"Well, hello there, Chunming!" Elder Yang was about to say something to Zhou Chunming when he turned his head to the side and shouted, "Hey, kid, what’s the rush?"
As Elder Yang was speaking, Li Ruhai had already reached the car window. He called out to Zhou Chunming inside, "Uncle Zhou."
"You must be Ruhai, right?" Zhou Chunming knew Li Baoyu but not Li Ruhai. Still, the two brothers looked quite a bit alike.
After Li Ruhai confirmed his identity, Zhou Chunming leaned over and pushed open the car door, and Li Ruhai hopped in.
Just as before, Xu Baoshan was in the passenger seat. But in the back, Dou Baoguo had been replaced by Li Ruhai.
"My friend, I’ve got business at the Farm, so I’ll be heading out." Despite one being the secretary and the other a gatekeeper, Zhou Chunming put on no airs with Elder Yang. He just said, "When you get a day off, come over to my place. We can have a drink, just the two of us."
"Alright, sounds good," the old man replied simply, then turned to Li Ruhai. "Kid, come visit your uncle here when you have time, you hear?"
Li Ruhai: "Okay!"
Zhou Chunming: "..."
The car slowly pulled out of the Logging Camp. It was Li Ruhai’s first time in a jeep, and he looked around the interior with curiosity.
Xu Baoshan, sitting in the passenger seat, turned around and asked Zhou Chunming curiously, "Secretary Zhou, whose kid is this?"
"Dayong’s," Zhou Chunming replied. He then pointed to Xu Baoshan and said to Li Ruhai, "This is the leader of Zhao Jun’s acceptance team. You should call him..."
At this point, Zhou Chunming hesitated, then asked Xu Baoshan, "Baoshan, between you and Dayong, who’s older?"
Xu Baoshan had already realized which Dayong Zhou Chunming was referring to. He immediately answered, "I am. I’m older than him."
Hearing Xu Baoshan’s answer, before Zhou Chunming could say another word, Li Ruhai obediently called out, "Uncle Xu!"
"Hey!" Xu Baoshan responded. He twisted around in the passenger seat to chat with Zhou Chunming. "This kid’s pretty sharp."
Zhou Chunming smiled at that. Just to make conversation, he asked Li Ruhai, "Ruhai, how old are you now?"
"Fourteen!" Li Ruhai showed no signs of being intimidated, even when facing such a high-ranking leader.
"Fourteen, huh." Zhou Chunming thought for a moment, then asked, "You’ve started middle school, right?"
"Yep," Li Ruhai replied with a smile. "I’m in the seventh grade."
"How are your grades?"
Li Ruhai answered honestly, "My grades are bad. I don’t want to go to school anymore."
"Hmm?" Zhou Chunming was taken aback. "You’re still just a kid. What could you possibly do if you don’t go to school?"
Li Ruhai’s eyes lit up. He looked at Zhou Chunming with eager anticipation and said, "Uncle Zhou, I want to come work at our Forest Farm."
The moment Li Ruhai said this, the other two men in the car laughed. Zhou Chunming, however, felt a sense of gratification. He truly loved the farm as if it were his own home. Hearing Li Ruhai’s response made him think, ’All the young people are eager to work at the Forest Farm. Doesn’t that prove just how highly everyone thinks of the Yong’an Forest Farm?’
But once his pride subsided, Zhou Chunming still had to advise him, "You’re still too young. We can talk about work in the future."
"I’m not little, Uncle Zhou," Li Ruhai said. "After the New Year, I’ll be fifteen."
"But isn’t that just your nominal age?" Zhou Chunming laughed. "Even at fifteen, what could you do at the Forest Farm?"
As he spoke, Zhou Chunming pointed to Xu Baoshan in the seat ahead of them. "Ask your Uncle Xu. The inspectors’ work is considered easy, but they still have to go down to the Logging Camp and live there for long stretches. Do you think you can endure that kind of hardship?"
Li Ruhai shook his head. "I don’t want to be an inspector."
"Then you want to be a logger?" Zhou Chunming asked in surprise. "At your age, you can’t possibly do manual labor."
As soon as Zhou Chunming finished speaking, Li Ruhai shook his head again. His young face was filled with determination as he declared, "I want to be the gatekeeper!"
"Come again?" Zhou Chunming froze. He exchanged a glance with Xu Baoshan, and then both pairs of eyes fixed on Li Ruhai.
Then they heard Li Ruhai say, "Isn’t my Eldest Uncle Yang about to retire? He’ll be leaving a position open. Why not let me have it!"
...
The jeep stopped in front of the Logging Camp’s office building, and Zhou Chunming and Li Ruhai got out. Xu Baoshan had already been dropped off at the acceptance team’s office on the way.
"Ruhai," Zhou Chunming began once he saw they were alone. "Why did Zhao Jun have you come here? What does he want you to do?"
After the day’s events, Zhou Chunming no longer saw Zhao Jun as a mere kid. He knew that if Zhao Jun had sent Li Ruhai to the Logging Camp with him, there had to be a reason.
Li Ruhai looked at Zhou Chunming and began whispering in his ear.
A moment later, a flicker of astonishment crossed Zhou Chunming’s eyes, but his expression was one of pure, pleasant surprise. He asked Li Ruhai, "Who wrote that script for you?"
Hearing this, a flicker of displeasure crossed Li Ruhai’s young face. He shook his head and said, "When I’m coming up with a plan for someone, I never need a rough draft."
’Is he praising himself?’ Zhou Chunming was taken aback for a second but didn’t press the issue. He just pulled some money and meal tickets from his pocket and pressed them into Li Ruhai’s hand. "Kid, go get a full meal at the cafeteria first. Then you can get to work."
"It doesn’t matter if I eat or not," Li Ruhai said, holding the money and tickets. "Uncle Zhou, about what we were saying in the car... about me being the gatekeeper..."
"Hsss... oh, man." Zhou Chunming looked at Li Ruhai and said with a sigh, "If I made you a gatekeeper, I’d feel like it was a total waste of your potential."
"Really?" A pleased look appeared on Li Ruhai’s face. He was just about to press his advantage when he heard Zhou Chunming say, "Kid, let your Uncle tell you something."
"Go ahead, Uncle."
Zhou Chunming said, "Don’t tell the whole story of what happened today all at once. Here’s why: tomorrow, we have people coming down from the Bureau for an inspection. So, could you wait until noon tomorrow, when I take them to the cafeteria..."