Reborn in the red age

Just looking at Zhou Yongjun's attire, one could tell that he had not had a very happy life in recent years. Considering what happened in Northeast China this year, Li Qingfeng and his wife knew exactly why he came to visit them this time.

At home, he enthusiastically chatted with Zhou Yongjun for an entire afternoon and recalled the past. That night, instead of letting Cai Genhua cook, he took Zhou Yongjun to Donglaishun to have a meal of mutton hotpot from the old capital.

At the dinner table, Zhou Yongjun hesitated several times to speak, but Li Qingfeng did not ask, but just invited Zhou Yongjun to eat meat.

After having a good meal and a drink, they arranged for Zhou Yongjun to stay at the Kunlun Hotel and told him to have a good rest. After arranging a gathering with other educated youth in the capital tomorrow, the couple said goodbye and left.

On the way back, Hu Jiabao sat in the passenger seat and asked in confusion: "Brother Yongjun wanted to speak, why didn't you let him speak?"

"What should he say? Beg us to find him a job?" Li Qingfeng held the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the lane ahead.

Hu Jiabao opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say for a moment.

Looking at Hu Jiabao's expression, Li Qingfeng smiled and said, "Don't worry, I know what's going on. After all, I slept on the kang with him at the educated youth camp for two years. I will handle this matter well."

"What are you going to do?"

"Brother Yongjun is too sincere, so we can't do business together. I will call Zhang Yapeng tomorrow and ask him to prepare a few jobs and houses to take in Brother Yongjun and his family."

"You didn't even ask what Brother Yongjun thought."

"If he wanted to get rich, he would have come to me a long time ago. He came here now, which only means that he can't make ends meet. He came to me just for a job." Li Qingfeng shook his head and changed the subject: "There are quite a few people in our educated youth camp in the capital. Please contact them and see if they have time tomorrow to have dinner together."

"I don't have much contact with them. Apart from the four of us, of the later batch of educated youth, only Zhaodi still has contact information. I haven't had any contact with the others since they returned to the city."

"I remember that Lin Zhaodi was a junior high school classmate of several educated youth from the capital. She should have their contact information. You can ask Lin Zhaodi to contact them."

Hu Jiabao shook his head and said uncertainly: "I'll try, but don't count on Zhaodi, she probably hasn't contacted us much."

Li Qingfeng nodded indifferently. It would be best if he could find one, but it didn't matter if he couldn't. He just said it casually.

Lin Zhaodi, Hu Jiabao and Ma Wenhui, who graduated from the same university, are still in contact and occasionally have dinner together.

Li Qingfeng also had some understanding of Lin Zhaodi's situation.

After graduation, I joined the Second Ministry of Machinery, was favored by the department leader, became the leader's daughter-in-law, and is now a full-fledged department-level cadre in the ministry.

That's how people are. They are of different classes and don't meet often. Even if they had a good relationship when they were young, it will gradually fade after they start working, especially in this age without WeChat.

It is said that it is easier to make progress when there is someone behind you. The weak and frail Lin Zhaodi became the director step by step.

Zhang Dayong, who also worked in the ministry and started from a higher point than Lin Zhaodi, has worked diligently for many years. He has been eager to make progress, but now he is only a deputy director. His rank is only half a level higher than Lin Zhaodi. It is true that they are the same people but have different destinies.

As Hu Jiabao said, it turned out to be true. When Lin Zhaodi called together the educated youth from that year the next day, she only found Wu Xiangqian, a pig-raising expert from the educated youth point, and didn't find anyone else.

The reason why Lin Zhaodi was able to contact Wu Xiangqian was that she and Wu Xiangqian used to be neighbors and her house had not been demolished yet. If it had been demolished, she would probably be in trouble.

"Wenhui, Zhaodi, Xiaowu, long time no see"

"Brother Yongjun, I haven't seen you for many years. You have changed a lot."

The next night, Li Qingfeng hosted a dinner at Quanjude. In the private room of the hotel, after everyone arrived, they began to greet each other after a long separation.

After exchanging pleasantries with Zhou Yongjun, Wu Xiangqian, who was dressed quite fashionably, greeted Li Qingfeng with a smile: "Brother Qingfeng, it's been a long time since we last met. In the blink of an eye, so many years have passed. I didn't expect that our educated youth camp would produce such a great figure like you."

"What big shot? He's just trying to make a living." Li Qingfeng smiled and waved his hand. He looked at Wu Xiangqian, who was wearing fashionable clothes, and asked, "She's dressed like a Hong Kong or Taiwan star. It looks like she's made a fortune in recent years."

"What are you posting? Don't make fun of me. I just do some small business to make a living. I can barely make ends meet."

"Look at this big gold chain and this big gold bracelet. If you could barely make ends meet, then everyone in our country would have already achieved moderate prosperity."

"Compared to you, I can barely make ends meet. I'm afraid my entire fortune is not as valuable as the bracelet that Jia Baojie is wearing."

This is true. The bracelet on Hu Jiabao's hand is not cheap. It is made of green ice-type material. Li Qingfeng spent more than 100,000 yuan to buy it two years ago.

This bracelet will take more than ten or twenty years to buy, and it will cost at least tens of millions.

This kind of bracelet is nothing special in Hu Jiabao's jewelry cabinet. There are many bracelets with better colors than this one. However, due to work reasons, he has to take off the bracelets frequently. Ever since one of them broke, Hu Jiabao rarely wears high-quality bracelets.

Li Qingfeng did not continue chatting with Wu Xiangqian. Seeing that it was almost time, he asked the chef to slice the duck and asked everyone to sit down and prepare to eat.

I used to eat a lot of duck, but after eating too much, I always felt sick of it. Li Qingfeng hasn't eaten it for many years.

This time, when I saw the shiny roast duck served on the table, the familiar color and aroma of the roast duck aroused my appetite again.

After the chef had sliced ​​the duck, Li Qingfeng expertly picked up the duck meat, green onion shreds, and cucumber segments, then dipped them in a special sweet noodle sauce. The taste, in the words of the capital's dialect, was so authentic.

Having not seen each other for many years, we naturally talked about our past experiences together. We talked about some interesting things during our time as educated youth, and then talked about our respective situations in recent years.

As they chatted, Lin Zhaodi turned to Zhou Yongjun, who had been silent the whole time, and asked with concern: "Brother Yongjun, I haven't seen you for so many years. Are you doing well?"

Zhou Yongjun was slightly stunned, then forced a smile: "Life is just like that for ordinary people, just make do with it."

Lin Zhaodi wanted to ask something else, but Li Qingfeng immediately took over the topic. Looking at Wu Xiangqian who was eating beside her, he smiled and asked, "Xiangqian, I didn't ask you in detail just now, what business are you doing now?"

Seeing that Li Qingfeng helped him out, Zhou Yongjun cast a grateful look towards Li Qingfeng.

Wu Xiangqian was smart and had been doing business for many years, so she naturally understood what Li Qingfeng meant and immediately spoke to draw everyone's attention to herself.

"Hey, what kind of business is this? You should be able to tell from the way I dress. Isn't it obvious to me?"

Giving Wu Xiangqian an admiring look, Li Qingfeng stroked his chin and said pretentiously, "You're not going to Hong Kong to be a star, are you? Tell me, what movies have you acted in?"

"Haha, Brother Qingfeng, you really know how to joke. How can I be a star with my looks? If I want to be a star in a movie, you are the only one in our educated youth center who meets the requirements to be a star."

Li Qingfeng slammed the table and said to Hu Jiabao, "Look, look, what is this? This is what we call the people's sharp eyesight. Brother Yongjun said so yesterday, and my sister Xiangqian said so today. What else do you have to say?"

Everyone at the table burst into laughter, but after sitting down, Zhou Yongjun, who had been relatively silent, had a rather bitter smile.

"Haha, you are just kidding yourself." Hu Jiabao rolled his eyes at him, turned his head and looked at Wu Xiangqian and asked, "Xiangqian, are you doing the clothing business like Wenhui now?"

"No, look at the bits and pieces I have on me, they must be all kinds of things women use."

Ma Wenhui asked curiously: "The clothing business is doing well now. Clothes from the south sell well in the capital, and the profits are good. Why don't you do the clothing business?"

"Hey, it's because I'm used to making these small things. Plus, business is pretty good, so I'm too lazy to make clothes," Wu Xiangqian waved her hand and said indifferently.

Lin Zhaodi also joined the conversation and explained to the two with a smile: "You don't know, Xiang Qian has been doing this since she returned to the city, and it has been more than ten years now."

After listening to Lin Zhaodi's explanation, Hu Jiabao and the other man looked at Wu Xiangqian curiously.

The large-scale return of educated youth to the city took place at the end of 1978. At that time, the policy had just been slightly relaxed and not many people dared to do business. If Wu Xiangqian started her business that year, then this girl was quite courageous.

Facing the two people's curious gazes, Wu Xiangqian waved her hand and explained with a smile: "What? Zhaodi doesn't know the details. When I first returned to the city, the higher-ups first said that they would guarantee employment, and then said that they would give priority to the older people who have been unemployed for a long time. They asked us younger people to carry forward our style and give the job opportunities to the older people, and then arrange for us later."

"That was how it was. I ate white rice at home for half a year without any job arrangement. Later, a man named Yin started a big bowl tea business. When the higher-ups saw this business, they said there was no high or low position, no distinction between noble and humble work, and that no matter where we were, we were all contributing to the country, so they sent all of us to sell water on the street."

"I sold water for half a year. I couldn't stand the cold standing on the street in the middle of winter. It wasn't a serious job and the income was low. Just after New Year's Day in 79, I saw people secretly setting up stalls on the street. I thought, since I'm standing outside in the cold anyway, why not do something that pays more? So I quit my job selling water and went to work as a street vendor."

A bowl of water cost two cents, and the business wasn’t big, but it did solve the employment problems of many educated youth at that time.

Before the policy of individual business owners came out, it solved the survival problems of some educated youth during the transition period.

As Wu Xiangqian finished her speech, everyone in the room lamented how difficult it was for Wu Xiangqian.

However, except Zhou Yongjun, no one felt the same way. The other four people all got into university and did not have this experience.

After eating roast duck at Quanjude, Li Qingfeng laughed and said some polite words like everyone was family and they should keep in touch more in the future.

Wu Xiangqian on the side immediately took the opportunity to climb up. Since they were all old friends who repaired the earth together, if she expanded her business in the future, could she borrow Li Qingfeng's name?

What could Li Qingfeng say about this? He could only generously say that they were all family members, so they could use them as they pleased.

After sending Zhou Yongjun back to the downstairs of Kunlun Hotel, Li Qingfeng asked Hu Jiabao to stay in the car while he and Zhou Yongjun stood at the door of the hotel. He took out a piece of paper with an address and phone number from his pocket: "Brother Yongjun, this is the phone number of Wen Hui's husband. He is now in Harbin and is the general manager of a car factory. I have arranged everything. You can just call him directly. They can help with your family's work, housing, household registration, and children's schooling."

"Brother Qingfeng, I don't know what to say."

Zhou Yongjun's eyes instantly turned red as he took the note. His voice was a little choked up. He held the note tightly and looked at Li Qingfeng with gratitude.

Li Qingfeng patted Zhou Yongjun on the shoulder and consoled him with a smile, "Brother Yongjun, don't say anything. We had a good relationship when we were in the educated youth camp. I will definitely help you if you are in trouble. Just take your sister-in-law and children with you and start a new life."

Zhou Yongjun nodded vigorously and wiped away his tears with his rough right hand: "Qingfeng, I will remember this kindness, and I will never forget it in my life. You didn't say anything before, and I was wondering if you didn't want to help me, but I didn't expect you to have arranged everything."

"I can understand. You are anxious and can't save your face by asking me for help, so you are a little suspicious. This is normal." Having said this, Qingfeng Li paused and asked, "What's going on at home now?"

"People are laid off every day. Your sister-in-law's salary at the textile factory couldn't be paid last year. She used cloth to cover her salary, but she was laid off after New Year's Day. Our factory was better off. We sold a batch of machines and our salary lasted until the end of the year. But not long after the new year began, the factory suspended my employment without pay. My eldest son doesn't have a stable job either, so he earns some money by doing odd jobs in the construction team."

"There are too many laid-off people, and it's really hard to find a job locally. Your sister-in-law can still work as a nanny, but at my age, no one wants me to even carry heavy bags. I really had no choice but to follow the news on TV and come here to find someone."

Zhou Yongjun wiped his tears and smiled bitterly: "I'm not afraid of you laughing at me, but the meat dishes on our New Year's dinner table this year were dumplings and chicken racks stewed with vermicelli. There was not even a proper pork stewed with vermicelli."

Seeing the old man, who would be fifty in a few years, wiping tears in front of him, Qingfeng Li felt very uncomfortable.

I don’t know how to comfort her, I can only repeat the same things over and over again.

Under the strange gaze of the hotel doorman, Zhou Yongjun, who was crying his heart out, was sent back to the hotel.

The moment he walked out of the hotel, Qingfeng Li looked back at the magnificently decorated Kunlun Hotel, feeling filled with emotion.

A grain of sand of the times, when it falls under a person's feet, is a stepping stone; when it falls on a person's head, it becomes a mountain that cannot be avoided.

In the past, I saw people ascending to the sky by stepping on stepping stones. Today, I finally saw ordinary people who were pinned down by the mountain and unable to move. (End of this chapter)