Xiangyang Commune oversaw eighteen production teams, but the entire commune only had three telephones—one in the Commune Office, one in the Commune Post and Telecommunications Office, and another in the Commune Armed Forces Department.
Ordinary folks wanting to use the phone for personal matters could hardly even lay eyes on one. As the commune director, Wu Dajun, however, had the privilege of making calls whenever he pleased.
Yuan Xiu followed Wu Dajun to the Reception Room.
Inside sat a young female colleague around twenty years old. Seeing Wu Dajun enter with someone, she smiled and stood up, calling out, “Uncle Dajun.”
Wu Dajun glared at her. The young woman stuck out her tongue and immediately corrected herself, “Director Wu.”
Without further comment, Wu Dajun handed his niece a slip of paper with a phone number and address written on it. “Dial this number.”
Clerk Xiao Wu sat down in front of the telephone, carefully lifted the velvet cloth covering it, picked up the receiver, and began dialing.
“…Hello, hello? Is this the switchboard? I need to place a long-distance call to Province, City. The number is…”
Once the long-distance call was placed, all they could do was wait—for an indefinite amount of time. This was something Yuan Xiu, having returned from the millennium era, found quite unfamiliar. She had almost forgotten just how troublesome it was to make a long-distance call in these times.
Fortunately, luck was on her side this time. Within minutes, the switchboard called back. “Your long-distance call is connected. Please go ahead!”
Clerk Xiao Wu quickly handed the phone to Wu Dajun.
“Hello, hello? This is Xiangyang Commune. I’m Wu Dajun, the commune director. The situation is like this…”
Wu Dajun’s voice boomed as he gripped the receiver tightly against his ear, afraid he might not hear clearly or that the person on the other end might not hear him.
Static crackled from the other end of the line. The phone’s reception was poor, and the person on the other side spoke loudly, allowing Yuan Xiu, standing beside Wu Dajun, to overhear the conversation.
“…Who? Jiang Zhou? His family hasn’t been at the factory for a long time. His father passed away two years ago, his mother remarried, and he joined the army. We even received a letter from his family not long ago—I helped forward it myself. Why is someone still trying to reach him through the factory?”
Wu Dajun glanced at Yuan Xiu before continuing into the phone, “Could you please give me Jiang Zhou’s military unit’s phone number and address? I need to reach him urgently.”
“That won’t do. Military phone numbers aren’t something you can just hand out.”
“Comrade! This is truly urgent, extremely urgent. We must contact Comrade Jiang Zhou immediately!” Wu Dajun raised his voice.
“It’s not that I won’t give it to you—I don’t even know it. As for his address, I had to ask his father’s old comrade-in-arms for it.”
“Could you help us get in touch with that old comrade-in-arms and have him come to the phone?”
Perhaps because the call was coming from a commune office, the person on the other end didn’t make things difficult. “I can try to help with that. He’s actually at the factory…”
Another wait followed. The call wasn’t disconnected, fearing that hanging up would require going through the switchboard again for another long-distance call. Next time, they might not be so lucky—on a bad day, they could end up waiting an entire day.
This time, the wait lasted about ten minutes. First, there was a rustling sound from the other end, then someone picked up the phone. A deep, resonant voice came through, “Hello, who’s looking for Jiang Zhou?”
This time, it was Yuan Xiu who answered the phone. “Hello, my name is Yuan Xiu. I’m Yuan Jianguo’s daughter.”
“Old Yuan’s daughter?” The person on the other end clearly knew Yuan Xiu’s father. “You wrote the last letter, didn’t you? What’s wrong? Has that kid Jiang Zhou still not written back to you?”
Obviously, he was even aware of Yuan Xiu and Jiang Zhou’s childhood betrothal.
“Girl, don’t worry yet. I’ll call right now and give him a piece of my mind! Uncle Zhao will stand up for you!”
Hearing the words “stand up for you,” Yuan Xiu’s nose suddenly stung. She quickly said, “No, please listen to me first.”
Clerk Wu’s eyes grew wider and wider. Could her ears be playing tricks on her?
Was Yuan Xinmin really this despicable?
After Yuan Xiu finished speaking, a loud noise came from the other end of the phone, followed by a string of curses!
“Damn it! That bastard is worse than the little devils! If this were back in the day, I’d have shot him dead with one bullet!”
The voice coming through the phone was loud. Yuan Xiu pressed her ear tightly against the receiver, not wanting to miss a single sound.
She had never met this Uncle Zhao before. When she was little, she had heard her father talk about the comrades-in-arms he had fought alongside. The closest ones were Jiang Zhou’s father and this Uncle Zhao. She had heard he had a particularly fiery temper. It turned out that after he and Jiang Zhou’s father retired from the military, they had been assigned to the same place.
“Girl! I’ll contact Jiang Zhou right away. Don’t be afraid, Uncle Zhao is here. Oh, right, do you need Jiang Zhou’s address? I’ll tell you now. Write it down.”
Clerk Wu handed over a pen and a slip of paper. Yuan Xiu took the pen and carefully noted down the address.
They didn’t say much more. After giving Yuan Xiu a few words of advice, the other end hung up first.
Wu Dajun smiled. “That’s good. They should be able to contact Jiang Zhou right away. Your cousin’s wedding definitely won’t happen now!”
Yuan Xiu showed a grateful smile. “Thank you, Uncle Wu, for helping me, and thank you, Clerk Wu.”
Clerk Wu quickly waved her hand, her eyes burning with the fire of gossip!
Unfortunately, she had to stay and guard the Reception Room and couldn’t leave. She could only watch longingly as her uncle left with Yuan Xiu.
After returning to the office, Wu Dajun asked Yuan Xiu, “Now that you have the address, are you planning to go there right away?”
Yuan Xiu nodded. “Uncle Wu, could you please write me a Letter of Introduction? I plan to leave today.”
Wu Dajun was surprised. “So soon?”
His gaze fell once again on the luggage in the corner. “Yuan Xiu, aren’t you planning to confront your uncle in person? There’s no need to rush to Jiang Zhou’s side right now.”
Yuan Xiu sighed. “My uncle won’t admit it.”
Wu Dajun waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not about whether he admits it or not anymore! Once the military unit receives the call, his lies will fall apart on their own! This isn’t just your family matter—it’s also an issue for our commune. As an employee of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, his behavior will definitely be severely criticized by the commune!”
It would be best if he were expelled from the team!
Yuan Xiu’s eyes flickered. “Uncle Wu, my grandparents are still here. If I stay, they’ll definitely plead for my uncle’s sake. After all, I’m the younger generation…”
Wu Dajun was taken aback. That was indeed a problem. The old couple in the Yuan family weren’t easy to deal with. Back then, if it weren’t for them, the job at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative wouldn’t have fallen into Yuan Xinmin’s hands so quickly.
Yuan Xiu was just a young girl; even if she had some ideas of her own, they likely weren’t many. If it came down to “no complaint, no investigation,” Yuan Xinmin would still get off scot-free.
Thinking this, Wu Dajun’s eyes shifted, and he nodded. “Alright, Uncle Wu won’t try to persuade you anymore. I know you’re in a difficult position.”
He sat down at his desk, picked up a fountain pen, and began writing a Letter of Introduction. After writing just two characters, he suddenly slapped his forehead. “Ah, look at my memory! How could I forget something so important?”
Yuan Xiu pretended not to know. “What’s wrong, Uncle Wu?”
Wu Dajun quickly explained, “That phone call you just made—you need to write a Situation Explanation. It’s not that Uncle Wu is making things difficult for you, but this is a public phone. Every call must have a reason, and unless it’s an emergency, the phone can’t be used casually. You should know that, right?”
Yuan Xiu nodded. Of course she knew. When her father was alive, he worked in the Commune Armed Forces Department, and one of the commune’s three telephones was located there.
“Uncle Wu, I’ll go to the Reception Room right away to fill out the explanation.”
“No need to go to the Reception Room. Write it here.” Wu Dajun took out another blank sheet of paper. “Your situation is quite complicated, so you need to write it out carefully.”
Bent over the desk as she wrote, Yuan Xiu pressed her lips tightly together. With this “explanation,” she believed this “Uncle Wu” would surely drive Yuan Xinmin out of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative.
In her previous life, nearly half of the people in Xiangyang Commune who held public-sector jobs were from the Wu family. Could Wu Dajun, who managed to secure public-sector positions for all his relatives, truly be a “selfless” good cadre?
Yuan Xiu had never imagined she could rely on the little goodwill her father had built while he was alive to get Wu Dajun to help her.
But Yuan Xinmin could—or rather, the job Yuan Xinmin currently held could.
She was an orphaned girl about to marry far away; this job certainly wouldn’t fall into her hands. If Yuan Xinmin were kicked out, another position would open up. How could Wu Dajun possibly let such a golden opportunity slip through his fingers?
As for her, she could, of course, choose not to seek out her so-called fiancé and instead stay here, using this incident to reclaim the job from Yuan Xinmin.
But she didn’t want to stay here anymore. Only she knew how much the old couple had wronged her. Others didn’t. Staying would either mean severing family ties and being condemned by everyone or continuing to be exploited by the old couple.
Right now, she didn’t want them to gain the slightest advantage from her!