Chapter 168 Come on, obedient girls, let's subdue them!
After Xiao Zhi'er left, Xiao Ye cursed her younger sister several times: "How sarcastic! She's just a shoemaker, what's so great about her? Does she really think she's all grown up?"
Jiang Changtian said, "They earn their own money and have enough to eat and drink, so of course they don't need to give face to others. They can say whatever they want."
"That Factory Director Qin lives upstairs from me!"
Jiang Changtian: "Even the factory manager can't just fire workers arbitrarily."
"You—" Xiao Ye glared at him several times, "By the end of the year, we'll have enough money. You can go and exchange some foreign exchange certificates with your comrades. The textile factory will also issue some foreign exchange certificates at the end of the year. Go and exchange some with them, and we can buy an imported watch. What's so great about that!"
Jiang Changtian shook his head: "No need, let's save the money."
Jiang Changtian's mood has changed drastically in the past year or two. When he was first demoted, he was still very ambitious and eager, thinking it was just a temporary setback, and he still dreamed of buying an imported watch...
After struggling for a while, Jiang Changtian gradually came to realize some realities: he was getting old, and his physical strength and energy were not as good as when he was young.
Furthermore—
When I was young, I thought that my three promotions were all due to my extraordinary "ability". But looking back now, I realize that opportunity and luck were also indispensable.
Throughout the past year, he tried very hard to make contributions and achieve results, but it was like being stuck in a quagmire. Everything went wrong, and he couldn't achieve anything, unlike the outstanding performance of others who came later.
Jiang Changtian felt very distressed. After repeated setbacks, he began to doubt his own abilities and attributed his past achievements to luck. He felt panicked, stagnant, and even fearful of regressing.
He also wanted someone to rely on.
But when he got home and faced his wife Xiao Ye, and heard her praise his abilities, those touching words from the past now turned into harsh words: "People used to become generals in their thirties or forties, so can you! Jiang Changtian, your surname is Jiang, you were born to be a general!"
"You are the most capable man in the entire residential compound!"
"You can do a triple jump again next time!"
...
These words brought Jiang Changtian immense pressure and pain, making him feel suffocated. He even felt annoyed and resentful when he saw Xiao Ye's mouth opening and closing, and wanted to slap her a few times.
—Promotion? Three consecutive promotions? You make it sound so easy, you try it yourself!
—Why don't you go and work yourself? Talking nonsense here is just plain crazy!
—Why do you argue so easily with your words, while causing me so much pain...?
Why is this woman so ungrateful? Why can't she understand herself? They're already living a good life, yet she still insists on pushing him for a promotion, a promotion, a promotion.
Once you reach the regimental level, it's very difficult to get promoted further. The next promotion only adds about 20 or 30 yuan to your salary. Why can't this woman go out to work?
No matter how you look at it, Jiang Changtian was too embarrassed to admit his helplessness, but he also wanted Xiao Ye to face reality and stop having vain expectations.
Now, Jiang Changtian began to envy the couple, Old Yang and Zhong Li, on the second floor. Old Yang had been sitting on the sidelines for nearly ten years before finally rising to the top, and Zhong Li had been calling him a good-for-nothing for years, so she no longer had high expectations of him.
He used to laugh at Lao Yang, but now Lao Yang is living a comfortable life. The couple were originally waiting to retire from the military and transfer to civilian work, but they were promoted at the last minute and got a bargain. They moved to a two-bedroom apartment and are already very satisfied with their current situation. They have no ambition to climb any higher.
Zhong Li became much gentler towards Lao Yang and stopped calling him a good-for-nothing. Lao Yang was also happy and relaxed every day.
"Old Yang, I regret it..." Unable to sleep all night, Jiang Changtian went to Old Yang on the second floor the next day and told him that he regretted it.
"how?"
“I shouldn’t have been promoted in the first place. When he asked me if I wanted to do it, I shouldn’t have agreed. I should have stayed where I was. I should have been like you. I shouldn’t have been promoted too quickly when I was young. I feel very painful now.”
Old Yang blew a puff of smoke in his face: "You're sick!"
"Old Yang, really, I'm starting to envy you. You experienced hardship before happiness, while I experienced happiness before hardship. I wish I had never gone through it all..."
Old Yang felt like throwing up and didn't want to talk to Jiang Changtian at all. He closed the door and said to Zhong Li, "This Jiang Changtian and his wife are both sick!"
"Are you crazy?! You come here now and say you envy me? Envy what? That you've been sitting on the sidelines for years? That you've been called an old turtle who never moves an inch?"
Old Yang cursed, "At least he received something!"
"They haven't come to terms with reality yet. They'll be fine once they do. Everyone goes through this painful period in middle age."
Zhong Li felt a little schadenfreude at Jiang Changtian's predicament, but she also felt it was meaningless.
Zhong Li chatted with Qin Xiangxiang next door: "Aren't Jiang Changtian and his wife doing well? They're doing very well! They're better off than most people, it's just that they've become too greedy and never satisfied."
Qin Xiangxiang chuckled: "Is Jiang Changtian really that insecure? I thought he and his wife were both very self-assured."
“Last time Li Jianzhi was promoted to regimental commander, they were so angry that they wanted to move, and even said that they had sucked up her family’s luck.”
Zhong Li shook her head: "Jiang Changtian has come to terms with the current situation, but Xiao Ye still can't. She thinks that good luck will come to her family all the time, and she's even hoping that her husband will jump off a cliff three times in a row."
"But I guess it's not that they can't recognize him, but that they can't save face. Who told him to be so smug when he was so proud! He deserves it."
"Xiao Qin, what will you think if your husband, Lao Li, doesn't get a promotion in the future?"
Qin Xiangxiang said, "As long as he's still the 'Fat Loss Guy,' that's fine."
"Wow! I didn't expect you to be so devoted, calling him 'Brother Jianzhi'." Zhong Li looked like she'd just heard something juicy. "So you call him 'Brother Jianzhi' in private, what a sweet girl."
Qin Xiangxiang: "This 'fat reduction' is not the same as that 'sword knowledge'."
"ah?"
"But I think things are fine now. I had a dream before that he was hurt somewhere..."
Zhong Li: "Huh??!!!!"
"I dreamt about that kind of harm, that he was impotent in bed..." Qin Xiangxiang said ambiguously. She couldn't remember much of her previous dreams, but the husband in her dream was absolutely sexually frigid, quite different from the shameless "weight loss guy" she had now.
The guy who's trying to lose fat trains his muscles a lot, so he's also very strong in that area.
Qin Xiangxiang said, "He's fine as he is now. It doesn't matter whether he gets promoted or not."
The main reason is that Qin Xiangxiang herself has no great ambitions and just drifts along, not to mention that the deadbeat male lead in her family has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.
Zhong Li: "??!!"
Zhong Li felt like she had been completely outshone by Xiao Qin in front of her.
Is she strong in that area...? Does she feel it doesn't matter whether her husband gets a promotion or not?
Ignoring the chatter of the other men in the family compound, Li Jianzhi was currently focused on improving his "Li-style Recipes," trying hard to recall the recipes he had seen on the X Kitchen APP, single-mindedly trying to replicate them.
Spending time in the kitchen can be another kind of career, can't it?
Qin Xiangxiang muttered under her breath, "If only you and your son were less confident in your cooking skills, like Jiang Changtian."
Neither Li Jianzhi nor Li Xiaopang has any talent for cooking.
"Honey, we're having a cicada feast at home today. We'll go to your factory to practice piano this weekend."
Li Jianzhi clapped his hands. Although there were no cell phone dramas in this era, he could still live a colorful life, practice his cooking skills, and play musical instruments at his wife's factory... It was quite comfortable.
At this point, what's missing is a shared pleasure for both young and middle-aged men: fishing.
"Your factory seems to have a large, unused plot of land. How about we dig a pond and raise fish there?"
Qin Xiangxiang: "Your idea is really terrible!"
"When the ponds are cleared at the end of the year, everyone will have fish to eat."
Qin Xiangxiang: "What a load of crap, you might as well look forward to the ocean's bounty. When a typhoon comes, it'll smash a face full of fish."
"A veteran navy officer of over ten years, haven't you had enough fish yet?"
Qin Xiangxiang had previously discussed cooperation with Chen Shulan, the director of the silk weaving factory, to jointly develop imitation silk and silk blends. Since Feiyan Textile Factory had water-jet looms and chemical fiber raw materials, they chose to conduct the experiment at Feiyan Textile Factory. Chen Shulan sent four technicians, a small batch of mulberry silk, and old, obsolete machines to the island to study the technology together with Feiyan Textile Factory.
The four people are Sun Qingyuan, a 30-year-old male technician; Yang Qian, a 40-year-old female weaver; Su Huihong, an elderly female worker; and Xue Xiaochuan, a 22-year-old worker-peasant college student.
These four people formed a "technical marriage team" and came to Feiyan Textile Factory. None of them were happy. From the oldest female worker, Su Huihong, to the greenhorn Xue Xiaochuan who was doing odd jobs and learning, none of them were happy.
The most pitiful one was Xue Xiaochuan, who was the youngest and least experienced. He did all the odd jobs and errands.
Su Huihong also deliberately threatened Xue Xiaochuan: "You'd better perform well, or... I mean, you might have to stay at Feiyan Textile Factory."
Xue Xiaochuan was almost scared to tears. He had finally been assigned to a silk weaving factory, but if he went to Feiyan Textile Factory, he would be completely clueless.
Apart from Xue Xiaochuan, the old female worker Su Huihong laughed and joked, while Sun Qingyuan and Yang Qian looked down on Feiyan Textile Factory from the bottom of their hearts, and they did not really approve of the imitation silk and real silk blending technology.
Sun Qingyuan belongs to the academic school; a graduate of Shanghai Textile Institute, he is considered a top student and an apprentice of the chief engineer of the silk weaving factory. He is obsessed with data and standardization, and always carries various measuring instruments with him, such as vernier calipers, thickness gauges, and colorimeters.
Silk mills generally look down on cotton mills because cotton spinning and silk spinning are vastly different in terms of fine and extensive processes.
Sun Qingyuan: "The technical content is different!"
Yang Qian, who is forty years old, is different from Sun Qingyuan. She is not a formal academic, but she is a descendant of the craftsmen of the Weaving Bureau. Her family has inherited the silk craftsmanship. She believes that silk is the "king of fabrics" and has an instinctive aversion to chemical fibers. She thinks that imitation silk and silk blends are unacceptable and that we should stick to the pure silk craftsmanship.
Yang Qian didn't come here this time with the purpose of researching technology; she wanted to prove that "simulated silk" was not a viable option and that it was an exploration destined to fail.
Yang Qian strongly disapproved of Chen Shulan's decision to try imitation silk.
The four of them arrived at Feiyan Textile Factory. Chen Shulan called Qin Xiangxiang and said, "My dear girl, now is the time to show your mother what you're really capable of."
Qin Xiangxiang: "???"
Chen Shulan: "Three capable 'troublemakers' and one hothead."
"Come on, subdue them!"
Qin Xiangxiang: "???"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
