Chapter 226: Toes digging into the ground, longing for her husband transformed into strength.
"Spruce wood? What kind of wood is that? But it is indeed decorated with wood." Xue Xiaolin knew nothing about wood. In her eyes, this was a pig-raising study room and rehearsal hall decorated with good wood.
Zhao Na couldn't hold back any longer. She walked to the middle of the room, ignoring the fat pig propaganda cartoon behind her, and tried to sing a high note from "Ode to Coral".
The surroundings were so quiet you could hear a pin drop, and her voice was clear and bright, with rich resonance and almost no impurities or trailing notes, making it even better than a professional rehearsal hall.
The entire performing arts troupe was dumbfounded.
Xue Xiaolin clapped without realizing it, oblivious to how professional the rehearsal room was, and praised to herself, "Zhao Na, you sang so well!"
Zhao Na's cheeks were slightly flushed at this moment, and when she looked at the members of the art troupe standing behind her, including Secretary Liu, they were all blushing.
My face hurts!
This is a feeling shared by everyone!
All the previous sympathy and the preconceived notions of harsh conditions were shattered by the outrageously luxurious spruce wood "pig-raising rehearsal room" before them.
Their rehearsal room is worse than someone else's "pig farm," it's so embarrassing.
A frog at the bottom of a well, arrogant and ignorant.
Zhao Na couldn't help but grab Xue Xiaolin's hand excitedly: "Xiaolin! Can I use this space to practice my song? The one for the performance competition!"
“Well… I’ll talk to our factory manager, Sister Zhao Na, you can sing whatever you want, it should be fine. Professor Shen usually teaches math, physics and chemistry classes here, and in the evenings and on weekends, it’s where our factory’s amateur arts and culture troupe practices singing and dancing. When they’re not using it, you can come and sing, and you can also chat with the people in our troupe.”
Zhao Na blurted out, "Your factory's propaganda department must be living too well!"
"This is simply a rehearsal hall of gods!"
After receiving permission, Zhao Na couldn't help but continue singing. She was completely immersed in the enchanting rehearsal hall, where her singing voice was given its full potential and honed to perfection.
Xue Xiaolin: "Singing inside is truly inspiring."
Xue Xiaolin scratched her head, puzzled by the excitement of the members of the cultural troupe. They were from a textile factory, so why were these people so excited about the pigsty?
What's wrong with spruce wood?
"Factory manager, what's going on with these spruce trees in our factory?"
Assistant He, before Su Peisheng could answer Xue Xiaolin's question, said, "This is imported spruce wood from Northern Europe."
Xue Xiaolin: "Imported?! All the timber in our factory is imported?"
"This is all thanks to our factory director's effective leadership. There's a reason for the origin of this timber. It all started when our factory director rescued a lost mute child... It's a very long story."
From "kind-hearted salted fish" to "protecting national treasures at Mawangdui", and then to "Hong Kong shipping magnate's fleet transporting spruce wood"... Xue Xiaolin's journey began with the story of a "kind-hearted salted fish" and then the "protecting national treasures at Mawangdui".
"Deputy factory director, is this...is this a true story?"
It was like listening to a storyteller's tale, like "The Legend of Yue Fei." Xue Xiaolin had already heard many stories about the Feiyan Textile Factory since arriving there, such as entertaining a prince, the salted fish T-shirts, the surging yarn, and the movie filming to withstand a typhoon...
But I never expected that these events were so interconnected, creating such a dramatic and unpredictable situation.
It turns out that the shipping magnate's fleet from Hong Kong was transporting timber and had also placed a large order for slippers...
Without hearing the details from insiders like Assistant He, one wouldn't know the whole story.
"Of course, these are all true stories. Our factory manager had already prepared for typhoon disaster relief. The air-raid shelter that appeared in the movie 'The Blue Sea and the Silver Shuttle' was also dug at that time. In addition to applying for Nordic spruce wood, we also applied for imported waterproof coatings... As you know, these things played a huge role later."
Looking back now, Assistant He couldn't help but admire the factory manager's foresight. As it turned out, everything the factory manager did was right.
Thanks to their factory manager for "asking for a small favor".
Assistant He: "Our factory director, Qin, has actually worked in the textile factory as a female worker, so she can empathize with the situation and knows how noisy it is. The portable soundproofing panels made of spruce wood have made it easier on the ears of many female workers..."
"The extra spruce wood was used to decorate the 'rehearsal hall' to enrich everyone's leisure and cultural life. Later, Professor Shen came and gave us down-to-earth math, physics and chemistry classes... Now the rehearsal hall is filled with the brilliance of wisdom!"
...
Xue Xiaolin listened with rapt attention, wishing she could take notes constantly so she could explain it to Zhao Na and the others in detail later. She also wanted to write a letter to her family about it.
Xue Xiaolin looked at Qin Xiangxiang with an admiring gaze. At this moment, the factory director held a god-like position in her heart.
"Factory manager, your experience is truly remarkable!"
Qin Xiangxiang's face remained expressionless: "...It's not worth mentioning."
Life is full of disappointments, eight or nine out of ten.
No one knows what Xue Xiaolin said to the members of the art troupe, but later the members of the art troupe looked at Qin Xiangxiang as if they had met a legendary figure from a storybook.
On the day of the performance, most of the workshops at Feiyan Textile Factory stopped work to watch the show. Many officers also came, including employees' family members like Li Jianzhi, as well as single male officers like Zhou Zhenbang and Zhao Rui. The scene was very lively.
Li Jianzhi, dressed in a meticulously ironed white military uniform, stood out from the crowd, and many people even mistook him for "Zhao Rui".
"Is Zhao Rui really that good-looking?"
“That’s our factory manager’s husband, Commander Li Jianzhi.”
"Isn't our factory manager's husband over thirty? And Little Fatty's kid is almost ten years old..."
...
Listening to the whispers around him, the self-proclaimed "handsome" guy standing next to his wife asserted his dominance.
"Comrade Zhou, we meet again?" Pingping greeted Zhou Zhenbang, who was standing next to Xue Xiaolin, and the three of them started chatting.
Pingping is a chatty girl who likes to ask about other people's hometowns, while Xue Xiaolin is also curious about the Friendship Store, the embroidered patchwork shirt, and the canned cream.
"Yes, I met a Mr. Lawrence who delivered a batch of canned cream and butter to our factory manager because he admires her artistic talent and also heard that she likes cream cakes..."
Xue Xiaolin: "Pingping, aren't you afraid when you chat with foreigners?"
"I was a little scared, but—as long as I thought of Director Qin, I became brave!"
Xue Xiaolin: "Yes, our factory director is a guiding light."
Zhou Zhenbang initially didn't care about the two girls' conversation, but he couldn't help but be drawn in by their dialogue. Pingping even vividly described to Xue Xiaolin the situation at the Canton Fair, as well as their Feiyan Textile Factory's mascot—the lucky general Zheng Jianguo.
"I was terrified at the Canton Fair back then. You have no idea what it was like. That Master Zhu wrote a whole bunch of articles criticizing us. Right next to our booth, there were people holding up translations and reading Master Zhu's articles to the foreigners next to them..."
“I was sweating profusely with anxiety, but Yang Zhixia said that she felt relieved when she saw Director Zheng.”
"Director Zheng is our textile factory's lucky charm at the Canton Fair. As long as he's there, we get orders like snowflakes."
“There was a time before, it seems to be around the time of the Mawangdui pattern, Director Zheng specially brought Li Ren to our booth... Wow, that was a huge order worth millions of yuan.”
Xue Xiaolin: "Ah?! There are still such good comrades in the world."
"Hahaha... Another time, Director Zheng had the level eight female workers in their factory perform blindfolded overlocking, and he even asked our textile factory to perform one too..."
Zhou Zhenbang listened with amusement, thinking to himself that this was no lucky charm at all, but rather a hapless factory director, Director Zheng, who had "lifted a stone to drop it on his own foot" and "tried to steal a chicken but lost the rice instead."
Yet he is also known as a lucky charm.
"Wow, that's amazing! It's so interesting... It feels just like the battles my grandpa and his friends fought back then. So many interesting stories."
Xue Xiaolin: "The deputy factory director told me before about the reason why the rehearsal hall was made of spruce wood..."
Yin Pingping: "I've never heard of that."
Xue Xiaolin: "You don't know, but the people in the cultural troupe said that our factory's pigsty is better than their professional rehearsal hall!"
...
Zhou Zhenbang: "???" Pigsty? Rehearsal room?
What kind of magical place is this Flying Swallow Textile Factory?
The performance on stage was wonderful, and the stories behind the scenes were equally fascinating. Before the performance ended, Instructor Li and Officer Liu went on stage to speak. "To express our special gratitude to Factory Director Qin, our troupe has created a performance called 'Military Wives and Factory Directors Write a New Chapter' these past two days. Although it hasn't been fully rehearsed yet, we would like to take this opportunity to present it to all the factory workers so that everyone can give their feedback and suggestions for improvement..."
Qin Xiangxiang was stunned: "???" What the heck?
Li Jianzhi touched his nose, unable to suppress a smile. He looked at his bewildered wife with a smile on his face.
This is so embarrassing, you'll probably be scratching your toes.
In fact, he was always impressed by the propaganda programs produced by the military. Sure enough, in the following program, Qin Xiangxiang was portrayed as a perfect military wife and factory director who "fought day and night on the front line, worked hard, and turned her longing for her husband into strength."
Qin Xiangxiang really wanted to faint on the spot.
Even Li Jianzhi couldn't stand it, because his image was also... (omitting 800 words of "college entrance exam essay" here).
The couple felt as if they were being roasted over a fire, their toes digging into the ground.
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