Back to 1978

Chapter 18 It's even, you troublemaker
Yang Liming, a 23-year-old young clerk in the county party committee office, was taught a very important lesson in life by a group of primary school students today.

At two o'clock in the afternoon, the office director called him and said that a dozen primary school students had come to the gate of the compound and wanted to receive letters of praise for doing good deeds. He asked him to go and receive them and to make sure the children did not run around and affect their normal work.

He is the youngest person in the office, has a mild temper and is patient with children. So in the past half month alone, the office has arranged for Yang Liming to receive three groups of children from different schools. They were all brought here by their teachers to sweep the floor and clean the place, and received a letter of praise.

Following the director's instructions, he went to the gate to welcome in the young and simple female teacher and the children as usual, and gave them some instructions on what to do, including where to clean and where not to go.

The children were very well-behaved and did not slack off at work. They were enthusiastic in cleaning windows, sweeping the floor and watering plants. The female teacher also had a good personality. When she was looking after the children with him, they even chatted about poetry and literature. However, Yang Liming felt that the other party seemed to have something on her mind that she wanted to say but was hesitant to do so.

He was good at finding problems, and out of concern for his female comrade, he asked an extra question.

As a result, the other party told him that she and the children had come to the manure pit by horse-drawn carriage that was used by the production team to collect manure. Now there were too many trucks queuing up to collect manure at the manure pit. She was afraid that the queue would last until dark and affect the children's return home. She wanted to ask herself if she could ask the truck to clean the county party committee toilet, so that she could avoid queuing and go back to unload the truck directly. After unloading the truck, she could come to pick up the children immediately.

Yang Liming thought it was nothing, as it was all for the children, so he greeted the guard, let the car in, and directed them to the cesspool behind the toilet to collect the feces.

But after arranging the truck to start picking up the manure, he turned back to talk to the female teacher about literature, only to find that the female teacher was gone, replaced by a middle-aged man in his forties who was supervising the children cleaning!
After asking, I found out that the other person was also the teacher of these children, and the female teacher just now went to the bookstore to buy books.

This male teacher was a bit dull and not good at socializing. He didn't have time to chat with Yang Liming and was always focused on reminding the children not to run around and to be careful.

This made Yang Liming lose interest, so he simply said hello and went back to the office to write letters of praise for the children in advance. After a while, the male teacher came in and told him that the children had cleaned the yard.

Yang Limin went out to express his gratitude to the children on behalf of each office, praised the children, and finally handed them the letter of praise with a smile. The male teacher asked if he could wait with the children in the bicycle shed for the truck to pick them up, and Yang Limin agreed immediately.

After handling the matter flawlessly, Yang Limin returned to his office and continued to work normally. When the office director came in near the end of the day, he paced a few steps in the room and asked calmly, "Xiao Yang, how do you arrange for the children to come to our place to do good deeds?"

"Director, just like before, because you and other leaders are busy with work, I expressed my gratitude and encouragement to the children in person on behalf of all the leaders, and then wrote a letter of praise." Yang Liming stood up, put down his pen, looked at the director and said.

"Come and take a look at what's going on outside." The director looked at Yang Limin, then walked to the window sill and looked outside: "Do the children have to wait until the end of the day to do good things?"

"What's wrong, Director?" When Yang Liming heard the director's words, he hurried to the window. When he saw the situation outside the window clearly, a layer of cold sweat broke out on his back.

There were at least dozens of children, like a nest of little rabbits, squatting or sitting in the bicycle shed in the courtyard. Several teachers, including the female teacher who had not returned from buying books, were constantly comforting the children. A young man riding a bicycle, his clothes were soaked through and stuck to his body, and his face was stained with sweat, was gasping for breath and talking to the teachers.

"This..." Yang Limin said nervously: "Director, I will go and find out the situation right away."

"It's okay. Fortunately, I took a look around before leaving get off work. Otherwise, although the problem is not big, it will easily give several leaders the impression that our office is not serious about work." The director patted Yang Limin on the shoulder:

"I understand. It's not your fault. The horse-drawn carriage that was supposed to pick up the children broke down on the way. This young man on a bicycle rode all the way here to tell us the news, saying that the carriage might not arrive until after dark, and asked the teachers to wait here with the children. Although it is summer, it gets cold at night, and we can't let the children suffer from the cold. You take them to the cafeteria to have a meal later. I've already called and asked the long-distance bus station to temporarily dispatch a car to take the children home. As for the people following the car..."

"I!" Yang Limin agreed immediately: "I, Director, this is my negligence. I will take them to the cafeteria first, and then wait for the car to come. I will personally take the car to send the children back."

"Yes." The director nodded with satisfaction: "No matter what kind of work you do, you must take it seriously and never be careless. Today's incident is a good lesson. You said you wanted to apply to work at the grassroots level. If the leader really saw you being careless today, would he still agree to your application? I will punish you by making you work overtime and sending the children home safely as a lesson."

"Yes, you are right, Director. I made a mistake due to negligence. Please criticize me." Yang Limin felt his face burning, which hurt more than being slapped. Normally, not only did the leaders praise him for his prudent work and extraordinary ability, but he also felt that he had performed well. Who would have thought that these harmless children would give him a hard fall.

Yang Liming is not a fool. When he saw that the number of children and teachers in the bicycle shed was much more than when he came to do good deeds in the afternoon before, he realized that he must have fallen into a trap or was being used by someone with ulterior motives through the children.

But it was useless to say anything now. He walked out quickly, greeted everyone with a smile and went to the cafeteria. After they had finished their meal, he personally followed the students and teachers onto the bus. Along the bumpy country road, he sent the teachers and students back to school safely just after dark.

The teachers and children waved goodbye to him with many thanks. Yang Limin also waved to them reluctantly in the car. After he shrunk back and sat down in his seat, he raised his hand and slapped himself on the face twice. He deserved it! It was not unfair for him to be criticized by the director!
Who could have thought that someone would be so cruel as to use a group of children to make a fuss, and the purpose was to get more than a dozen trucks of manure?
On the way to send the teachers and students back to the village, he pretended to ask casual questions from the young female teachers and got a lot of information out of them. After a little analysis and thinking, he pieced together the truth of the whole incident.

What he didn't expect was that the mastermind behind the scenes was actually the rural youth who was riding a bicycle with a face covered in dust and sweat. This guy looked tired, simple and honest in the cafeteria, which made the cafeteria lady feel sorry for him and gave him two more steamed buns.

What a grandson! The mastermind who used me as a pawn sat next to me blatantly, ate three big bowls of porridge and four steamed buns, and I paid for his meal ticket!

This guy was not doing good things from the beginning to the end. He was just after the trucks of manure in the county party committee compound. He even concluded that the people in charge of the connection in the agency must be young male clerks like himself, so he used the beauty trap.

The most annoying thing is that the beauty trap is not a complete one. They deliberately send a female teacher to show up first, and then ask themselves or people from other units to let the truck in to collect the manure in the name of the students doing good deeds.

Then quickly replace the female teacher with a male teacher!

The female teacher didn't go to buy books at all, but went to the next unit with another group of children, and tried to trick the door of another unit open for the manure truck!
It's obvious that there are not enough beauties in this beauty trap, so one beauty needs to be responsible for tricking open the doors of multiple mechanisms. After tricking open one, she can only rush to the next location immediately, leaving the students here to be taken care of by the male teachers!

So the guy was drenched in sweat and looked exhausted, but it was not because he was reporting the news. He was tired from riding his bicycle back and forth carrying the female teachers!
It was even less likely that those manure trucks would come back to pick them up. After finishing their work in various units and receiving their letters of commendation, the children gathered at the bicycle shed in the county party committee compound, waiting for the canteen to provide them with meals and then send a car to take them back.

It's just a dozen carts of manure. Is it worth using military tactics? With this kind of effort, is it enough to fight a small battle?

On the way back to the county town on an empty bus, Yang Limin met the young man named Xie Hushan again. He was facing the bus, hunched over and pedaling hard towards Zhongping Village. When he saw his car, he looked up from a distance and greeted him with a simple smile under the headlights:

"Leader Yang, thank you for your hard work. We will never forget a good leader like you!"

Yang Liming originally didn't want to expose the other person, because the female teacher said that this guy couldn't even bear to eat the meat buns himself at noon, and gave them all to the teachers and students.

In addition, this guy rode his bicycle around with four female teachers on his back in the afternoon and was so tired that he could not straighten his back. All this was for the collective interests of the production team. One could say that he was cunning and unscrupulous, but one could not say that he had selfish motives.

But when he thought about how he was being played as a pawn by the other party, he felt uncomfortable if he didn't scare the other party. He opened the car window, frowned and said sternly to Xie Hushan who was still pretending to be stupid: "Xie Hushan, tomorrow I will bring the public security special commissioner to arrest you, the criminal who defrauded state property."

After Yang Limin said this, Xie Hushan, who was pretending to be a simple farmer brother and happened to be passing by him, was shocked and shouted: "Fuck!"

He was already exhausted, and the other party frightened him, so he lost his grip on the handlebars of the bicycle, which twisted to the side, and he and his bicycle rushed directly into the ditch beside the road!
Seeing Xie Hushan getting up in a panic under the moonlight and looking at him with a look of doubt and uncertainty on his face, Yang Limin laughed at him in the night wind and shouted, "I'm even with you for pretending to be stupid and cheating me of my meal ticket, you idiot!"

(End of this chapter)