Siheyuan: Starting from 1958

Seeing that all the residents in the courtyard agreed to let Chen Dehui run for the position of the courtyard master, Secretary Huang stepped forward decisively and said, "In addition to Xu Damao, Comrade Chen Dehui..."

"There are five candidates for the Siheyuan Master."

“The voting will now begin.”

"I heard that your courtyard has set up a secret ballot to prevent candidates from retaliating against voters."

“The streets are very supportive of this method of voting.”

"Then we will vote for each candidate in this way..."

"Master Yi was the great master of the Siheyuan. Let's start with Master Yi..."

After that, he distributed the twenty or so slips of paper he had prepared earlier, one for each person. After everyone had received the paper and pen, he spoke again: "Please tick the boxes of the residents who agree that Master Yi can continue to be the boss of the courtyard."

"Those residents who disagree with Master Yi continuing to be the boss in the courtyard should cross it out..."

"Voting starts now, one vote per household."

"Hurry up, we still have to vote for the remaining four candidates after this."

Yi Zhonghai quickly ticked his ballot and then threw the paper into the cup representing himself.

Then he looked up at the resident he had visited in the past two days.

They are either fitters in a steel mill themselves or have family members who are fitters in a steel mill. If they want to be promoted to the fitter level in the steel mill, they cannot do without the examiner themselves.

There was a hint of threat in his eyes, to prevent them from accepting benefits but not voting for him.

Voting for Liu Haizhong will start in five minutes.

Ten minutes later, vote for Yan Fugui, then Chen Dehui, and finally Xu Damao.

Next came the much-anticipated vote counting session.

In order to ensure fairness, Secretary Huang selected six young people in the yard to be responsible for cleaning the ballots. Some were responsible for supervision, and some were responsible for review to ensure that the final result was foolproof.

Soon, Yi Zhonghai's voting results were sent to Secretary Huang.

For a moment, all the residents in the courtyard focused their attention on Secretary Huang, wanting to know how many votes this former old man from the courtyard could get.

"After statistics..." Director Huang said without any further ado.

"Master Yi received a total of sixteen votes..."

Upon hearing the result, Yi Zhonghai first breathed a sigh of relief, and then a satisfied smile appeared on his face.

Before the meeting started, he brought gifts and visited a total of eleven households with fitters. Together with the Jia family, He Yuzhu, the deaf old lady, and his own family, he had a total of fifteen guaranteed votes.

As a result, sixteen households in the yard voted for him, which meant that all the residents he visited voted for him.

There are only 25 households in the entire yard, which means that he got almost two-thirds of the votes.

If nothing unexpected happens, he will continue to serve as the head of the courtyard with the help of this vote.

Soon Liu Haizhong's ballot appeared in Secretary Huang's hands.

After looking at the data in his hand, Secretary Huang's first reaction was surprise and shock, but he soon showed an expression of relief.

Liu Haizhong's attention was always focused on Secretary Huang. He tried to judge whether he had many or few votes through his subtle expressions, and he felt very upset.

Seeing Secretary Huang frowning and showing a shocked expression, his heart suddenly rose to his throat. The first reaction in his mind was that there were too few votes, which shocked Secretary Huang.

Seeing the relieved expression on Secretary Huang's face, Liu Haizhong also breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, Secretary Huang spoke up: "After statistics..."

"Master Liu received a total of eight votes..." "This is impossible..." Liu Haizhong panicked, looking at Secretary Huang in front of him with an incredible expression and refuted.

"How could I get so few votes? You must have made a mistake..."

Facing Liu Haizhong who had already lost his mind, Officer Huang slapped the table and said, "Master Liu..."

"What are you doing..."

"You were also present when the votes were being counted. Do you think that a street official like me would cheat in the election for you, the old folks in your courtyard..."

“If you don’t believe it, you can come and review all the ballots yourself, but you can only look at them here and you can’t take them away.”

Liu Haizhong didn't waste any time and rushed directly to Secretary Huang to look at his own ballot.

He put down his ballot in two minutes, and then his whole body was in a daze.

In his plan, he had never offended anyone in the yard, and there were several blacksmiths in the yard who often came to him for advice, so these people would definitely vote for him.

Including some scattered votes, it would have been no problem to get ten or so votes, but in the end he only got eight votes, exactly half of Yi Zhonghai's.

This is absolutely unacceptable for Liu Haizhong, who wants to compete with the uncle.

But things have come to this point, facing the angry Officer Huang, Liu Haizhong has to accept this fact no matter how unwilling he is.

When he stepped back to his position, he began to pray that the votes of the remaining few people would not exceed his own, otherwise he would not only fail to become the boss of the courtyard, but he might even lose his position as boss.

"After statistics..." Secretary Huang spoke again.

"Teacher Yan Fugui received four votes in total..."

Yan Fugui's reaction was even more exaggerated than Liu Haizhong's, and he almost couldn't catch his breath.

If the third aunt hadn't supported him in time, he would have fallen to the ground.

Looking at the ballot in Huang's hand, he was also shocked and asked, "Why are there only ten ballots? Why are there so few?"

Secretary Huang did not respond to Yan Fugui's words.

To be honest, he didn't have a very good impression of Yan Fugui.

As a teacher, you should be a role model and set a good example in the school.

As a result, Yan Fugui, on the other hand, would act as a door god in the yard every day after get off work and take advantage of the residents.

Although this is not a big deal, over time, some gossip will inevitably spread to the streets.

But because no residents in the yard came to report Yan Fugui for these trivial matters, the street office did not take care of the matter.

But that doesn’t mean the streets have a good impression of Yan Fugui.

Looking at Yan Fugui, who was full of despair, he asked back with a dissatisfied expression: "Teacher Yan..."

“Are you going to check these ballots, too?”

Yan Fugui replied with a frustrated look on his face: "No, I trust the residents in the yard."

"I must have done something wrong, so no one voted for me..."

Seeing that Yan Fugui did not question him like Liu Haizhong did, Secretary Huang's expression looked better, and then he turned his attention to the young people who were counting Chen Dehui's votes.

I want to know how many votes this veteran can get in the quad.

The results were quickly delivered to Officer Huang.

His expression changed. He was shocked at first, and looked at Chen Dehui who was sitting not far away in surprise. Then he showed a look of relief, which made the residents around him look puzzled. (End of this chapter)