Chapter 14 The Approaching Home Causes Fear: How do you know I'm not flustered? ...
Three years, more than a thousand days and nights, but working three shifts in the factory, it was like living through a thousand years!
Upon hearing the devastating news, Qin Xiangxiang lost her appetite and couldn't even enjoy the food in the workers' canteen. She knew she couldn't endure three years; she had to find a way.
If her mother becomes the factory manager's assistant soon, she certainly can't be directly transferred to another position, since she's only the factory manager's assistant, not the factory manager yet.
In order not to hold her mother back, she had to work as a textile worker for at least a year, unless—she exchanged jobs with someone and left the textile factory.
I'm so conflicted!
Just a couple of days ago she was thinking about how good the benefits were at the textile factory, but now she has to find a way to change jobs. Changing jobs might not be as comfortable as staying at the textile factory, since the factory manager might be her mother in the future, and she only needs to endure two or three years before she can live a comfortable life... If she changes to another factory now, it will be a completely different place, and her mother will be too far away to take care of her.
Qin Xiangxiang was at her wits' end. If she could find a way to let her escape from the workshop for the next two or three years, and then return to work at the textile factory after her mother's position in the leadership was secured...
How could there be such a good thing?
"Comrade Qin, you're too thin, you need to eat more."
"I made this braised shredded pork. Would you like to try some?"
The woman serving food at the workers' canteen, who was wearing a mask, spoke up. Qin Xiangxiang recognized the voice and looked up to find that the woman's features were familiar. It was Sun Guilan, who had been beaten and scolded by her husband before.
Did Sun Guilan work in the cafeteria?
Sun Guilan's eyes were filled with a smile. When she learned that she wanted a serving of pork ribs that cost one cent, she picked out a meatier one for her and piled the other dishes on top of it.
"Is the one from Zhao Gensheng's house now working in the cafeteria?"
"Old Zhao's wife is known for her excellent cooking skills."
Qin Xiangxiang's bowl contained a large piece of meaty pork ribs, and the braised shredded pork she ordered had a huge clump of pink shredded meat in it, which made people envious. Fortunately, not many people saw the food in her bowl.
She got the biggest piece of pork rib. You should know that this honor is usually reserved for people with special skills, like barbers. The cafeteria ladies serving food are usually a bit temperamental.
Qin Xiangxiang sat down and tasted the braised shredded pork made by Sun Guilan; it was indeed very delicious.
"The director knew I was a good cook, so he asked me to stay and help out in the cafeteria. I was to start as an assistant, try cooking, and work as a cafeteria worker."
"The monthly salary is more than twenty or thirty yuan, and the chance of becoming a full-time employee is thirty-six. If everyone votes in favor, I will become a full-time employee... They call this a special talent!"
Sun Guilan spoke with great enthusiasm. She never expected that when she went to the canteen with some skepticism, she would find that they were not only short of staff, but also short of cooks. Many people complained that the food in the workers' canteen was not good. However, Sun Guilan's husband was a show-off, and many workers knew about her excellent cooking skills. So the director asked her to stay and work as a cook, and waited to hear the feedback.
If the public votes are satisfactory, she will go through the internal procedures to become a full-time employee, earning a monthly salary of thirty-six yuan.
She, a child bride from the countryside, can still get a salary! Working in the canteen, the pay is good, and her two daughters won't go hungry in the future. Naturally, her husband doesn't want her to work, but Sun Guilan is a good cook, and the factory leaders are trying to persuade Zhao Gensheng...
As Sun Guilan listened, she began to understand the situation. Once she got this job, it would have nothing to do with her husband. As long as her skills satisfied the factory workers, she could stay in the canteen and earn 30 or 40 yuan a month, even if she got divorced.
In their rural hometown, a monthly salary of twenty or thirty yuan is enough to support the whole family. If they are frugal, she can raise her daughter on her own. Whether rich or poor, they can make a living. They can raise their daughter by eating leftovers every day.
People are in high spirits when they have a happy occasion!
For Sun Guilan, this was nothing short of a "lifeline." Just a few days ago, she felt she couldn't go on living, but now the future looks bright and happy.
Thanks to Comrade Qin, who gave her advice and showed her a way out, Sun Guilan was very grateful.
"Comrade Xiao Qin, from now on, whenever you come to the cafeteria, as long as I'm at the window, I'll pick out the biggest ribs for you and give you extra meat."
"Okay, thank you, sister-in-law."
Sun Guilan wiped her hands with a satisfied smile and threw herself into the work of the canteen with great enthusiasm. She was a person who couldn't stay idle, so she busied herself wiping the tables and trying to make a good impression on the workers.
Qin Xiangxiang walked out of the cafeteria with her bowl in her arms. She wanted to smile but couldn't, and she wanted to cry but couldn't.
What was that quote from Lu Xun? "Human joys and sorrows are not shared; I only find it noisy."
Sun Guilan was happy, but she was even more conflicted.
Staying in the textile factory meant that although the work in the workshop was tiring, the food was good, the wages were high, and there was a mother to take care of you; leaving the textile factory meant... everything was unknown, an unfamiliar workplace, an unfamiliar canteen.
Qin Xiangxiang was working the all-night shift that night, from midnight to 8 a.m. She ate dinner in the canteen in the evening and waited to go down to the workshop at midnight.
"Think about it, come with me." Zhou Aodong called his daughter to his office. The office was lit, with four tables pushed together to form an office desk, each covered with a transparent glass panel, and newspapers and black and white photos underneath.
The walls were adorned with portraits of great figures, red slogans, and various certificates of honor. The bookshelves were filled with brown file folders, and the air was thick with the smell of paper and ink.
Zhou Aodong sat down on the yellow wooden chair, and Qin Xiangxiang stood beside him. The cold wind was howling outside. Thinking about having to work all night, Qin Xiangxiang was overcome with sadness and buried her face in her mother's lap, bursting into tears.
"Waaah—" Three years! How am I going to get through these three years?
Like a stranded baby killer whale, it howls and opens its mouth, waiting for the lifeguards to throw small fish into its mouth.
Zhou Aodong took out twenty yuan from the drawer and stuffed it into her hand. “Your great-aunt sends money to China every month. Ninety yuan can be exchanged properly. Thirty yuan goes to your maternal grandparents, twenty to your uncle, twenty to your aunt, and twenty to me.”
Qin Xiangxiang was taken aback: "Has this happened before?"
“Your uncle’s side had it before, but we don’t know about the others. After this incident, I’m asking each family to share it, and there will be twenty every month from now on.”
“This twenty yuan will be yours from now on, twenty yuan every month. If it weren’t for your cleverness, our family would be in trouble. Your uncle is now being punished by cleaning toilets at school for six months.”
“If you really can’t stand working in the factory, you can tell your aunt that you can switch to the temporary piano teacher job at the Cultural Palace. The temporary job pays 25 yuan plus 20 yuan, which is 45 yuan, enough for you.”
"Mom, you're so good to me." Qin Xiangxiang clutched the two ten-yuan bills in her hand, her eyes red and swollen like a little rabbit.
Zhou Aodong gently wiped away her tears, "Even if you have to change jobs, you have to work hard in the workshop this month. Stay in Mom's office for a while and get some rest before going on the night shift."
"Mom went through the same thing back then. Even working all-night shifts was tough. Luckily, she managed to get through three days in a row by gritting her teeth."
"Especially if you work the night shift, you need to get plenty of sleep; more sleep will help your body recover..."
Listening to her mother's words of advice, Qin Xiangxiang felt warm and sweet inside. Sure enough, she wanted to be her mother's "mama's girl".
She was short of money, with less than twenty yuan in savings. Her mother had given her twenty, and when she got her salary this month, plus the suburban allowance, the night shift allowance, and the five-yuan bonus for the whole workshop, she should have eighty yuan. If she also had another twenty yuan every month…
Then she's only making a hundred yuan a month, Qin Xiangxiang!
These days, very few people can earn a monthly income of 100 yuan. The highest-paid skilled workers earn only 120 or 130 yuan a month. If you want 200 or 300 yuan a month, you have to be a government official.
Qin Xiangxiang was lucky because she was a military family member and her husband lived in another city. Her workplace took care of her, and her seniority was calculated from the year she got married, so she was able to earn seventy or eighty yuan. The female textile worker was the highest-paid skilled worker in the textile factory.
Although the difference between an income of one hundred yuan and an income of eighty yuan is only twenty yuan, the feeling they give is completely different.
A black and white TV only costs four or five hundred yuan. If she were to be ruthless and only spend the money that Li Jianzhi sent her, she could save one hundred yuan a month, buy a watch or a bicycle in two months, and buy a TV in four or five months.
But she wants to divorce Li Jianzhi!
Can Qin Xiangxiang really save money? Forget it, saving money doesn't bring happiness. Even if she wanted to save, she could do it next month. She should eat and spend as she pleases.
When her mother becomes the factory manager, she will definitely be able to save money. Then, when the college entrance examination is reinstated and the economy is opened up, she will be able to contact her relatives overseas again. Hehehe—Qin Xiangxiang secretly read the letter and even secretly copied down the sentences written by her great-aunt, intending to memorize them thoroughly in the coming years.
When her great-aunt returned to China to visit relatives in 1979, she took the initiative to approach her great-aunt to build a relationship and asked her great-aunt to buy her a foreign-owned property in Shanghai.
She was determined to take advantage of any freebies and not let her uncle be the only one to benefit. She was now scheming.
A foreign-owned property costs at least tens of thousands of yuan. After the economy opened up, it was very easy to get a loan to open a factory. As long as you had the guts, you could apply to a bank. Otherwise, Meng Liqin would not have been scammed and went bankrupt after taking out a loan to buy machinery.
Compared to the tens of thousands of dollars in the future, saving money now is just a drop in the ocean. It's better to eat and drink well and enjoy the present moment.
Saving money? What a load of rubbish.
Saving money only when you want to buy something is like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey; there's absolutely no motivation to save money. Xianyu Qin only wants to spend money.
I want to spend any money I have comfortably.
How about adding a touch of bourgeois chic?
She has to work the night shift tomorrow, so she might as well go to the city in the evening. There are coffee shops near the department store. It used to be a rented area, and there has always been a coffee shop there. But there isn't one near the workers' housing.
Shanghai is one of the few cities in the country with coffee shops. A cup of coffee with sugar costs 11 cents. You can buy a cup of coffee and slowly drink it at night, so you won't feel sleepy all night.
Since I'm going to buy coffee anyway, I might as well splurge and buy a cream cake.
At that time, cream cakes were very expensive. A slice of cream cake was more expensive than a pound of pork, costing two ounces of grain coupons and one yuan and three jiao.
A slice of cream cake, plus two cups of sweetened coffee, costs one yuan and fifty cents. Even if you had twenty yuan, you couldn't afford to eat like that! Qin Xiangxiang traded her fake collar for food coupons, so she wasn't short of them.
I've decided, from now on, every time I work an all-night shift, I'll treat myself to a cream cake!
Just do what you're told.
Qin Xiangxiang raised her hand and rubbed her face. Before her mother became the factory manager's assistant, she still had to be a good textile worker. She had to be kind to herself.
I'm going to buy a cream cake tomorrow!
With her mind filled with cream cake, Qin Xiangxiang's steps became much lighter as she walked towards the spinning workshop.
"Think about it... Qin Xiangxiang." Halfway there, a female worker wearing a hat looked at her, hesitant to speak.
Qin Xiangxiang recognized Ge Jiajia, a female worker from the same shift. She was pretty and delicate, but shy and quiet. She had an oval face and a soft voice, like a mosquito's buzz.
"I saw it that day. You're such a kind person, always ready to help those in need..."
Qin Xiangxiang gave Ge Jiajia a strange look.
Ge Jiajia's face turned mostly red, but she still didn't say what was on her mind. Qin Xiangxiang just thought she was very strange.
The next day in the workshop, Qin Xiangxiang inexplicably paid more attention to Ge Jiajia and then noticed something subtly amiss.
Ge Jiajia was sexually harassed by the mechanic.
In addition to female textile workers, there were also machine repairmen in the workshop. When a machine malfunctioned, the female textile workers would ask the machine repairmen to come and fix it, and occasionally there would be some accidental physical collisions.
Some would take the opportunity to grope her, touching her chest, waist, or buttocks, and then just glide past. Many married older female textile workers didn't care about these bumps at all, and even enjoyed them. Even though they all had families, their playful flirting was just a little bit of a relief from the monotonous workshop life, and no one took it seriously.
A mechanic surnamed Lin, seeing that Ge Jiajia was pretty, shy, and had a soft voice, took advantage of her silence and began to beat and scold her, and his actions became increasingly excessive and unbearable to watch.
These kinds of men are the most likely to bully the weak and fear the strong. Qin Xiangxiang had never encountered anything like this in the workshop. Her mother was Zhou Aodong, and she was also a military dependent. No one dared to mess with her. In addition, she had a bad temper, so no one dared to provoke her.
Ge Jiajia, being a pushover, is the easiest target to bully. She doesn't dare to say a word and can only suffer in silence. If she were to fight back with red eyes, people around her might chime in with "Too pretentious!"
If she didn't know, Qin Xiangxiang could have turned a blind eye, but... meddling in other people's business is also a very foolish thing to do.
This mechanic surnamed Lin also had some connections with the factory leaders.
Qin Xiangxiang hesitated for a moment.
As the setting sun dyed the seawater, thousands of fishing boats returned to port. A motorized cargo ship converted into a passenger ship was moored at the dock. It could carry hundreds of people and was a passenger ship from Mingzhou to Shanghai. Tickets were extremely hard to come by.
These motorized passenger ships were converted from cargo ships. Before the conversion, many passenger ships were still rowing boats. After a number of cargo ships were converted to passenger ships, it became much safer and more convenient for ordinary people to travel between Minnesota, the Thousand Islands, and Shanghai.
Such passenger ships are also divided into three cabins: first and second class cabins are above deck, and third class cabins are below deck. First and second class cabins carry passengers, while third class cabins store luggage and cargo.
The Zhongzhe X line ship departed at night and, after sailing overnight, arrived at the port of Shanghai at eight o'clock in the morning.
Political Commissar Wang, dressed in a slightly loose blue Zhongshan suit, squatted lazily on the ground with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, looking every bit like an old village cadre. He looked at the man standing on the bank and sighed:
"You really are... well-marinated."
Veteran officers like Political Commissar Wang, who have served in the military for many years, are most relaxed when on leave or business trips. Especially after serving for six or seven years, when he stands by the roadside on leave, he likes to observe men walking. The one who walks the straightest and most stiffly is definitely a new recruit, with a dull air about him.
Veteran soldiers like them, or rather, retired cadres, enjoy taking pleasure in making it seem like no one can tell they were soldiers when they're on leave. In future parlance, that would be called "getting rid of the 'soldier' vibe."
As for Li Jianzhi in front of him, he had broad shoulders and a narrow waist. The loose white shirt that would normally fit an ordinary person looked strangely tight on him, making his chest and upper arm muscles stand out and exuding a sharp and capable sense of power that made people want to take a second look and feel intimidated.
In addition, he was followed by two soldiers who looked rather dull, like members of an honor guard. Even though they were all wearing civilian clothes, no one around could tell they were soldiers.
Political Commissar Wang inwardly sneered at the three of them with considerable arrogance.
"Sir, are you escorting prisoners north?" a passerby asked.
Li Jianzhi: "?"
Political Commissar Wang: "!"
...What the heck?
Li Jianzhi had only heard of such terms from his fellow soldiers in the army. Occasionally, he would hear some strange titles, such as "Military Master," which was alright, but there were also those called "Taijun," which was truly beyond words.
"Comrade Li, don't you think there's something wrong with you? Is this supposed to be a homecoming visit? Why are you wearing such a stern face?" Because of his excessive relaxation, Political Commissar Wang, who was regarded as a prisoner by the masses, jumped up like a big cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Going home to see your wife and children, aren't you even a little bit uneasy, panicked, or apprehensive about returning home?" Political Commissar Wang stared at his face, which was expressionless and unusually cold, making him intimidating. This was hardly the kind of person who would go home to see his wife.
Like the dried pufferfish on the fishing boat, it can't make any expression.
Li Jianzhi kept a cold face and silently complained in his heart: How do you know I won't panic?
He not only had to see his wife and children, but also his parents-in-law. He bought a lot of gifts for this trip: Moutai liquor for his father-in-law, silk for his mother-in-law and wife, and candy and cakes for the children...
However, this is his usual way of doing things; the more nervous he is, the more serious his expression becomes. It's a habit he's had for many years and can't change it.
"You're quite handsome, but your complexion is really not good. You should smile more in front of women, or you'll scare your wife."
"Be gentle with women, and they'll definitely stick to you. Once you go back, you'll be so enamored with them that you won't be able to get off."
Worship?
bed? ? ?
Li Jianzhi: "..."
His face uncontrollably grew more serious and indifferent.
—I'm so nervous.
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