Chapter 13: Volunteer Convenience Service Station?
The surface of Hongxing Lake is vast, but the part next to the military factory is the shallowest and smallest area.
The deepest place is over fifty meters deep, and even where the iron box is hidden in the reed marsh, the water is still over thirty meters deep.
Fortunately, dams have been built, so even if the water rises, this side is fine.
But what if the water comes up from underground?
Just like in many rural areas north of the city near the riverside, every year when the river thaws, water seeps up from the cellars in homes.
Lu Qiaoge thought it over and whispered, “I heard that the mechanism to open it is in the warehouse where steel billets were originally stored. I don’t know the exact location, but once it’s opened, lake water will come in, unless the entire warehouse is blown up.”
Lu Qiaoge looked at Old Lu, who was dumbfounded, and said indifferently, “Actually, I only heard it all fuzzy too. Dad, don’t you think it’s strange? I heard it from the other side of the wall. By the time I went around, it was empty, and no one was there.”
Old Lu grabbed a handful of his hair.
His mind was a bit messed up by what his daughter said.
“Anything else?”
Lu Qiaoge shook her head: “No.”
Old Lu stood up. What should he do about this?
Lu Qiaoge yawned: “I feel like it must be those retired old men who love telling stories talking nonsense. Maybe I walk slowly, and by the time I turned the corner, they had already gone home. Dad, I’m sleepy. I’m going to bed.”
Without caring how Old Lu reacted, Lu Qiaoge went straight back to the bedroom.
Nothing else matters; the military representative office and Security Department can surely look into it.
The main thing is the massive storm in a week.
But that’s just doing one’s best and leaving it to fate.
Lu Qiaoge flipped through the books Director He gave her: Ten Thousand Whys, Fun Mathematics, and a book called Beautiful Ocean.
The Ten Thousand Whys from the 1970s is quite different from the one in the future.
This book is pretty hardcore.
It’s just short of teaching you to poke an airplane with a bamboo pole.
Lu Qiaoge flipped through it with great interest and unknowingly finished it.
Her reading speed has always been extremely fast; it’s almost like reading ten lines at a glance.
The military factory’s power supply is quite stable, but in this era, the family courtyard often has blackouts.
By the time the power went out, Lu Qiaoge had almost finished reading and was thinking about when to make a trip to the institute.
But not long after, sleepiness came over her. The calico cat jumped in through the window, curled up beside Lu Qiaoge. She absentmindedly petted it a few times—furry and soft—and soon, both girl and cat fell soundly asleep.
Old Lu, however, tossed and turned. Meng Xia got annoyed: “Why aren’t you sleeping? Don’t you have to go to work tomorrow?”
Old Lu didn’t tell her the truth and could only close his eyes and feign sleep.
Who exactly did Qiao Ge hear it from?
How could there be a voice but no one there?
Old Lu was straightforward too—if he couldn’t figure it out, he wouldn’t dwell on it. The focus was on the massive storm in a week.
Hmm, think of a way to tell Old Jia.
He’s the deputy section chief of the Security Department, so he can handle this.
—
After Old Lu deliberately blocked Old Jia in the canteen and pulled him to a corner to sit down, he lowered his voice and said, “I want to tell you something. It seems we might have a massive storm in this area in a week. Do you want to prepare in advance?”
Old Jia was stunned: “The weather forecast didn’t say anything.” Then he remembered that weather forecasts weren’t always accurate these days, so he hurriedly asked, “Where did you hear that?”
Then he thought of Old Mrs. Lu: “Did Aunt tell you?”
Old Lu’s wife had only stayed in the city for half a year; the rest of the time she was in the rural area, and she was good at reading the weather.
Old Lu nodded vaguely.
—
Lu Qiaoge was woken up by her third sister shaking her.
She sat up, her dazed glance looking out the window.
She didn’t know what time it was, but the sun was already high.
Sigh, her alertness had dropped. Otherwise, she would have noticed when Lu Qiaoling came in.
Sure enough, a comfortable environment makes people lose their fighting spirit.
“Second Sister, we’ve all finished lunch and you’re still not awake. You’re really lazy.”
Then she turned and left, muttering, “In the countryside, grain often wasn’t enough to eat. How come after coming back it’s still this conduct? Am I destined to go hungry?”
Lu Qiaoge: …
The harvests in the hometown had been poor these past few years. By late spring and early summer, many families were skipping meals.
But the Lu Family in the city had two more mouths to feed, so Old Lu and Meng Xia had to borrow grain.
After washing up, she wandered to the kitchen.
Salt, soy sauce, and vinegar were not lacking.
Grain… only one bowl of millet and half a bag of cornmeal.
Although it was a bungalow, the courtyard was small with no place to grow vegetables, only a bit of scallion planted in a wooden trough in the corner of the wall.
There was half a bowl of lard in the cabinet.
No eggs, no meat.
The Lu Family always had to tough it out at the end of the month these days.
Actually, it wasn’t just the Lu Family; many households were like this.
Lu Qiaoge drank a bowl of cornmeal porridge with pickled vegetables and ate a cornbread bun. Speaking of which, big sister-in-law’s cooking skills were really good.
But this cornbread bun was too coarse.
It felt scratchy going down her throat.
Today Meng Xia and the others were making matchboxes, and Lu Qiaoge was getting more and more proficient at it.
Meng Xia didn’t expect her second daughter’s speed to be so fast. She said happily, “Qiao Ge’s hands are so nimble; you make them really fast. Tomorrow I’ll take on more.”
Lu Qiaoge wasn’t sure if she could obediently stay home making paper boxes.
These past two days of wandering around, Comrade Meng Xia was already dissatisfied.
If not for Grandmother saying she had canceled her engagement and was in a bad mood needing to vent, she might not have been able to go out.
Thinking of this, Lu Qiaoge put down the paper box in her hand and said, “Mom, I’m going to the neighborhood committee to get a letter of introduction.”
Meng Xia had heard about Lu Qiaoge’s plan yesterday and felt it was thankless.
The women in the family courtyard were stingy, miserly, and nitpicky.
No matter how you exchanged, they would feel like they were losing out.
And if she really managed to get it done, wouldn’t it offend the food store?
“Can it work?” Meng Xia asked worriedly.
“I’ll try. If it doesn’t, no harm done.”
—
Lu Qiaoge really went to the neighborhood committee.
She had Director Hu write it like this: To the responsible comrade at Guzi Village Production Brigade Office: This is to introduce Comrade Lu Qiaoge from Xiangyang Neighborhood Committee Volunteer Convenience Service Station and others, who are coming to your place to handle vegetable and supplies exchange matters.
Director Hu asked Lu Qiaoge puzzledly, “How come I didn’t know our neighborhood committee has a Volunteer Convenience Service Station?”
Lu Qiaoge smiled with crinkled eyes: “That’s what I was thinking—no matter what you do, having a title makes things smoother. Besides, it’s voluntary. It exists when useful and is set aside when not. No staffing, no workers, no salaries—nothing affects anything.”
At this point, Lu Qiaoge paused, looked at Old Hu with his graying hair, and said obediently, “Of course, if you think it’s inconvenient, Director Hu, you don’t have to write it.”
Director Hu blinked his eyes.
Looking at the vibrant Lu Qiaoge, he thought to himself, many people say Lu Qiaoge must be crying her eyes out and wishing she were dead after canceling her engagement, but doesn’t she seem just fine?
This letter of introduction is no problem; he can issue it.
Director Hu readily wrote the letter of introduction, stamped it with the official seal, and handed it to Lu Qiaoge: “If it works, great. If not, come back. Don’t make any mistakes.”
Lu Qiaoge: “Don’t worry, I remember all the relevant regulations on this.”
