Chapter 694 Promotion and Fortune
The cicadas' chirping suddenly became shrill, and Liu Erzhu felt his temples throbbing.
The scene of him squatting in front of a pile of frozen bricks to repair cracks last winter overlaps with this moment.
At that time, his fingers were so frozen and red that he could hardly hold the tools. It was the hand warmer that Cheng Erhua silently handed to him that allowed him to persevere to the end.
At this moment, his ears were buzzing. He looked at Wang Jianguo's moving lips, but he couldn't hear the words clearly as if there was a curtain of water.
"Pillar?"
Wang Jianguo stretched out his hand and waved it in front of Liu Erzhu.
"Are you happy as hell? Your mouth is open so wide that a goose egg could fit in it!"
Liu Erzhu took a half step back and his lower back hit the brick pile with a dull sound.
The rough brick edges hurt, and that gave him a sense of reality:
"Brother Jianguo...this...this is too sudden!"
His voice trembled and beads of sweat slid down the knife-like wrinkles on his forehead.
"I'm only 20 years old and I don't even know the kiln temperature curve. How can I be the factory manager? I must be wrong..."
Cheng Erhua's eyes were already red. He recalled that last month, heavy rain destroyed the kiln roof. It was Liu Erzhu who climbed up the crumbling kiln against the strong wind and used his body to protect the last batch of bricks to be fired.
At this moment, he patted his partner's shoulder heavily:
"Zhu Zi, let's work together to keep the brick factory going! Your judgment of the temperature is more accurate than that of the old master, you deserve to be the factory manager!"
Wang Jianguo looked at the two of them with satisfaction and solemnly put the letter into Liu Erzhu's palm:
"Director Song clearly wrote in the recommendation letter that one of you understands technology and the other knows management. Only by combining your strengths can we take the factory to a new level!"
He pointed to the new kiln being expanded in the distance.
"The Provincial Material Bureau will come to place an order next month. This is a great opportunity for us to make a name for ourselves!"
Liu Erzhu lowered his head and stroked the gold-plated official seal on the letter paper. Suddenly, he straightened his back and his voice became more resolute:
"Brother Jianguo, Erhua, I'll do it! But we have a deal, if anything goes wrong, you have to lend me a hand at any time!"
The laughter of the three people mixed with the roar of the brick kiln, startling a group of white pigeons that flew across the blue sky. From the sound of their flapping wings, one seemed to be able to hear the footsteps of the brick factory moving towards a prosperous future.
In the steaming heat of the brick kiln, Cheng Erhua stared at the slightly rolled up red-headed document in Wang Jianguo's hand, and his Adam's apple rolled with difficulty.
He recalled three nights ago, when his father squatted in front of the stove, puffing on his pipe, the flickering sparks in the pipe reflecting his wrinkled face:
"Director Song has discussed this with me several times, saying that Jianguo is the most suitable person to be the factory director. But this kid has a wild temper..."
Looking at Wang Jianguo's casually rolled-up shirt sleeves and the pair of Liberation shoes that were always covered in mud, Cheng Erhua suddenly understood everything.
"Brother Jianguo,"
His voice was hoarse, and he reached out and held down Wang Jianguo who was about to turn around.
"My father told me everything. Director Song consulted with him seven times. Each time, they talked from the time the sun set in the west until the moon climbed over the treetops. The original candidate for the factory director was you."
Before he finished speaking, Liu Erzhu gasped in shock, and the brown paper envelope in his hand rustled.
Wang Jianguo was slightly startled, then he looked up and laughed out loud, and his laughter startled a few dozing sparrows on the kiln roof.
He fished out a wrinkled cigarette case and pulled out a cigarette, his knuckles gleaming bronze in the sunlight:
"Erhua, your thoughts are more penetrating than the fire eyes of a brick kiln."
The moment the flames started, he squinted his eyes and recalled the scene in Director Song's office that morning.
The old-fashioned ceiling fan creaked, and a densely packed personnel deployment plan was spread out on the sandalwood table. The red pen annotation on the top was particularly eye-catching:
"It is recommended that Comrade Wang Jianguo coordinate the overall situation."
"Director Song locked me up in his office for three hours today,"
Wang Jianguo flicked the ash from his cigarette, and sparks splashed onto the charred brick floor.
"I promised to provide logistics and drew up a blueprint to build the largest kiln factory in the province. But look at my hands——"
He spread out his calloused palms, with brick dust still embedded in the gaps between his fingers.
"I've been used to running around in the mountains since I was a kid. Looking at reports and meeting minutes every day is more uncomfortable than jumping into a hot kiln."
Liu Erzhu suddenly remembered that last autumn, Wang Jianguo took them over mountains and across rivers to look for clay mines.
It was drizzling that day and the mountain road was muddy, but Wang Jianguo was like an agile leopard, clinging to the rock wall with his bare hands to find a way out on the edge of the cliff, and he didn't even notice that his trouser legs were scratched by thorns.
People like this really shouldn't be trapped in a factory built of steel and concrete.
"But you are different,"
Wang Jianguo suddenly became serious and his eyes moved back and forth between the two men's faces.
"Erhua understands people's hearts. Last time when Lao Zhou's wife was sick, you rode your bike 20 miles overnight to call a doctor. Zhuzi has skills. Last month, the improved kiln increased the output rate of bricks by 20%. I feel more at ease handing over the brick factory to you than being the factory director myself."
He patted the two men's shoulders vigorously, turned and walked towards the 28-inch bicycle parked on the dirt road. The setting sun stretched his shadow very long.
"Well, I, the 'hands-off shopkeeper', should go find new orders for you!"
Cheng Erhua and Liu Erzhu looked at the receding figure, and the appointment letters in their hands suddenly became hot.
The wind blew across the brick piles, blowing up bits of paper. In a trance, they seemed to see the chimneys of the brick factories of the future.
And that figure who is always free and unrestrained is standing at a higher place, guiding them.
The heat from the brick factory was accompanied by the aroma of burnt earth. Liu Erzhu looked at the slightly hot appointment letter in his hand, his Adam's apple rolling up and down, and his nails unconsciously pinched into the calluses on his palms.
The green smoke rising from the kiln in the distance was distorted into blurred shapes under the scorching sun, just like his confused thoughts at the moment.
"But there are many people who are more capable than us."
His voice trembled and his eyes swept across Cheng Erhua's equally uneasy face.
"We are only in our early twenties and haven't even mastered the control of the heat yet. How can we take on such an important task?"
Wang Jianguo leaned against the brick pile, pulled the towel off his neck and wiped the sweat off his face. The white marks of salt and alkali on the towel shone faintly in the sunlight.
He looked at the two tanned young faces in front of him - Cheng Erhua still had scars at the corners of his eyes from last year's rescue operation, and Liu Erzhu had new burns on his palms that still had scabs.
"It is because you are young that I have to give you the burden."
His voice was mixed with the roar of the brick kiln, but every word was clear.
“Youth is our capital. We have endless energy, the drive to think and take risks, and a brain full of new ideas.”
Liu Erzhu bit his lip and rubbed his feet back and forth on the ground, raising fine dust. His memory suddenly flashed back to last month:
He made an operational error when debugging the new kiln, which almost caused a disaster. It was Wang Jianguo and the master craftsmen who worked overnight to remedy the situation and save the entire kiln of bricks.
"But...but what if we can't do it well?"
There was a cry in his voice.
"If this goes wrong, the livelihood of the entire brick factory..."