The Grandmother in the Siheyuan

Chapter 281 Curve Ball

After Li Huaide came to his senses, he slapped himself in the face, which scared the colleague next to him.

"Director Li, why are you hitting yourself?"

Liu Hua shook his head. This kid said he was stupid, but he could go to university and work in a ministry. So he was not stupid. Now he was bringing up something irrelevant.

Li Huaide waved his hands: "It's okay, I'm just angry, why can't I think of such a good idea."

"What's the idea?"

The silly boy is starting to act silly again.

Li Huaide grabbed Liu Hua's hand and nodded: "Old Liu, it's all my fault. I'll toast you and apologize to you at noon today."

"You have one foot in the sky and one foot on the ground. What's the connection? There's something wrong with you."

Li Huaide shook his head: "We both came from the steel mill, and we used to work together happily. Now I am too proud to distance myself from you, which means I have forgotten my roots. This is my fault, and I must drink three glasses of wine as punishment."

In the customs guesthouse, Li Huaide invited Liu Hua to dinner. The chef showed off his top-notch cooking skills, stir-frying three dishes and two frying two.

"Why don't you stop drinking? We still have work to do in the afternoon."

Li Huaide shook his head: "Drink, you must drink, I will punish myself with three cups, no one can persuade me, even if I have to bear the punishment, I will accept it."

"That's not necessary. We have been working together for many years. There's no need to be so pretentious."

Li Huaide was already drunk before he even drank. He shook his head and said, "This is not a matter of being hypocritical or not. If you do something wrong, you have to admit it. I haven't contacted you for two years. It's my fault. I forgot my roots. I forgot that I can make progress entirely because of you."

"Just say it if you have something to say." Liu Hua said helplessly: "We have worked together for so many years, don't I know you? You just want to ask for something."

Li Huaide first punished himself by drinking three cups of wine, one liang each. After drinking three liang of wine, even though he had a good alcohol tolerance, his face turned pale after drinking three liang of wine on an empty stomach.

"Please introduce me to your connections in Hans Country. We are in urgent need of these good machine tools." Li Huaide gritted his teeth and said, "We purchased from Hans Country, but they didn't want to pay attention to me. Even if they were willing to sell us machine tools, they were all old ones. I just saw the goods in your container. Although they are second-hand goods, they are much better than what we can buy."

Liu Hua shook his head. "It's not that I won't introduce it to you. I got the line through BASF Chemical. If you want to buy machine tools through this method, it's best to contact the overseas Chinese in Hans Country and find those who are willing to help us open a scrap metal recycling company. Then you can have a steady supply of machine tools."

"That's interesting!" Li Huaide rested his chin on his hand. "It's possible. If I can do it, I might be able to move up a level before I retire."

"You are obsessed with power." Liu Hua teased, "You are already old, but you are still so positive. Does your family know how hard you work?"

"Of course I know." Li Huaide said cheerfully, "As a parent, don't you have to set a good example for your children? Your Liu Guodong has also entered Beijing University. Isn't this the power of role models?"

"I'm not his role model."

Li Huaide said proudly: "You can't do this. You have to learn from me. But then again, what are you going to do with so many machine tools?"

"Don't you know I'm going to start my own business?" Li Huaide shook his head. "I really don't know. I've been worrying about imported equipment for the past year, so I don't have the energy to care about other things. In the end, it's useless. If it weren't for solving your problem, I guess I would have been so annoyed that I would have retired."

"Now that my worries are resolved, I can retire with peace of mind."

Li Huaide was shocked: "What are you talking about? Just retire without worries. I can still work for a few more years. I have a body that can still shine."

"Take it easy. I see you're about to break down." Liu Hua said jokingly, "You spent a lot of time in the steel mill. You must be weak now. I have some aged tiger bone wine. Do you want me to replenish your body?"

Li Huaide immediately stood up and said, "This is a good thing. Is it real? Give me a 10-kilogram one."

"Then go somewhere cooler. You're still weighing 10 or 15 kilograms. You're not afraid of your nose bleeding from the fillings, but I'm afraid that you'll ruin the good stuff."

After Li Huaide's repeated pleas, they finally decided to give him three kilograms of tiger bone wine. Tigers will soon become protected animals, so this good thing should be used less and less.

Li Huaide didn't dare to drink too much, and only drank about half a catty in total. When he returned home in the afternoon, he didn't even bother to sober up or drink a cup of tea to get rid of the smell of alcohol, and immediately went to the leader's office to report the situation.

"Comrade Li Huaide, is this your attitude towards work?"

Before Li Huaide could speak, the leader began to question loudly: "It's only noon, and you reek of alcohol. How can you work in the afternoon? Are you still going to abide by work discipline? If everyone behaves like this, the organization and the people will point fingers at us and scold us, saying that we are good-for-nothings."

"Leader, please calm down. This is understandable." Li Huaide argued, "Wait until I finish my report. I will take any beatings, scoldings or punishments you want."

The leader suppressed his anger and took a deep breath to calm down. He said, "Tell me, if you can't explain it today, I will transfer you to the archives room."

"For more than a year, we have been worried about importing equipment. The equipment we like is not sold to us by others, and even if they are willing to sell it to us, it is very expensive and we cannot afford it."

Upon hearing this, the leader immediately got back to work, sighed and said, "Yes, it's been more than a year, and there's no improvement. If you fall behind, you'll be beaten. Now those bad guys in the West are slapping us in the face, and we have to smile along."

"The customs called me today and said someone had declared a batch of scrap metal, but upon inspection, they found out that it was imported machine tools. I checked and found out that the person who bought the machine tools was Engineer Liu Hua from our department."

Speaking of machine tools, the leader's eyes immediately lit up: "What's going on? Tell me about it in detail."

"Comrade Liu Hua is going to go into business, you know that. He has asked BASF Chemical to help him import machine tools from Hans. This time he has thrown a curve ball."

The whole country is now crazy about table tennis, and Li Huaide's metaphor is very appropriate.

"Curveball, what does that mean?"

"If we buy new machine tools directly from Hans, they won't sell them to us. So Liu Hua contacted a scrap metal recycling company and bought their discarded machine tools that were only 50% or 70% new at the price of scrap metal."

Li Huaide paused for a moment. He felt a little thirsty. He had been busy drinking and chatting at noon, and now he felt a burning sensation in his throat.

(End of this chapter)