"Is that so?" The middle-aged man didn't react after hearing this. He continued to look around the recycling bin with sharp eyes, as if he would not miss any details.
Su Qingyun noticed that Wang Zhihua's breathing became heavier. She frowned secretly. It seemed that this man's identity was not simple, as he was so nervous.
She thought about it and realized that it was not easy for her to talk at the moment, so she pretended to look for a book and walked to the pile of cardboards. She picked and chose the books, but her eyes were paying attention to the man's every move.
Suddenly, the man walked towards one of the small warehouses in the recycling station. Wang Zhihua's heart instantly rose to his throat. The warehouses were filled with old parts of the bicycle that he had worked so hard to get, and he must not let him see anything.
The middle-aged man looked at the pile of parts, frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "I see all your metal things are piled over there. Why do you have to pile these separately?"
"This..." Wang Zhihua's mind began to race. "The things collected at my recycling station need to be sorted and processed later. These parts haven't been sorted yet."
"Really?" The middle-aged man said calmly, pointing at the mountain of metal objects. "You've piled up so many things, and these are the only ones left unsorted. I'm afraid they're not going to be used to make other things, are they?"
His eyes were focused on one of the handlebars. Wang Zhihua groaned inwardly. The others were torn into pieces and still unrecognizable, but this handlebar looked too obvious to be part of a bicycle.
"Uncle, I actually asked Uncle Wang to keep those things for me." Su Qingyun suddenly spoke.
The man immediately looked at her, "What do you mean? Did you ask him to help you stay?"
Wang Zhihua's face changed drastically when he was standing behind the man. He winked at her frantically, trying to tell her not to talk nonsense.
Su Qingyun pretended not to notice and gave the man a harmless smile. "Yes, I'm a student at the town middle school. There's a national middle school student innovation and invention competition going on recently. I'm a contestant and need to invent something on my own. I'm quite familiar with Uncle Wang, so I asked him to help me keep an eye out for some old parts so I can save some money on the experiment."
Wang Zhihua was even more anxious. What kind of a messed up competition? Could it be that she made it up just like she had said before about doing handicrafts? She didn't know the man's identity, and if it was a fabricated story, she wouldn't be able to hide it from him.
Wang Zhihua became increasingly anxious.
"National Middle School Student Innovation and Invention Competition?" The man repeated the name of the competition, frowned, and thought for a moment before asking Su Qingyun, "What's your name?"
"Su Qingyun." Su Qingyun replied with an unchanged smile.
"Su Qingyun?" The man repeated her name and murmured, "Why does this name sound familiar?"
"Maybe uncle has seen me in the newspaper." Su Qingyun continued.
"newspaper?"
"Yes, I have been in the newspaper before. I am from Luoshui Village. I made a corn harvester for our village and was commended by the province." Su Qingyun listed all the commendations and honors he had received.
Now is not the time to keep a low profile. She must say something with factual basis to support what she just said about participating in the competition.
The man widened his eyes slightly. He remembered that it was Su Qingyun, the girl who was commended by the province.
His expression softened, "So that's how it is."
Seeing his expression, Wang Zhihua breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't expected that this girl was so famous. Director Zhang's attitude changed as soon as he mentioned it.
"Okay, take your time and watch. Try your best in the competition and strive to bring glory to our Luoshui County again."
"Xiao Wang, I'll leave first. I'll come back to check next time." The man finally said.
"Okay, okay, Director Zhang, take care. You are welcome to come back to inspect our work anytime." Wang Zhihua saw Director Zhang off with a smile on his face.
As soon as the person left, he immediately wiped the sweat from his forehead, gasped for breath, and almost collapsed to the ground, "I was scared to death."
"Uncle Wang, aren't you exaggerating too much?"
Wang Zhihua turned around and glared at her, "Don't you know who that was just now?"
"Who is it?" Su Qingyun was really curious.
"The director of the county industrial and commercial bureau."
"Why is the director of the county industrial and commercial bureau coming here to inspect?" Su Qingyun was stunned.
"Damn it! It's all because of an idiot!" Wang Zhihua cursed. "Someone bought a bicycle and rode it to give as a gift. Someone noticed it. Although they couldn't find the buyer, they discovered the bicycle was made of old parts. Now, they're checking all the recycling stations in the county."
"I just received the news that Director Zhang came to my house. Luckily you just smoothed things over, otherwise I really don't know how to explain it. Let me ask you, is that competition you mentioned really happening?"
"Yeah." Su Qingyun nodded, and became worried. Since the higher-ups were investigating, this business could not be done for the time being, otherwise it would be troublesome if the gains would not be worth the losses.
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