Chapter 130: The Autumn Harvest of Sun Xiaoshan (5)

After Chen Moqing finished asking, he pondered briefly to himself, then began introducing Minister Sun of his own department, praising him as a rare flower in the sky and a figure who could surpass even the undead on earth—skilled in both literature and adept in mechanical electronics, as well as capable of wielding steel pipes in battle.

“Hmm?” Lu Wancai thought the game was about to begin. He recalled how his daughter had recently caused a disturbance at a construction site but had since become unusually subdued. Something must have happened.

Reflecting carefully, his daughter didn’t seem like someone beaten down and shouting for revenge; rather, she resembled how his wife had been when they first met.

Lu Wancai’s heart filled with dread. The Special Committee’s methods were subtle and bizarre—had this all happened without his notice? Or had his own daughter eagerly delivered herself into their hands?

Chen Moqing was feeling proud, chuckling to himself. No matter how formidable your skills, you still have to drink from the Special Committee’s footbath. Ha ha ha.

After exchanging a few pleasantries and seeing that Lu Wancai had no objections, Chen Moqing smiled and took his leave, heading straight for the artificial well site at Dagang Oilfield, Chenghai No. 1.

In truth, Lu Wancai was utterly bewildered by Chen Moqing’s roundabout talk, looking as stunned as a toad struck by lightning.

Chen Moqing, smiling broadly, approached Sun Xiaoshan, who was busy directing the team in equipment adjustments.

Seeing Chen Moqing’s beaming face, Sun Xiaoshan felt pleased and a bit flustered, unsure how to respond, grinning sheepishly.

The two whispered back and forth for a while, and everyone nearby knew what Chen Moqing was up to, joining in the cheerful laughter. Even the workers from Xiaoxinbao Village felt more at ease.

The agreed conclusion was straightforward: they needed to report to the higher authorities.

Li Fengyi soon received the report and couldn’t stop grinning. At this level of official, there were no personal matters. He sought out Commander Liu.

“Eh, Xiao Li, have you been eating honey or something?” Commander Liu asked, noticing Li Fengyi’s happiness. “Why so cheerful?”

“Heh,” Li Fengyi laughed, “Good news. Let’s see what to do next.”

Commander Liu was familiar with this procedure—his late wife had been introduced by the organization back in the day.

—

The political background check showed the Lu family was clean. In China, after all, whose ancestors weren’t poor peasants for at least three generations? Miss Lu had a somewhat notorious history of frequently assaulting former officials, which ironically reassured Li Fengyi and the others. “Well, this is perfect,” they thought. “If any former official tries to retaliate, she has a strong family backing.”

They didn’t ask the young lady’s opinion. In such turbulent times, there was no time for sentimentalities. At the slightest sign, things had to be dealt with promptly and properly.

The Special Committee was prepared to deepen ties with the survivor community in Cangzhou. Their officer had become the son-in-law of a director at the Cangzhou Martial Arts Association, cementing a close relationship.

Commander Liu took a business trip to Cangzhou and met with Director Cai to discuss the matter. Director Cai was very pleased.

Recently, he had grown increasingly satisfied: the Special Committee’s services were effective, the streets were cleaner, the crematorium was operating normally, and zombie corpses were being cremated. Every company had hired many workers, and the council meetings were no longer filled with endless gestures and arguments. Everyone was now focused on recruiting workers and making more money to improve their lives. Life was more than just filling one’s belly with steamed buns and rice.

Director Cai was cautious, however. After all, it was their own daughter from Cangzhou marrying into the Special Committee. He asked Commander Liu, “Has the Lu family agreed?”

Liu was a bit vague, “Well, I think the girl didn’t object?”

“I’ll go ask,” said Director Cai, who was a lively person and took it lightly. Martial artists generally liked a bit of excitement.

The details need not be elaborated. Essentially, the girl’s family refused to explicitly say yes or no. An elder argued that silence meant consent, but the girl cooperated by simply not speaking. How cliché.

Li Fengyi’s family, as Sun Xiaoshan’s in-laws, completed the customary engagement gift exchange with the Lu family. In these end times, with strict supervision, extravagance was out of the question. They chose a date for the engagement first and planned to receive the Special Committee’s marriage certificate a few days later. The certificate even bore the imprint of the “Planned Marriage and Childbearing Act.”

Though the survivor group in Cangzhou did not oppose the Committee’s policies, the “Planned Marriage and Childbearing Act” still unnerved them. Good heavens, were they preparing for communal childbirth?

On the wedding day, Li Fengyi acted as the groom’s escort for Sun Xiaoshan’s son, Sun Yuze. The traditional ritual of holding a rooster was waived—a single rooster now grew as large as a pre-apocalypse ostrich. Instead, the groom led the rooster on a leash, with an adult accompanying him.

Considering the increasingly frequent contact between Beijing and Cangzhou, the Special Committee had introduced armored trains running on a fixed schedule. These were ordinary carriages reinforced with protective steel plates.

On the wedding day, the couple took the armored train back to Beijing’s Chaoyang District, Peace Street North, Building 6, Unit 5, 5th Floor. Real estate developers had gone bankrupt in the apocalypse.

Before the apocalypse, houses were built far beyond the capacity of the entire nation’s population, but were monopolized by a few, leaving most without homes. If all land were not state-owned, the majority of ordinary people would have been pushed to the brink with nowhere to stand. Despite the harshness of land policies, the state ensured a baseline for reallocation, preventing bloody struggles from being necessary.

—

Unit 5, 5th Floor of Building 6 was assigned to Sun Xiaoshan.

On the armored train, the couple conversed.

“Why did you want to beat and kill me the moment you first saw me?”

“Because you officials aren’t good people,” Lu Cuifeng rolled her eyes. In the apocalypse, many conventions fell away. On this long journey, men and women shared a carriage.

“In the past, some corrupt officials and their children came to Cangzhou. For reasons unknown, they thought women who practiced martial arts were amusing. They forcibly took martial arts school girls to serve as companions—singing, dancing, and worse. At first, no one had a choice. One day, they even drugged several senior sisters and filmed those videos, then sold them abroad,” Lu Cuifeng said angrily. “Those sisters were driven to suicide.”

“Since then, whenever we see a shameless official, we beat them up.”

“But I’m just a civilian official, okay? I haven’t been in office long, and I don’t want to be one either. In four or five years, I’ll be out,” Sun Xiaoshan said, frustrated. The damage those shameless officials caused was enormous. Before the apocalypse, thousands of corrupt officials fled with vast funds and state secrets.

Now, many places openly declared their independence from the pre-apocalypse government—some led by former corrupt officials, others by survivors who suffered terribly under official rule, and a few by ambitious opportunists.

“That’s why we didn’t insist on beating you,” Lu Cuifeng said, embarrassed. “My senior brothers are straightforward. I thought you were scheming against us.”

Sun Xiaoshan rolled his eyes. “Do you think I wanted this? A single expert like that could have torn me apart.”

“Mom,” Sun Yuze ran over and clung to Lu Cuifeng, shouting, “We’re almost in Tianjin.”