Chapter 12: I’ll Go Scout Ahead
Actually, Lu Qiaoge didn’t know which one Yao Kai had hit, but it was definitely one of them.
When both had left, Director Hu looked at Lu Qiaoge with a complicated expression.
This girl, he didn’t know whether to praise her for solving the problem well or criticize her for breaking up Yao Kai and Qi Shuang with one move.
Right, just because of one bird dropping, she went to poke a bird’s nest, and as a result, found Old Mrs. Li’s missing gold ring.
Old Li’s family was full of gratitude toward her, after all, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law war had affected too wide an area.
But Xiao Zhu probably wasn’t too happy.
After all, that was her exam question.
Director Hu said to Lu Qiaoge: “You’ve completed all your tasks, go home first and wait for news.”
Lu Qiaoge didn’t leave, just smiled brightly: “Director Hu, these past two days wandering around the family courtyard, I discovered a problem.”
Director Hu put down the fountain pen in his hand: “What problem?”
Lu Qiaoge: “Our family courtyard has some difficulty getting leafy greens, but some rural areas in the suburbs definitely have more leafy greens than they can eat.”
Director Hu frowned: “You want to spend money to buy vegetables, no no no!”
Besides, you’re an unemployed youth, where do you get the qualification to buy vegetables?
Lu Qiaoge smiled: “Not buying vegetables, we can barter, for example, my family has two bars of soap we can’t use now, so can I exchange them for spinach and chives to eat?”
Old Hu’s eyes lit up, then he shook his head: “I’m afraid that won’t work.”
Lu Qiaoge’s eyes sparkled: “Why not? We use idle daily necessities to exchange for the vegetables that the peasant brothers can’t finish eating, which not only solves their daily difficulties, but also supplements vegetables and vitamins for our workers who work hard day and night.
And in our factory’s later expansion, we got strong support from the peasant brothers…”
Director Hu was moved.
“Director Hu, if you think it’s not reliable, I’ll go scout the way.” Lu Qiaoge said.
“How will you scout the way?”
“The neighborhood committee can give me a letter of introduction.”
Old Hu: “Letters of introduction aren’t issued casually.”
Lu Qiaoge: “If I go to another place, who would I get a letter of introduction from?”
Lu Qiaoge smiled: “It’s just a letter of introduction for going out, issuing that isn’t against the rules, right?”
But Old Hu was worried: “You’re just a little girl, you can’t go alone.”
Lu Qiaoge thought for a moment and said: “I’ll go to the transportation team to find my older brother, he’s sort of half a neighborhood committee anyway, as long as he takes half a day off, we can be back by noon.”
Old Hu originally didn’t want to agree, but for some reason, he agreed.
Lu Qiaoge said she’d come back to get the letter of introduction after investigating, then left the neighborhood committee.
After she left, Ren Xiaocui and the others gathered around, asking curiously: “Director Hu, what are the twenty-nine items, did you find out?”
Old Hu then realized that he hadn’t asked the most important thing.
He put on a serious face: “Shame on you all as national cadres, this is personal privacy, understand? Besides, Qi Shuang tore up the note, how could Lu Qiaoge casually say it?”
Huang Juan agreed: “If she casually spilled it, no matter how excellent she is, we couldn’t take her.”
Everyone nodded.
But they still felt something was off.
These words seemed to suggest Lu Qiaoge had a good chance.
But these people really had to look at Lu Qiaoge in a new light.
Now it was just a matter of seeing how the others had done.
Lu Qiaoge went home from the neighborhood committee and saw a bunch of people under the tree making paper boxes.
Old Mrs. Lu, unlike her coldness yesterday, pulled Lu Qiaoge and made her talk again about how she handled Sun Qin’s matter.
She even smiled and praised her: “Our Qiao Ge has been smart since she was little, it’s a pity she dropped out halfway through school, otherwise she could have gone to university too.”
But Lu Qiaoge said seriously: “Grandmother, let me take Qiao Ling to the hospital. Going back to the city now isn’t that easy, many without legitimate reasons or jobs will be sent back to the rural area. My older brother got a chance because he’s strong and the transportation team’s loading group needed people, but even so, there’s no target, he could be fired anytime. You said your chest feels uncomfortable, Qiao Ling can use that reason, and say the same at the hospital…”
Old Mrs. Lu looked at Lu Qiaoge with a complicated expression. It had been over half a year since they’d seen her, plus falling into water and the engagement cancellation, Qiao Ge seemed to have grown up.
So, Meng Xia and Lu Qiaoge stopped making paper boxes and took Lu Qiaoling to the hospital. After a checkup, just as Lu Qiaoge said, it matched some heart disease symptoms.
But this thing couldn’t be seen when it wasn’t acting up.
However, it needed continued observation, so she could stay temporarily.
The doctor issued a medical certificate, but mainly, it was some anemia and malnutrition.
This illness was actually very common in this era.
But with the medical certificate, she could stay at home for the time being.
—
In the evening, Lu Qiaoge found an opportunity to pull Old Lu aside for a quiet talk.
She hadn’t wandered around in vain these past two days, she really found out quite a few things.
But at this moment, what Lu Qiaoge asked about was the factory’s missing steel billets.
“Dad, that day I fell into water, Representative Qin was actually out on a task, right?”
Lu Da immediately became serious: “This has nothing to do with you, don’t inquire randomly if it’s none of your business.”
Lu Qiaoge: “Dad, this isn’t a secret, lots of people know, Liang Aishu knows too, otherwise why was he so guilty and afraid that day?”
After a pause, Lu Qiaoge continued: “But these past few days wandering around the family courtyard, I accidentally heard that fifty years ago Hongxing Lake was actually called Immortal Lake, and there’s an underground pipeline straight to the center of the lake, don’t know who built it, but there’s a mechanism that can close and open it. When opened, lake water floods back, and it would flood the entire military factory or even the family courtyard…”
Old Lu started listening like it was a joke, but as he listened, he felt a chill break out on his back.
Two months ago, when Hongxing Lake had just thawed, the steel billets sent from the steel mill were warehoused according to normal procedure, but unexpectedly, in the middle of the night lake water entered the warehouse and even flooded a nearby workshop.
The water that came in wasn’t much, but when people opened the warehouse, they found a warehouse full of steel billets had vanished.
Then it shocked the authorities, who sent Qin Hengzhi, that man was very capable and soon found the missing steel billets at the center of the lake.
He didn’t know many of the details.
But he did know that on the surface they were still looking for the whereabouts of the steel billets, but actually they were looking for the saboteurs and the secret passage.
Old Lu lowered his voice, tense to the point of trembling: “Did you hear them say where the mechanism to open it is?”
Lu Qiaoge silently stroked the calico cat.
She had gone to Hongxing Lake at noon to get fish for the calico cat, but not at that remote lakeside, but near the family courtyard.
Unexpectedly she saw the old turtle, so from the old turtle she learned many secrets, and also that there would be heavy rain in a week.
She analyzed that the gang or some bad person would take advantage of the rainy night to open the mechanism and divert lake water to the military factory.
Though it couldn’t submerge it, even if the water level was only twenty centimeters, the losses would be huge.
This idea had probably been around for a while.
Two months ago was just testing if the mechanism worked, but who would have thought maybe the time was too long, leading to a mistake, and those steel ingots slid down the pipeline to the lake bottom.
