Chapter 1609 - Undercurrents in the Library

"Those bastards!" Seeing the newly posted Elder resolution on the BBS—the proposal to establish an Elder Council Security Committee and Budget Committee—Lu Xuan couldn't help cursing. His voice wasn't loud, but Cheng Yongxin in the office across the hall heard him and immediately rewarded him with a withering glare. "No class!" The three words flew across like throwing knives, thunk-thunk-thunk, striking Lu Xuan in the chest.

When Elder Lu had first moved to Gaoshan Ridge, he'd had designs on the literary young woman in the office opposite his. He had made several flirtatious overtures; within a few months, he had given up. By now, her barbs meant nothing to him.

"Pretentious bitch!" he cursed silently. He noticed a flush on Cheng Yongxin's face—something rare of late. That was odd: during the Maid Case a while back, she had been running around stirring things up, constantly slipping out of work and neglecting the Grand Library's daily affairs until Director Yu had blown a gasket. Though no one said anything directly (they were all Elders, after all), no one had given her a pleasant look either.

Then, for some unknown reason, she had suddenly started showing up for work regularly, though her mood had been noticeably subdued. It wasn't until the recent terrorist attack that her face had regained its vibrancy. At the moment, she was drinking her self-brewed coffee, filling the entire corridor with its sour aroma.

The coffee was a special supply from the Executive Office, supposedly imported specifically from the Middle East. Some Elders were wild about it; others, like Lu Xuan, found it utterly repulsive.

Watching Cheng Yongxin drink her coffee with such obvious high spirits, Lu Xuan grew curious: What was she reading?

He got up, ambled across to her office, stretched luxuriously, and walked up behind her. He sniffed ostentatiously at the air around her and said with an ingratiating smile: "Sis, did you switch perfumes again? Could you give me a bottle? There's a girl in this session's Administrative Training Class who has maybe sixty percent of your looks—if she wore your perfume, she'd be just like you."

"Mr. Lu, please watch your language. We're not that familiar. This is sexual harassment," Cheng Yongxin said coldly. "Also, I have no interest in straight men with toxic masculinity." She was long accustomed to Lu Xuan's behavior and showed no warmth. Her attention returned to the screen.

Lu Xuan didn't mind. He had already seen what was on the screen: the same content he'd been reading.

So Miss Cheng is reading about the proposal to audit the Political Security Bureau and establish Security and Budget Committees. All this energy directed inward instead of outward—while the girls on the mainland are crying out for rescue, these people have nothing better to do than fight among themselves? No wonder Cheng Yongxin's "stir up trouble" mode is back. Lu Xuan grumbled to himself.

"You really think that's me? I'm bent—truly bent! Ask Yun Hong if you don't believe me!" Lu Xuan said aloud, grinning as he sauntered back to his office.

Cheng Yongxin buried her head without a word. Lu Xuan watched her, looking like she'd just gotten a shot of adrenaline, and a cold smile flickered across his face.

He glanced at the wooden quartz clock on the wall—one of the perks of working at the Grand Library—it was nearly ten o'clock. Ten o'clock was when he had his regular meeting with the Director. Ever since he had become the Grand Library's Office Manager, he had gradually and subtly established this custom.

Lu Xuan went upstairs to Yu Eshui's office door, composed himself, and knocked on the half-open door. At the sound of "Come in," he pushed it open. Yu Eshui didn't look up and kept writing. He said "Sit" without stopping. Lu Xuan didn't sit down immediately. He surveyed the office and, seeing that Director Yu's teacup was empty, took the thermos from the tea cabinet and refilled it.

"Director, it's almost eleven. I noticed you haven't gotten up since you came in this morning. You really should move around—prolonged sitting is bad for your health. And our medical care here is pretty substandard..." Lu Xuan said as he poured the water. Only then did Yu Eshui look up.

In truth, Yu Eshui knew it was Lu Xuan without looking. In the Elder internal hierarchy, the sense of rank between superior and subordinate was fairly blurred, especially at a policy research institution like the Grand Library, where Elders treated each other quite casually. Lu Xuan was the only Elder who consistently addressed Yu Eshui with formal "you" and maintained a respectful demeanor—an Elder who had been working under him for a full four years. In those years, the Elder Council had flourished unstoppably in Hainan, and the Grand Library's Elders had come and gone in wave after wave. One by one, they had moved on to administrative posts—several had even become county chiefs, earning the library the nickname "Elder Council County Chief Training Class." Those who hadn't moved up had at least gone to the ever-expanding administrative apparatus to become something like a department head or director. By now, Lu Xuan was the only male Elder under forty still loafing around the Grand Library.

According to Lu Xuan's personnel file: Before the transmigration, he had been a civil servant in a municipal agency—an in-service graduate student in law, with one of those party-school credentials that came without a proper degree certificate. He was thus doubly looked down upon by proper undergraduates and law-program graduates alike, which meant Lu Xuan had never been admitted to the Law Council.

Under "Skills," he had written only "computer operation." In an Elder Council where PhDs lined up and Master's formed companies, Lu Xuan was now classified as an "Administrative Reserve Elder"—a tactful term coined after the first Elder Assembly for "Basic Labor Force Elders." When the administrative apparatus was first being built, he had volunteered to join the Grand Library. Because his skill set was minimal and he was personally lazy, he had spent the past several years doing odd jobs at the library.

In the early years of the First Five-Year Plan, when everything was still being established, Elders often held multiple positions simultaneously—and the Planning Committee naturally wasn't going to let Lu Xuan sit idle. He had been roped into just about everything: support for agriculture, education, the military, border regions, construction—wherever an Elder was needed to fill a gap and no one else wanted to, Lu Xuan was there. By now, he held a string of titles: Fragrant-Grass Academy (Liberal Arts) Teacher, Apprentice Corps Cultural Instructor, General Staff Political Department Cultural Instructor, Gaoshan Ridge District Militia Commander-in-Chief, Data Center Technical Division Deputy Director, Arbitration Tribunal Legal Outreach Office Publicist, Social Work Department Inspector, Heaven and Earth Society Business Advisor, and more. These were all formally listed positions—temporary assignments from the Executive Committee were too numerous for even Lu Xuan to remember. But his main job was Grand Library Office Manager, his only primary position.

Of course, mainly he just didn't want to leave the Grand Library. Otherwise, given his résumé, a county chief post on Hainan or a department directorship somewhere would have been well within reach. The Organization Department had even called him in for talks several times, but he couldn't be bothered: he'd had enough of civil-service work in the other time and space. As for being a "local magistrate"—those counties had just a few thousand or maybe tens of thousands of people, living in shabby little houses, having to crank a generator just to get electricity. Let whoever wanted it have it; not him. Work at the Grand Library was pleasant enough, the occasional odd job was a nice change of pace, and no one bothered him with "performance metrics," "ledgers," or "evaluations."

In Yu Eshui's original impression, Lu Xuan was a typical useless office time-server. Later, he discovered that Lu Xuan was not only patient but also persistent—whether climbing mountains or digging trenches, he never said no. He just kept his head down and worked without talking about or competing over assignments, making him an exemplary member of the apolitical masses. Over time, Lu Xuan earned a decent reputation wherever he had been sent.

Yu Eshui, on the other hand, was a history graduate student with zero pre-transmigration work experience. Having joined early and had seniority, he had always served as Chief Historical Advisor to the Executive Committee, which gave him a faint sense of superiority. In his view, 99% of the people working at the Grand Library—old ones and women alike—were useless. He disdained to invest much energy in them. The main task—compiling the monthly Historical Reference Materials—he just handled mostly himself. But the Grand Library had many responsibilities: the enormous Data Center, the seemingly endless electronic and physical books stored in the caves... just keeping these departments running smoothly and managing the several hundred employees' daily needs was trouble enough.

So the mundane administrative work naturally fell to Lu Xuan. Fortunately, Lu Xuan was very capable. He never cut corners on official requests and reports, fully satisfying Yu Eshui's need to feel in charge, while handling everything else smoothly. He also managed to keep the library's staff—old and young alike—happy. Over the years, Yu Eshui not only revised his opinion of Lu Xuan but came to rely on him more and more.

Yu Eshui snapped back to attention and noticed Lu Xuan was still standing. He quickly invited him to sit.

Lu Xuan sat down, took out a notebook and some documents, and said: "Director, there are two matters I need to consult you on."

"Go ahead." Yu Eshui had grown accustomed to Lu Xuan's deference. Without standing on ceremony, he leaned back and assumed a leadership pose.

"First: Huang Pan from the Book Warehouse Service Team broke his leg during the counter-terrorism drill a few days ago. He went to the hospital—it'll heal, but he won't be able to do heavy lifting anymore. Human Resources suggests transferring him out of the Grand Library and finding a suitable position for him. The transfer order is already out. According to regulations, he's entitled to a work-injury compensation payment. Here's the claim form, with the relevant policy document attached—it's the latest version. Please approve it."

Yu Eshui saw the amount was small, and the attached policy documents—though several pages—had the applicable clauses neatly underlined by Lu Xuan. One glance and it was clear. He appreciated such attention to detail. In fact, for expenditures of this size, Lu Xuan—as the Elder in charge of administrative affairs—could have approved it himself without asking. But Yu Eshui knew that Lu Xuan always brought every public expenditure he handled for prior approval.