Video Editor

Three weeks after the CATL battery factory project briefing, Suning stood on a hillside outside Suyang Village, the sea breeze carrying a salty, fishy smell.

He looked down at the once familiar mudflats, now scarred by the tracks of bulldozers.

Those deep ruts, like gaping wounds, turned into muddy gullies after days of rain, winding their way into the distance.

"Chairman, the Environmental Protection Bureau's approval still hasn't come through." Li Wentao approached, holding a black umbrella.

His Italian handmade leather shoes were already covered in mud, and the cuffs of his crisp suit trousers were also splattered with mud.

The project director, who had come from the Los Angeles headquarters, looked exhausted. "Deputy County Head Zhou sent someone to tell us that Sandu'ao Industrial has been ordered to cease production, but they are very interested in our battery project. Unless we agree to Sandu'ao Industrial holding a 30% stake, otherwise..."

"Hmph! Otherwise, you'll just let the villagers continue to make trouble, won't you?" Su Ning sneered, a few fine lines appearing at the corners of his eyes.

"..." At this moment, Li Wentao also felt particularly aggrieved, but sometimes that's just how helpless and frustrated he felt.

The same applies to doing business in Los Angeles; compromise seems to have become the essence of human life.

On the distant mudflats, a dozen villagers were unfurling a banner; the white strips of cloth stood out starkly against the gray sky.

Su Lie, who was leading the way, was still shouting through a megaphone. His voice was broken by the sea breeze, and only the words "pollution" and "black-hearted enterprise" could be vaguely heard.

They seem completely unconcerned about Suning's announcement of the project's suspension, as if they are determined to ruin the project.

Suning's phone suddenly vibrated in his suit pocket. He took it out and glanced at it; it was a quarterly financial report from the Los Angeles headquarters.

Yung-In Electronics' market share in the United States is being eroded by South Korean companies, and every day that the new energy project is delayed means millions of dollars of sunk R&D costs.

He took a deep breath; the salty, damp air carried the smell of rotting seaweed.

On his way back to the temporary office, Suning's black Mercedes was blocked by a group of villagers holding up signs.

Those rough wooden signs were covered with shocking photos...

Piles of dead fish, deformed oysters, and children with festering skin were displayed, with the words "Foreign-invested enterprises get out" written in large red paint next to them. The paint flowed down the wood grain, looking just like blood.

"Ah Ning!" A tall, dark-skinned man pounded on the car window, veins bulging on his temples.

Su Ning recognized him as his childhood playmate and good older brother, Su Lie, but that once sunny face was now filled with resentment.

"Look at this! Before your factory was even built, bosses came to buy up the mudflats, driving the price down to below cabbage!"

Su Ning rolled down the car window, and a gust of sea breeze carrying the smell of fish rushed in, causing him to squint: "Brother Lie, where did these photos come from? Our technology is completely incapable of..."

"Who would believe that!" An old fisherman with a wrinkled face squeezed through the crowd, spitting on Su Ning's face.

The fishy smell on the old man, mixed with the odor of cheap tobacco, was nauseating.

“Boss Zhou said, you Americans are all liars! My son, who works at a battery factory in Fuding, was diagnosed with leukemia last year!”

"Uncle Chen, would you rather trust that man surnamed Zhou than your own nephews and nieces?"

"Hmph! You can know a person's face but not their heart! Who knows what you've learned all these years in America?"

"..."

Suning clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms.

He recognized the old man as Uncle Chen, the village's best seaweed dryer, whom he used to deliver seaweed and laver to when he was a child.

Now, those calloused hands are angrily shaking his car door, with black stains from oyster shells still clinging to his fingers.

As the crowd grew larger, someone threw an oyster shell, which smashed against the windshield with a "bang," leaving a spiderweb-like crack.

The driver hurriedly reversed the car. In the rearview mirror, Su Lie's figure holding the horn grew smaller and smaller, but it was like a thorn deeply embedded in Su Ning's eyes.

That night, the coordination meeting of the Ningde Municipal Government lasted until 2 a.m.

The meeting room was filled with smoke. Deputy County Head Zhou spoke in an official tone, emphasizing that "no matter is too small when it comes to the interests of the masses." The Director of the Environmental Protection Bureau flipped through endless documents, his glasses reflecting a cold light. Meanwhile, the village representatives refused to attend.

Only Su Mingde sat silently in the corner, the tea leaves in the white porcelain cup in front of him sinking and floating, long since losing their color.

"Dad, you should go back and rest. It's not a matter of life or death," Su Ning said softly, squatting down beside her father during a break in the meeting.

He noticed that his father had more gray hair, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes resembled a dried-up riverbed.

Su Mingde shook his head and took out a brown paper envelope from his old leather bag that he had used for twenty years: "This is a joint letter from twenty-seven households in Suyang Village, with their fingerprints on it."

The old man's rough fingers traced the envelope, his knuckles swollen and deformed from years of hard labor. "That boy, Ah Lie... he's too impatient."

Besides the joint letter, the envelope also contained a yellowed photograph—fifteen-year-old Su Ning and eighteen-year-old Su Lie digging for clams on the mudflats, the two mud monkeys grinning from ear to ear.

The date, July 1985, is written on the back of the photo in ballpoint pen.

The mudflats were teeming with mudskippers and fiddler crabs, and the setting sun cast long, long shadows of the two boys.

The following morning, a torrential downpour began.

Su Ning braved the rain to visit Su Lie's house, only to find a rusty lock on the iron gate and a thick layer of dust on the windowsill.

His neighbor told him that Su Lie had led the villagers to petition the provincial government, and the elderly in his family were so angry that they were hospitalized.

"What a tragedy..." The aunt shook her head, holding up her umbrella. Rainwater streamed down the ribs, forming puddles at her feet. "Ah Lie's father lent your family all the money he could have saved for your schooling and wedding. And now look what's happened, you've become rich and come back to ruin the village..."

Rainwater seeped into Suning's suit collar, chilling him to the bone.

He suddenly remembered that when he was in his second year of high school, his second uncle had indeed sent him twenty yuan, saying that he wanted to buy postgraduate entrance exam materials.

At that time, my family was so poor that we couldn't even afford to eat many eggs, but that money came at the right time and in a strange way.

He never imagined that it might be the bride price from Su Lie's family, after all, Su Lie was already of marriageable age at those years.

Back in the temporary office, Suning convened a closed-door meeting with the core team.

The projector lit up, and Li Wentao pulled up a set of comparative data:
"Chairman, the land price in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park is three times that of Ningde, but the talent density is 17 times higher, and the infrastructure is much more complete..."

“New energy companies in Suzhou Industrial Park enjoy greater tax incentives, and…” The CFO pushed up his glasses, the lenses reflecting a cold blue light, “there is no interference from local protectionism or excessive industry malpractices.”

As the slides flipped through the pages, each number spoke a cold, hard truth: sentimentality cannot overcome the laws of business.

Outside the window, raindrops pattered against the glass, like countless tiny fingers tapping on his conscience.

"Give me three more days," Su Ning suddenly said, her voice so hoarse it startled even herself.

Because his father, Su Mingde, was still unwilling to give up, he felt that there was only a misunderstanding, but little did he know that some things were really complicated.

Then, Su Ning took her father to the county hospital in the rain, where they met her second uncle, who was on an IV drip, in a corridor filled with the smell of disinfectant.

The old man in the hospital bed saw them, his cloudy eyes lit up for a moment, then quickly dimmed again.

"Second Brother, Aning has come to see you," Su Mingde said softly, his voice choked with emotion. His second uncle turned his face away, revealing a lump the size of an egg on the back of his head…

He fell while trying to stop villagers from removing the survey markers last week.

The bruise stood out starkly against his graying hair.

"Second Uncle, where is Brother Lie?" Su Ning grasped the old man's withered hand, feeling the fragile bones beneath his skin.

"He went to the provincial capital to file a complaint..." My second uncle's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping, "He said he wanted to do what they do on TV... sue the government..."

The ward door was suddenly kicked open, and Su Lie rushed in, soaking wet. He was clearly taken aback when he saw Su Ning.

He clutched a crumpled petition receipt in his hand, his cuffs were still covered in mud, and his trouser legs were covered in mud spots, as if he had just trekked across the mudflats.

“Ah Ning.” Su Lie nodded stiffly, then turned to the hospital bed. “Dad, the province said this matter is under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Bureau, so it’s been sent back to Ningde.”

His voice was full of exhaustion and disappointment.

The air in the room seemed to freeze.

One drop, two drops of medicine in the IV tubing, like a countdown to something.

“Brother Lie,” Su Ning took a deep breath, the smell of the sea and disinfectant mixing together, causing a sharp pain in his stomach, “I can move the factory area another kilometer north and add another 20 million to build an ecological buffer zone…”

"And then?" Su Lie turned around abruptly, his eyes bloodshot. "Boss Zhou's plastic factory is resuming operations and discharging pollutants? Our oysters aren't fetching a good price? All the young people are running off to find work elsewhere?"

He grabbed the photo from the bedside table—the very same group photo that Su Ning had seen. The glass frame trembled in his hand. “Ah Ning, you’ve flown away, but we still have to live here!”

"I just want my hometown to develop better. No matter how well the oyster farming area is developed, it's not very meaningful. Why not switch to a bigger, more profitable business?"

"Hmph! That's just your opinion; everyone in the village, young and old, is against it."

"Brother Lie, it's clearly that Zhou's lousy factory that's polluting the environment, but you don't dare to stand up to Zhou, instead you're targeting my project?"

"Ah Ning, I don't understand what you're saying!"

Su Mingde suddenly clutched his chest, his face turning deathly pale.

"Dad!" Su Ning rushed over to support her father, feeling the old man's frail body trembling violently.

"The medicine... in my pocket..." Su Mingde pointed with difficulty to his coat pocket.

Su Ning frantically rummaged through the nitroglycerin, watching as her father put it under his tongue. Soon, Su Mingde slowly returned to normal.

The sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the corridor as medical staff rushed in pushing emergency equipment.

Amidst the chaos, Su Lie grabbed Su Ning's arm and forcefully defended himself:

“Ah Ning, I’m not trying to force you…” The young face was contorted, indistinguishable between rain and tears, “but the villagers all say that you’ve made a fortune in America and are coming back to bleed your hometown dry…”

Suning was struck dumb.

He looked at his second uncle lying on the hospital bed, then at his father's pale face, and suddenly realized that he was trapped in an unsolvable predicament...

No matter how much money is invested, it can never satisfy the greed of local forces and the suspicion of the villagers.

This is why it's easier for outsiders to earn money; it's easier for acquaintances to make money than for outsiders to earn it.

"Alright, Brother Lie, I'm withdrawing my investment! I won't invest in my hometown anymore."

“Ah Ning, it’s not that I don’t want you to invest, it’s just…”

"Alright! There's no point in explaining anything now."

"..."

The sound of rain outside the window grew louder and louder, as if it would flood the entire town.

Three days later, Yongren Group announced that it was officially suspending the CATL new energy battery project due to "adjustments in technical routes".

On the same day, a brief news item appeared in a corner of the financial section: Shanghai Pudong New Area signed a strategic cooperation agreement with a US-funded enterprise.

……

In an office building in Lujiazui, Shanghai, Su Ning gazed absently at the Huangpu River outside the window.

Six months later, Yongren New Energy's R&D center in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, has been put into use, and its first production line in Suzhou Industrial Park is about to be put into operation.

Everything here is so efficient it's almost unbelievable...

Fire safety inspections were completed in three days, recruitment was fully booked within a week, and even import and export customs clearance was handled by dedicated personnel.

"President Su, this is a letter we just received from Ningde." The secretary gently placed a registered letter down, the envelope stained with a trace of sea salt.

The envelope contained Su Lie's handwriting, saying that the plastic factory owned by Deputy County Chief Zhou's brother-in-law was eventually shut down, but the tidal flat ecosystem had been destroyed, and oyster production had plummeted.

Enclosed with the letter was a new photograph: Su Lie standing on a barren mudflat, with a cross-sea bridge under construction behind him.

His figure appeared exceptionally small against the backdrop of the massive bridge piers.

"By the way! The old man's medical report is in." The secretary handed over another folder. "The experts at Ruijin Hospital said that the coronary artery blockage has improved a lot compared to when the examination was conducted in Ningde."

Suning looked to the other side of the office...

The father was studying a map of Shanghai while wearing his reading glasses, planning to take Su Wen to the museum this weekend.

The sunlight outside the window was just right, shining on the old man's relaxed brow.

In the past six months, my father's complexion has indeed improved a lot, and he no longer has the same furrowed brow as he did in Ningde.

My phone vibrated; it was a message from the head of the Suzhou factory: "The first batch of battery samples has passed EU standard certification, and we can confirm the mass production schedule by next Wednesday."

After replying to the email, Suning took one last look at Su Qiang's photo before gently locking it in the drawer.

He knew he could never go back to that summer when he dug for clams.

But at least, in the shimmering waves of the Huangpu River, he found a new course.

Outside the window, a cargo ship was slowly sailing out to sea, leaving a long trail on the river surface, which was then smoothed out by the current, as if nothing had happened.

In fact, Su Lie knew that it didn't matter whether he invested in his hometown or not; his oyster farm was destined to end anyway.

However, they really couldn't accept that Suning was the behind-the-scenes owner; they always felt that it would make them feel particularly stifled.

Now it's all good. From now on, I will have no connection with my hometown anymore. Whether the people in my hometown prosper or decline, it has nothing to do with me.

...(End of chapter)