Chapter 33 is a failing grade.
Jiang Suining stayed at the construction site for three days. Autumn wasn't hot, and the sun wasn't as strong as in the height of summer, but she still got a shade darker. Looking in the mirror at the obvious two colors of skin above and below her collarbone, she thought about getting some sunscreen or sun-protective clothing.
Sunscreen clothing is easy to make; the weather is cool now. She just needs to draw the design, choose the right fabric, and find a tailor to make it. But sunscreen, she doesn't know if she can find all the materials to make it in this day and age.
We still need to ask Lü Aiguo for help with this, but she's not going to the construction site today. Worker training has started, and she's going to the labor protection factory today.
Although the project team's office was located in the military region, considering the future increase in the number of recruits and the expansion of the recruitment scope, it would be inappropriate to set up the training place there, as the military region is a military stronghold. Fortunately, the labor protection factory had an auditorium with tables and chairs, which could accommodate nearly a hundred people, so the training place was set up there.
On her way to the labor protection factory, Jiang Suining ran into Sister Lian. The two walked together, and Sister Lian looked her over and said, "Why are you so tanned?"
“I’ve been at the construction site by the sea for the past few days,” Jiang Suining explained, touching her face. “The sun doesn’t seem that strong, so I don’t know why I got so dark so quickly.”
“The sun isn’t very strong,” Sister Lian laughed. “You don’t know unless you live on the island regularly. The sea breeze can really tan you.”
“Oh, that explains why I got tanned so quickly,” Jiang Suining said with a sudden realization. She had only known that prolonged exposure to sea breeze could dry out the skin, but this was the first time she had heard that sea breeze could also darken the skin. She didn’t quite believe it, since scientifically speaking, the culprit for darkening the skin is ultraviolet radiation. However, she did not argue with her sister-in-law. “Then I will wear a mask every time I go to the beach.”
"Wear a mask?" Sister-in-law Lian reacted for a moment and laughed, "You're so quick-witted. Everyone knows that the sea breeze is bad for the skin, but not many people can immediately think of wearing a mask."
Jiang Suining smiled and said, "Me? I'm just a bit of a lazy and cunning person."
“You’re being modest,” Sister-in-law Lian said seriously. “There’s something I need to tell you in advance.”
"What's wrong?" Seeing Sister-in-law Lian's troubled look, Jiang Suining also stopped smiling.
“That one,” Sister Lian swallowed, “that Zhou Xiaomei, she’s coming to training today too.”
"Her?" Ever since Li Guodong's family moved away from next door, she had almost forgotten about Zhou Xiaomei. "Wasn't she sent to a re-education camp? She's been released so quickly?"
“Yes, they said he performed well and was allowed to come back early,” Lian’s sister-in-law was also surprised. “Last night my husband told me that Li Guodong had somehow gotten Zhou Xiaomei registered, and you’ll probably receive the notification today.”
Jiang Suining was somewhat surprised, thinking to herself that he truly lived up to his reputation as the male lead of the original book, possessing his own halo. The plot had completely deviated from the original book's trajectory, yet this person still had a powerful backer.
"Don't worry," Sister-in-law Lian said, seeing that Jiang Suining hadn't said anything for a while, she thought that Jiang Suining was upset about this. "I think with her wicked intentions, it will be difficult for her to pass the test."
Jiang Suining knew that her sister-in-law had misunderstood, but she didn't explain. She simply said, "She's a military wife, so it's normal for her to sign up. I just hope she stays put during the training and strictly abides by the rules and regulations."
“That’s a must,” Sister Lian said, her head throbbing with worry as she thought about all the trouble Zhou Xiaomei had caused since arriving on the island. “But you also need to keep a close eye on her. If she shows any signs of making trouble, you must nip it in the bud. We can’t let her, this little rotten apple, ruin the reputation of all the military wives in our family compound.”
"Don't worry," Jiang Suining said, even without her sister-in-law's permission. She was keeping an eye on Zhou Xiaomei. She didn't believe that Zhou Xiaomei could reform herself after attending a training course. "I will keep an eye on her at all times. If she makes even the slightest mistake, I will find out."
"Yes, that's exactly how it should be." Sister-in-law Lian wholeheartedly agreed.
As the two walked and talked, they met Liu Hong at the factory gate. Jiang Suining was shocked when she saw her. Liu Hong was usually lively and cheerful, always smiling at everyone. But now, she was not smiling at all. Her eyes were bloodshot and her eyes were dark and swollen, as if she had stayed up all night.
"What's wrong with you?" Jiang Suining joked. "Did you go steal chickens last night?"
“Yes, Xiao Liu,” even his sister-in-law was startled. “Are you sick? If you are, don’t push yourself. I’ll ask you for leave.”
"I'm fine," Liu Hong waved her hand, forcing a smile. "I just have a bit of a cold, and I've already seen a doctor."
"It's getting colder lately, you young ladies can't prioritize looking pretty over staying warm, you need to wear more layers." Even Sister-in-law Lian didn't suspect anything.
Jiang Suining, however, felt that there was more to the story. Thinking back to the day Su Donglai asked her for help, she wondered if Su Donglai had already explained things to Liu Hong.
"Exactly," she wanted to comfort Liu Hong, but she couldn't be too direct. "Nothing is more important than health. Health is the foundation of everything."
Liu Hong seemed to be touched by these words, and her eyes even reddened. Perhaps afraid that people would suspect something was amiss, she quickly lowered her head. Even her sister-in-law didn't pay attention to these details, only thinking that she was not feeling well, and advised her to take leave and go home to rest. Jiang Suining sighed inwardly, thinking that time is the only way to smooth over all emotional intelligence.
After entering the factory, Jiang Suining parted ways with Sister Lian and Liu Hong. Liu Hong lingered until Sister Lian had gone some distance before making an excuse to come back and catch up with Jiang Suining: "Sui Sui, do you have time at noon? I, I need to talk to you about something."
“I have time.” Jiang Suining guessed that she might need someone to confide in.
"Then, why don't you come to my house for lunch?"
Jiang Suining hesitated, worried about Lu Ye at home.
Seeing this, Liu Hong quickly said, "No one is home. My parents and brother are all at work and don't come home for lunch. Yesterday, my parents went beachcombing and collected a lot of seafood. I'll cook it for you when we get back."
Seeing her enthusiasm, Jiang Suining couldn't bear to refuse: "Okay, but I have to go home first and tell Lu Ye."
"Okay, I'll go with you."
After the two agreed, Jiang Suining went to the auditorium.
Before I even got close, I saw a large crowd gathered at the entrance of the auditorium. I counted about twenty people, and they all looked familiar. They must be military wives from the family compound.
Zhuang Hongjuan was the first to see Jiang Suining and immediately went to greet her. When the others saw this, they all followed suit.
Zhou Xiaomei stood in the crowd, expressionless, but the hatred hidden in her eyes could not be hidden from Jiang Suining. She ignored her and greeted everyone with a smile. Seeing that the auditorium doors were not yet open, she was just considering whether to go to the factory director for the key when she saw Factory Director Song and Project Team Leader Ren Gang coming over together. Accompanying them were a man and a woman. The man was about thirty years old, dark-skinned, thin, and tall, and the woman was about twenty or thirty years old, with two braids hanging down in front of her chest.
After exchanging greetings, Director Song opened the auditorium door and handed the key to Jiang Suining. During the training, she was responsible for opening and locking the door to ensure that the tables, chairs, and benches in the auditorium were intact and complete.
Jiang Suining took the keys and invited everyone inside. Team Leader Ren called her out and introduced the two people who were with her.
The man's name is Chen Jun, an outsourced seaweed cultivation technician responsible for providing professional training to the workers recruited this time. The woman's name is Du Chunlan, a teacher at the island's People's Primary School. During this training, she taught the illiterate workers who had never been to school to recognize characters and perform simple arithmetic.
Jiang Suining smiled and shook hands with the two of them. Du Chunlan took out a stack of test papers from her military green canvas bag: "These are the test papers I prepared. Let them do them first and see how they go."
"An exam before classes even start?" Jiang Suining was somewhat surprised.
“The original plan was to separate students into classes based on an exam, with those who could read and those who couldn’t read at all attending classes separately,” Ren Gang explained. “But last night we received a notification that we can send five workers to farms in various places for internships.”
Jiang Suining's eyes lit up. This was great! Not only could she learn quickly through hands-on practice, but she could also be more accurate. "You want to select workers for internships through an exam?"
“Yes,” Ren Gang nodded. “We can’t send someone who can’t even type to do an internship. Although artificial breeding involves more manual labor, it also requires recording and calculation.”
To be honest, Jiang Suining knew absolutely nothing about kelp farming. She looked at expert Chen Jun, who was a smart man and immediately understood. He nodded and explained, "That's right. Workers need to be able to read the farming technical manual and the safety warning signs in the farm. They need to fill out basic reports, such as water temperature, daily kelp growth, and basic math skills, including fertilizer ratios, counting kelp, and nucleic acid weight, etc."
Jiang Suining listened attentively, indicating that she understood. She took the exam paper from Du Chunlan and said to Ren Gang, "Okay, I understand. Give it to me. I will definitely select suitable workers for off-site internships in the shortest possible time."
Ren Gang was very satisfied and handed a piece of paper to Jiang Suining: "This is the list of this batch of workers."
“I have this list; even my sister-in-law gave it to me.” Jiang Suining pretended not to understand and didn’t take it.
“Your copy is incomplete,” Ren Gang said, unconcerned, and handed it to her again. “You’ve been away from the project team these past few days, and other people have come to sign up.”
"Anyone else signing up?" Jiang Suining asked skeptically. She took the list and opened it. The names at the beginning were the same as the one in her hand, and there were about ten new people added at the end. Zhou Xiaomei was among them.
Jiang Suining saw through their scheme but didn't say anything. After Ren Gang gave Chen Jun and Du Chunlan a few more instructions and left, she entered the auditorium with the two of them.
In the auditorium, people sat scattered in twos and threes, chatting incessantly. Although their voices were not loud, the auditorium was spacious, and any responses sounded quite noisy. Jiang Suining frowned but did not stop them; she simply walked up to the podium.
A moment later, some people saw Jiang Suining and immediately quieted down. Others ignored her and continued talking. But as more and more people quieted down, those who were still talking felt embarrassed to continue.
After everyone quieted down, Jiang Suining smiled and introduced herself: "Hello everyone, my name is Jiang Suining, and I am a member of the kelp artificial cultivation project team. I am mainly responsible for the recruitment and training coordination of the farm. If you have any good suggestions or reasonable requests regarding training in the future, please feel free to let me know, and I will consult with my superiors one by one." After she finished speaking, she turned her head to look at Chen Jun and Du Chunlan.
After a moment's hesitation, the two walked up to the podium and stood on either side of Jiang Suining. Jiang Suining introduced them to everyone before saying, "From now on, there will be roll call for every training session. Roll call will be taken once before class begins and once before get out of class ends. Attendance will affect whether you pass the final assessment, so please attend the training on time."
The people below began to whisper among themselves. Jiang Suining waited until everyone had finished discussing and quieted down before she began to call out names.
After taking attendance, she picked up the stack of test papers: "In order to better complete the training and ensure that everyone can fully learn how to cultivate kelp, we need to divide everyone into classes, so we need to conduct an exam first."
"What? We've only just arrived and we're already taking an exam?"
"What's the point of the exam if you don't submit anything?"
"I can't read or write, how am I supposed to take the exam?"
Amidst the complaints from the audience, Jiang Suining maintained a smile throughout. After a moment, she gestured for everyone to be quiet before saying, "Come on, everyone, look at my hand. Those of you who are completely illiterate, please sit on my left. Quick, everyone, get moving."
After a moment's hesitation, everyone stood up and changed seats. With a series of ear-piercing noises from dragging chairs, two-thirds of the people sat on the left side that Jiang Suining had raised, while the people below them unanimously moved to the other side.
Jiang Suining saw Zhou Xiaomei standing there hesitating for a while, looking at her left side, before finally choosing to sit down on her right side.
Jiang Suining sneered. Zhou Xiaomei was trying to pretend to be illiterate but was afraid of being exposed. She was really overthinking it. She wished Zhou Xiaomei would pretend to be illiterate and not take the exam. She didn't want such a good opportunity to go out for an internship to fall into Zhou Xiaomei's hands.
After everyone had chosen their seats, Jiang Suining saw that there were seven people sitting on the literate side. She decided to select five out of the seven, eliminating two. She then told the seven people not to sit next to each other, but to sit separately. The seven people were very unhappy and dawdled for a long time before finally settling down.
Du Chunlan quickly counted out seven test papers and handed them out. Several people complained that they didn't have any pens. Chen Jun was prepared and took out a sharpened new pencil and some erasers from his bag and distributed them to them.
There were seven people and three proctors, one on each side of the three directions. No one dared to look at other people's papers. They were all scratching their heads and had miserable faces.
Jiang Suining had looked at the application forms of these people in advance. None of them had attended junior high school, and some had not even finished elementary school. She was really worried about whether she could select five qualified people to send for the internship.
Du Chunlan slowly paced around, looking at each person's test paper one by one, shaking her head repeatedly. Jiang Suining could tell from her expression that the test papers were not satisfactory. She couldn't help but sigh. It seemed that this training task would be arduous. Fortunately, she did not have to teach, but was only responsible for overall planning.
The test paper, which should have taken forty minutes, took these students an hour and a half to finish. After the papers were collected, Du Chunlan sat on the podium and quickly graded them.
The seven people who took the exam were uneasy and asked Jiang Suining if they would not be able to participate in the training if they failed the exam.
Jiang Suining quickly reassured everyone, saying that this was just a preliminary test. Zhou Xiaomei breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this.
Relieved, everyone asked Chen Jun questions about the artificial cultivation of kelp. Chen Jun asked everyone to sit in the front and patiently answered all the questions.
On the other side, Du Chunlan had already finished grading the papers, organized them, and handed them to Jiang Suining, saying in a low voice, "Not a single one passed."
Jiang Suining had guessed that everyone wouldn't do very well on the test, but she really hadn't expected them to do this badly. She had seen the test papers; they were all very simple questions. Anyone who had gone up to the third grade of elementary school should have had no problem passing. In her memory, only two of the seven people had dropped out of school before the third grade.
“They probably haven’t studied for too long and have been busy with housework, so,” Jiang Suining herself didn’t understand why she had to explain for them, “that’s why they did so poorly on the exam.”
“I understand,” Du Chunlan said, her disappointment vanishing instantly, replaced by a passionate and hopeful smile. “I will definitely teach them the most basic Chinese characters and simple arithmetic in the shortest possible time.”
"Don't rush into this. I'll ask Team Leader Ren about the five interns this afternoon." Although none of them passed, Ren hadn't specified any criteria when he asked her to choose. And there were a few people with connections among them. She didn't dare to make a hasty decision about who to appoint for the internship.
“Okay,” Du Chunlan thought for a moment, “then is it still necessary to divide into groups?”
"There's no need for that. There are only seven people, and they did so poorly. They might as well start from scratch," Jiang Suining said.
“That’s what I think too.” Du Chunlan walked up to the podium, cleared her throat and said, “Comrades, please be quiet. If we have any questions, we can ask Engineer Chen after class. Now, let’s get ready for class.”
Before he could finish speaking, the people below started to jeer, saying that they were all adults and shouldn't be learning cognitive skills like elementary school students.
Chen Jun gestured for everyone to be quiet, briefly explained the reason for literacy and calculation, and stated that if the literacy and calculation standards were not met, they would not be able to participate in the subsequent training on kelp artificial cultivation technology.
Although everyone was reluctant, they had no choice but to comply, as it concerned whether they could take up their posts.
After calming everyone down, Chen Jun and Jiang Suining walked to the last row of the auditorium and gave the podium to Du Chunlan so she could give the lesson.
The content of these literacy and arithmetic lessons was a lesson plan that Du Chunlan and Chen Jun spent several days revising and compiling. It was specifically designed for kelp farming and included texts and arithmetic that would be frequently used in the work, in order to enable these workers to participate in professional technical training in the shortest possible time.
Jiang Suining listened to two classes in a row and felt extremely bored. She even started to doze off. She didn't want to stay any longer and whispered to Chen Jun, "Help me keep an eye on the time to end get out of class and maintain discipline. Pay special attention to make sure they don't damage or steal anything from the auditorium. I'm going to the military region to report to Team Leader Ren."
Chen Jun agreed, and she then tiptoed out of the auditorium.
When Jiang Suining arrived at the project office, she ran into Lü Aiguo, who was there to report on his work. She waited for Lü Aiguo to finish speaking, then gave him a look and told him to wait before taking out the workers' test papers to report to Ren Gang.
Ren Gang took the exam paper and asked as he looked at it, "How is it? Have you chosen the candidates yet?"
“Isn’t this still up to you to make the decision?” Jiang Suining refilled Ren Gang’s teacup. “We didn’t hire many people this time, only seven literate people in total, so it was really hard to choose.”
Ren Gang was already flipping through the test papers. The scores were all marked at the top of the paper, and there were only seven papers. He finished flipping through them in a short while. Ren Gang looked up with a dark face: "How come all of these are failing?"
“Isn’t it because we’re not hiring enough people?” Jiang Suining thought to herself, but then suggested, “How about we expand our recruitment scope?”
“It’s not the right time yet,” Ren Gang refused directly. “Let’s wait until these workers have taken the courses for a while and see how it goes before we talk about it.”
As an employee, one should not question the leader's decision. Jiang Suining immediately said she understood and then asked, "So, who will get these five internship positions?"
"With scores like these, who are we going to give them to? Are we going to embarrass ourselves?" Ren Gang said angrily. "We won't give any to them. Let them study hard. We'll choose who goes when Teacher Du says they can go out."
Fortunately, Jiang Suining breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing that there were connections involved, he still managed to abide by the principles, which meant that Ren Gang was a decent person.
"Keep a close eye on their academic studies and do some ideological work with them. They only know how to work and have no ambition at all!" Ren Gang said with a look of disappointment.
“I understand,” Jiang Suining quickly replied, “I will definitely convey the leader’s instructions to the letter.”
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