Chapter 171
The subject's voice, slightly distorted, came through the microphone, sweeping away Qiu Zeming's recent fatigue from training. His voice unconsciously softened, carrying a warmth that even the harsh winter couldn't shatter: "Jiani!"
A thousand thoughts rushed to my lips, so dense that they seemed to weave a net, pulling the person from that distant village right to me. But in the end, all they could do was just a greeting: "How are you doing lately? Is it cold over there?"
Zhou Jiani spoke almost at the same time: "Are you tired from training? Are you still adapting?"
They were both startled, and felt as if a layer of fire had started in the pit of their stomach. This layer of fire was also wrapped in an electric current, making people numb from head to toe.
Qiu Zeming said warmly, "I'm fine. I've been doing calisthenics since I was little, so I'm able to adapt. Is it snowing over there?"
Zhou Jiani: "It just rained the day before yesterday, not too heavy..."
Qiu Zeming: "The roads are slippery after the snow, please be careful when riding your bike..."
Zhou Jiani: "Well, I know, you should also pay attention to safety during training."
Qiu Zeming: "Okay!"
The call didn't last too long, ending in about ten minutes. They talked about trivial matters in life, but the soft tone of voice was sweeter than honey, and they could understand each other's longing for each other.
These days, phone calls have to be transferred, and no one knows how many people are listening to a call. It’s really hard to say some cheesy things directly.
Zhou Jiani walked out of the office with brisk steps and a smile on her face.
The time for sending things to the capital is not as easy to control as that for sending things to Qi Yang. By the time Bai Haoyang contacted the car to the capital, it was already half a month later. She received another package from Ze Ming's mother. This time it came with the car. It contained four frozen hard lamb legs, a large piece of ribs, a roll of cloth coupons, national food coupons, and industrial coupons.
This was sent to her, and a portion was also sent to Qi Yang, but only lamb legs and ribs were sent there, no tickets.
Zhou Jiani felt the gift was too expensive, so she called Du Yunxin to express her gratitude and said, "Auntie, one gift would have been enough, but I asked you to spend the money to give me two."
Du Yunxin received a call from her future daughter-in-law, her joy coming through the phone. "It's not expensive, not at all. It's unfair to you that Ze Ming went to the army right after you got engaged. Besides, he can't come back to visit anytime soon. If he stays away for a while, there's bound to be gossip. I can't help with anything else, so I can only send you some gifts..."
Zhou Jiani understood what Du Yunxin meant. In fact, when Qiu Zeming just left, many people in the village murmured in private. They simply thought she was stupid and that she should keep Qiu Zeming here and not let him leave.
Fortunately, Qiu Zeming made great contributions to the village, and there were only a few people like him, so if others heard him and scolded him a few times, he would behave himself.
Later, Du Yunxin sent her another package. Seeing that it was sent from the capital, the villagers speculated that it was Jiani's in-laws who were sending something here. Coupled with the publicity from Bai Haoyang and others, this matter was confirmed, and now no one here is saying anything.
But Yu Huifang in Qi Yang was very upset. After she knew that her son-in-law was going to join the army right after the engagement, she started to spread some bad rumors which became more and more outrageous. In the end, some people even said things like 'the girl from the Zhou family got engaged and the man left her and ran away'.
Yu Huifang stood downstairs of the dormitory and cursed for more than half an hour.
I didn't tell my daughter because I was afraid she would feel uncomfortable if she heard it, so I kept it to myself.
As a result, she received gifts from her mother-in-law. She did not hide them at all and wanted to publicize them with great fanfare, which ended up shutting up many people.
One day, Yu Huifang received another call from Qiu Zeming in the army. She happily held the phone and chatted loudly in the factory office. After hanging up, she said with a smile: "My son-in-law is really not just praising me. He said that when he was talking to Jiani on the phone a few days ago, he heard that my mother-in-law had a minor cold, so he called to ask if my grandmother had recovered. He gave her very detailed instructions..."
He added, "They said they got two sets of military uniforms for my son, Lao Zhou, and made gun handles out of bullet shells for the two kids. They said they'd be there in two days."
After Zhou Wanli put on his military uniform and realized that the letter was from his son-in-law, the rumors mostly died down. Only a few people still stubbornly insisted, "Don't be so boastful. Maybe it's a little hot in the first year. You'll see in two years..."
On the other side, Zhou Jiani went to the greenhouse to pick two baskets of vegetables, and collected twenty kilograms of dried cowpeas, peanuts, raw melon seeds, walnuts, dates, rice noodles, and vermicelli, as well as fifty kilograms of sweet potatoes, fifty kilograms of wheat, and one hundred kilograms of corn bought from fellow villagers. She took advantage of the convenience of a truck to send them all to the capital.
Du Yunxin called after receiving the goods, grinning from ear to ear: "Jia Ni, those food coupons are for you to use yourself. Don't give them all to us." But she was happy and couldn't help but say, "But your grandfather was so happy, especially the sweet potatoes. He ate them for two meals in a row and kept praising them for being delicious, soft and sweet. He also wanted everything else. I grabbed two or three pounds of rice noodle sticks last time and couldn't bear to eat them. This time you sent these, I stewed the noodles with cabbage and cut up some pork belly. Your uncle ate two big bowls himself..."
Zhou Jiani smiled and said, "Let uncle eat as much as he wants. I'll buy some snacks from here..."
The future mother-in-law and daughter-in-law chatted for about ten minutes before hanging up the phone.
By the end of the year, Zhou Jiani had attended several times more meetings than last year.
Unlike last year, this time Zhou Jiani represents the entire commune.
The performance of the plastic greenhouses was still impressive. Liu Yan was the one who went on stage to give a report, but he asked Zhou Jiani to help him write the manuscript using two kilograms of fresh shepherd's purse. He stood on the stage and finished reading the report with shaking hands and legs, and almost fell to the ground when he left the stage.
This time, Zhang Baosheng has made great progress compared to last year. He is more confident and confident. Standing on the stage, he talked about the achievements of the Qianjin Brigade this year fluently and freely, without the previous restraint.
Time passed quickly and we welcomed the Spring Festival of 1977. This year was a little more solemn and a little less festive.
The New Year passed in the blink of an eye. After the spring, the factory added four more regular worker positions, two of which were given to two outstanding craftsmen from other teams.
The other two places were given one to Bai Haoyang and one to Zhao Mei.
Zhao Mei cried so hard that she couldn't speak.
That afternoon, her mother-in-law went to Zhang Kaishan's house with a dozen eggs on her shoulder. She tried to show her goodwill, but then she started to talk about wanting Zhao Mei to transfer her regular job title to Zhang Kaishan, saying that Zhao Mei, a woman, only needed to do a job that paid her wages. Why was she occupying the title of a regular worker? Zhang Kaishan rudely asked her to leave.
Someone with a nosy heart came over and asked, "It doesn't matter whether your daughter-in-law or your son is the official employee!"
Grandma Zhao Mei stiffened her neck and said, "How can it be the same? How can it be the same? If it falls to Kaishan, then he belongs to our Zhang family. He has a short-lived disease, and if he dies early in the future, it's only natural for his eldest brother to take him over. Now that dead wife is occupying the house, if Kaishan dies early in the future and she remarries, then that person will become someone else's..."
"Then there's your little granddaughter. I heard Huihui is very good at studying and even won a certificate of merit."
"What's the point? Even if she won ten certificates, she's still just a girl."
When Zhao Mei heard this, she snorted coldly and said, "This position will eventually belong to Huihui. If Huihui doesn't want it, there's still my nephew from my mother's side. Even if I return it to the village, I won't let those filthy-hearted people get a single cent."
My mother-in-law was furious and she kept spreading bad things about Zhao Mei in the village. She also asked if the people who were distributing the quotas at the factory were blind...
But there is no way. Zhao Mei earned the qualification for regularization through her own strength. She does the quality inspection work quickly and well, leads people carefully, teaches technology attentively and conscientiously. She is also a middle-level cadre in the factory. Why not reward such an outstanding employee?
This year is destined to be a turbulent year, and it also makes Zhou Jiani feel a sense of helplessness and frustration. She knows that some things will happen, but she does not have the ability to stop them, and she cannot even give a warning.
There was also a noticeable tremor in Bin County. In the second half of the night, the villagers sounded gongs and woke up the sleeping people. Those who were sleeping soundly did not understand what was happening and came out in a daze.
Zhou Jiani was particularly silent, and the following busyness was somewhat heavy. After she went to the commune to discuss with Secretary Zhai, she asked the factory to suspend orders and concentrate manpower to weave thousands of mats, which were sent to the disaster area together with the vegetables and grain donated by the commune.
A few days later, I received a call from Du Yunxin and learned that Qiu Zeming's unit had gone to provide support.
The company where Qiu Zeming was located had just finished several days of rescue work. After coming out, he heard that new supplies had arrived and came to help with the transportation. When he learned that the source of these supplies was a place name familiar to him, his heart seemed to be injected with strength. He raised his muddy face, his bloodshot eyes pierced through the void, looked in a certain direction for a moment, gritted his teeth, picked up a large sack and left.
**
The autumn Canton Fair was held as scheduled, but it was also destined to be a season of great turning points. In the middle of the night before the opening, the venue was suddenly notified to remove all photos related to □□. Zhou Jiani and the others were unaware of this and only heard a commotion in the corridor of the guesthouse, sounds of knocking on doors and shouting, and hurried footsteps leaving.
A roommate stood up, put on his clothes, peeked in, quickly closed the door, lowered his voice, and said uncertainly, "I heard it seemed that we received a sudden notice to urgently remove the photos of XXX in the venue..."
The next day, the first thing we welcomed was not the opening ceremony, but a grand parade. Whether it was the participants of the Canton Fair or the trade delegations, they all took to the streets to march, passionately shouting the slogan "Down with □□". Zhou Jiani also participated in this historic victory. Afterwards, a simple opening ceremony was held, and this Canton Fair officially kicked off.
The performance of knitted products this year is still impressive, and Zhang Baosheng also knows that he needs to expand the scope. He clearly realizes that this piece of cake is too big, not to mention the Qianjin Brigade, the entire Xihe Commune may not be able to eat it.
In the winter of that year, the Bin County Handicraft Group was officially established, and Zhou Jiani was transferred to the county and served as the group leader. Before she officially took office, the task fell on her shoulders - to supervise the construction of the Bin County Handicraft Products Factory!
Secretary Zhai's position remained unchanged. He called Zhou Jiani over for a talk and asked her if she wanted an assistant.
Zhou Jiani didn't speak rashly. She observed his expression for a moment, then considered and tried to probe: "How about... you send Director Li to me."
Secretary Zhai smiled and nodded. "Jingdang has experience in factory construction and management. Having him here will save you a lot of worry." He added, "Comrade Xiaobai managed the factory on behalf of Li Jingdang during the Canton Fair this spring and autumn. He did a great job. It's time for him to be promoted."
The vacant position is just right for the person who has been trained in the team for so long to take over, and it is time for him to get down to business.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
