Chapter 119: Is It My Fault, Then?

This level of guarantee was enough to make Rang Weidong hesitate.

If a man could manage to secure airplanes, could you really say he lacked the courage to turn the world upside down?

But Rang Weidong possessed the mindset of someone from thirty or forty years in the future: "Reform and opening-up require people with drive to lead the way. If he truly did something wrong, if he broke the law or violated regulations, then lock him up or execute him if necessary. But dragging things out like this doesn't seem quite right."

The old leader was perceptive: "You also know that we are currently penniless, struggling with problems on all sides. With his habit of taking drastic measures, if he causes some disaster or loss, who will take responsibility? Who will compensate for the losses? Isn't that precisely why you are hesitating to make a decision?"

Rang Weidong gritted his teeth. "Then I will persuade him to leave Shangzhou and go work elsewhere."

As long as he wasn't in Shangzhou, he wouldn't have to be held responsible, right?

The battle-hardened veteran was still the one with the foresight: "I know what You Qili is thinking better than you do, and I know what you are thinking even better than that. Just focus on serving the people well. The people will remember the comrades who truly treated them kindly. When you have the strength to compensate for his losses, I can agree to your request."

Rang Weidong understood: he had to actually get the factory up and running.

So, in addition to going to the machinery factory every day to urge the assembly of the large vacuum machines, the installation of the cold storage, and the construction of the high-temperature sterilization towers, he began experimenting with cooking pork offal in large pots at the food factory.

Each standard slaughtered pig yielded about thirty catties of offal, which reduced to about ten catties after cooking and even less after dehydration.

The loss was significant, so buying it by the "string" was quite a bargain.

In the past, the slaughterhouse couldn't even sell a string for a dime; now, he had signed a ten-year fixed-price agreement.

Rang Weidong had calculated it repeatedly, ensuring he wouldn't suffer a loss, nor would others feel cheated later.

He came up with a rather ingenious method: he set the purchase price at five times the cost of a regular bowl of beef noodles on the streets of Shangzhou.

Whenever the market price of beef noodles rose, the purchase price of the offal would automatically increase. Furthermore, unless the city authorities dictated otherwise, the Axis Food Factory would have the right of first refusal for contract renewal at the same price point.

Since beef noodles in Shangzhou were currently eighteen cents, he set the purchase price at ninety cents.

That was nearly a tenfold increase in revenue for every string of pork offal!

With the slaughterhouse processing several hundred pigs a day, this added tens of thousands in monthly income—it was pure profit from utilizing waste, requiring no extra effort.

Regardless of whether leaders were present or not, they were eager to sign the deal.

They even actively thanked the leaders for their wise guidance in providing such a great solution for the slaughterhouse.

Initially, they could only trial a few dozen or a hundred catties, but within days, they scaled up to seven or eight hundred!

Because he had to practice processing the offal, follow the construction of a batch-processing environment, and use large pots and vats for mass production, he had to figure out how to ensure the salt-baked, soy-braised, and other flavors tasted good.

The next day, the young men he had sent back to the countryside notified Erfeng to bring seventy or eighty young people from the surrounding villages to help.

In the past, he might have worried that feeding so many people would bankrupt him.

Now, they had more than enough meat to go around!

Every day, they hauled one or two hundred catties of finished offal in various flavors to sell near the docks.

For this, Dong Xueying had to register as an individual business owner under the name "Sister Dong’s Deli."

However, Rang Weidong wouldn't let her sell these items in the city's food markets or at roadside stalls.

The impact would simply be too great.

To ensure they sold out every day, these endless batches of salt-baked, soy-braised, tangerine-peel, and five-spice delicacies were priced at only fifty cents a catty!

Raw pork cost seventy cents, and aged cured meat was five or six yuan, yet these cooked, delicious pig hearts, livers, and stomachs were only fifty cents.

If anyone asked, it was just trial products from the food factory, meant for internal supply.

In reality, it was a disguised form of low-price dumping for the impoverished dock workers, with priority given to laborers, women, and children.

Spending a dime or two a day to add nutrition to their tables was definitely a wonderful way to improve their meals.

Later, they even had to limit purchases to half a catty per person, because city dwellers had caught wind of it and were flocking to the docks to queue up for the cheap and increasingly delicious pork offal.

Dong Xueying, while selling the food with a few girls, began selecting people from the women and children there to work at the food factory.

By this time, Rang Weidong gradually realized that You Qili and his group were truly rare.

They might even be the few, the proud, in this prefecture-level city who were willing to commit themselves to the cause of reform and possessed the actual ability to do so.

Even in his current situation, it was incredibly difficult to gather a group of people.

One or two hundred catties of deli meat only required a dozen strings of offal as raw material, costing just over ten yuan. With the addition of more expensive seasonings and cheap labor, the cost was only twenty or thirty yuan.

Yet, it could still bring in seventy, eighty, or even a hundred yuan.

It all relied on the special, ultra-low prices from his exclusive supply channel.

Even operating this way, they didn't lose money.

In the future, if they made them into finger-sized snacks, each piece could sell for five to ten cents.

No matter how much the raw material shrank, he could make dozens or hundreds of bags from a single string!

This was basically taking the meat from a dish and selling it slice by slice.

One has to ask: is that not profiteering?

As long as the food factory could sell its products in the future, the profits and prospects were self-evident.

Yet, no one was willing to be the factory manager!

Of course, Rang Weidong only wanted someone capable; he couldn't just hire any Tom, Dick, or Harry.

The Reform Committee had personnel from various departments, but even Ding Haifeng shook his head.

No one wanted to jump out of the comfort of the system to "dive into the sea" of the market economy.

Even forty years later, so many people were still flocking to take civil service exams; in the eighties, the "iron rice bowl" was something people would die rather than give up.

Then, the managers from the machinery factory and the West Second Street factories also showed no interest.

Rang Weidong had to vent to Dong Xueying: "See? Now you understand why I’m always thinking about waiting for Old You to come out. Even with a tiny bit of official status, no one dares to jump into the sea. Nobody wants to risk their lives without a safety net, and I'm not that good a swimmer either. I'm afraid of floundering; I need a guide to feel secure."

Dong Xueying just said, "Fine, fine. Regardless, I leave it to you. I feel like a huge burden has been lifted. Working with them is truly nerve-wracking. Now, I feel like I could just sell deli meat like this for the rest of my life, and that would be fine."

Rang Weidong laughed and teased, "You should have said that earlier; I wouldn't have opened a factory in Jiangzhou."

The young woman realized he was flirting and couldn't help but roll her eyes with a hint of coyness, implying he should behave himself.

But to Rang Weidong, it made his head spin. Was this the legendary "flirtatious glance"?

It felt like a direct strike to his heart!

He felt his aggressive drive returning, even enough to dampen the little bit of ambition he had left.

He leaned in and whispered, "How about this? We don't have to wait to go to Jiangzhou. Let's just get married and live a life here in Shangzhou."

In the eighties, everyone still believed that only marriage allowed for that kind of intimacy. Even the brothels knew that only a chaste girl was considered virtuous.

So, Zhang Lanzhi was definitely an extreme outlier.

Dong Xueying wasn't ordinary either; she realized she had accidentally "sent a signal" again.

She bit her lip hard to cut the power: "I'll do whatever you want, but marriage is a big deal; it can't be taken so lightly. My lesson is already laid out before you, and I hope you don't make the same mistake."

Rang Weidong, on the other hand, didn't want to bully her. "Alright, alright. I'm telling you, divorce really doesn't mean anything. You're not much older than me. Once you go to Jiangzhou and see the world, you'll know that no one cares. I'm heading out now; I might not be back for dinner."

Dong Xueying waved at the car, then turned around, pouting at her daughter and muttering that she should also learn from her mother's mistakes.

But her gaze lingered on the departing car, unable to look away.

Rang Weidong finally felt he could go see You Qili.

Previously, Dong Xueying had visited every month as an employee of the trading firm to report the situation.

But since making up his mind, she hadn't gone much in the last two months, and You Qili's family had even sent word asking about it.

Rang Weidong sat in the reception room of the suburban detention center and said what he could: "...That's the situation. I've met with the old leader three times. Each time I mentioned that this situation is not in line with regulations and that there should be more room for exploration, but he still wants to wait and see."

It was almost the end of May; exactly a year had passed.

From the moment Rang Weidong decided to follow You Qili to see the world, this was the first time the two of them had spoken face-to-face in a serious manner.

When they had passed each other in the alley, he had warned You Qili that there were spies in his group.

When You Qili was arrested, he had quietly slipped his notebook into Rang Weidong's basket.

Neither of them had said a word then.

But at this historic moment, there were uniformed officers sitting nearby.

And it wasn't limited to just Ding Haifeng; three people from the Reform Committee had come as well.

Rang Weidong had been to prison himself, which was why he tried every possible way to avoid ending up behind bars again.

Because he knew the feeling of being completely abandoned by the social mainstream—it was nothing like the empty talk of keyboard warriors who claimed that being locked up for a few months or years was nothing and that one could still be a hero upon release.

Most people would feel their life was over even after just a few days of administrative detention.

That feeling was too unbearable.

Yet, You Qili still maintained an extraordinary presence.

He sat there imposingly, his hands on his knees, looking at Rang Weidong with interest. "I've heard about you from Xiao Dong several times. First, I want to thank you for settling the fruit-picking contract and the commune gravel contract from last year, and for helping Wanshang Trading Firm minimize its losses as much as possible. But I believe the problem is that Shangzhou City still hasn't seen the reality clearly..."

Rang Weidong blinked hard, but couldn't stop You Qili from rambling on, criticizing the reform-averse factions as worthless.

The people around them had all sorts of expressions; some bowed their heads and scribbled furiously, as if transcribing a confession.

You Qili wasn't afraid. "I firmly believe that the Party's reform line will not change, and I am full of confidence in the cause of Wanshang Trading Firm!"

Rang Weidong didn't like such slogans. "Everything has a process of acceptance. Eastern Guangdong is already very open and active, and even Shanghai lags behind slightly because Shanghai has a vast number of factories and enterprises that affect the daily lives of countless common people. Shangzhou is even more..."

You Qili frowned immediately. "Xiao Rang, I find that you, too, have become a guardian of the old order. Only through bold and radical reform can we make the lives of countless people better. Every minute of delay is a crime!"

Rang Weidong sighed helplessly. "Not everything needs to be solved through such violent collisions. For example, the fruit picking and gravel transport at the end of last year—if it hadn't been remedied, that would have been seven production brigades and tens of thousands of people in two communes whose orchards and fruit trees would have been wasted, and the crushed stones would have piled up like mountains. They would have put in a whole year of work only to end up with nothing. You wouldn't want to see that kind of situation, would you?"

You Qili’s line of thinking was: "Then where does the error lie that caused such a result? A normal economic transaction that could have been completed as agreed and brought joy to everyone was rudely stopped. Is that my fault?"

Rang Weidong sighed. "It's my fault, okay?"

Even Ding Haifeng couldn't help but laugh.

They say harmony brings wealth, but with You Qili's mindset, his approach simply wasn't aimed at doing business.

Rang Weidong felt that trying to bridge the prejudices on both sides was like the legend of the Foolish Old Man removing the mountains.

It was just too difficult.