Chapter 12: I'll Go Scout Ahead

In truth, Lu Qiaoge didn’t know which rule Yao Kai had broken, but it was certainly one of them.

After the two had left, Director Hu looked at Lu Qiaoge with a complex expression.

He didn’t know whether to praise this girl for solving the problem so well or to criticize her for causing Yao Kai and Qi Shuang to divorce the moment she took action.

Oh, right—just because of a bird dropping, she had insisted on poking at a bird’s nest, and as a result, she had discovered the gold ring that Old Mrs. Li had lost.

The Li family was grateful to her; after all, the fallout from that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law war had been far too widespread.

But Xiao Zhu probably wasn’t very happy.

After all, that had been her test question.

Director Hu said to Lu Qiaoge, "Your task is complete. Go home first and wait for news."

Lu Qiaoge didn't leave. She just smiled brightly. "Director Hu, I’ve been wandering around the family compound these past two days and discovered a problem."

Director Hu put down his fountain pen. "What problem?"

Lu Qiaoge: "It’s difficult for us in the family compound to get fresh leafy greens, but in certain rural areas on the outskirts, they surely have more than they can eat."

Director Hu frowned. "You want to spend money to buy vegetables? No, no!"

Besides, you’re an unemployed youth; what qualifications do you have to go buy vegetables?

Lu Qiaoge laughed. "It’s not buying vegetables. We can barter. For example, my family has two bars of soap we aren't using right now. Can’t I use them to trade for spinach or chives?"

Old Hu’s eyes lit up, but 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 surplus vegetables of our farmer brothers. It not only solves their daily needs but also provides our workers, who toil day and night, with vegetable vitamins.

"Furthermore, in the future expansion of our factory, we will surely need the strong support of our farmer brothers..."

Director Hu was tempted.

"Director Hu, if you feel it’s not secure, I can go scout the path," Lu Qiaoge said.

"How will you scout the path?"

"The neighborhood office just needs to issue me a letter of introduction."

Old Hu: "Letters of introduction aren't issued just like that."

Lu Qiaoge: "If I were going out of town, who would I ask for a letter of introduction?"

Lu Qiaoge smiled. "It’s just a letter of introduction for traveling. Issuing that isn't against the rules, right?"

But Old Hu was worried. "You’re a young girl; you can’t go alone."

Lu Qiaoge deliberated for a moment and said, "I’ll go to the transport team and find my older brother. He counts as half a member of the neighborhood office anyway. As long as he asks for a half-day leave, he’ll be back by noon."

Old Hu hadn't wanted to agree, but for some reason, he found himself agreeing.

Lu Qiaoge said she would come back to get the letter of introduction after she had finished investigating, and then she left the neighborhood office.

Once she was gone, Ren Xiaocui and the others gathered around, asking curiously, "Director Hu, what were the twenty-nine rules? Did you find out?"

Only then did Old Hu realize he hadn't asked the most important thing.

He put on a stern face. "And you call yourselves state cadres? This is personal privacy, do you understand? Besides, Qi Shuang tore up the note; could Lu Qiaoge just talk about it?"

Huang Juan chimed in, "If she just blabbed about it, then no matter how talented she is, we can't hire her."

Everyone nodded.

Yet, they felt something was strange.

It sounded as if Lu Qiaoge had a very good chance of being hired.

But these people were truly starting to look at Lu Qiaoge in a new light.

Now, it just depended on how the others performed.

When Lu Qiaoge returned home from the neighborhood office, she saw a group of people under the tree gluing paper boxes.

Old Mrs. Lu had shed yesterday’s coldness; she pulled Lu Qiaoge over and asked her to tell the story again of how she handled the Sun Qin matter.

She even smiled and praised her: "Our Qiaoge has been smart since she was little. It’s a pity she dropped out of school halfway through, otherwise, she could have gone to university."

Lu Qiaoge, however, said seriously, "Grandma, let me take Qiaoling to the hospital. It’s not easy to return to the city now. Many people without a valid reason or a job will be sent back to the countryside. My brother only got a chance because he’s strong and the transport team’s loading crew was short-handed, and even then, there’s no official quota—he could be fired at any time. Didn't you say your chest felt uncomfortable? Qiaoling can use that as an excuse, and say the same at the hospital..."

Old Mrs. Lu looked at Lu Qiaoge with a complex expression. She hadn't seen her in over half a year, and with the drowning incident and the broken engagement, Qiaoge seemed to have grown up.

And so, Meng Xia and Lu Qiaoge stopped gluing boxes. The two of them took Lu Qiaoling to the hospital. After a round of examinations, just as Lu Qiaoge had said, it really did align with some symptoms of heart disease.

But this sort of thing couldn't be seen when it wasn't acting up.

However, it required continued observation, which meant she could stay for the time being.

The doctor issued a diagnosis, but the main issues were anemia and malnutrition.

These ailments were actually quite common in this era.

But with the diagnosis in hand, they could temporarily rest easy at home.

—

In the evening, Lu Qiaoge found an opportunity to pull Old Lu aside for a private chat.

She hadn't wasted her time wandering around these past two days; she had actually found out quite a bit.

But what Lu Qiaoge asked about now was the steel billets that had gone missing from the factory.

"Dad, the day I fell into the water, was Representative Qin actually on a mission?"

Old Lu immediately turned serious. "That has nothing to do with you. Don't go asking about things you shouldn't."

Lu Qiaoge: "Dad, this isn't a secret. Many people know, even Liang Aishu knows. Otherwise, why would he have been so guilty and afraid that day?"

After a pause, Lu Qiaoge continued: "But I’ve been walking around the family compound these past few days and accidentally heard that fifty years ago, Red Star Lake was actually called Immortal Lake. They say there’s an underground pipe leading straight to the center of the lake. No one knows who built it, but there’s a mechanism that can open and close it. When opened, the lake water backflows, which would flood the entire military factory and even the family compound..."

Old Lu had started off listening as if it were a joke, but as he listened, he felt a layer of cold sweat break out on his back.

Two months ago, when the ice on Red Star Lake had just melted, the steel billets delivered by the steel mill were put into storage according to standard procedure. But unexpectedly, in the middle of the night, lake water entered the warehouse and flooded a nearby workshop.

Not much water had come in, but when people opened the warehouse, they discovered that a whole warehouse of steel billets had vanished into thin air.

That had shocked the higher-ups, who sent Qin Hengzhi. That man was very capable; he quickly found the missing steel billets in the center of the lake.

He didn't know many of the details.

But he did know that while they appeared to still be looking for the whereabouts of the steel billets, they were actually looking for the saboteurs and the secret passage.

Old Lu lowered his voice, trembling with nervousness: "Then did you hear them say where the mechanism to open it is?"

Lu Qiaoge silently stroked the cat.

She had gone to Red Star Lake at noon to get fish for the tabby cat, though not at the remote lakeside, but near the family compound.

She hadn't expected to see an old turtle, and from that old turtle, she had learned many secrets—including the fact that there would be a massive rainstorm in a week.

She analyzed that the group of people, or perhaps a certain villain, would take advantage of the stormy night to open the mechanism and divert the lake water into the military factory.

Although it wouldn't submerge it, even if the water level rose by only twenty centimeters, the losses would be enormous.

This idea must have been in the works for a long time.

Two months ago had merely been a test to see if the mechanism worked, but they hadn't expected that perhaps because it had been too long, a mistake occurred, and those steel ingots had slid along the pipe and into the bottom of the lake.