Chapter 134: Let's See Just How Special You Can Be

It was indeed a desperate need for manpower.

Once the machines were loaded with rolls of raw materials, they could churn out finished products without pause. With tens of thousands produced daily, twenty or thirty people were needed just for packaging. In this era, developing an automated packaging line was far more difficult than simply hiring a crowd of people to do it by hand. There were simply too many people looking for work.

Of course, in these times, the term "unemployed population" was rarely used. Take a pharmaceutical factory, for instance; perhaps the medicine it produced had lost its market, or the technology for ampoule-based injections had been rendered obsolete. Once abandoned by the national structure of unified purchase and distribution, such a factory immediately lost its lifeline.

The factory had been shut down for nearly a year. Not every facility had the desperate, aggressive drive to pivot like the Xishan plant, nor did they all share the fate of the Hongguang plant, where the titanium ingots were destined to become increasingly valuable. If the factory leadership slacked off even slightly or took one wrong step, the entire workforce would lose their livelihood.

In the seventies, securing a factory job meant having an "iron rice bowl"—a lifelong guarantee of employment. Countless people fought desperately to return to the cities from the countryside just to get inside a factory. It was much like the later obsession with civil service exams, believing that once you passed, you were "on shore." The only difference was that the later process became relatively fair and transparent, whereas, in those days, there were far too many tragic tales of people selling their bodies, their homes, and abandoning their families just to secure a spot.

Yet, as the times changed, they suddenly found themselves left high and dry on the shore, waiting for the end.

This was why, when Dong Xueying and Shen Cuiyue walked across the street and arrived at the factory gates, they were met with a chaotic scene. A dozen young men, transferred from the factory and the spicy hotpot shop, were struggling to hold back the angry, shouting workers who had lost their livelihoods!

The factory, which supposedly had only a few hundred employees, was swarming with people—neighbors, relatives, and family members had all turned up. The crowd was massive.

On the wall by the gate, big-character posters had already been plastered, and some people were holding up banners. The theme was consistent: "Do not take the capitalist road," "Do not let capitalists annex us..." The calligraphy was actually quite good, and the phrasing was sophisticated.

Shen Cuiyue immediately gritted her teeth, feeling a sense of shame. She rolled up her sleeves, fuming, "These shameless, lazy bums! What does our family have to do with this? I’m going to pull everyone from the hotpot shop over here and beat them to a pulp!"

Dong Xueying caught two key pieces of information, but she quickly held her back. "No, no, you can't do that right now. I didn't realize you were so close with the people at the restaurant."

The "Jianghu girl" realized she had let something slip. She pivoted, "Fine, I’ll head to the city right now to contact the local gang leaders. I’ll find a few tough guys to deal with them. These wretches are only afraid of bullies!"

Dong Xueying grabbed her waist tightly. "No, no, really, don't. If Weidong were here, he certainly wouldn't handle things this way. Let me—I'll do it!"

Saying this, she let go of the other woman, adjusted her baby carrier and her hair, and walked straight into the agitated crowd.

The Jianghu girl was stunned. *Damn it, isn't that like stepping in front of a runaway truck? A young mother with a baby on her back—won't she be crushed to pieces?*

Dong Xueying, however, felt no fear. She moved through the chaotic crowd of hundreds, squeezing from the back to the front with a soft, gentle voice: "Excuse me, let me through..." "Let me get to the front, please..." "Thank you, sorry..."

When everyone turned around to see a young mother carrying a child, they involuntarily moved aside. Some older women even reached out to shield her. "Be careful! Don't wave your arms and hit the baby!"

"She's got a baby with her, don't make a scene and scare it! Keep it down!"

Even in the midst of such a riot, the people who saw her became kind. It wasn't exactly a Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea moment, but a small gap immediately opened, allowing the young mother to pass through.

When Weidong was home, there was someone to hold the baby, and the two sisters wore dresses and leather sandals, switching outfits and styling themselves—it was all quite fun. But with the man away, she had gone back to wearing cloth shirts, coarse trousers, and buckled sandals, appearing no different from any other young wife on the street.

Only when she climbed the few steps to the main building of the factory and brushed her short, ear-length hair back would people realize, *Oh, this little wife is actually quite pretty.*

The Dong sisters were undoubtedly famous for their beauty in the old streets near the wharf. The younger sister was delicate and clever; the older was gentle and quiet. Dong Xueying’s chin was a bit square, her complexion not particularly fair, and she wasn't tall. With the baby on her back, even her naturally high curves were compressed into a bulky shape. Any woman who cared about her appearance would never want to show herself to everyone in such a state. She, however, usually didn't even have time to cover it up.

Until now, as she raised her head to face the crowd that had suddenly gone quiet, there was a unique kind of stubbornness and resilience on her face. This was her greatest trait.

Her voice was not loud. "I'm from Shangzhou. Our town is also along the river. We had three cotton and linen mills, a winery, and a grain and oil factory. Every day, they dumped trash into the riverbank. Since I was little, I went to scavenge through the trash with a group of women and children because my family background wasn't good enough to get into the factory..."

When she had walked through, everyone thought she was just another recruit coming to rush the front lines with her child. They hadn't expected the young men desperately blocking the entrance to immediately surround her and welcome her instead.

There was a brief burst of noise, but mostly, people were waiting to hear what she had to say. They were so surprised that such a young mother had appeared in the middle of this protest. While it boosted the men's morale, it also neutralized the confrontation. Her gentle voice made more people lean in to listen; if someone occasionally made a noise, the people next to them would pull them aside to keep them quiet so they wouldn't miss a word.

Everyone could hear the shared experience in her tone. "...Until the end of last year, many of us were still digging through trash every day, braving the heat and the scorching coal slag. We didn't care if there were metal parts in the oily paper; we fought to grab them, getting our heads bloodied, only to wash them in the river water because we had to survive. At that time, we had a porter at the wharf—do you have them in Jiangzhou? They use baskets to carry things for others..."

Unexpectedly, someone from the crowd responded: "You mean 'bang-bangs'? In Jiangzhou, we call them 'bang-bangs' because they use shoulder poles to help people carry things."

Dong Xueying offered a gentle smile, like a kindergarten teacher caring for children. "Oh, thank you. Anyway, he was one of our laborers. He learned to drive and started driving a cargo truck at the wharf. He was finally able to hold an iron rice bowl and eat the public’s grain. But instead of just keeping it for himself, he gathered a group of drivers to haul cargo and stone, letting everyone who used to scavenge trash come to unload the trucks. Everyone could earn money through their own sweat, rather than risking their lives in the trash. We hauled stones to construction sites all over Shangzhou, and from then on, no women or children on the riverbank in Shangzhou had to scavenge for trash anymore."

She didn't know if anyone there could hear the business opportunity in that. In the eighties, when individual commerce was nearly non-existent, these kinds of small, humble businesses were guaranteed to make money as long as you were willing to swallow your pride and work hard.

But now, everyone saw that stubborn, resilient face, the chin slightly tilted, filled with pride and a smile.

She gestured with her hands. "Finally, we invented a machine, this big... it can produce a sanitary pad this size, for women to use during those days of the month. No more illness, no more embarrassing leaks, no more inconvenience—we can even continue to live and work normally..."

She didn't need to finish. More than half the people on the scene were women, and they immediately defected.

Voices erupted from everywhere: "I know, I know! It's that factory by the university, right? They were selling them the other day, I know! I want some, I want them right now!"

"Can I come to work there? I can do the work, I can really do it..."

"You described it so well, you'll let us work there, right?"

"Little sister, we are very fast at our work; it's the people in this factory who are messing things up!"

"Big sister, I went to an accounting class. I can handle the books and the work; I can do the old factory accounts..."

Their voices completely drowned out the young mother's.

Shen Cuiyue’s mouth was agape behind her mask. This was truly the aura of a matriarch. Even though this was her territory, her first thought was that her man had chosen a woman who was truly capable; she had settled the matter without breaking a sweat.

She immediately squeezed over from the side, hugged Dong Xueying affectionately, and took off her mask. Taking advantage of the brief silence as everyone looked on in awe, she shouted as loudly as she could, "That's right! Our factory is cleaning out the useless people who don't do any work! As long as you are willing to work hard, some people earn twenty or thirty a day. We pay every single day! Please line up here to sign up..."

Even though the scene erupted into noise again, it was no longer a confrontation. It had turned into an active recruitment. Even if a few voices were still shouting not to be fooled, no one was listening anymore!

It was hard to say if Weidong himself could have achieved a better result than these two young women. But clearly, this was the situation he had expressed to Dong Xueying: once the rear was secured, he could go out and spread his wings.

There were several large bags of sanitary pads in the car. Weidong handed one to Editor-in-Chief Feng. "You or the women in your office might want to try these. This is a change in quality of life that can be promoted in newspapers nationwide. I will soon be taking this product to the national TV station to run advertisements. Currently, they are only sold in foreign-oriented stores in Shanghai for five mao to one yuan each. We can produce them for one mao apiece. If we sell more in the future, it might be even cheaper. Would you say this has the significance of reform and opening up?"

The older man held the package affectionately. "Not bad, the packaging is quite elegant. The label is nice and presentable. You’ve put some heart into this. Oh, you even made an instruction diagram..."

Eventually, he felt the package was a bit too "hot" to hold and quickly put it back in the bag.

Weidong’s proposal was logical. "We want women across the country, especially those in rural areas who make up the majority of the population, to be able to use these. So, we hope to get this product into the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives for distribution. Usually, our retail price is one yuan per pack, and for procurement by the Women's Federation or related organizations, it’s eight mao. We can give the Supply and Marketing Cooperatives six mao, and they can distribute the product to villages across the country."

Twenty or thirty years later, this request would have been unthinkable. The All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives was a massive entity that still existed forty years later. Its leadership was on par with the big shots at the General Administration of Sport. It was a supply hub that still bore significant social and commodity value in counties and towns across the country. The amount of maneuvering required to get a product onto their list was immense.

But for a brand-new, unprecedented women's product, it was certainly worth considering. Especially since the editor-in-chief of the central newspaper branch actually understood the connections. "You even know about the Supply and Marketing Federation... they are our neighbors in the building in Beijing where almost all the news agency reporters develop their photos. Fine, I will report this to the General Federation for you and try to turn this whole event into a series of reports. How long will you be staying in Rongdu?"

Weidong was busy. "I'm going to see what's going on with Old Yu. If he really has a problem, then he can come work with us. By the way, I need to handle the work at the Rongdu office... I should be heading back to Jiangzhou via the Xishan plant. I still have a factory in Shangzhou that I need to report on to the city government."

The editor-in-chief looked at him a few more times. "Go ahead. Old Yu has his own special reasons for his situation, but it's not as simple as you think to just leave the system. Come back and check in with me; by then, there might be news from the General Federation."

Weidong naturally thanked him profusely.