Period drama: Old Cao's carefree life

Chapter 285 What's so great about him, a mere section chief?
Cao Wei Da looked over and was also surprised.

It turned out that the gift box contained a Hetian jade pendant.

Judging from its color and weight, this jade pendant must be expensive; it might even be some kind of antique.

"They really invested a lot of money; this jade pendant must be worth quite a bit."

"I think it's more than that. Look at this jade pendant, it's so antique, it might be some kind of family heirloom. That seller really got ripped off."

Cao Wei Da smiled teasingly, picked up the jade pendant, examined it closely, and stroked it with obvious delight in his eyes.

An ancient saying goes, "A gentleman is like jade," and the Book of Rites also says, "A gentleman never partes with his jade without good reason."

This clearly shows that the ancients had an inexplicable fondness for jade.

This jade pendant is carved with cloud patterns, the lines are smooth and dynamic.

When you first touch it, it feels slightly cool, but not as piercing as metal. After just a short time of rubbing, the temperature of the jade quickly matches your body temperature, as if you are touching warm and cool cream.

The surface is finely polished, without any burrs or grains. When you run your fingers across the jade, it feels like you are gliding over polished mutton fat, smooth but not slippery, with a slight feeling of resistance.

Especially in the carved areas, the lines are smooth and rounded, with no sharp edges, and even the small decorative grooves are polished smooth and comfortable to the touch.

"The craftsman who carved the jade pendant has superb skills; it's clearly a master craftsman!"

I tossed it in my hand and felt a weight on it, but it wasn't heavy or oppressive.

It won't deform when pressed with your fingertips, but you can feel the firmness within the jade. It's not as light as plastic, nor as hard as stone; it has a soft yet firm feel.

"This must be what the ancients meant by a gentleman being like jade, gentle on the outside but firm on the inside, right?"

Wow, our ancestors had such amazing taste!
Knock knock knock~
The knock on the door sounded again.

Cao Weida gestured to Zheng Chaoyang to put away the gift box, then, while fiddling with the jade in his hand, said "Go in."

The door opened a crack, and a person with a middle parting peeked in.

After glancing around the office, his gaze settled on Cao Weida, who was sitting in the executive chair behind the desk.

His face immediately broke into a fawning smile: "Director, did I disturb you?"

"come in."

The newcomer had his hair parted in the middle, slicked back with oil, and combed until it shone even brighter than a mirror.

His center parting looked as if it had been measured with a ruler, and the oily shine ran down his temples, even the stray hairs behind his ears were stuck together neatly by the hair oil.

As he walked, his hair remained perfectly still, but a strange smell of cheap hair oil mixed with cigarette oil wafted out first.

"Director, congratulations on your promotion!" The man strode to the desk, carrying a food box. He placed the food box on the desk with a crisp 'click' from the lock.

He lifted the lid of the box, inside was a bowl of chicken soup, with a light sheen of oil floating on top. The aroma instantly assaulted his taste buds, making him involuntarily take a couple of sniffs.

"This is a Songhua chicken that I asked someone to find in the countryside. It took a lot of effort; it was simmered over low heat for six hours. Would you like to try it?"

Cao Weida rolled his eyes inwardly, without even lifting his eyelids, and stroked the gold buttons on the director's uniform with his fingers.

Zheng Chaoyang, standing beside him, silently swallowed, a disdainful sneer appearing on his face.

"Section Chief Liang, the Director is now in charge of the entire city's security. Does he need a few more bites from you?"

The person who came was Liang Xinyuan, who had just been mentioned and had gone to the home of Fuqu Dayong, the head of the Fuqu business community, to investigate a theft case.

"How could that be? It's just that it's almost lunchtime, and the director is very busy. I was worried that the director would be too stressed, so I wanted to give the director something nourishing."

With a forced smile, Liang Xinyuan took out a small box from his pocket, opened it, and respectfully handed it over: "This is for Madam. Please take a look at its quality."

Cao Wei Da glanced at it slightly and couldn't help but laugh. "Why do you think that is?"
Because inside the box was a pair of emerald green bracelets.

However, unlike jade pendants, these are a pair of jadeite bracelets.

He lost interest after just one glance. Compared to jadeite and other precious stones, he preferred Hetian jade and Lantian jade.

Jadeite only became popular in the mid-Qing Dynasty because of its bright colors, hard texture and high transparency, but Cao Weida did not like it very much.

The ancients loved jade because it was associated with 'morality' and 'virtue'; this is the origin of the saying 'a gentleman is like jade'.

Jadeite, on the other hand, is beautiful but has no symbolic meaning whatsoever.

Of course, even if he didn't care much, it didn't diminish the fact that these bracelets were quite valuable. He smiled and nodded, saying:

"Thank you for your kind gesture. However, you don't need to go to such lengths next time. Just focus on doing your job well. Although the Foreign Affairs Department is a relatively new department, it is still of great importance."

"Oh, speaking of which, I just remembered, how's the case of Mrs. Tomochura? Have they found anything?"

Liang Xinyuan's heart tightened, and he quickly explained, "Director, please don't misunderstand. How could I know anything about investigating cases? As you know, I'm from the Foreign Affairs Section, and my main service targets are the Japanese."

"Chairman Fu Qu's house was burglarized, and he was very angry. In order to avoid taking his anger out on our department, I went to pay him a visit."

"Alright, alright, no need to explain. I didn't mean to blame you." Cao Weida interrupted him with a faint smile. "Just tell me how things went."

Liang Xinyuan wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and thought to himself, "You didn't say anything to blame me, but if I don't make my stance clear, you'll be making things difficult for me, right?"
This guy was the kind of guy who dared to shoot a patrol officer right in front of the police station. The thing is, that patrol officer was currying favor with the Japanese. Even so, he still got shot dead and got away with it.
He dared not offend someone with that kind of power and ruthlessness.

Furthermore, upon returning, I heard that Deputy Director Ji Hongxin had been placed under house arrest.
Tsk, they don't even respect the deputy director, so what's a mere head of the foreign affairs section like him?
“I don’t know anything about criminal investigation, so I called the Public Security Section to find Section Chief Ding. But Section Chief Ding was in a meeting at the time, so I sent the deputy captain over instead. But in the end, nothing was found.”

"Because we didn't find any useful clues, Chairman Fu Qu was very angry. It took me a long time to calm him down, which is why I came back late. Please forgive me, Director."

"It's all for work, I understand." Cao Weida smiled, thinking to himself that Liang Xinyuan was quite sensible. As long as he didn't cause trouble for him later, he wouldn't bother with him.

"Alright, you should go and do your thing."

"Alright, then I'll take my leave. Please drink this chicken soup while it's hot. If you like, I can prepare more for you."

"Well, let's go."

After sending Liang Xinyuan away, Cao Weida pointed to the chicken soup and teased, "Come on, Chaoyang, let's eat together. I saw you swallowing your saliva just now. It tastes good, doesn't it?" Zheng Chaoyang smiled and said, "You know what, it does smell really good. It's making my mouth water."

"Alright, then I won't stand on ceremony with you."

The glossy preserved chicken rests on a white porcelain plate, its golden skin taut and shiny. The juices seeping from under the skin mix with crumbs of preserved egg, forming a halo of amber light at the bottom of the plate.

As soon as the chopsticks touched the chicken skin, there was a soft "pop" sound. The skin, as thin as a cicada's wing, split open, revealing tender white meat. Scattered among the meat were bits of preserved egg, a mixture of dark brown and glossy white.

He picked up a piece and put it in his mouth. As soon as his teeth touched the chicken, the savory juice spread along the tip of his tongue.

"Slurp~~ Mmm, it smells delicious!"

Zheng Chaoyang ate with obvious enjoyment, his eyes fixed on the chicken on the plate even as he ate.

His family wasn't wealthy before, but after joining the Party, life became even more peaceful. He rarely went to places like the Eighth Route Army Building.

Such delicious food was something he only ate occasionally when he was with Cao Wei. He wouldn't be willing to buy it himself.

With this money, we'd be better off supporting the base areas more.

Today, thanks to the Great Production Movement, the base area has achieved partial self-sufficiency in materials and escaped the predicament of being completely dependent on external aid, but it is still relatively poor overall.

These party members outside the base area, who had any money, mostly donated their remaining money and supplies to the base area through special channels, after covering their basic daily expenses.

Seeing his appearance, Cao Weida, who was sitting opposite him, laughed out loud: "This Songhua chicken must be made with young chickens from this year, first braised and then steamed, and the Songhua eggs must be soft-boiled so that the fresh flavor can be fully extracted."

Lately, I've been going to restaurants like the Eighth Floor Restaurant quite often. Whenever the food is served, the restaurant owner always comes over to chat and build rapport, and he'll also describe the style and taste of the dishes.

Having eaten and listened to a lot, Cao Wei Da naturally learned a bit about it.

Speaking of Songhua chicken, a TV series suddenly popped into his mind—"Underground Traffic Station"!
There is a battle in this TV series called the "Battle of the Grouse".

Speaking of which, this is a world where multiple TV series are combined. I wonder if they've included "Underground Traffic Station" as well.

Zheng Chaoyang gnawed on a chicken leg, tearing all the meat off the bone. He put down the clean, bare bone and sighed.
"We're enjoying the good life here, but back in the base area, we're still eating coarse food and wild vegetables."

"Behind the red gates, meat and wine go to waste; on the streets, frozen corpses lie."

Cao Wei Da rolled his eyes: "Hey, hey, hey, come on, are you trying to make a veiled attack on me?"

"No, that's impossible. I just said it on a whim." Zheng Chaoyang looked at the chicken soup in front of him, a pained expression on his face, and said somewhat sadly:
"These Songhua chickens are a real delicacy. Back in the base areas, wounded soldiers could only eat cornbread."

"This one Songhua chicken is enough to cover our soldiers' food expenses for a month."

"If we could save this money, their lives would be much better, and the wounded soldiers would be able to get some nutrition."

Cao Wei Da fell silent. He knew that the revolutionary martyrs had a very hard life, but he only had a superficial understanding of them through texts, TV series, and movies.

Before he transmigrated, although he wasn't exactly wealthy, he often got tired of eating meat and longed for more vegetables during holidays.

After transmigrating here, he immediately sold the family property of the person he replaced, then ran to Beiping to make a living, where he was lucky enough to meet Duomen and then entered the police station.

The most difficult time was probably the first month or two, but even then, although there wasn't much meat or fish, we were never really struggling to have enough to eat.

So when he heard this, he said he could understand, but saying he empathized with it seemed a bit pretentious.

He patted him on the shoulder and said in a deep voice, "Even the most difficult and painful days will eventually pass."

"The international situation is very good now. Once we defeat the Japanese devils, our lives will be better."

He didn't say things like "you will definitely win in the future" because that would be too sentimental and unnecessary.

He said jokingly, "Besides, this Songhua chicken was sent by Liang Xinyuan. If we don't eat it, it will end up in his stomach, which would be a loss!"

"Anyway, it's a waste of the pseudo-government's money, so why not eat it?"

“That’s true.” Zheng Chaoyang couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m being too sentimental, thinking about all sorts of things. You can’t eat such good food every day. I should eat more.”

"It's uncertain when I'll have to return to the army, and I don't even know if I'll be able to get any food then."

After finishing the chicken, and with neither of the remaining two men coming to "report," Cao Weida had a pretty good idea that the two men were probably not coming.

He wiped his hands with hemp paper and said to Zheng Chaoyang, who was cleaning up the leftovers, "Tell those two to come to my office at 2 p.m. this afternoon."

If we don't teach them a lesson, do they really think he's just a figurehead?

Fine, since you won't listen to reason, I'll have to make you suffer the consequences!
Get ready to be treated like a slave!
At 2 p.m., Guang Yuhua, the section chief of the Supervision Office, went to Cao Weida's office.

On the way, they ran into Wen Yongwang, the deputy leader of the communications team, who was also there. The two looked at each other and then exchanged glances, both seeing the same knowing look in each other's eyes.

Guang Yuhua looked worried and spoke first:

"Our new director is no pushover. We've been so openly disrespectful to him, it seems he's planning to make things difficult for us."

Wen Yongwang was naturally aware of this, but he didn't seem to care much, and snorted:

"So what? It's just a matter of doing more work. They're not going to kill us, are they?"

"Cao Weida is far too arrogant. He immediately targeted Director Ji to establish his authority, which is a slap in the face to the powerful figure behind Director Ji!"

"Does he really think he can act with impunity just because he has the Japanese backing him up?! He's nothing but a sycophant. As a Chinese, he's always groveling before the Japanese. How foolish!"

"Those Japanese, which one of them has ever truly cared about us Chinese? They're nothing but pawns that can be discarded at any time!"

He didn't use the offensive word 'dog,' after all, they were working for the Japanese, and saying anything too offensive would be tantamount to including themselves in the criticism.

He sneered, "The more arrogant he is now, the more miserable his future will be!"

"When the Japanese devils no longer think he's important and kick him aside, he'll know what regret is!"

"Let's wait and see, the one who laughs last laughs best!"

(End of this chapter)