Chapter 373 - A Comrade?

Wanli Huang nodded, “I understand. I’ll go back and tell Wu Nan-hai. He was having a bit of a headache about it anyway. He’s already sent a Yuanlao to Taiwan, so he has to send one to Jeju Island as well to satisfy the Jeju Forward Command Committee.”

“Exactly. You have to make the leadership’s life easier,” Wanli Hui decided to take this opportunity to properly educate his brother and raise his awareness.

“Old Wu is a technical cadre, so there probably won’t be any major personnel changes in the agricultural sector. At the next election, at most they’ll change the People’s Commissar for Agriculture, and nine times out of ten, it will be someone from our own agricultural sector. Old Wu is well-liked, has professional competence, and even set up this cafe specifically to canvass for votes. So even if the commissar changes, he will still be the one in power in the agricultural sector. If you maintain a good relationship with him, he will definitely promote you in the future.”

“Okay, I’ll remember that,” Wanli Huang nodded.

“However, while you shouldn’t have the heart to harm others, you must still be on your guard,” Wanli Hui felt he needed to give his brother another pointer.

“It’s fine, Old Wu is a good person.”

“You’re not a little girl, why are you handing out ‘good guy’ cards?” Wanli Hui took a sip of his coffee and lowered his voice. “As the saying goes, you may know a person’s face, but not their heart…” he said mysteriously. “Did you know? There are rumors going around: something about the wailing of a mother and daughter at the farm… oh right, do you remember that guy Lai Da who was caught?”

“I know. I heard he was executed along with other war criminals after a public trial. Wasn’t he caught because he came looking for his fiancée, Chu Qing?”

“Then do you know what happened to his body after he died?”

“No.”

“I heard Nan-hai secretly buried him under the small tree in front of his house. Chu Qing even waters that tree every day,” Wanli Hui glanced around and said in a low voice.

“No way! Would Nan-hai do something like that?” Wanli Huang shook his head in disbelief. He had a lot of contact with Wu Nan-hai and found it hard to believe. “I don’t believe it. The story about the mother and daughter was a complete fabrication! We in the Agricultural Committee know this best!”

“It’s hard to say!” Wanli Hui drew out his words. “Hard to say…”

“…” Wanli Huang shook his head repeatedly, firmly refusing to believe it.

Wanli Hui knew his words were baseless and typical hearsay. A “non-societal person” as pure as his brother wouldn’t believe it. Although he himself knew it was likely just speculation, it was still good to give his brother a reminder. He changed the subject and started talking about the North American faction.

Ever since the North American group held their yacht conference, they had been using the Feiyun to hold parties, barbecue nights, and other events, creating quite a stir and gaining some popularity. That was how Qian Shuiting got his title of Speaker of the Yuanlao Senate. But the number of people invited to each gathering was limited. Although the Qian brothers tried their best to broaden the invitations, Yuanlao like the Wan brothers, who were either often away or almost never went out and had a weak presence, were easily forgotten.

“They’re so shameless, openly canvassing like this. Do they think we’re blind?” Wanli Huang said indignantly. “Now I finally understand what ‘elites’ are!”

“Hehe, are you just jealous because they didn’t invite you?” Wanli Hui said with a laugh.

“No! I have no interest in mixing with them. They have such a foreign air about them.”

“Tsk tsk, still say you’re not jealous? The fox’s tail is showing. Actually, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that their background is different from ours. Their intentions were good, but their methods were wrong, and they approached the wrong people. They’ll have regrets in the future—at least the Yuanlao Senate is still one person, one vote!”

After some thought, Wanli Hui continued, “We should find an opportunity during a vote to show them what’s what, otherwise they won’t take us seriously.”

“Got it.”

“I’ve seen this week’s schedule. In a few days, Dugu is coming back to Lingao for a training class on earth and fertilizer production. He’ll definitely ask you to attend. You should get closer to him. Director Ma will definitely look after him.”

“I understand, brother.”

The Social Work Department of the People’s Commissariat for Civil Affairs was housed in three single-story buildings within the commissariat’s compound. The organization was not large and was usually very quiet: it only had three Yuanlao on its staff. Dong Weiwei, since having her child, only came in for half a day to handle some administrative work. As for the other Yuanlao, Liu Yuefei, who held the title of researcher for the Social Science Department, was almost never in the office—she was always being sent out on various research assignments. As for Du Wen herself, she also spent most of her time running around at the grassroots level, busy with investigations and meetings.

Du Wen’s office work was mostly done at night, so the lights in the Social Work Department were usually on until after midnight, sometimes even until dawn. Due to the power shortage, the Executive Committee required that administrative electricity consumption be minimized. Except for certain important departments, most departments only had power until 9 p.m. For this reason, the General Office installed gas lamps in various administrative agencies for public lighting. However, indoors, for the sake of ensuring the absolute safety of the Yuanlao, only kerosene lamps were provided as a supplement to electric lights—the coking plant of the coal chemical complex could provide a fairly stable supply of illuminating kerosene.

There was such a kerosene lamp in her office, its glass chimney polished to a shine. This was taken care of for her by her life secretary, Du Mei. Although Du Wen was firmly opposed to the female servant distribution system, one day she suddenly went to the General Office and bought Du Mei with her servant allowance. Du Mei was one of the last twenty-odd “pending assignment” students from the first class of the female servant school. If Du Wen hadn’t bought her, she would have been directly assigned to an administrative department to do miscellaneous work.

Du Wen watched the short girl standing before her, nervously holding a wicker suitcase, and said in a low voice, “Forget all the rubbish you learned at the female servant school! Devote yourself wholeheartedly to the work of liberating all humanity!”

Besides this noble purpose, Du Wen did indeed need someone to do chores like cleaning her room, washing her clothes, and fetching her meals. She also wanted to test the “power of education” on this girl, to pass on her own ideas and thoughts.

Du Wen was well aware that she was in the absolute minority in the Yuanlao Senate. The Spartacus Group was a very weak voice in the Senate, its members consisting only of herself and Liu Yuefei—Du Wen was well aware of why this person had come to the Social Work Department and why she had joined the Spartacus Group. As for the Spartacus Group’s allies, they had all allied with her for the sake of political struggle.

In the Yuanlao Senate, she was alone.

Even her most revered Director Ma was very unreliable in his stance on certain issues. Du Wen had realized long ago that Director Ma was already becoming a “revisionist” for the sake of political struggle.

If she died, everything she advocated for would vanish into thin air. Every time Du Wen thought of this, she felt a great sense of urgency—she had to choose a successor to her legacy!

She had originally wanted to adopt a few orphan girls to educate personally. But the General Office had significant restrictions on non-technical Yuanlao directly adopting orphans, only agreeing to let her sponsor orphans. So Du Wen’s direct adoption application had been sitting on Xiao Zishan’s desk. This forced her to choose a life secretary as a breakthrough.

Now, Du Wen was sitting behind her desk. It was already April. She was wearing a cotton shirt made by the local clothing factory, with a lined jacket draped over her shoulders because of the cool night temperature. She was hunched over her work, reviewing reports. The light from a desk lamp illuminated the piles of documents in front of her.

Compared to other Yuanlao’s offices, the furnishings in hers were somewhat complex. The offices of the Yuanlao were generally spartan, with almost no decorations besides the necessary furniture and office supplies. This was partly due to limited material conditions, and partly due to a deliberate trend among the Yuanlao to pursue austerity.

But Du Wen’s office was very different. On the walls hung glass-framed portraits of the five leaders: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. On her desk was a plaster bust of Stalin, and next to it, a Jingdezhen porcelain figurine of Mulan on horseback. These were all her personal collection.

Along the walls were many plain wooden filing cabinets, all carefully labeled. These were all reports from the Social Work Department, from work groups, researchers, and cadres from various communes and villages. There were also reports from other departments. Now, the Social Work Department had detailed information on the social conditions of all the villages in Lingao County, including land status, wealth distribution, population status, ideological trends, and so on.

This system was constantly being improved: on the wall hung a “Social Survey Progress Chart.” The numbers and legends on it showed: for the major agricultural counties in Northern Qiong, Qiongshan was 55% complete, Chengmai 41%, Wenchang 43%, and Ding’an 38%.

Du Wen drew a circle at the end of the report. For the time being, she had no comments to make. Even if she did, they might not be useful—the Social Work Department had a heavy workload but not much authority. Major decision-making power was in the hands of Liu Muzhou.

But her heart was not calm. She had just been reading the “Social Work Report on the Implementation of Standard Village Construction in Jeju,” sent by the social work team on the island.

Besides reporting on a series of social surveys conducted on Jeju Island, the report also focused on the detailed situation of the ongoing security enhancement and the promotion of standard villages. Du Wen was very interested in this because what the Jeju Forward Command Committee was doing was, in fact, a large-scale land reform.

Although this land reform did not distribute land to the peasants but instead directly “nationalized” it, its ideology was very advanced! Du Wen, who had been dissatisfied with the “gradualist” land reform being implemented in Hainan, was now greatly interested to see the storm-like situation on Jeju.

“To think that Feng Zongze is such a talent! To think that his ideology is so close to mine!” she said to herself.