Riding the wind of rebirth

"Is Xue Shan all ready?" Aunt Guan asked. "Is this Yang He and Sister-in-law? Is anyone else coming up?"

"This is my sister-in-law. She came up here specifically to take care of Xue Shan and the baby," Yang He said. "My parents-in-law will be coming up in the next couple of days. My parents are getting old, so we won't trouble them. We plan to take the baby back to them to see when the baby is a month old."

"That's good." Aunt Guan said to her sister-in-law, "With you here, everyone can rest assured."

“I can’t hold the reins either,” the sister-in-law said. “But we country folk always have some strength. Fortunately, Zhouzi and Xiaomiao have also come back, so I have someone to rely on.”

Guan Dabing said, "She's just not destined to be a mother. I told her you guys were definitely going to mess things up, and she insisted on coming over to see. Elbow, it's been a long time."

"Uncle Guan, it's been a long time. I was having dinner with Uncle Fei and Sister Liu the other day and we were talking about you," Zhou Zhi said with a smile, shaking Guan Dabing's hand. "Now many large organizations in the city use your prepaid cards as employee benefits. Your supermarket is doing very well."

"I wonder how long this good thing will last," Guan Dabing laughed. "The Sunshine Project has already started in Jingyang, and who knows, it might spread to Chengdu the day the anti-corruption campaign starts. So we still need your support, Zhouzi and Xueshan. Big private enterprise clients like Clover are the evergreen pillars of our business! Oh dear..."

But Guan's mother pinched her: "You're trying to take advantage of the children! Don't you know when and where to start?"

Feng Xueshan was in charge of the logistics at Clover, so things like issuing supermarket prepaid cards to employees were indeed her job. With this connection, Guan Dabing naturally had to work hard on marketing and compete with big stores like People's Department Store.

Currently, Heheng Supermarket's stored-value card seems quite popular, mainly because it can be used in conjunction with Hongxing Supermarket, covering both mid-to-high-end and low-end markets, making it very convenient to use.

"No, I was just expressing my gratitude to Zhouzi and Xueshan. What are you thinking?" Guan Dabing said.

Guan's mother ignored him and continued to ask Feng Xueshan, "Has the car for your parents been arranged?"

"No need to make arrangements, right? The road is repaired now, it's quite convenient to come up," Feng Xueshan said. "They'll take a bus up, and Yang He can pick them up at the lotus pond."

"The lotus pond is in a mess right now, it's not good." Aunt Guan asked, "Have they decided on a date to come up?"

"The day after tomorrow, but really, there's no need to trouble yourself," Feng Xueshan said.

"Let me ask." Guan's mother took out her phone and made a call: "Hey Lei, can you check if there are any empty seats on the bus coming up the day after tomorrow? Hmm, a good bus. Xue Shan is about to give birth, and her parents are planning to come up the day after tomorrow. My daughter is also planning to have her parents take the bus. I was thinking that if there are any seats available along the way, it would be more convenient to hitch a ride. Hmm, I'll wait for your reply."

After hanging up the phone, Aunt Guan said to Zhou Zhi, "Do you still remember your brother Xiao Lei? He's been transferred back to the county to be the deputy director of the office. The current director of the office is Song Yucheng. Do you remember Song Yucheng?"

"I vaguely recognize the name, but I can't remember who it is," Zhou Zhi said, trying to recall.

"Isn't your memory supposed to be excellent? Still don't remember? Hua Yuliang's secretary! He had a very deep impression of you. He said that when he saw Secretary Hua, he was like a mouse seeing a cat. You, a child, dared to meet the secretary alone and could even chat with him. He thought you were remarkable back then."

"Oh, Secretary Song!" Zhou Zhi remembered. "I remember him. He was very refined and cultured. He also graduated from Sichuan University, which was my senior. How did he become the director of the Chengdu office?"

"Hua Yuliang has been transferred to the city's Finance Bureau," Aunt Guan said. "It wasn't easy to arrange things in the county, so they sent Xiao Song instead, which is not bad." Normally, the future promotion path for county officials these days is basically to become a prefecture-level mayor or executive vice mayor. The Finance Bureau is indeed one of the best units in the city, but county officials are provincial-level cadres, while the Finance Bureau director is a city-level cadre. It's hard to say who benefits and who loses out.

However, Hua Yuliang's authority has definitely been reduced compared to when he was in Jiachuan, and he has fallen behind his father.

Because of his outstanding performance in the past two years, my father was registered in the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. Since the year before last, the Administration for Industry and Commerce has been under vertical management, which allows for direct promotion within the same department. He also benefited from the three coincidences of the Administration's requirement for younger and more knowledgeable management and the retirement of the old director, which directly led him to become the head of the Municipal Administration.

In contrast, Hua Yuliang was six months late, and he couldn't even get a job for his secretary in the county, so it seems he must have suffered some setback.

However, the political climate and official transfers in his hometown county have become distant and unfamiliar in Zhouzhi. The promotions and demotions of Hua Yuliang and Secretary Song are none of his business.

Now, his influence has far exceeded Hua Yuliang's level. Thinking back to when he was reborn, he still had to go to great lengths to outwit Hua Yuliang, which felt like it happened in his previous life, making him feel a bit disoriented in time and space.

The only feeling I had was that it was interesting. The thought of my dad and Hua Yuliang having to sit in the same meeting room every day must have been a little awkward.

So he just smiled faintly and said, "The Municipal Finance Bureau is a good unit, at least better than my dad's Industry and Commerce Bureau."

As soon as Guan Ma heard this, she knew exactly what Zhou Zhi was thinking: "The Municipal Finance Bureau has two powerful deputy directors. They are local tyrants. Lao Hua is now experiencing what it's like when your father was in the county bureau and Liu Chang'an thought he was blocking his path to advancement."

Back then, it was Liu Chang'an who kept stirring things up, and his father was indeed not very obedient, which gave Hua Yuliang the idea to take advantage of the reshuffle to change the head of the Industry and Commerce Bureau. However, Zhou Zhi thwarted his idea, and his father continued to hold the fort, leaving Liu Chang'an to continue to feel frustrated.

Later, because my father followed Zhou Zhi's advice and worked on optimizing government services, he was valued by the province and the city and was transferred to the city to share his experience and take charge of the city bureau's government service optimization process, for which he received an award.

During this period, Liu Chang'an could only preside over the work of the county bureau as a deputy director until his father officially stayed in the city bureau as deputy director, which freed up the county bureau position.

Then my father became a key member of the information technology project, a registered information system planning expert of the State Administration of Radio and Television, and vigorously promoted the construction of information technology projects in the city. He gained a wealth of experience and was selected to go to the State Administration of Radio and Television for exchange and learning, which was actually to pass on his experience.

Shortly after returning, the old director retired and recommended my father before retiring. Coupled with the General Administration's appreciation for my father, and several other special circumstances, he only went through a three-year transition period before becoming the head of the Municipal Bureau.

It's like making up for the time wasted in the previous two sessions.

“My dad did indeed block someone’s path to advancement back then,” Zhou Zhi said seriously. “He was only seconded and promoted after the reshuffle, and Deputy Director Liu presided over the work of the director for most of the term as deputy director, so his treatment was delayed by a full three years. Fortunately, good things come to those who wait, and in the end, Director Chang’an got what he wanted.”

Aunt Guan finally couldn't help but burst out laughing: "After all these years of being so arrogant, he's still your father's subordinate. Now that Hua Yuliang is gone, let's see if he's still so arrogant."

"What nonsense is he spouting!" Guan Dabing said, "There are only a few decent industrial and commercial enterprises in the county. Tianhua Company is state-owned; the county has no jurisdiction over it. The rest is just Zhou Liuniang's Group, which operates locally. How many people rely on the group for their livelihood?" (End of Chapter)