She looked up at Wang Shouren with a somewhat confused expression.

A sudden jolt.

Yes, she's here to work!

In that instant, Xu Weiwei also entered work mode.

"Alright, that's settled then. Pass the instructions down, and we'll pay wages tomorrow. Also, find a suitable cook; the kitchen's food is a waste of ingredients."

"Oh...oh...okay." Xu Weiwei walked out of the office with a blank look on her face after Wang Shouren's barrage of questions. The things happening at the factory had almost made her head split open.

That night, Xu Weiwei dragged her tired body home.

He was listless when he saw his own daughter.

Mr. Xu immediately became furious, but then, as if remembering something, he suppressed his anger and said softly, "Daughter, how was your day?"

Xu Weiwei paused for a moment, looked at the three people at the table with concerned eyes, nodded, and then shook her head.

"Say something! What happened? Did that kid bully you?" Xu Yuanchao was the first to get anxious.

"Stop arguing, stop arguing, listen to Weiwei!" Xu's father glared at Xu Yuanchao.

“Dad, what are you thinking? How could he bully me…” Xu Weiwei found it both funny and heartbreaking: “It’s just that there are too many things to do in the factory, and I’m a bit tired.”

"What could possibly happen in a factory? They wouldn't deliberately create trouble for you, would they?"

"Stop talking nonsense." Xu's mother rolled her eyes. "There are so many things to do at the factory. Not to mention anything else, just the production capacity alone is enough to give the factory manager a headache. Logistics scheduling, personnel appointments, production line upgrades. You two grown men know nothing but how to fight. Weiwei, what did he ask you to do today? You're so tired."

Xu Weiwei: ...

What did you do?

Of course, we did them all!

"Mom, I'm so tired, I want to rest for a bit..." Xu Weiwei sighed, ate a couple of bites of rice, and went back to her room to rest.

This is not physical exhaustion, but mental exhaustion.

The three members of the Xu family looked at each other.

"Look, look, it's all your fault!" Xu's father pointed at Xu Yuanchao and gave him a good scolding: "Couldn't you have calmed down a bit? Then she would have been able to talk."

Xu Yuanchao looked bewildered.

What's wrong with me?

"Exactly! You know he's tired, yet you still keep asking him all sorts of questions. You just need to be taught a lesson!" Xu's mother also gave Xu Yuanchao a good dressing down.

Xu Yuanchao: ...

Good grief, it's coming for me.

————

Zuo Yan went to work with a mix of trepidation and excitement. Today marked the end of their first month of work, and it was also September 1st. The factory paid wages on the 1st, which meant he would receive his August salary. He had joined the company in mid-July, and in August, he hadn't received much—only a few yuan. According to the factory, the past two weeks had been spent on training.

There wasn't much output, so the money was low. Things returned to normal in August.

Zuo Yan had no idea how much the normal wage was, but he heard from the workshop director that the wage was quite high.

With a mix of trepidation and excitement, I spent the morning working in the workshop.

Honestly, the work here is pretty good.

They complained of being tired, but Zuo Yan didn't feel that way. It was much easier than carrying sandbags, and the canteen even had meat, which was quite remarkable. In those days, canteens rarely had meat; if you could get some once or twice a month, you were lucky. But here, the canteen served meat every few days, something he never dared to dream of before.

"Clap clap clap!" The sound of the workshop director clapping his hands came from inside the workshop.

All I could see was Kui Datou holding a megaphone and clapping away furiously.

Everyone's gotten used to it; whenever something happens, this guy likes to grab a megaphone and bang on it, as if he's afraid no one will hear him.

"Stop what you're doing. When your name is called, come and get your pay slip. Once you have it, go to the finance department to collect your wages. Go there this afternoon after lunch, understand?" Kui Datou's loud voice was quite awe-inspiring in the large workshop. It wasn't the volume of his voice that was awe-inspiring, but the content of his words.

"salary?!"

This caused a stir throughout the entire workshop.

The most excited were the veteran workers.

People like Zhang San didn't receive more pay in August, but they were still ridiculed by the others in Workshop Two. Everyone was eager to see how much they would earn that month.

Soon, those whose names were called went up to collect their pay slips.

When Zuo Yan received it, he didn't dare to look at it.

When I got to the workstation, I slowly started scraping backwards, and what I saw there left me completely stunned.

Looking at the payslip in his hand, especially the 136.7 at the back, he felt completely numb. He rubbed his eyes and glanced forward again, wanting to confirm if it really was his name.

That's right, it's Zuo Yan.

Almost everyone rubbed their eyes the moment they received their payslip.

The workshop fell silent.

After a while, someone asked, "Director, what about the salary..."

Kui Datou glanced at them and said, "It's true. The factory manager said that our workshop is paid by piecework. The more you do, the higher your wages will be. The less you do, the lower your wages will be. The reason we didn't pay last month was because you did too little last month, and your wages would have been lower than the basic wage. This month, things are back to normal, so we'll go back to the normal piecework system."

"So, are we really going to receive that much money?"

Most of these workers are not well-educated. They don't care about piecework or anything like that; all they care about is whether they can earn more money.

"Look at your pathetic self! Piecework, piecework... Forget it, let's talk about it again when you've calmed down." Seeing their excited expressions, Kui Datou didn't bother to say anything more, dropped the megaphone, and went out.

He naturally looked down on that salary. What he was interested in was whether the motorcycles produced in the factory could actually earn foreign exchange.

He had promised the two old men that he would go out and harvest a good crop, and Kui Datou kept his word. Dai Wu, on the other hand, was so excited he felt like he could fly.

Holding his payslip, he approached Kui Datou: "Datou... is this money... real?"

"No, why are you all like this?" Kui Datou scratched his head.

Dai Wu's voice changed: "What do you know... My family... can't even afford a few decent meals, this money... this money..."

His eyes welled up with tears as he spoke.

Despite his seemingly glamorous position as a workshop foreman, he was actually quite poor because he refused to associate with those corrupt individuals. Therefore, his home could be described as bare.