Chapter 1125 - Du Wen
"Then do you know what happened after he died?"
"No."
"I heard Nanhai secretly buried him under a small tree in front of his house—and Chuqing still waters that tree every day," Wan Lihui said quietly after glancing around.
"Really? Nanhai would do something like that?" Wan Lihuang shook his head in disbelief. He had had considerable contact with Wu Nanhai. No matter what, he could not believe it. "I don't believe it. The whole thing about that mother and daughter was fabricated! We Agricultural Committee people know that best!"
"Hard to say!" Wan Lihui drew out his words. "Hard to say…"
"…" Wan Lihuang kept shaking his head, absolutely refusing to believe it.
Wan Lihui knew his words lacked any real basis and amounted to typical rumor-mongering. Someone as pure and "non-social" as his brother would never believe them. Though he knew it was somewhat baseless, giving his brother a warning could not hurt. He shifted the conversation to the North American faction.
After the yacht meeting, the North American crowd had been using the Flying Cloud for gatherings, barbecue parties, and the like—quite successfully building buzz. Qian Shui-ting's position as Committee Speaker had been obtained this way. But the number invited to each gathering was limited. Despite the Qian brothers' best efforts to expand invitations, Committee members like the Wan brothers—who were either frequently away or almost never went out, with weak presence—were easily forgotten.
"They're really shameless, openly pulling people in as if we're blind," Wan Lihuang said indignantly. "Now I finally understand what 'elites' means!"
"Heh, are you jealous because they didn't invite you?" Wan Lihui laughed.
"No. I have no interest in mixing with them—they reek of Western influence."
"Tsk, tsk. You say you're not jealous, but your fox tail is showing. Actually, there's nothing wrong with it—their life backgrounds are just different from ours. Their ideas are fine, but their methods are wrong, and they've found the wrong people. They'll have regrets later—after all, the Committee is still one person, one vote!"
After thinking it over, Wan Lihui continued: "Find an opportunity to show them some attitude during a vote. Otherwise they won't take us seriously."
"Got it."
"I checked this week's schedule. In a few days, Dugu is coming back to Lingao for a fertilizer production training course—he'll definitely ask you to attend. Get closer to him. Supervisor Ma won't neglect him."
"Brother, I understand."
The Civil Affairs People's Commissariat Social Work Department was housed in three single-story buildings within the Civil Affairs compound. This small institution was mostly quiet, with an establishment of only three Committee members. Dong Weiwei, since having her child, came only half a day each day to handle administrative matters. The other Committee member, Liu Yuefei, who held the title of Social Science Department Research Fellow, basically never appeared in the office—he was constantly dispatched for field research. As for Du Wen herself, she too was mostly running around at the grassroots level, busy with investigations and meetings.
Du Wen's office work was essentially conducted at night—the Social Work Department's lights would stay on well past midnight, sometimes until dawn. Due to power shortages, the Executive Committee required minimizing administrative electricity usage. Apart from certain important departments, most agencies received power only until 9 PM. For this reason, the General Office had installed gas lamps as public lighting for various administrative bodies. However, for indoor use—to ensure Committee members' safety without fail—only kerosene lamps were provided to supplement electric lighting. The coal-tar processing plant of the Coal Coking Complex could now quite reliably supply kerosene for illumination.
Her office had one such kerosene lamp, its glass chimney polished bright—maintained by Du Wen's life secretary, Du Mei. Though Du Wen firmly opposed the maid distribution system, one day she had suddenly gone to the General Office and used her maid subsidy to purchase Du Mei. Du Mei was among the last twenty-odd "pending assignment" trainees from the first class of the Maid School. If Du Wen had not purchased her, she would have been directly assigned to clerical work in an administrative department.
Du Wen looked at this short girl standing apprehensively before her, clutching a wicker suitcase. In a low voice, she said: "Forget all that nonsense you learned at the Maid School! Throw yourself wholeheartedly into the work of liberating all humanity!"
Besides the lofty work purpose, Du Wen did need someone to handle chores—tidying rooms, washing clothes, fetching meals. She also very much wanted to test "the power of education" on this girl, to pass on her ideas and ideology.
Du Wen was acutely aware that she was an absolute minority in the Committee. The Spartacus League's voice was extremely feeble, having only herself and Liu Yuefei as members—and Du Wen was very clear why Liu Yuefei had joined the Social Work Department and the Spartacus League. As for the League's allies, all had allied with her out of political necessity.
Within the Committee, she stood alone.
Even Supervisor Ma, whom she most respected, was highly unreliable in his stance on certain issues. Du Wen had realized long ago that Supervisor Ma, out of necessity for political struggle, had already begun becoming "revisionist."
If she died, everything she advocated would vanish like smoke. Whenever Du Wen thought of this, she felt extreme urgency—she had to choose an inheritor of her mantle!
She had originally wanted to adopt several orphan girls as her own daughters to personally educate. But the General Office placed significant restrictions on non-technical Committee members directly adopting orphans, approving only orphan sponsorship. So Du Wen's adoption application remained stuck on Xiao Zishan's desk. This forced her to use her life secretary as a breakthrough.
Now Du Wen sat behind her desk. It was already April, and she wore a cotton shirt made by the local garment factory. Because nighttime temperatures were still low, a lined jacket was draped over her shoulders. She bent over her work, reviewing reports. A desk lamp illuminated the stack of documents before her.
Compared to other Committee members' offices, hers was somewhat elaborately decorated—Committee members' offices were generally Spartan, with hardly any decorations beyond necessary furniture and supplies. This partly reflected limited material conditions, and partly the Committee members' deliberate cultivation of a frugal aesthetic.
But Du Wen's office was quite different. The wall held glass-framed portraits of the five leaders—Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. On her desk sat a plaster bust of Stalin, beside a Jingdezhen-porcelain figurine of Hua Mulan on horseback. These were all from her personal collection.
Along the walls stood many plain whitewood file cabinets, all carefully labeled. These held all the Social Work Department's reports—from work teams, research fellows, and cadres from various communes and villages. There were also reports from other departments. The Social Work Department now possessed detailed social profiles of every village in Lingao County, including land conditions, wealth distribution, population status, and ideological trends.
This system was continually being refined. A "Social Survey Progress Chart" hung on the wall. Its figures and graphics showed: of northern Qiong's major agricultural-population counties, Qiongshan had completed 55 percent, Chengmai 41 percent, Wenchang 43 percent, Ding'an 38 percent.
Du Wen drew a circle after the report—she had nothing to comment for now, and even if she did, it might not matter. The Social Work Department's work was demanding but its authority limited. Major decisions all rested with Liu Muzhou.
But her mood was far from calm. She had just been reading the Social Work Team's report from Jeju Island: Report on Social Work in Standard Village Construction on Jeju.
Besides reporting on the various social surveys conducted on Jeju, the report emphasized the detailed situation of the current security enforcement and Standard Village implementation work. Du Wen found this extremely interesting—because what the Jeju Forward Committee was doing was essentially land reform on a grand scale.
Though this land reform did not distribute land to peasants but directly "nationalized" it, its consciousness was extremely progressive! Du Wen had always been dissatisfied with the "gradualist" land reform being implemented on Hainan. Now, seeing Jeju's storm-like momentum, she was deeply intrigued.
"Who knew Feng Zongze was actually talented! Who knew his ideological principles were so close to mine!" she murmured.
Note: In the world of Lingao, the word "comrade" has been restored to its original meaning.
(End of Chapter)