In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 44 Yu Dawei's First Income

A month passed quickly. During that time, Yu Dawei visited the construction site several times. Although the old Hitachi pipes were quite old, they were still very durable and did not have any major problems. Occasionally, there would be oil leaks from the pipes, which Yu Dawei would fix.

Oil leaks are common in Hitachi excavators, especially such an old machine. This was an imported oil pipe installed by Yu Dawei; if it had been replaced with a domestically made one, the probability of it cracking would have been much higher with current technology.

However, it seems that the old Hitachi equipment has not affected the construction progress at all. With Yao Jinfu, who is skilled in excavator operation, on the job, Yu Dawei can focus on taking care of his wife during her postpartum period this month.

The mother-in-law was overjoyed to see how well her son-in-law was taking care of her daughter. Seeing that her daughter was recovering well, she didn't stay long, helping out for a month before returning home.

Before leaving, Yu Dawei bought his mother-in-law a dress in town—a thin, round-necked blouse, perfect for spring.

After seeing his mother-in-law off, Yu Dawei took his wife to his father's house.

He occasionally goes to the construction site, and since his child is still young, it's better to have someone else take care of him. Now, his wife and mother-in-law have a very good relationship and live together, so he doesn't have to worry about them fighting anymore.

I visited Yao Jinfu at the construction site and brought him some snacks. Although the food in the canteen was pretty good, it wasn't good to eat there all the time.

It is worth mentioning that when Supervisor Chang returned home that day, he saw the "book" that Yu Dawei had given him. He did not want it, but simply told Yao Jinfu to do his job well.

Within a few days, Yao Jinfu's dormitory was changed to a double room, and his other roommate was an experienced dump truck driver from section 9.

The two got along very well in the dormitory.

When Yu Dawei learned of this, he privately treated Manager Chang to a meal and said a few good words for Axe.

Axe may not be good at anything else, but he's a true hero when it comes to toasting. He not only entertained Manager Chang, a master of drinking, but also happily talked with Yu Dawei all night long, almost revealing all the things he did when he was a child, like peeping at some girl's house.

There was a meeting at the construction site this morning. My second uncle, Supervisor Chang, and another contractor who was similar to my second uncle led a large group of people to meet in the canteen. The main topic was speed, speed, and more damn speed.

According to Yu Dawei's prediction, the problem of insufficient engineering equipment causing slow progress will soon become apparent.

This is not hard to understand. In engineering projects, many equipment owners sign contracts with engineering companies for a fixed amount of money per day, regardless of how much work is done. So, some unscrupulous individuals, not wanting their vehicles to wear out too much, secretly tell the drivers to work slower.

If one section of the project finds that other vehicles are working slowly, then their own vehicles will also work slowly, eventually causing everyone to slow down.

Actually, if we put in our best effort, we can definitely finish the project on schedule.

What these people didn't know was that when the leaders of the Eighth Bureau put pressure on the two contractors to get more equipment, their pay would indirectly decrease.

It's the same principle. Later, when the leaders of the Eighth Bureau discovered this problem, the contract was definitely changed. It was based on the number of trucks and the number of buckets of food per day. Those who did not meet the standard were in one tier, those who met the standard were in another tier, and those who exceeded the standard were in yet another tier.

You'll find that the new contract you sign later is never as good as the original one.

The only contracts that remained unchanged were the third, seventh, and ninth sections, since these three were the Eighth Bureau's most favored projects.

Why didn't Yu Dawei let Yao Jinfu learn from others? Instead, he kept telling him not to cut corners. His second uncle had secretly mentioned it to him before.

He said that if everyone continued to slack off, problems might arise, and told Yu Dawei not to follow their example, but to do his job well every day and not delay the progress of Section 9. He also gave a similar instruction to all of Hou Wanqiang's subordinates: "Not one of you should hold me back! You must work diligently!"
Of course, there are also equipment owners who outwardly listen to him but secretly do things their own way, and then they have to bear the consequences themselves.

Hou Wanqiang isn't some great philanthropist; he doesn't have time to deal with these idiots.

In the afternoon, the first payment arrived, totaling 15,000 yuan.

Yu Dawei went to the bank, took out Axe's passbook, and asked the teller to deposit two thousand yuan into Axe's passbook. He then withdrew some money.

After leaving the house, he turned around and went to Boss Liang's parts store again. Boss Liang was now waiting for him with great anticipation.

Of course, Yu Dawei had to make sure Boss Liang saw a return on his investment, but there were still many places where the first sum of money would be used. The parts cost a total of 30,000 yuan, so he couldn't give him all of it; he only gave him 5,000 yuan.

But when Boss Liang saw the money, he was as happy as a child and insisted on treating Yu Dawei to a meal that night.

Yu Dawei agreed and then went to the market.

Today, there's a big market in Luhe Town that lasts until 4 PM. The market has everything: clothes, shoes, food, kebabs, sausages, towels, washbasins, all kinds of daily necessities, peppercorns, star anise, bulk thirteen-spice powder, and so on.

The four-wheeled vehicle was parked some distance away. As soon as I entered the market, the aroma of roasted sausages and fried chicken cutlets wafted over.

Yu Dawei swallowed hard; he had never tasted this flavor when he was a child.

The sausages at the market cost 50 cents each, and the chicken cutlets were also 50 cents each, but they were different from the large chicken cutlets of the future, even the chicken bones were different.

The outside is like a noodle dish, and inside is a small piece of bone with meat, served with the stall owner's secret spicy sauce. Just thinking about taking a big bite of it later made Yu Dawei incredibly excited.

Now that he had money, Yu Dawei no longer had to be stingy. Since he hadn't eaten lunch, he headed straight for the various stalls.

He bought some of each of the following: grilled sausages, chicken cutlets, balut (fertilized duck egg), and canned food.

Yu Dawei also encountered vendors selling ice water. Some were in white bags with green manufacturer labels printed on them, while others were in long yellow bags. Although the ice water inside was different colors, the taste was generally the same.

Yu Dawei bought 20 bags of white iced water and 30 bags of yellow iced water in one go. Actually, he prefers the yellow ones a little more.

Two bags of ice water for a dime, does Yu Dawei lack that little bit of money? Buy, buy, buy! His main selling point is his inhuman extravagance.

These food stalls were surrounded by children as young as seven or eight, especially the barbecue and chicken cutlet stalls. Even if the children couldn't afford to buy anything, they stood by and frantically sucked on the aroma wafting from the oil pans.

When they saw that Yu Dawei had bought so many grilled sausages, chicken cutlets, and their favorite iced water, they practically wanted to stick their eyes to his hands.

Countless eyes were fixed on Yu Dawei; they almost devoured him.

Yu Dawei raised his head, picked up his things, smiled proudly, and left gracefully amidst the children's envious and crazy gazes.

(End of this chapter)