such a handsome young man?"
"Our Xiaohong has the highest education in the village, after all, she\'s someone who went to high school in the county, she\'s very capable."
"Where is this young man from? He looks quite handsome!"
...
Chu Hong immediately became nervous, "Auntie Liu, you\'ve misunderstood, this is my boss, and he\'s here to recruit workers for our village."
Those women didn\'t pay any attention to Chu Hong\'s explanation and continued their discussion.
Chen Yu frowned, not surprised by the entrenched mindset of people who grew up in such an environment.
He didn\'t say much else and simply lifted the millstone at the village entrance, placing it on an open space.
This action startled everyone present.
The millstone weighed several hundred pounds, and with the stone roller underneath, it was nearly a thousand pounds. Chen Yu lifted it with ease.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as Chu Hong has already mentioned, I am here to recruit workers. If your family has young people of the right age who are out of school and at home, please let them come out, I will offer them a decent job."
Upon hearing this, the crowd\'s expressions varied; some showed faces of disgust, looking at Chen Yu as if he were a villain, while others were overjoyed, running home to call their children out.
Soon, the open space at the village entrance gathered more than a dozen young people.
But among them, the vast majority were girls, with only two boys.
Chen Yu frowned, although his workplace also needed a large number of female attendants, he still wanted to find a few young men to train under Wang Qingshan and his team, possibly even to cultivate a few specialized chefs.