Chapter 114
Ever since baby Wu Yuzhuo turned 100 days old and took the 100-day photo, Wu Zhengrong and Grandpa Wu suddenly became keen on taking pictures of the baby.
There is only one camera, so it is very inconvenient to borrow and give it away.
So, at the reminder of the military representative, Grandpa Wu found the scrapped camera that he had dismantled and had not yet repaired.
Risking the loss of another camera, the grandparents and grandson dismantled the existing intact camera!
When Ye Manzhi heard the news, she felt that both cameras were in danger.
However, the former dean of the School of Engineering and the current PhD student in engineering are still quite capable.
After tinkering with it on and off for more than half a month, Wu Zhengrong successfully owned a camera of his own. Lately, he has been practicing on his wife and daughter.
But the film and photo paper were too expensive, and Ye Manzhi was reluctant to let him take too many photos.
After taking a photo with the "little farmer" under a persimmon tree hung with small lanterns, she asked Wu Zhengrong to put away the camera and urged him to get back to work.
The persimmon tree in the yard bears a lot of fruits every year, and they can't eat them all.
In the past two years, she would peel the remaining persimmons, hang them in bunches, and dry them in the sun to make persimmon cakes for storage.
But this year we picked the persimmons a little late, and many of them were already too ripe to be droopy.
They picked the persimmons and ate two right away while standing under the tree.
Wu Zhengrong suggested, "I think you shouldn't dry the persimmons this year. Instead, share them with your relatives and friends."
"I don't want to share," Ye Manzhi said as he sucked the sticky flesh. "I ate the dried persimmons I dried last year from autumn to spring."
Persimmons can be kept for several months, so she always has something to snack on.
"The persimmons are already ripe, how can we make persimmon cakes? You brought the goods to their door, they can't let you go home empty-handed, right?"
"Hmm, let me think about it."
Ye Manzhi felt that what her man said made sense.
Like a miser, she stood with her hands behind her back, looking at the baskets of persimmons, and wondering in her mind which relatives were most likely to give her a return gift.
Her grandmother, third aunt, Grandma Wu, and fifth brother are considered the most generous among the relatives and would never let her leave empty-handed.
As for my friend, she sends Qingmei half a basket every year, so I will definitely let her try some this year.
As for the others...
Ye Manzhi asked, "Do you want to send some to your uncle's house?"
She felt that Wu Zhengrong's uncle was also very generous.
Wu Zhengrong declined: "He doesn't like persimmons."
It is the season when persimmons are on the market. Instead of asking him to travel across half the city to deliver a few persimmons to his uncle, it is better to let his uncle buy two for himself.
The couple discussed the route for delivering the gifts. After picking all the fruit from the trees, Ye Manyzhi sat in the yard and ate a persimmon.
When she was eating, baby Wu Yuzhuo stared at her with his big eyes like black grapes, babbling something inaudible and drooling.
Ye Manzhi shouted to the man under the jujube tree, "Come and see! Our daughter is drooling with greed, hahaha!"
Wu Zhengrong had long discovered that his daughter liked to stare at adults while they were eating, and he had a way of dealing with drooling children.
He went back to the house and got a pair of chopsticks. In front of his daughter, he dipped the tip of the chopsticks in some persimmon flesh, rinsed the chopsticks in the teacup, and then touched her moving little tongue.
Little Wu Yuzhuo was still at an age where he was easily fooled. After licking it a few times, he actually smiled at his father!
Ye Manzhi: “…”
Your dad is fooling you, why are you smiling like an idiot?
Wu Zhengrong handed her the chopsticks and said, "You play with the kids at home. I'll take the persimmons to grandma."
"It's not far anyway, I'll go with you!" Ye Manzhi stroked her daughter's hair. "If you go alone, at most you'll come back with two sausages. But if you take our child with you, hehe, you can just carry it!"
She knows her grandmother very well.
When the couple came to the house carrying half a basket of persimmons and dates and holding their child, my grandparents and my aunt were very enthusiastic.
They had to deliver persimmons to the next house and did not stay at grandma's house for dinner, but when they left, they were stuffed with three sausages and a pound of rice noodles.
Rice flour was my grandmother's staple food. As she aged and had weak teeth, she ground rice into flour and drank a bowl of it every day. The old lady thought rice porridge was nourishing, so she gave a pound of it to her great-granddaughter, who also had no teeth.
The good start at grandma's house made Ye Manzhi very confident about the subsequent gift-giving activities.
When they returned to Guangming Street, she directed Wu Zhengrong to drive the car to Fifth Brother's yard.
"Fifth Brother should be home by now. Let's go trade some hawthorns with him. If it's any later, he'll have to go to the accounting class."
After Chang Yue'e revealed the news that the commune was going to open a meat processing plant, the fifth brother chose the latter between being a food preparation chef and an accountant.
He has been good at arithmetic since he was a child, and if he can deal with numbers in the future, it will be a good opportunity to make use of his strengths.
Adult education in Guangming Street has developed very well. Deputy Director Tao, who succeeded Ye Manzhi, seemed to want to replicate Mulan's successful experience and vigorously develop educational work after taking office.
Now Guangming Street not only has literacy classes and adult high school classes, but also vocational skills training classes divided into three directions: mechanical maintenance, electrical work, and accounting. Graduation certificates can be awarded upon completion.
After knowing that he had the opportunity to work as an accountant in a meat processing factory, the fifth brother spent money to take accounting classes.
Ye Manzhi calculated the time and rushed to the inn before her fifth brother went out for class.
When the family of three walked to the door, they happened to meet Chang Yue'e and the fifth brother seeing off the guests.
The female comrade was about the same age as Chang Yue'e. She had neatly combed short hair, wore a washed-out Lenin suit, and wore black cloth shoes with layered soles.
Although he was dressed very simply, Ye Manzhi now had some discerning eyes. Just by looking at his temperament and mental outlook, he could tell that he was a cadre.
The female comrade exchanged a few more pleasantries, shook hands with Chang Yue'e, said, "Sister Chang, please stay," and then turned and left.
When passing by a young couple holding a child, he smiled at them politely.
Ye Manzhi waited until the guests were far away before asking, "Mom, who was that just now?"
"Wu Tongyue's aunt."
"ah?"
Chang Yue'e took the basket from her son-in-law and said, "What are you talking about? It's just her father who passed away. It's not like all her relatives are gone. Her mother is unreasonable, but there are always reasonable people in her family. Aunt Wu rushed to Binjiang from other places after receiving Wu Tongyue's telegram."
Ye Manzhi left the man in the house to look after the child and followed her mother to the backyard. She couldn't help but ask, "The former sister-in-law is like an expired movie ticket. Director Cai has remarried. Does Aunt Wu still have any say?"
"It works, right? She's promoted Director Cai before. Wu Tongyue didn't send a telegram to her uncles, but instead contacted her aunt. Maybe that's why." Chang Yue'e whispered, "Her aunt is better than her mother. She's a sensible person. It is said that she had a talk with Director Cai as soon as she arrived in Binjiang yesterday and persuaded her. Now the household registration book is in Wu Tongyue's hands."
When Director Cai remarried, her husband's family let her take away all the inheritance and daughter, and also tried their best to support her in her career, just to make Wu Tongyue live more comfortably in the reconstituted family.
But no one expected that a mother could force her child to this extent.
After learning about the situation, Aunt Wu asked Director Cai to take good care of the young children.
Wu Tongyue is an adult, has the freedom to marry, and can be responsible for her own life.
If the biological mother cannot reconcile the conflict with her daughter, she, as the eldest aunt, will take over her niece's affairs in the future.
In the Ye family, except for the second child whose partner was found by their grandmother, the other children all fell in love freely. Chang Yue'e and Ye Shouxin never stopped their children from choosing a spouse.
Lao Wu's situation is rather special, and Chang Yue'e doesn't have too high requirements for his marriage. He just wants to find a girl with similar conditions and be able to live together.
If it weren't for Wu's mother meddling, Wu Tongyue's conditions would actually be pretty good.
*
After listening to her mother's introduction of the meeting with Aunt Wu, Ye Manzhi summed up two experiences.
First, she must never be a mother like Director Cai in the future.
Second, she wants to learn from Aunt Wu!
If she could speak as forcefully as Aunt Wu and support her nephews and nieces, she would be so awesome!
Ye Manzhi imagined the scene of himself upholding justice for his daughter, Maiduo, Niuniu and other little kids, and his heart suddenly became hot.
I wrote a thought report to the party organization overnight, demanding progress!
When it comes to joining the party, Ye Manzhi can only sigh that there are gains and losses.
When she was working on the street, she felt that joining the party was quite easy. As long as she worked hard, made progress in her thinking, and submitted ideological reports regularly, she could join the party when the time came.
Several neighborhood committee directors on the street have become party members.
However, the number of places for student party members in universities is very limited.
There are too many people and too little food, so she can’t get a spot even if she queues up.
She submitted her application to join the Party at the Subdistrict Office more than three years ago, but she is still only an active member of the Party!
When she went to school to attend the party class again, she asked Bian Queqiao about the situation.
"Secretary, how many candidates are there in our department to join the Party this year?"
Bian Queqiao stretched out his hand and slapped it. "Five, but now it must be the juniors and seniors who come, especially the seniors. They are about to graduate and be assigned, and the competition for the spots is fierce."
Ye Manzhi sighed with envy, she also wanted to report to the new unit with her party membership.
It seems that I have to write ideological reports regularly and perform well in study and work!
After being inspired by Aunt Wu, Ye Manzhi's tail, which had been somewhat upturned since she became an interpreter for foreign guests, was tucked back in by her.
She took out her notebook and listed the areas where she could work hard in her studies and work.
After the class committee members were re-elected in the new school year, she no longer served as class monitor, but instead devoted more of her extracurricular energy to the department's factory and Professor Ouyang's research group.
But I don’t know what the physics teacher was thinking. It seemed that he really saw her potential in studying physics from the fact that she scored one extra point on each test.
This year she was actually chosen to be the physics class representative!
When Ye Manzhi heard her own name, she felt not as sad as if she had lost her parents, but it was almost the same.
It’s nothing for the monitor to get over 60 points, but if the class representative also gets 60 points, that would be too embarrassing!
She had no choice but to study hard while praying that the year would pass quickly, as there would be no physics classes after her junior year.
When Ye Manzhi was listing her study and work plans in the classroom, Qiu Yan, a senior sister from the research group, came over during the break.
"Ye Manzhi, Teacher Ouyang asked us to meet at the school gate!"
"What's the matter?" She picked up her schoolbag and followed her out.
"The Municipal Federation of Trade Unions and the Municipal Women's Federation have sent a research team to the No. 1 Textile Factory for research. They're holding a report meeting today to study the protection of female workers in the textile factory. Teacher Ouyang asked us to go along and observe."
Hearing this, Ye Manzhi quickened her pace. She actually wanted to know how the workshop director who almost raped the female worker handled the situation.
When Ouyang Jin brought three students to the textile factory, the conference room was already mostly full.
Representatives from the textile factory and the city attended the meeting.
Before entering the meeting room, Ye Manzhi found Xue Qiaoer standing with her coworkers in the corridor.
She greeted the teacher, turned around and walked over to ask, "Qiao'er, what are you waiting for here?"
After Xue Qiaoer's rickshaw was banned, the city arranged for her to work in a textile factory.
When Ye Manzhi came to conduct research several times before, he had eaten with her in the cafeteria.
It was working hours now. Xue Qiaoer was not working in the workshop, so why was she running to the door of the meeting room?
Xue Qiaoer and several other female workers looked a little nervous. They clenched their fingers and whispered, "The deputy director of the workshop asked us to come to the conference room to explain the situation to everyone."
"What do you want to explain?"
"It's about Gu Tao accepting bribes."
Ye Manzhi frowned subconsciously, "If you have any questions, you should talk to the police. What are you talking about in a meeting like this?"
If you do this, you might offend a leader.
Gu Tao is the factory director's brother-in-law. It would be fine if he was beaten to death with a stick. I'm afraid that due to insufficient evidence, he will be given a light punishment and then be able to come back to work.
When the time comes, those female workers who come to explain the situation will be in trouble.
Xue Qiaoer said: "Gu Tao has been called away by the police, and now the deputy director has the final say in the workshop. Moreover, when Gu Tao was reported, all the workers in the workshop participated. He probably won't be coming back."
Because the female workers asked to return to work after giving birth, Gu Tao secretly accepted many benefits, some of which were cigarettes and some were alcohol.
Although Xue Qiaoer did not need to return to work after giving birth, she used to be a special worker, and Gu Tao often secretly made trouble for her and tried to take advantage of her.
Ye Manzhi hesitated for a moment, then pulled Xue Qiaoer aside and reminded her, "Since the leadership asked you to explain the situation, then tell the truth about Gu Tao's situation and try not to involve other people. The leaders of your factory will be attending today's meeting. Even if you don't say what Gu Tao's background and connections are, everyone knows it. The relationships among the leadership are very complicated, so we grassroots staff should try not to get involved."
Because of his brother-in-law's problem, the factory director Zheng Guoshun was in a situation where everyone was pushing him down.
Even though the police were already aware of the situation, the deputy director of the workshop still called these female workers and openly exposed the problems of the workshop director at the meeting. He might have had other ulterior motives.
But Zheng Guoshun has been the factory director for so many years, he will not necessarily be overthrown just because his brother-in-law commits a crime.
If several female workers' representatives are used as pawns, they will inevitably be liquidated in the future.
Xue Qiaoer doesn't have much political wisdom, but she was able to walk out of Liushao Hutong, so she still has the necessary brainpower.
After listening to Ye Manzhi's advice, he nodded vigorously.
And she performed better than Ye Manyi expected.
After the meeting started, a deputy factory director came forward to report on the follow-up situation of Gu Tao being reported.
Then several female worker representatives came in and talked about how Gu Tao bullied and exploited female workers when he was the workshop director.
There were four female worker representatives in total. After they filed in, they seemed to be frightened by the scene in the meeting room.
Some lowered their heads, some hunched their shoulders, and some pulled the ends of their braids with their hands.
When the deputy director of the workshop asked them to speak, they were all scared like quails, trembling and unable to speak.
Xue Qiaoer was quite aggressive at work, so the deputy director of the workshop called her name and asked her to speak first.
Xue Qiao'er, however, spoke like an ordinary female worker who had never seen the world. Her voice trembled as she mumbled, "That's just the way it is. The leaders and the police all know about it."
Then he lowered his head to look at his toes and dared not say a word.
After a moment of silence, the leader of the Municipal Trade Union spoke up, "Alright, we've got the basics covered. Let's get back to work. Today's meeting is still about the feasibility of a system to protect female textile workers. Let's move on."
Hearing this, several female workers breathed a sigh of relief and shoved their way out of the meeting room.
Before leaving, Xue Qiaoer glanced in the direction of Ye Manzhi.
When Ye Manyi saw this, he winked at her.
On the other side of the meeting room, a comrade from the Women's Federation also spoke.
"Women are the majority of workers in the textile factory, accounting for 65% of the total workforce. Textile Factory No. 1 has made remarkable progress in protecting women. They've established nursing rooms, nurseries, and women's health clinics. They've also implemented a menstrual card system in the workshop, with someone recording and reminding women workers when their periods are. These are all excellent initiatives..."
Comrades from the Women's Department of the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions quickly followed suit and praised the textile factory's "four-stage" protection work for female workers.
Ye Manzhi listened and took notes, thinking that the tone of today's meeting had been set.
Overall, we still have to affirm the achievements of the textile factory.
After all, this is the benchmark set by the province and the city. It would be unreasonable to completely deny the work of the textile factory because of a single bad apple.
However, there are also loopholes in the system that can be exploited by bad apples.
Halfway through the meeting, someone finally brought up the issue of Textile Factory No. 1.
After a female worker is confirmed to be pregnant, she is transferred from a front-line position. How can we ensure that she can return to her original position in a timely manner after taking maternity leave?
Someone from the textile factory union suggested: "To prevent similar situations from happening again, the task of arranging production tasks can be handed over to female leaders."
Someone in the research group had also proposed this idea. When they heard it proposed, Ye Manzhi and Ouyang Jin shook their heads in their hearts at the same time.
If this power is tilted towards female workshop directors, those male workshop directors will definitely be furious!
The most important job of a workshop director is to arrange production tasks. If the male comrade is the deputy director, it would be fine. But if he is the director, would he be willing to give such great authority to the deputy director?
Sure enough, as soon as this idea was proposed, several workshop directors jumped out to oppose it.
The conference room suddenly became buzzing with noise.
Factory Director Zheng Guoshun had been relatively silent until he slammed the table and said, "Our protection system is a good one, but unfortunately someone misinterpreted it and ruined it. Everyone knows that Gu Tao and I are related. It's inappropriate for me to say too much until the police have a final conclusion."
"Whether or not Gu Tao had problems, there are undoubtedly loopholes in this system. Some comrades said that because Gu Tao had a relationship with the factory director, they didn't dare report the situation to the factory leadership. To prevent this from happening again, I propose setting up a mailbox for the factory director and asking the Municipal Party Committee to establish a disciplinary inspection office within the factory, giving workers a channel to confidently report problems to their superiors!"
His statement was quite bold, as he took the initiative to put shackles on himself.
Judging from the current situation, setting up an inspection office is better than losing the factory director's position.
Because of Gu Tao's incident, Ye Manzhi always felt that Director Zheng was not innocent, but he had to admit that this director was capable and responded in a timely manner.
At least someone from the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions has nodded in agreement, and many people in the conference room have echoed the sentiment.
Seeing that things were about to be settled according to Director Zheng's plan, Ouyang Jin raised his arm to indicate that he wanted to speak.
She was a consultant to the Women's Workers' Department of the Municipal Trade Union. When the department saw her raise her hand, she asked, "Counselor Ouyang, do you have any objections?"
Ouyang Jin nodded and said, "Our provincial university's Industrial Economics Department has established a research group to address the issue of protecting female workers. Recently, the research group has been continuously monitoring the Gu Tao incident at Textile Factory No. 1. Setting aside Comrade Gu Tao's situation, there is some controversy surrounding the transfer of pregnant female workers at Textile Factory No. 1. We have some different views on this policy."
Deputy Factory Director Zhang, who was in charge of this work, said politely, "Consultant Ouyang, please go ahead."
"The research team has used the textile factory as a research base and has conducted research there many times. First, let our team members share with you what the female workers really think about this system."
Ye Manzhi received her eye contact and stood up. "The research team randomly interviewed 25 female workers in the workshop who had recently been transferred or had already returned to work. All 25 expressed approval of the factory's protective measures. However, 21 of them said that their income had plummeted since their job transfer, making it difficult for them to support their family expenses."
"The textile factory uses a piece-rate wage system. To meet production targets, achieve rapid growth, and protect female workers, we also have to pursue output value. When a worker is transferred from a front-line position, another worker must be replaced. This results in a very high labor cost for our factory, even if only basic wages are paid. According to the research team's comparison, the labor cost of Binjiang Textile Factory No. 1 is 15% higher than that of similar textile factories."
Several factory leaders nodded.
They are the ones who manage the factory and they know their own situation better than anyone else.
But there is no way, they have been placed in a model position, and brother units come to learn from them every few days.
In order to do a good job in protecting female workers, we can only increase manpower costs.
"The workshop has a menstrual card system, so female workers' pregnancies are quickly discovered. Women are often reassigned to less busy positions just two or three months into their pregnancies. However, according to our survey of female workers, the first seven months of pregnancy do not affect their work. 80% of the female workers said they can continue to work during this period, but after seven months, they need to take appropriate breaks between shifts."
Ye Manzhi looked at Teacher Ouyang and asked if he wanted to continue.
This idea was first proposed by her, so Teacher Ouyang nodded and let her continue to speak on behalf of the research group.
"Therefore, our research team recommends that female workers do not need to be immediately transferred from their original positions after confirming their pregnancy. They can continue to work normally until they are seven months pregnant. After seven months, pregnant women should be given an additional hour of rest time each day. At the same time, we should avoid a one-size-fits-all approach and retain the right of pregnant women to request a transfer at any time."
"By no longer reassigning pregnant women, we can guarantee their income, reduce waste in factory manpower, and avoid the complex issues women face after their maternity leave."
Ouyang Jin added: "Without the need to return to work after childbirth, we can fundamentally prevent those who are interested in exploiting loopholes in the system."
She felt that setting up a mailbox for the factory director and an inspection room were just fancy tricks.
It may work at first, but after a long time, the mailbox may become useless. How many female workers would dare to muster up the courage to sue their immediate superior?
Most of them just keep quiet and swallow their anger.
*
The speech at the report meeting gave the research team of the Industrial Economics Department of the Provincial University a small exposure outside the school.
Although the leaders of the textile factory did not adopt the research team's approach on the spot, comrades from the Municipal Trade Union and Women's Federation asked Ouyang Jin to submit a report after the meeting.
Ouyang Jin was in a good mood, and after get off work he decided to take his three students to a state-owned restaurant for a good meal to celebrate.
However, when they arrived at the nearest state-owned restaurant, they found a long queue in front of the restaurant.
The line stretched from the store entrance to the street corner.
Ye Manzhi asked curiously, "Why is this restaurant so popular? What are their specialties?"
The older woman at the front of the line said, "Haha, I don't have any special dishes, but our street just issued a notice that you don't need food coupons to eat at state-owned restaurants! So everyone will definitely bring their lunch boxes to eat at state-owned restaurants!"
When they heard that the state-owned restaurant no longer wanted tickets, Ye Manzhi and the other three were very happy.
Unfortunately, the line was too long and we didn’t get to have the celebratory dinner.
Ye Manzhi went back to Grandma Wu's house to pick up her baby. When she returned to Guangming Street with an empty stomach, she found that there was also a long queue at the state-owned restaurant on Guangming Street.
She walked over to Zhao Erhe, who was maintaining order, and asked, "What's going on? Why did the state-owned restaurant suddenly stop accepting food coupons?"
"Well," Zhao Erhe whispered, covering his mouth. "Some people have recently questioned the increase in grain production. Isn't this just to prove that we have a good harvest? The state-owned restaurant won't need tickets anymore."
Ye Manzhi didn't bother to find out why the state-owned restaurant didn't want tickets. She wanted to go home and call Wu Zhengrong to eat at the state-owned restaurant together. It would be more cost-effective than eating in the cafeteria.
However, as soon as she returned to the compound with her child, she saw Zhang Qinjian organizing a mass meeting at the east gate, mobilizing young people and revolutionary cadres to join the city's coal-grabbing battle and go to the mines in the suburbs to dig coal.
As a resident of the compound, Wu Zhengrong was also attending the conference.
She squeezed into the crowd, stood next to Wu Zhengrong and asked, "Does every family have to go and grab the coal?"
"It seems so. There's a shortage of coal for steelmaking right now, and the factory doesn't have enough." Wu Zhengrong said in a relaxed tone, "We don't have time to go and grab the coal, so we can report Wu Yuzhuo's name. She joined the army to replace her father, so let her go and grab the coal for him."
"Hateful, always giving bad advice," Ye Manzhi nudged him with her elbow. "Instead of signing her up, you might as well sign my fourth brother up!"
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