Chapter 315: Action Speaks Louder Than Words

“…Besides, how old is that girl? We’re from the 21st century. Although we talk about raising lolis, we still have basic moral standards. Who would lay a hand on a little girl who hasn’t even developed yet?” Ma Jia, seeing that he had slightly regained control of the situation, quickly pressed his advantage. “As for people like Chang Shide, it’s true that such things exist, but it’s not widespread among the cadres. President Wen, Duke Ma, they don’t have secretaries.”

“Wang Luobin and Wu De do.”

“Let’s count the current main cadres. What’s the penetration rate of secretaries? It’s simply not true that once you become a cadre, you get a secretary.” Ma Jia was very clear about this situation. He had done a survey. The number of transmigrators who had actually gotten a secretary was no more than ten. Among the executive committee members, besides the mentioned Wang and Wu, only Wu Nanhai had a secretary. He didn’t know how a certain person had gotten a secretary, but he imagined it wouldn’t be anything too shady. “How can this be called a widespread phenomenon?”

“Just because it’s not a widespread phenomenon, can we ignore the interests of the masses?” Shan Liang sneered. “Although it’s an individual phenomenon for executive committee members to have personal assistants, it’s a zero phenomenon among the masses. This is a disregard for the interests of the masses.”

Ma Jia looked around. His colleagues in the law club were all dumbfounded. They had not expected the meeting to turn out like this. In the law club’s calculations, the other people who had participated were “representatives of public opinion,” intended to put some pressure on the Executive Committee. They had not expected someone to jump out and directly incite the masses.

The others had looks of indignation on their faces. It was clear that Shan Liang’s words had excited them, and his own words, even if reasonable, could not suppress them. Ma Jia thought that if he were to adjourn the meeting now, the current situation would be over, but if this group of people went back and incited others, he didn’t know what kind of major incident would happen in the future.

Currently, there were less than 100 transmigrators who had managed to get into leadership positions at various levels. Among the other 400 or so people, there were quite a few ambitious people and, even worse, hotheads. Once they were incited to collectively flare up, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Thinking of this, he immediately said, “It’s useless for us to complain and talk big here about these problems. Why don’t we all go to the Executive Committee to petition and let them hear the voice of the masses.”

There were only about thirty people in the entire cafe now, and one-third of them were members of the law club. The members of the club had the same idea as him: to fight for their own interests while maintaining the existing system. They would not engage in any extreme words or actions. In this way, there were less than twenty “soy sauce” masses left. Relatively speaking, the petition would be easier to control and would not get out of hand.

“Let’s go then!” Shan Liang didn’t have as many ulterior motives as Ma Jia. He was also provoked by Ma Jia’s deliberate “talking big.” To show that he was not a hero of words and a coward of action, he immediately agreed.

“Alright, let’s get ready and go together,” Sun Li also became excited.

Someone immediately asked the cafe for paper and a pen. The auntie on duty at the canteen was already scared out of her wits. Under the banging of tables and stools by a few young hotheads, she obediently brought out the account book paper and ink used for bookkeeping.

“The paper is too small,” Sun Li said with some dissatisfaction.

“Let’s make do.” Shan Liang felt that the atmosphere was not bad and that they should strike while the iron was hot. He immediately started writing a big-character poster with ink.

In fact, no one here had ever written one—or even seen one. But everyone had a special fondness for this wild and crude form of democracy with Chinese characteristics, the big-character poster.

“President Ma,” An Xi came up nervously. “Won’t this make it seem like we instigated it? Afterwards…”

“It’s fine,” Ma Jia was a little nervous, watching Shan Liang excitedly writing dripping ink characters on the paper as if with a paint brush, not sure if his plan was reliable. “We have a lot of people. We just need to handle it well. The people in the Executive Committee won’t not understand the benefits of today’s commotion. They will only thank us.” He paused, his eyes gleaming. “If they don’t understand, they deserve to step down.”

While the big-character poster was being written in the cafe, the auntie on duty quietly slipped out and rushed to the farm office to notify Huang Dashan, who was on duty in the laboratory.

“A group of chiefs, acting crazy, are there talking about some ‘min zhu’ (democracy), ‘the power of the masses is above all else,’ and ‘distributing money and women.’ They even forced us to give them paper and a pen and are scribbling all over it. Have they been possessed by some evil spirit…” the canteen auntie gestured wildly.

Huang Dashan was looking at the bacterial culture medium in a test tube. He was startled by the auntie’s words. This was a mass movement! Huang Dashan was a professional who didn’t care about what was happening outside. He was very satisfied with his current environment. When he heard that someone was going to make trouble, his head immediately grew several times larger. Huang Dashan didn’t like to get involved in this kind of thing and hated people who disrupted order even more.

“Go back and stop selling alcohol first,” Huang Dashan said. “Close the cafe.”

“I don’t dare to do that. The chiefs are all acting crazy,” the canteen auntie was obviously very scared.

“Then you just stay quietly outside the door. Don’t go in casually. Let them make a scene if they want to.”

“But there’s the cash box, the wine barrels, and the goods in the freezer inside.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Huang Dashan sent the canteen auntie away and quickly called the Executive Committee’s duty personnel.

Ten minutes later, most of the members of the Executive Committee knew about this, and then the main cadres of various ministries and commissions also knew. For a time, the switchboard of Lin’gao Telecom was busy, and the phone calls to the switchboard rang one after another. The phones of the main executive committee members, such as Wen Desi and Ma Qianzhu, were almost ringing off the hook. As soon as one call was connected, ten more were waiting. And many people were also calling each other. The switchboard operators were so busy they could hardly cope, and the load on the communication server in the machine room also suddenly increased. Many people were talking on their mobile phones. Shao Zong, who was on duty, quickly called all the off-duty employees back to work overtime and also called up Li Yunxing.

“Quick, something’s happened!”

Li Yunxing was sleeping next to his office in the Lin’gao Telecom compound. Shao Zong rushed in and woke him up, scaring him. He sat up abruptly from the bed and threw on his clothes.

“What? Did the Ming army attack?”

“Worse,” Shao Zong couldn’t explain it clearly for a moment. “Come to the machine room first.”

“Alright.” Li Yunxing got dressed and rushed to the machine room. At this time, a call also came from the Political Security General Directorate. He repeatedly said “uh-huh” and his face changed dramatically. He knew that the masses had opinions, but he never expected that the opinions would be so great as to become a movement. And hearing that one of the leaders was his own company’s employee, Shan Liang, his head grew several times larger.

Shan Liang was a graduate of communication engineering and had worked in a telecom engineering company for 5 years. He had rich experience in telecom engineering and was a key member of Lin’gao Telecom. Li Yunxing had planned to set up a telecom engineering department after the telecom equipment could be mass-produced and make him the head.

“What should we do?” Shao Zong was very worried.

“Of course, we keep the machines running normally,” Li Yunxing thought for a moment. “Call all our own people up and have them come to the headquarters. Anyone with a gun should bring it.” He then hurried back to his office, opened the local safe, and put the issued pistol and ammunition on his waist.

“This… this…” Shao Zong became incoherent. “We have to take guns…”

“Just in case.” Li Yunxing took out an SKS-D from the gun cabinet in his office, checked its condition with a crisp pull of the bolt, and inserted a 20-round magazine. “The communication department has always been a vital point. If someone has ulterior motives, we have to protect the communication hub. Go and notify everyone to get up quickly.”

Shao Zong quickly woke up all the transmigrator employees sleeping in the company and armed them. The telecom department was a vital department. Not only did everyone have a personal self-defense pistol, but the SKS-D was also equipped at the standard of one per transmigrator.

“Everyone, guard all the vital departments,” Li Yunxing said. “Be careful not to misfire! We are taking precautions, not preparing to fight with anyone. If there is a misfire and someone is killed or injured, it will be troublesome.”

While Lin’gao Telecom was in a flurry of activity, Duguo Qiuhun, who was sleeping on the second floor of the Dongmen City police station, was also awakened by his mobile phone. Someone on the phone told him that a group of “troublemakers” were heading for the Executive Committee compound.

“Damn it, they’re all full and have nothing better to do. They want to change the sky!” Duguo Qiuhun thought of the recent many rumors that were unfavorable to the beloved Duke Ma. Someone was saying behind his back that he was pretending to be the Duke of Zhou, but actually wanted to be forever healthy. He was very angry at the time and wanted to investigate who was talking nonsense. In the end, he was persuaded by Dongmen Chuoyu to let it go.

Duguo Qiuhun got up and scratched his head. The Executive Committee was under siege. This was a big deal! As one of the people in charge of public security, he had to prevent the situation from getting out of control. He thought for a moment, quickly got dressed, went to the office in the police station, opened the locked drawer, took out a piece of official paper, wrote something on it, signed and stamped it, and then rang the bell to call the police officer on duty.

“Take this order immediately to the garrison company headquarters, give it to Company Commander Li Yiyang, and tell him to immediately assemble the troops.”

The garrison company was a unit in the army specifically for riot control. In addition to conventional infantry training, they had also received special riot control training and had extra riot control equipment. Two platoons were stationed next to the quarantine camp in Bopu to suppress the immigrants, and one platoon and the company headquarters were stationed outside Dongmen City for security duties. Duguo Qiuhun, as the overall person in charge of public security in Dongmen City and the periphery of Bairen City, had the right to mobilize the garrison company stationed in Dongmen City—of course, with the consent of the Executive Committee.

Less than ten minutes later, Li Yiyang rushed over. This tall and thin young man came from a military family. His grandfather had been a lieutenant colonel in 1955, and he himself had grown up in a military compound. He was an avid army enthusiast. Although he was thin, he still worked hard to exercise to make himself qualified for the position of an army officer.