When parting ways with the team assisting in the rural areas, Xia Baozhu thanked Yang Wenxiu and Wang Chunmei once again and cheerfully bid farewell to Song Qu.
What surprised her was that Song Qu, who seemed unapproachable, turned out to be quite considerate.
"Comrade Xia, I suggest you go to the factory hospital for a check-up now. You had intermittent breathing pauses earlier, and your breathing rhythm wasn’t quite normal. It’s best to avoid physical labor for the next couple of days. Rest for two days and observe your condition. If you need any help, you can communicate with the organization at any time."
Xia Baozhu nodded repeatedly, "Okay, you’re really too kind!"
The original owner didn’t know much about the factory’s military representative office, but she was aware that military representatives were personnel dispatched by the military to the factory.
Song Qu unexpectedly received a "good person card," but his mood felt subtly complicated.
Director Yang from the factory office listened to their flawless conversation and shook her head. Perhaps she was overthinking things, right?
Xia Baozhu made her way home, guided by the memories in her mind.
Shengyang Shi, where she lived, was a city dominated by heavy industry. Guangming Zhongjichang, a large state-owned factory located in Shengxi Qu, occupied over a thousand acres of land on the western side of the city. Including the employees of its subsidiary factories and their families, the entire factory had nearly 100,000 people.
The employees often referred to Guangming Zhongjichang as Guoying 269 Chang.
The predecessor of Guoying 269 Chang was the "Manzhou Jiqi Zhushi Huishe" established during Japan’s invasion of China.
After Shengxi Qu was designated as a heavy industrial center for machinery and armaments by the invading Japanese army, they extensively developed industrial land in Shengyang. Through military and administrative force, they forcibly requisitioned civilian land, converting surrounding villages and farmland into military-industrial zones.
After their land was seized, many farmers lost their livelihoods and were forced to accept low-price purchases or outright confiscation by the Japanese.
During the Japanese occupation, the factory’s production required a large number of laborers. Those forcibly conscripted included randomly captured civilians and farmers whose land had been seized.
They were called "servants" and worked up to 16 hours a day, living inhumane lives.
Xia Baozhu’s father, Xia Yongwu, and mother, Lin Chunlan, were among those laborers defined as wartime slaves by the Japanese army.
Their home was in Xiaoliucun on the outskirts of Shengxi. After the Japanese army occupied Shengyang, the farmland in Xiaoliucun was seized, and the villagers were forced into destitution. Apart from the young and able-bodied who were captured as laborers, the remaining elderly, weak, sick, and disabled had to reclaim wasteland for farming, living in extreme hardship.
Those laborers who managed to survive the oppression might occasionally bring home some rations or puppet currency.
Both Xia Yongwu and Lin Chunlan had siblings who lost their lives during this period, which brought the two kindred spirits together.
Through relentless struggle, learning skills on their knees to survive, they finally endured until the nationwide liberation.
After the founding of the People’s Republic, the state took over and reformed these factories, utilizing the existing industrial foundation while also achieving technological upgrades with Soviet assistance. This supported the industrialization of New China at the fastest pace during the 1950s.
Thus, Xia Yongwu and Lin Chunlan became employees of Guoying 269 Chang.
The heavy machinery factory welcomed a brighter future, and so did they.
Thinking of this, Xia Baozhu felt a mix of emotions. If she hadn’t traveled to this era and hadn’t inherited the original owner’s memories, she would have found it hard to understand: with the times so turbulent and life so bitter, wasn’t having children just adding to the burden?
But now she understood—children in turbulent times were the hope, and without hope, one couldn't endure even by gritting one's teeth.
Gritting one's teeth and persevering was meaningful, at least for them, because the life they now lived was something they had never dared to imagine before.
Apart from its subsidiary factories, Factory 269 also had a hospital, a department store, a cultural palace, a workers' club, a post office, a bathhouse, a swimming pool, a cinema, and an entire education and healthcare system ranging from nurseries to high schools.
The aim was to ensure that every worker could wholeheartedly contribute to the construction of socialist industrialization.
In the original host's memories, her mother, Lin Chunlan, was always working overtime.
She didn't know how her three older siblings and she herself had grown up, but she did know about her younger brother, Xia Baojian.
When Xia Baojian was just a few months old, he would be sent to the nursery during work hours, and her father, Xia Yongwu, and eldest brother, Xia Changzheng, would pick him up after work.
Once, Xia Baojian had a fever so severe it nearly left him with brain damage.
At that time, Lin Chunlan had already been working overtime continuously for over a month on the final assembly and debugging for the National Day tribute. When she was called home, she was overwhelmed, and her first words were: "If he has a fever, take him to the hospital! What do you need me for? If all of you can't bring his temperature down, what good will calling me back do?"
After saying that, she hurriedly left.
This incident left a deep mark on the original host's heart. She felt her grandmother was right—her mother was neglectful of the family, selfish, and didn't love her children.
Therefore, when Lin Chunlan talked to her, saying she and Teng Fei were not a good match and hoping she would consider calling off the engagement, she believed her great love was about to be destroyed by a mother who didn't value family, and she felt nothing but resistance.
Xia Baozhu, however, was pleasantly surprised. A career-oriented mother was great! Better not pay attention to her…
Lost in thought as she sorted through the information in her mind, Xia Baozhu walked through the residential area without stopping, heading toward the Xia family home.
Closest to the east gate was the area of small two-story red-brick buildings, where the factory leaders lived—the Party Committee Secretary, the factory director, deputy directors, chief engineers, and others. Teng Fei's family also lived in this area.
Before 1960, when the Soviet Union unilaterally tore up over 600 economic and technological cooperation agreements, leading to the complete breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations, the Soviet experts stationed in China at the time also lived in this area.
To the north of the residential area were rows of four-story Soviet-style slanted-roof buildings, equipped with central heating and toilets—a product of the Sino-Soviet honeymoon period.
Xia Baozhu's family lived in a small courtyard house in the southern part.
Although the layout consisted of only two rooms and a kitchen, these two rooms were side-by-side, large blue-brick tiled houses. After her family built walls to divide them, they managed to fit over a dozen people into four rooms.
To be precise, thirteen people.
Her father, Xia Yongwu; her mother, Lin Chunlan; her eldest brother, Xia Changzheng, and his family of four; her second brother, Xia Chang'an, and his family of four; her sister, Xia Baozhen; and her younger brother, Xia Baojian.
Her parents and younger brother, Xia Baojian, lived in the outer room of the west wing, while Xia Baozhu and her sister lived in the inner room of the west wing. The east wing was divided into two with an additional door installed, with each of the two brothers' families living on one side.
In the southeast corner of the small courtyard was the kitchen, and in the southwest corner stood a stone table used for meals during warm weather.
Next to the kitchen was a small washroom with a cement basin, only large enough for one person to wash their face or brush their teeth.
The most important point: this small courtyard had no toilet!