Great Power Reclamation

Chapter 2801 Find a new way
Ye Mao is a very driven person who doesn't like to drag his feet when doing things. This has been the case no matter what he has done over the years.

How else could he accomplish so many things while attending school? He did it all by squeezing out time.

But after he started working, he had no control over it anymore.

The complicated and tedious interpersonal relationships are one of the first problems he has to solve, but the real work cannot be rushed at all.

Because everything had to be done step by step, at least he wanted to do one thing, and after drawing circles one by one, he was almost exhausted of all his energy.

It was true that the senior leader admired him, but this kind of unit was not a one-man show. Every level had their own ideas, discussions, research, and deliberate obstruction. Ye Mao always felt that he was struggling.

I used to think that if he could keep himself clean, he would not be short of money, so he would not make the mistakes that people in the system would easily make.

At most, if he keeps his private life clean, others won't be able to find any faults in him.

It turned out that he had thought things were simple. The biggest difficulty turned out to be work. It was not that he couldn't do it well, but that he had nothing to do.

Sitting in the office every day and doing some formal things is too depressing. At least he is still studying for a master's degree, and he can go to Huaqing for two days a week to relax.

Relatively speaking, Ouyang Xue's work is busier than his. Because she works in the foreign affairs department, many things require coordination, so Ouyang Xue is often not at home.

Ye Mao stood in front of the library of Huaqing University, the dusk dyed the glass curtain wall amber. The wind swept through the ginkgo treetops, bringing up a few early yellow leaves, which fell on the shoulders of his neatly ironed suit.

It was late autumn of his first year on the job. Every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, he would show up on campus punctually, greedily absorbing like a sponge the atmosphere that was completely different from that of the system.

The moment you push open the revolving door of the library, the aroma of coffee and ink hits you in the face.

He walked expertly through the lending area and went up to the Special Collections Department on the third floor, which houses precious documents on China's modern economic history and was also the source of inspiration for his master's thesis.

Just as I sat down at my old seat, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a message from Xiaolin, the new intern in the department:
"Director Ye, Director Zhang asked me to ask you if tomorrow's report materials need to be supplemented with last year's data?"

Ye Mao stared at the screen and sneered, his fingertips tapping quickly on the keyboard:
"Tell him to follow the template format and not to make any unnecessary changes."

After sending the message, he took off his glasses and rubbed his brows. The report material last week was clearly compiled according to the leader's requirements, but it was criticized by Deputy Director Wang at the meeting as worthless, saying that the data dimensions were not comprehensive enough.

But the so-called "comprehensiveness" is nothing more than an official game that complicates simple issues.

"Are you struggling with your job again?"

A familiar voice came from behind. Ye Mao turned around and saw his mentor, Professor Chen, standing in the aisle with a pile of books.

Professor Chen is in his early fifties and always wears a washed-out navy blue shirt with a copper brooch in the shape of a school badge pinned to his collar, which reminds him of the old items in his father's drawer when he was a child.

"Teacher Chen, why are you here?" Ye Mao quickly stood up to help take the book.

"Find some materials on the restructuring of township enterprises in the 1980s."

Professor Chen put the book on the table and glanced at the thesis outline that Ye Mao had spread out.

"'A Study on Institutional Innovation of Local Governments in the Early Stage of Reform and Opening Up' is a good topic, but you need to pay attention to the cross-verification of historical materials. By the way, how is the progress of the case study on the Southern Jiangsu model that I asked you to compile last time?"

Ye Mao was about to answer when his cell phone rang again. This time it was the director:

"Xiao Ye, there will be an emergency meeting at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. Remember to bring the latest industry analysis report."

His hand holding the phone tightened slightly, as he had submitted the same materials just three days ago.

Professor Chen noticed his expression and handed him a glass of warm water:
"You need to balance work and study, and don't push yourself too hard."

The old man's eyes were filled with a gentleness that showed he understood everything. "The 'space for trial and error within the system' that you mentioned in your paper is often more complicated in reality than in theory."

In the office late at night, Ye Mao revised the report for the third time. The city lights outside the French window were bright, like a never-extinguishing Milky Way.

He remembered what Professor Chen said during the day and opened the dusty folder in his computer, which contained various cases he had sorted out since he started working.

A certain project missed the best investment period due to layers of approval, and a certain research trip became a show for the leaders...

These materials could have been excellent arguments for the thesis, but they were like jewels locked in a safe, and could only be admired alone late at night.

At two o'clock in the morning, the materials were finally finalized.

Ye Mao leaned back in his chair, looking at the chandelier swinging on the ceiling. His cell phone suddenly lit up. It was a message from his college classmate Lao Zhou, who also worked in the system:
"Brother, I quit. I've worked in a window unit for five years, and I can't even write a decent work summary. I just write some nonsense."

This news was like a thorn piercing his heart. Ye Mao recalled the day he started working, when he stood in front of the company building in a brand new suit, the sun shining on his smooth face, reflecting tiny rays of light.

At that time, he thought that as long as he kept his momentum, he would be able to find a way out of the rules. But the reality was like a fog, and the further he went, the less he could see the direction.

On the weekend, Ye Mao followed the research team led by Professor Chen to the development zone on the outskirts of the city.

An intelligent industrial park is being built there, with tower cranes everywhere on the construction site and the roar of excavators being deafening.

Mr. Li, who is in his early 40s and in charge of the project, has cement dust on his cuffs. His eyes sparkle when he talks about the planning:
"The new material we developed in cooperation with universities is expected to be put into production next year and can reduce energy consumption by 30%."

Ye Mao was writing down quickly in his notebook when he suddenly heard Professor Chen ask:

“How well are local government support policies being implemented?”

Mr. Li's smile froze for a moment: "The procedures were handled too slowly, and the approval process was stuck for three months, missing the golden period for spring construction. Fortunately, the new leader in charge of the city paid attention to it and personally supervised the problem, so it was solved."

On the return bus, Ye Mao looked out the window at the fields passing by.

Professor Chen handed over a yellowed newspaper clipping, which was a report on the "rise of township enterprises" on the front page of the People's Daily in 1984.

"Back then, reform was like crossing a river by feeling the stones," the old man pointed at the mottled handwriting on the newspaper, "but as long as there are people who dare to break and establish, stagnant water can also create ripples."

This sentence stirred up waves in Ye Mao's heart. He thought of the documents that were always circulating in the department, the endless discussions in the conference room, and Lao Zhou's determination when he left.

Perhaps, as Professor Chen said, real change is not about breaking the rules, but about finding the fulcrum within the rules to pry the boulder.

On Monday when he returned to the unit, Ye Mao took the initiative to find the director.

“For the industry analysis that Director Wang mentioned earlier, I want to make a digital model that can not only dynamically display data but also simulate the effects of policy adjustments.”

He put the simple solution he made overnight on the table and said, "This is an open source platform developed by the Computer Science Department of Huaqing University. It is not difficult to operate. I can teach Xiaolin together."

The director pushed up his glasses and looked at the plan for a long time:

"Young people have good ideas, but don't be too aggressive. Write a feasibility report first and follow the procedures."

Ye Mao nodded, but he straightened his back unconsciously when he walked out of the office. He knew that this report might go through many approvals, but as long as a seed was planted, it would have the potential to grow.

The late autumn rain came unexpectedly. Ye Mao was walking home from get off work with an umbrella in hand, and the puddles reflected the neon lights on the street.

My phone vibrated. Professor Chen sent me a message: "I saw the academic conference application you submitted. The case analysis of grassroots governance innovation is very practical. Stay sharp and remember that academic research and institutional practice are never parallel."

The sound of raindrops hitting the umbrella suddenly became crisp. Ye Mao looked at the smart industrial park under construction in the distance. The outline of the tower crane was looming in the rain.

He remembered the cement dust on Mr. Li's cuffs, the last message from Lao Zhou, and his own passion when he first entered the workplace.

Perhaps change is like the autumn rain, which seems dense and gentle, but can permeate a new world over time.

In the study room late at night, Ye Mao turned on his computer and typed the last line of his paper conclusion:

"In the process of institutional reform, every individual who dares to try is like a ripple on the inky water. It may be small, but it will eventually converge into a wave that drives the times."

I don't know when the rain outside the window stopped. The moonlight shone through the clouds onto the keyboard, illuminating the jumping cursor on the screen, like an everlasting hope.

Ye Mao's digital model plan caused quite a stir at the conference.

On the projection screen, dynamic data was constantly updated as the hypothetical conditions changed. Deputy Director Wang pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and focused his eyes for the first time on this young man who always loved to "meddle in other people's affairs":
"This... the visualization is indeed intuitive, but the data source is authoritative."

"All data has been verified by the official website of the Statistics Bureau,"

Ye Mao quickly called up the backend interface, "And the model has reserved three data source interfaces for easy subsequent updates."

There were sporadic discussions in the conference room, and he saw the director quietly giving a thumbs-up. This was the first time since he started working that he felt the warmth of being recognized in a formal setting.

However, the good times did not last long. Three days later, the rejection letter for the plan was placed on his desk.

"Requires technical review by the Information Center", "Add expert review process", "Supplement five years of historical data comparison", three pages of paper were filled with dense red pen comments.

Ye Mao was standing in the corridor clutching a document when he heard Director Zhang's voice coming from the office next door: "Young people just can't keep their cool. This kind of innovative project is very risky."

Late at night, his office was the only one with the lights on.

Ye Mao stared at the stagnant project progress bar on the computer screen and suddenly remembered the systems theory that Professor Chen had taught him when he was a graduate student.

Any reform is a disturbance to the existing interest structure. He opened his work log and wrote a long list in the "resistance analysis" column:

Overlapping departmental responsibilities, technical barriers, and risk aversion inertia.
The turning point came at an inter-departmental coordination meeting. The investment promotion project supervised by the deputy minister in charge urgently needed industry trend analysis, and traditional paper reports could not meet the dynamic display needs.

When the director of the information center hesitated and said that it could not be completed in a short time, the director suddenly said: "Xiao Ye has made a similar model before, maybe it can be used in an emergency."

When Ye Mao rushed into the meeting room with a laptop in his arms, his palms were sweaty.

The moment the big screen lit up, he heard the deputy minister whisper, "Did you do this yourself?"

As the data model ran smoothly, the atmosphere in the meeting room relaxed significantly. After the meeting, the deputy minister patted him on the shoulder:

"Great job, young comrade. Improve this model and make it a universal template for all."

This unexpected event was like a huge rock thrown into a deep pool. Ye Mao and Xiao Lin set up a temporary technical team, dealing with daily work during the day and optimizing programs in the computer room late at night.

Graduate students from the Department of Computer Science introduced by Professor Chen also joined in, and the team groped forward in the gap between the system and academia.

Three months later, the first intelligent decision-making analysis system in the world was put into trial operation. At the launching ceremony, Ye Mao saw Deputy Director Wang secretly taking photos and posting them on WeChat Moments.

But the real test had just begun. During the system trial run, the data reported by a department was biased, causing serious distortion in the prediction results.

At the accountability meeting, someone suggested that it was a procedural loophole on the part of the technical team.

Ye Mao rushed into the meeting room, clutching the original data that he had checked overnight.

“The problem lies in the data entry process. I suggest establishing a two-person review mechanism.”

His voice echoed in the empty conference room, startling a few sparrows outside the window.

After the meeting, the director handed him a cup of strong tea and said, "You are too impulsive. You don't even know how many people you have offended."

Ye Mao looked at the tea leaves floating in the cup and suddenly remembered what Professor Chen often said: "Reform requires resilience."

He began to take the initiative to attend regular meetings of various departments, help old colleagues solve minor computer problems, and even learn data reporting standards from the Finance Department.

Gradually, colleagues who were originally resistant began to actively share their work pain points.

In the spring of the following year, the upgraded version of the system was officially launched, and the newly added collaborative office module won a provincial innovation award.

At the award ceremony, Ye Mao was standing under the spotlight when he suddenly noticed Professor Chen, who had come specially for the ceremony, sitting in the audience.

The old man smiled and raised his mobile phone. On the screen was the abstract of Ye Mao’s latest paper: "Technology Empowerment in Bureaucracy: Practical Breakthrough in Digital Transformation."

On the way back from receiving the award, Ye Mao received a message from Lao Zhou. His former classmate is now doing well in a startup company, and the location he sent shows that he is visiting the Smart Industrial Park:

"Brother, I believe what you said back then: 'Innovation is possible within the system'!"

In the twilight, Ye Mao looked towards the industrial park in the distance, where the smart factory had already been put into production and the flashing indicator lights were like stars.

He opened the memo on his phone and wrote down a new research direction: the survival map of grassroots innovators.

The night breeze blew across the collar of his shirt, carrying with it the unique moist scent of spring, as if heralding more possibilities were about to break through the ground and grow.

The phone rang with a text message. It turned out that Ouyang Xue had returned. The message showed:

"Remember to come home today, I'll make you a good meal."

Ye Mao's mouth curled up and he muttered to himself:

"Is it delicious? I don't think there's anything tastier than you?"

Ouyang Xue pushed Ye Mao aside, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"I haven't even finished pooping yet and you're already doing this, you pervert!"

I'm here, why is Piao Piao not moving?