Chapter 51: I'm Here to File a Complaint

  "Qin Hai, drive faster, don't let that car next to us overtake us!"

  "Oh no, so many bees! Why are they loading all the beehives onto the truck?"

  "Qin Hai, look quickly, is that a sand-digging boat in the river? Why is it so big..."

  From Pingyuan to Beixi, Qin Hai was annoyed by Ning Jing sitting in the passenger seat. This little girl heard that Qin Hai was going to drive Ning Zhongying to Beixi, so she insisted on getting into the car with the excuse of not trusting Qin Hai's driving skills, and had to sit in the passenger seat position in order to see the scenery along the way.

  Ning was strict with his son, but doted on his daughter. He found a familiar worker by the side of the road to help him ride his bicycle back to the factory and asked someone to pass on a message to Song Yulan, saying that he had taken his daughter to Beixi, then got into Qin Hai's jeep and even gave up the front passenger seat to his daughter.

  When Ning Zhongying was the factory director, every time he went on a business trip, if Ning Jing happened to be on vacation, he would take his daughter with him. So Ning Jing didn't find it novel to ride in a car. What she found novel was that the driver turned out to be Qin Hai, and she had never thought that any of her acquaintances could drive.

  "Hey, talk is just talk, don't touch my arm, okay?" Qin Hai couldn't take the disturbance from Ning Jing anymore and had to remind her. The old Jeep's steering wheel didn't have power steering, making it quite laborious to turn. Whenever Ning Jing got excited, she would nudge Qin Hai's arm, almost causing him to drive into the ditch several times.

  "It's your own skills that aren't good enough, yet you're blaming me." Ning Jing muttered discontentedly, also realizing she had been a bit too pleased with herself. Only after Qin Hai reminded her did she remember that Qin Hai wasn't Ning Mo, and as a big girl, being so familiar with him seemed to go against the norms of male-female relationships. She continued to be tough on the surface, but her actions were more restrained.

  "Xiao Qin's driving is pretty good, where did he learn it?" Ning Zhongying, who had been sitting silently in the back seat, suddenly asked.

  "Oh, I learned it from a driver in our village, but I didn't learn for long." Qin Hai replied with his fabricated reason.

  "Is your home in the countryside?" Ning Zhongying asked again.

  "Yes, I am from Jiangshan County countryside, both of my parents are farmers." Qin Hai replied.

  "A vocational school student from a peasant family can have such a level of achievement, being well-versed in both literature and martial arts, is indeed not easy." Ning Zhongying sighed.

  Qin Hai Dao said: "Director Ning is overpraising me, I'm just a person with relatively broad interests."

  Ning Zhongying praised Qin Hai for a moment, but didn't continue to delve deeper into the topic. Instead, he changed the subject and asked: "Xiao Qin, you haven't been in the factory for long, but I suppose you're also aware of these things. What do you think about the future of Qingfeng Factory?"

  "Switching to a different product is a dead end, and maintaining the status quo is also a dead end. To make Qingfeng Factory revive, we must build on its existing advantages, introduce new products, occupy the market with high-quality products, and open up the market with innovative products." Qin Hai replied.

  "Do you have specific ideas?" Ning Zhongying asked.

  Qin Hai Dao said: "I didn't think too much about it, but the quality improvement of the rotary tiller blade that Leng Ke Chang and I are working on together is actually quite promising. If the steel material quality of the blade can be improved, combined with our welding process, I think our blades can enter the national market without any problem, and just this one item can support Qingfeng Factory."

  "Is there anything else?" Ning Zhongying asked.

  Qin Hai thought for a moment and said: "There is one more business, if done well, it's worth tens of thousands of gold, I was just thinking about how to persuade the factory to do it."

  "What business?" Ning Zhongying asked.

  Qin Hai Dao: "It's a versatile military shovel, also known as an engineer's spade used in troops. I've asked the provincial military district to help contact sales channels. If everything goes smoothly, I don't dare say more, but annual sales of 10,000 to 20,000 units are guaranteed."

  "A few tens of thousands of shovels, how much money can that make?" Ning Zhongying said with some disdain. The farm machinery factory didn't have anything else, and iron shovels were a traditional product, but he had never heard of such a large factory making a fortune by selling shovels.

  Qin Hai Dao said: "The price of this engineer shovel, at least more than $20, even if it is calculated at the exchange rate, one shovel is worth 60 yuan, and 10,000 shovels are sales of 600,000 yuan. Doesn't Director Ning care about that?"

  "Sixty yuan for a shovel?" Ning Zhongying sat up straight, asking in surprise.

  "This is still the ex-factory price. The combat shovel I designed is aimed at the international market, and for some wealthy countries' military, $20 is nothing. However, this 60 yuan does not all go to Qingfeng Factory, there are also profits of other cooperative units in between."

  At this point, Qin Hai was vague and evasive. Of course, he wouldn't say that the cooperative unit was himself, Qin Hai. If this business could be done, Qin Hai planned to bring Ning Mo and others together to join in. Relying on Ning Mo to keep his father's secret was less reliable than expecting Ning Mo to successfully lose weight.

  "It's interesting, a shovel can actually create such a big market. It seems that we old guys should retire and let you smart people take over." Ning said with a mix of joking and seriousness. He was quite disdainful of those "smart people" like Wei Baolin, but for some reason, as soon as he saw Qin Hai, he took a liking to this clever young man.

  Due to road conditions, the 200-kilometer journey from Pingyuan to Beixi took Qin Hai more than four hours. After arriving in Beixi, Ning Zhongying first took Qin Hai and Ning Jing to a small restaurant by the roadside for a simple meal, then left Ning Jing at a Xinhua bookstore to read books, and drove with Qin Hai to the municipal government compound.

  "Mr Ning, you go ahead and take care of your business, I'll wait for you here." Qin Hai said to Ning Zhongying after parking the car.

  Ning Zhongying shook his head and said, "Lock up your car and come with me."

  "What's he doing here?" Qin Hai was somewhat surprised. Ning Zhongying had come to find the municipal leaders to report something, and there must be some things that were not suitable for outsiders to hear. What was he going to join in on?

  Ning Zhongying said: "Some of the things you said in the car were quite interesting, I didn't remember them all either, so let's go up and chat with the municipal leaders together."

  "Ah, okay." Qin Hai didn't seem embarrassed at all. He was bold enough in front of Yue Guoyang, so what's the harm in going to see the municipal leaders again?

  The person Ning Zhongying was going to visit was Vice Mayor Chai Peide of Beixi City. Chai Peide had previously served as the county magistrate of Pingyuan County and had a good relationship with Ning Zhongying. After being promoted to vice mayor, Chai Peide was also in charge of industry, transportation, finance, and trade, making him the indirect superior of Qingfeng Agricultural Machinery Factory.

  Ning Zhongying took Qin Hai into the municipal government office building, and the staff on duty at the front desk came forward to block them, asking: "Where are you from? Who are you looking for?"

  Ning Zhongying said: "I am from Pingyuan County Qingfeng Agricultural Machinery Factory. I'm looking for Vice Mayor Chai."

  "Have you made an appointment with Mayor Chai?" the staff member asked suspiciously.

  Ning Zhongying said: "Call Vice Mayor Chai and ask him if he will see me. Tell him Ning Zhongying has come to visit."

  The staff saw Ning Zhongying speaking English with confidence, but he was actually a bit scared. He picked up the phone and dialed an internal number, said a few words to the receiver, then hung up and smiled at Ning Zhongying and Qin Hai as they went upstairs together.

  Although it had been two years since he last came, Ning Zhongying easily found Chai Peide's office. Before knocking on the door, Chai Peide's secretary Xu Yang had already come out to greet him. Upon seeing Ning Zhongying, he warmly said: "Director Ning has arrived, Mayor Chai just cancelled two meetings and is waiting for you."

  Ning Zhongying smiled at Xu Yang and said: "Xiao Xu, it's been a long time since we last met. How are you? Are the kids in school yet?"

  "Not yet, I've just started first grade, thank you for remembering me, Director Ning." Xu Yang replied, his smile on his face became even warmer.

  Under Xu Yang's guidance, Ning Zhongying and Qin Hai entered Chai Peide's office. Chai Peide was originally sitting at his desk reviewing documents. As soon as he saw Ning Zhongying enter, he hastily put down his pen, walked up to him, shook hands and asked: "Old Ning, how did you come? Didn't even give a heads up beforehand? By the way, where did you have lunch? Why didn't you come directly here? Afraid I couldn't afford to treat you to drinks?"

  Ning Zhongying smiled and said, "Mayor Chai is busy with a million things every day, how dare I disturb him casually? Today, I came uninvited and was worried that Mayor Chai would drive me out."

  Chai Peide also smiled and replied, "What's this about the wicked getting ahead? It's clear that Director Ning has already transcended the three realms and doesn't want to mingle with us worldly people. I've been looking forward every day to Director Ning coming to give me some guidance, but your esteemed self never appears. Ask Little Xu, am I not always thinking of you?"

  Xu Yang chimed in on the side: "I can testify that Mayor Chai mentioned Director Ning yesterday, saying he wanted to find an opportunity to visit Director Ning in Pingyuan."

  "You will speak to your leader." Ning Zhongying glared at Xu Yang and burst out laughing.

  After they finished exchanging these insipid pleasantries, Chai Peide seemed to have just seen Qin Hai for the first time, pointing at Qin Hai and asking Ning Zhongying: "Hey, Old Ning, who is this young fellow?"

  "Oh, he's a technical school student who has just been assigned to our factory, named Qin Hai. This time I came to Beixi, our factory director Wei wouldn't assign a car for me, so I had little Qin drive and send me here." Ning Zhongying said.

  Chai Peide listened to Ning Zhongying say this, and directly took Qin Hai as a driver. He pointed to the stool next to him with his hand, indicating that Qin Hai should sit down, then called Ning Zhongying to sit on the sofa, before quietly asking: "What's going on, Old Ning? You've had a falling out with Wei Baolin?"

  "That's right, I've come to Beixi this time to report a case. Wei Baolin is no longer suitable to be the director of Qingfeng Factory, and I request the municipal government to remove him from his post." Ning Zhongying said straightforwardly.

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