Courtyard House: Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor) Traded for an Aircraft Carrier, the Whole Count

The following day at noon, at the No. 1 canteen of Hongxing Steel Rolling Mill.

As soon as the get off work bell rang, the workers surged towards the canteen like a tidal wave. After the "leak" from last night's banquet, the whole factory was abuzz with the news—the new security officer, Jiang, had gotten his hands on some kind of magical meat, so fragrant that even the Soviet experts nearly ate their plates. Hearing that this meat would also be in the canteen's lunchbox today, the workers' eyes lit up with excitement, and they ran off faster than rabbits with their lunchboxes in hand.

Jiang Chen didn't go to the cadre canteen today. Instead, he specially changed into a smart security uniform, called up the two veteran brothers who had just been promoted to squad leaders yesterday, and swaggered into the canteen.

His uniform stood out conspicuously among the crowd of workers in gray-blue overalls, and wherever he went, the workers made way for him.

"Hello, Section Chief Jiang!"

"Is Jiang here to get food?"

Jiang Chen smiled and nodded in response, then walked straight to the window that Sha Zhu was in charge of.

Inside the window, Sha Zhu, wearing a white hat, gripped a large iron ladle tightly in his hand. He spotted Jiang Chen in the middle of the queue at a glance, and a sinister grin instantly spread across his somewhat swollen face.

Last night, he was forced to cook all night, watching those big leaders eat with their mouths full of oil, and having to listen to Deputy Factory Director Li praise Jiang Chen for being "capable". His jealousy and resentment had long since fermented to the extreme.

"That Jiang guy, now that he's in my hands, I'll show you who owns this kitchen," Sha Zhu thought viciously to himself.

The procession moved quickly, and soon it was Jiang Chen's turn.

Jiang Chen placed the lunchbox on the windowsill and said in a loud voice, "One serving of stewed cabbage and pork, and two steamed buns."

Sha Zhu snorted, not even lifting his eyelids. He dipped the large iron ladle in his hand into the vegetable basin and scooped up a large spoonful. The ladle was piled high with slices of meat, alternating between fat and lean, making one's mouth water just looking at it.

The workers behind them watched, swallowing hard, wondering why this silly Zhu had suddenly changed his ways and was being so generous.

However, just as the spoon was about to hit Jiang Chen's lunchbox, Sha Zhu's wrist suddenly started to shake violently and erratically, as if he had Parkinson's disease.

"Rat-a-tat-tat..."

With this incredible shake, the slices of meat in the spoon seemed to sprout wings and fell back into the bowl one after another. Next came the potato chunks, glass noodles…

Two seconds later, the spoonful of vegetables that was originally full of vegetables was reduced to two withered yellow cabbage leaves and a small half spoonful of watery vegetable soup.

"Snapped!"

Sha Zhu poured the half-spoon of soup into Jiang Chen's lunchbox, then tossed the spoon into the bowl, looking at Jiang Chen provocatively and saying sarcastically, "Oh, I'm really sorry, Officer Jiang, I was too tired from cooking last night, and my hand slipped. What? Not eating? If not, take your lunchbox away, there's a line behind you! Don't hogging the space!"

The workers queuing around were stunned by what they saw, their expressions turning angry but unable to speak out. This was Sha Zhu's special skill—the ladle-shaking trick. In the past, anyone who offended him or didn't do what he wanted would suffer this fate. But no one expected him to dare use this trick on the security officers.

The atmosphere froze instantly.

Jiang Chen looked at the two pitiful vegetable leaves in the lunchbox, but his face did not show the fury that Sha Zhu had expected. He simply raised his head calmly and knocked on the tin windowsill, making a crisp "thump-thump" sound.

"He Yuzhu, is your hand cramping?" Jiang Chen's voice wasn't loud, but it was extremely penetrating and clearly reached the ears of everyone around him.

Seeing that Jiang Chen hadn't gotten angry, Sha Zhu assumed he'd backed down and became even more arrogant. He stiffened his neck and banged the spoon against the rim of the bowl, making a loud clanging sound: "That's just how I am! This hand of mine, sometimes it obeys, sometimes it doesn't! Especially when it sees people it doesn't like, it shakes violently! Eat it or don't, if you don't want to eat, get lost!"

This is blatant humiliation.

Jiang Chen's smile gradually faded, replaced by a chilling coldness. He didn't take the lunchbox, but slowly turned around to face the long line behind him and the hundreds of eyes watching them.

At that moment, his aura suddenly changed; he was no longer an ordinary cadre who came to get food, but rather like a judge standing on the dock.

"Fellow workers!" Jiang Chen suddenly raised his voice, which boomed like a bell in the noisy canteen, "Did you all see that? This is our Red Star Steel Rolling Mill's excellent chef! This is Comrade He Yuzhu, who controls the mouths of thousands of people in our entire factory!"

The entire room fell silent instantly, and all eyes were on Jiang Chen.

Jiang Chen pointed at Sha Zhu in the window and sternly shouted, "The country entrusted him with the grain so that he could cook for the workers to replenish their strength! So that we would have the energy to build socialism! But what has he done? Relying on the spoon in his hand, he's treating public resources as his own private property! He gives more to whomever he wants, and deducts from whomever he wants! What kind of behavior is this?"

He paused, his gaze sweeping over each of the workers present, their faces stained with grease and their expressions weary, and his voice grew even more impassioned:

"This is typical bureaucratic behavior! This is undermining socialism! This is destroying the worker-peasant alliance! We are sweating and bleeding on the front lines, while he is using the country's grain to enjoy privileges and bully others in the rear! How can we tolerate this kind of behavior of riding on the backs of the people and acting arrogantly?!"

These words were like a spark falling into a dried-up pile of firewood.

Which worker hadn't been bullied by Sha Zhu? Who hadn't been jerked by his ladle? Who hadn't seen him fill a box with meat for Qin Huairu while giving himself only soup and gravy? Before, they dared not speak out, fearing he would retaliate. But now, someone had taken the lead, and escalated the matter to the level of "undermining the worker-peasant alliance"!

The pent-up anger erupted instantly.

"No way! Absolutely not!" Jiang Chen's two security guards shouted first from the crowd.

Immediately afterwards, a deafening roar engulfed the entire cafeteria.

"Yes! That's so mean! Last time he shook me so hard I lost half a spoonful of meat!"

"Down with idiot Zhu! Down with privilege!"

"What the hell! A cook thinks he can turn the world upside down!"

The roars of hundreds of workers combined to create a sound that nearly blew the roof off the canteen.

Sha Zhu, standing at the window, was completely dumbfounded. The large spoon in his hand clattered into the basin, and his face instantly turned deathly pale. He never imagined that his mere attempt to disgust Jiang Chen would suddenly turn him into a "public enemy." Looking at the angry, distorted faces outside, he felt fear for the first time—the fear of the vast ocean of the people.

Jiang Chen looked at Sha Zhu, whose face was deathly pale, and slowly turned his head. His eyes turned icy cold, as if he were looking at a pig or sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

He slowly took off his white gloves, stuffed them into his pocket, then braced himself against the greasy windowsill with one hand, leaning slightly forward, his posture like that of a cheetah poised to pounce.

"He Yuzhu, since you have a problem with your hand, and you can't even hold a spoon properly, that's an illness that needs to be treated."

Jiang Chen's voice was low and dangerous, each word like a blow to Sha Zhu's heart: "Since you can't cure yourself, then today, I'll take the trouble and help you properly cure this ailment!"