It wasn’t just Jiang Erzhu. Even Feng Aidi stood nearby watching, her heart aching as though it were bleeding.
Seeing this, Shu An picked up a piece of fried dried fish and stuffed it directly into Feng Aidi’s mouth. “Mom, is it good?”
Feng Aidi instinctively chewed the little fish that had been stuffed into her mouth. It was fragrant and crispy, with plenty of oil. She couldn’t help licking the corner of her mouth.
“Good, good. It’s really delicious!”
“Exactly, Mom. Look, your daughter-in-law is about to have a job. From now on, we may not eat this kind of fried fish every day, but we can definitely afford to have it once or twice a month. So don’t mind Dad. Let’s just eat ours.”
Feng Aidi wasn’t stupid. She immediately understood what her daughter-in-law meant and nodded.
“That’s right, Mom. That’s more like it.” Shu An nodded with a smile. Her mother-in-law was still teachable.
Early the next morning, Shu An dressed neatly, packed her things, got on the bicycle her elder brother had given her, and headed to the factory.
The birds by the roadside were chirping away early in the morning. Shu An was in such a good mood that she started humming a song.
“The sun is shining bright~ The flowers smile at me~ The little birds say, ‘Good morning, good morning, good morning~ Why are you carrying a bomb?’”
“I’m going to blow up the school~ The teacher doesn’t know. I’ll pull the wire and run, and with a boom, the school will be blown away!”
“BOOM—!!!”
Just as she sang the lyric about the school being blown up with a boom, a tremendous explosion suddenly erupted from a truck ahead of her.
Everyone nearby froze. Two cyclists who were close to the truck were even knocked off their bicycles by the blast wave.
With a loud screech, the truck slammed on the brakes and came to a stop.
Fortunately, they hadn’t yet left the city, so the truck wasn’t traveling very fast. Otherwise, that sudden stop could very well have caused it to overturn.
Clearly, there was only one thing that could make such a tremendous noise—the tires. One of the tires had obviously blown out.
Shu An wobbled her way over on her bicycle and looked down.
Sure enough, the truck’s two rear tires had blown out.
Then she noticed something on the ground. Why were there bits of debris here? They looked like scraps of iron, with sharp edges, apparently shaken loose from the truck.
A man immediately climbed down from the truck. He took a look at the tires, and his face instantly turned ashen.
“Just my luck! Why did the tire have to blow at a time like this?”
Shu An had originally wanted to suggest that they go to her factory for help since it was nearby. But when she suddenly noticed the work uniform the man was wearing, she stopped herself.
She glanced at some things visible through the gaps in the truck and immediately rode away.
She cycled all the way to the factory and went straight to the guardhouse, greeting Uncle Zhao.
“Good morning, Uncle Zhao!”
“Oh, Comrade Shu! Morning! You’re here this early to start work?”
“Mm. It’s my first day, after all. I want to make a good impression.”
After greeting him, Shu An deliberately put on a hesitant expression.
“By the way, Uncle Zhao, could I borrow the telephone for a moment? I want to call my uncle’s factory.”
“I saw one of their trucks having some trouble on the road just now. I want to give them a call and let them know, so they can send someone over to repair it. Otherwise, it’ll take quite a while to walk back and forth.”
“This…” Zhao Youhan hesitated for a moment. “All right, go ahead and make the call. But be quick, okay? Don’t use it to chat.”
Normally, outsiders weren’t allowed to use the factory telephone casually. But she was calling another factory to help them deal with a problem, so it could be considered a good deed.
“Mm-hmm, thank you, Uncle Zhao!”
Knowing that her uncle always went to work early, Shu An immediately dialed the number.
“Hello? Uncle, it’s me, Shu An.”
Shu Huairen was a little puzzled to receive a call so early in the morning. Just yesterday, he had heard from his younger brother that this girl had managed to get herself a job at the automobile factory through her own abilities. She had moved fast—she was already calling him today.
“Uncle, let me tell you, I saw something on the road…”
Shu An quickly told him everything she had just witnessed.
After hearing this, Shu Huairen’s expression changed. A smile immediately curled at the corner of his mouth.
“Good, An’an. Your uncle understands. Don’t say anything for now. Just go to work as usual.”
After hanging up, he immediately picked up the telephone on his desk and called the security department.
It hadn’t been easy. Ever since his niece had told him about the problem, he had investigated several times and even managed to find out which vehicles had used the most fuel over the past few months.
He had been trying to uncover evidence that these people were embezzling and stealing state property. But the group had been extremely careful, and there was no way he could constantly keep an eye on the trucks coming and going.
Fortunately, his niece had happened to stumble across it.
After telling her uncle about the matter, Shu An breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that whatever happened afterward had nothing to do with her.
She parked her bicycle and went straight to the office her cousin had taken her to the previous day.
Before long, more and more people arrived. When they saw Shu An, their expressions were somewhat strange, but they were all clearly curious.
They returned to their own desks, their eyes occasionally drifting toward her while they slowly arranged the things on their desks.
“What are you all doing? What, staring at Shu An will make a flower grow? If you have that much free time to stare, you’d be better off putting your attention on your blueprints. Every last one of you—pigs are smarter!”
A loud scolding suddenly came from behind Shu An.
She immediately turned around and saw Gou Deshun.
She grinned at once. “Good morning, Master!”
“Mm, morning.”
In front of Shu An, Gou Deshun immediately became a completely different person.
“You’re here this early? Come, this is your workstation. I specifically had them move this desk over yesterday. I’ve put some notebooks and pens on it for you. Anything else, you’ll have to get yourself.”
Gou Deshun pointed toward one of the desks.
“All right! Thank you, Master!”
Shu An sat down and began arranging her things. There was quite a bit of dust on the desk, clearly because it had just been moved out of storage.
There was another female colleague sitting nearby. When she saw Shu An cleaning, she suddenly handed her a handkerchief.
Shu An immediately looked up.
The woman who had handed it to her was petite and adorable. When she saw Shu An looking at her, she smiled.
“Hello, my name is Ruan Tang.”
“Hello, I’m Shu An. Comrade Ruan Tang, you really are just like your name.”
“Soft candy”—Ruan Tang’s name sounded like that. She really did look like a little piece of candy, especially sweet. When she smiled, two little dimples appeared on her cheeks.
Hearing Shu An compliment her, Ruan Tang immediately smiled until her eyes curved into crescent moons.
“I know you, Comrade Shu An. I heard all about you. You really showed off your skills at our factory the day before yesterday!”
“It’s just a pity I was on leave that day, otherwise I could have seen it myself. Here, use my handkerchief to wipe the desk.”
“Master Gou and the others had someone move the desk over yesterday. I’m guessing they didn’t help you clean it. These men are always so careless when they do things.”
“Okay, thank you!”
Shu An smiled and accepted the handkerchief. She wiped the entire desk clean, inside and out, then washed the handkerchief and hung it up to dry so she could return it to Ruan Tang.
Just as the two women were chatting, someone walked in from outside.