Special forces soldier demobilization: Starting from the county government compound, a meteoric rise

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the sunlight was pale and devoid of any warmth.

The door to the office of the deputy county head was tightly closed.

The room was no longer the suffocating cleanliness and coolness it used to be; instead, it was a scene of near-collapse and utter chaos.

At this moment, Xi Wanqing was slumped in the large leather office chair without any regard for her image. Her delicate brows were tightly furrowed into a "川" shape, and her eyes, which were usually as clear and cold as a deep pool, were now bloodshot, revealing her exhaustion and helplessness.

In front of her, on her desk, on the sofa, and even on the floor, were piles of documents and reports like snowflakes.

Quarterly Summary of Investment Promotion in Qingyun County Development Zone

Emergency Report Regarding the Suspension of Project XX

Warning of Fiscal Deficit in the County in the Third Quarter

……

Each document felt like a death warrant, weighing heavily on the heart of this newly appointed deputy county head, who had been in office for less than a month.

"Snapped!"

She irritably tossed a newly delivered report onto the table, the report sliding across the surface and spilling a cup of already cold coffee. The brown liquid spilled out, soaking the alarming rows of red negative growth data, making it stand out starkly.

Ten minutes ago.

She had just come out of Li Yuankui's office.

Although the county party secretary's words did not contain a single dirty word, they were more vicious than the one that forced her head to be slammed against the wall.

"Deputy County Head Xi, you are a top student from Beijing, and we admire your theoretical level. But economic work isn't about writing articles; it's about putting real money into it."

"No new projects have landed in the development zone for three consecutive months. Several potential investors are also withdrawing their investments recently. If this continues, we won't be able to pay salaries in our county."

"The province attaches great importance to our poverty alleviation work in Qingyun County. If the economic indicators still don't improve by the end of the year... well, I'm afraid neither of us will be able to explain ourselves to the organization."

"Of course, you're a cadre on temporary assignment, so you can just pack up and go back to Beijing. But for us native cadres, we'd be completely embarrassed."

Every word is piercing to the heart.

This is a coup attempt.

It's telling her: either produce results or get out of here, don't just occupy the position without doing anything!

Xi Wanqing closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but felt that her lungs were filled with ice shards.

She is not reconciled.

She came to the grassroots with the expectations of her family and a heart full of enthusiasm, wanting to do something real, not to be a mere figurehead!

However, reality is like a thick cement wall; no matter how hard she tries to break through it, she remains unmoved and ends up getting hurt.

The economy of Qingyun County is in a dead end.

There are no resources, no transportation, and no talent.

What exists are deeply entrenched clan forces, greedy local officials, and barren mountains riddled with holes, yielding nothing but coal ash.

She tried to bring in high-tech industries, but when the inspection team came and took a look around, they left without even eating, seeing the garbage all over the streets and the potholed dirt roads.

She tried to develop specialty agriculture, but the produce couldn't be transported out and rotted in the fields.

She felt like a drowning person, struggling in a quagmire called "reality," sinking deeper and deeper.

"Knock knock knock".

A slow, deliberate knocking broke the deathly silence in the room.

Xi Wanqing suddenly opened her eyes, hurriedly tidied her somewhat messy hair and collar, and tried to make her voice sound calm.

"Enter."

The door opened.

Liu Ming pushed open the door and entered.

He was wearing a simple white shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, revealing his smooth forearms. He looked clean and neat, which was completely out of place in the room full of decadence.

"County Chief Xi, you wanted to see me?"

Liu Ming stood at the doorway, his gaze sweeping over the mess on the floor before finally settling on Xi Wanqing's slightly pale face. His eyes showed no surprise, as if he had expected this scene.

As Xi Wanqing looked at him, the pride she had been holding onto suddenly crumbled at that moment.

In front of this man, she always seemed to be the one who looked the most pathetic.

"Please sit anywhere." She pointed to the only relatively clean corner of the sofa, her voice husky with barely concealed raspiness. "Sorry, it's a bit messy."

Liu Ming didn't stand on ceremony. She walked over and sat down, casually picking up a scattered document from beside her feet and glancing at it.

"Did Secretary Li put pressure on you?" He didn't look up, his tone as indifferent as if he were talking about the weather.

Xi Wanqing gave a wry smile and did not deny it.

"He gave me an ultimatum. If the development zone didn't improve by next month, he would suggest to the city that my responsibilities be adjusted."

As she said this, she raised her head, and for the first time, a look of pleading appeared in her clear, cold eyes, like a gambler with nowhere else to turn, looking at his last chip.

"Liu Ming, I know you're capable."

"That day at the Standing Committee meeting, you immediately saw through Diao Deliang's manipulation of data. Your sensitivity to numbers and your methods of handling problems are far beyond what an ordinary staff member should have."

She stood up, walked to Liu Ming, placed her hands on the coffee table, leaned forward slightly, and asked eagerly:

"Can you help me? Can you tell me if there's any hope for Qingyun County's economy?"

Even if it's just an idea...

This is a kind of desperate measure, almost like "trying anything as a last resort."

She has a master's degree in economics and is an elite member of a prominent family in Beijing. Yet, she is now asking a demobilized soldier for economic advice. If this got out, people would probably laugh their heads off.

But her intuition told her that the man in front of her was her only lifeline.

Upon hearing this, Liu Ming finally raised her head.

He looked at Xi Wanqing, who was so close to him, and at the dying flame in her eyes.

He didn't answer immediately, but instead reached out and precisely pulled out three reports from the messy pile.

One document is the "Qingyun County Coal Industry Rectification Plan".

One of them is the "Feasibility Report on the Construction of a High-tech Industrial Park".

There is also a "County-wide Tourism Resource Development Plan".

These three documents represent the culmination of Xi Wanqing's hard work over the past month and are her three key strategies for trying to save Qingyun's economy.

Liu Ming placed the three documents side by side on the coffee table, and then gently tapped them with her finger.

"Is this your 'prescription'?"

"Is there a problem?" Xi Wanqing asked, somewhat puzzled. "This is based on the most advanced development experience from both domestic and international sources, and it has been reviewed and approved by experts from the province..."

"This is a big problem."

Liu Ming interrupted her, a merciless sneer curling at the corner of her lips.

"County Magistrate Xi, please forgive my bluntness."

"What you're doing isn't treating an illness; you're feeding a starving beggar a full Manchu-Han Imperial Feast."

"What?" Xi Wanqing was stunned.

Liu Ming picked up the "High-tech Industrial Park Report" and waved it around casually, making a rustling sound.

"Developing high technology in a poverty-stricken county where the per capita income is less than 2,000 yuan, where even 4G network coverage is not complete, and where power supply problems occur frequently?"

"Do you think any high-tech company would be out of their mind to come to this godforsaken place?"

He picked up the "Tourism Development Plan" again.

"And this too. Qingyun County has mountains and rivers, but the mountains are barren and the rivers are polluted. There's no airport or high-speed rail within hundreds of kilometers, and even the highway exits are dozens of kilometers away. Do you expect tourists to fly here?"

Xi Wanqing's face gradually paled as he spoke.

She had thought about these problems, but she always felt that as long as the policies were sufficient and the determination was strong enough, they could be overcome.

"But...but what else can we do besides this?" she retorted, somewhat unwillingly. "Should we keep mining coal? That's like drinking poison to quench our thirst!"

"Mining coal is definitely not an option."

Liu Ming tossed the report in her hand back into the mountain of documents like it was a piece of waste paper.

He leaned back on the sofa, his eyes sharpening like knives, as if they could pierce through the fog filling the room and get straight to the heart of the problem.

"You've got the wrong person from the start."

"What Qingyun County needs now is not some high-end industrial park, nor some vague tourism dream."

"What it needs is to generate its own blood."

"We will use the simplest, most direct, and even most primitive methods to ensure that the people here have money in their pockets, that the roads are passable for cars, and that the electricity here can power machines."

He looked at Xi Wanqing and, word by word, uttered the conclusion that struck her like a thunderbolt:

"If you're going in the wrong direction, the harder you work, the poorer you become."