1994: Starting with unpaid leave

"Oh? You can take care of kids?"

The second aunt and second uncle exchanged a glance, both seeing confusion in each other's eyes.

As the youngest child in the Dong family, Dong Jianguo was notorious for being... a troublemaker.

Although the young man is tall and handsome, he takes advantage of being the youngest child and always avoids hard work, showing no spirit of enduring hardship, whether at home or at work.

After graduating from junior college, the first job the labor bureau assigned him was as a foundry worker in a weighing instrument factory. After only two days, he complained about how hard and tiring it was and said he didn't want to work there anymore.

In the end, it was through his second uncle's connections that Dong Jianguo's parents found the factory manager of the weighing instrument factory. They gave him a bottle of Beidacang liquor and a pack of Hongtashan cigarettes, which finally got Dong Jianguo transferred to the fine weaving factory as an air conditioner worker, a job with a less demanding job.

As for taking care of children... they're quite adept at getting kids into trouble.

Last year during the Spring Festival, Jianguo came to visit. Bored, he took his four nephews out to set off firecrackers.

You told me to find a place to set off firecrackers, but you insisted on taking a whole string of firecrackers apart and then secretly led four kids to a public toilet to blow up poop...

What's most infuriating is that he himself stayed far away and let his nephews set the fire!

He just patted his behind and left, leaving behind four little yellow men...

Now that Jianguo has offered to help educate the children, Aunt Erda can't help but blame herself for complaining too much earlier...

Dong Jianguo knew that his previous image in front of his second uncle and aunt wasn't very reliable, so without waiting for them to say anything, he simply waved to his two nephews:

"Dong Chao, Dong Yue, tell your uncle, do you want to play this?!"

"I want to~"

The two 8-year-old boys answered in unison, their eyes shining.

"Okay, you can play, but you have to finish your summer homework first! After you finish, bring it to your aunt to check. If there are no problems, you can play together for half an hour."

"Huh? You can only play for half an hour?"

"How long do you want to play?"

"We want to play like this forever!"

"Good lad, you've got guts! Your uncle has given you special permission to play video games for half an hour every day for the rest of your lives!"

"Great!" The two children clearly hadn't learned the idiom "changing one's mind frequently," and Dong Jianguo was very adept at fooling them.

He grabbed the two boys who were about to run away: "Uncle's got this in plain sight: if you two don't do your homework properly and try to fool us, or if you make a ruckus while doing your homework, I'll take this learning machine away! Understand?!"

"Okay, Uncle, we'll definitely do our homework well!"

As the leader of the children, he still has that much authority.

The two boys, fearing that their precious treasure would be taken away, nodded frantically in agreement.

But Dong Jianguo's demands went beyond that:

"Also, what were your class rankings last semester?"

"I'm ranked 21st, and my brother is ranked 26th."

"If either of you doesn't get into the top 15 next semester, I'm taking the learning machine with me too! Understand?!"

"ah?!"

The two boys looked distressed, but seeing their precious child so close, they finally nodded in agreement.

After the two children went back to their room to do their homework, the second aunt couldn't resist following them to check on them, only to be chased out by her two grandsons:

"Grandma, please don't disturb us while we're doing our homework, or Uncle will take the learning machine away!"

After closing the door, Aunt Er couldn't help but lean over and listen for a while. The room was eerily quiet, with only the scratching sound of pencil marks on the grid paper.

She couldn't help but smile as she walked back to the table; it had been so long since the house had been this quiet.

"I never would have guessed, youngest son, your skills are good enough to be an elementary school teacher!"

Dong Jianguo chuckled. When he was a supermarket owner in Shenzhen, he managed hundreds of employees very well. Now, managing these two nephews is a piece of cake.

He took the opportunity to open the learning machine box and took out two game cards and one learning card:

"Second Uncle, Second Aunt, these three cards, one is for studying and the other two are for playing games, they are all marked on them."

"From now on, these two kids can play for a while after they finish their homework, but not for too long. It's best to take a half-hour break in between, otherwise it's bad for their eyes."

"This learning card contains materials for junior high school students to learn foreign languages. It can't hurt to let them learn in advance."

"When Huguo's two sons come back, you'll have to make the same demands of them! If they don't listen, go tell my mom, and I'll deal with them!"

He spoke loudly on purpose, making sure the two brats in the room could hear him.

"Let me connect the machine to the TV for you first, and I'll also show you how to bring up the video."

Without waiting for the two elders to say anything, she carried the box into the master bedroom of her second uncle's house.

Logically speaking, the Second Uncle's family should be well-off, but because they have many grandchildren, their standard of living is not much different from that of an ordinary family. They have the same Panda color TV in their home as their own.

Dong Jianguo quickly set up the machine and taught his second aunt how to use it.

Meanwhile, Dong Chao and Dong Yue, the two brothers in the room, had finished their summer homework for the day and excitedly ran out to ask their aunt, Zhou Xiuyun, to check it.

While waiting, the two brothers' eyes darted around, as if they wanted to bury their heads in the TV.

Dong Jianguo kept his word and, after confirming that there were no problems with the homework, beckoned to his two nephews and let them play the game console.

He sat to the side like a grandmaster, occasionally offering a word of advice.

My two nephews were playing Contra, and they kept making mistakes, using up all their lives before they even passed the first level.

Dong Jianguo couldn't stand it anymore, so he used a series of up-down-up-down-left-right-left-right-BA commands to give them 30 lives, which amazed the two brothers so much that they wished they could treat him like a god!

"Uncle, you're amazing!"

"Go ahead and play! Once you've mastered it, it's all yours!"

Dong Jianguo smiled and patted his two nephews' heads, accepting their admiration with satisfaction.

After all, Uncle Er was the factory director and had a lot of experience. He knew that things were not as simple as they seemed.

Jianguo came over tonight to bring gifts and set rules for his two nephews; there must be another reason.

So, while the adults' attention was focused on the child, he patted Dong Jianguo on the shoulder and called him into the living room.

The two sat down again, and Dong Xuefeng, the second eldest uncle, took out a pack of hand-rolled cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out, and handed it to Dong Jianguo:

"Young man, I bet you're having some trouble. Is it something to do at work?"

Dong Jianguo took the cigarette and chuckled:

"Second Uncle, you have a really good eye for people!"

He picked up the matchbox on the table, lit a cigarette for his second uncle, and then briefly told him about things at the factory through the rising smoke.

When the second uncle heard that Secretary Wang had used his position for personal revenge, causing his nephew to be suspended without pay at the factory, he frowned.

"This is outrageous! She's just the factory manager's secretary, yet she dares to do something like this! If she were to actually take on a management position, who knows what kind of chaos she'd cause!"

"Are you suggesting I use my connections to see if I can get Director Gao to rescind your punishment?"

The fire equipment factory where Uncle Er worked was just a subordinate tertiary industry unit of the railway bureau.

At that time, the main business of state-owned enterprises was often subject to state planning and control, and little profit was retained after being handed over to the state.

In order to increase employee benefits and make up for insufficient office funds, various units have set up "tertiary industries" to earn extra income.

In addition to the aforementioned roles, enterprises belonging to the tertiary sector also have an important function: to provide housing for children and surplus personnel.

When the children of state-owned enterprise employees reach employment age, or when there are "idle" people or their family members within the company who are not easy to arrange into the core production workshop, they are all stuffed into the "tertiary industry" companies.

Therefore, such units were also known as "relocation-type" enterprises at the time.

Meanwhile, the fire equipment factory where Uncle Dong Xuefeng worked had placed many of the children of its leaders in jobs...

So when it comes to connections, Uncle Er is truly exceptional.

But Dong Jianguo shook his head upon hearing this...