Chapter 164 - 136: Scabs and Students (Part 2)

Even though he had decided to let go, he still couldn’t rest easy. ’It’s like I said,’ he thought, ’I’ll have to watch over them for a while at the start, just to make sure they don’t make any completely ridiculous mistakes.’

Chu Bamboo really didn’t want to be away for a long time only to have Li Kang come running one day with news that a civil war had broken out in the shantytown district...

...

The Union Headquarters building in the shantytown district.

Chu Bamboo stood outside the meeting room window, a colorful expression on his face as he watched the scene inside. A group of students, their faces still showing their youth, were red with anger, arguing furiously with men in their twenties, thirties, and even older.

"Damn it all! The rules and regulations Mr. Zhu laid down, and there are still four major factories that haven’t fully implemented them? And only half of the mid-sized factories have bothered to try? How dare they!" said a student who looked to be only fourteen or fifteen.

Another student spoke up. "This is just sheer arrogance! These aren’t your average Factory Directors. We need to come down on them hard."

"That’s right. Since they refuse to comply... then for those factories, we’ll do exactly what Mr. Zhu said before! We’ll double the terms! Whatever compensation they were supposed to pay, they now pay double!"

"Exactly. Only by punishing them will we instill some respect..."

"I don’t think they’ll cave that easily. How about this! We dispatch the union’s self-defense force... oh, no, the Security Corps!"

Li Xuan’s face was livid. He stared at the kids in front of him, who were getting more and more out of line, and slammed his hand on the table, spittle flying as he yelled.

"Idiots! You’re all a bunch of idiots! You can’t just jump straight to action without any discussion! We have to negotiate! Negotiate first! Don’t you realize that the major Factory Directors have their own problems? They have to compete with factories in other big cities!"

"I’ve spoken to them privately! They’re already complaining nonstop. They’ve even started considering whether they should move their factories to other cities. The only reason they haven’t done it yet is because the cost is too high!"

"That’s right." Another middle-aged man supported Li Xuan’s point, choosing his words carefully. "As it stands, Mr. Zhu truly understands these major Factory Directors. The demands he made seem to be right at their absolute limit... he even left them with an acceptable profit margin. But if you double down on the demands, it’ll be a disaster."

"If the factories leave, everyone will lose their jobs! What are we going to do when they come to us looking for answers? The Factory Directors are the ones who give people jobs! We should be helping the workers, yes, but we can’t just drive the Factory Directors into a corner."

The young students were full of fiery passion, but there was a clear gap between them and the union veterans, who had been working there for a long time and had a wealth of experience.

In a debate, they were hopelessly outmatched.

One of the student leaders stared at a man on the opposing side who was spouting nonsense. The man had just started arguing that ’it would be better to have people endure for a little while, wait for the factories to grow and profits to increase, and then we can step in to mediate.’

At that moment, a flood of memories hit the student leader. He thought of his father, always covered in grime, forced by a Factory Director to work eighteen hours a day until his body gave out and he died young.

He thought of his mother, who worked three jobs a day just to painstakingly raise him, his younger brother, and his younger sister.

Though she was only in her thirties, his mother’s back was already stooped. In the dead of night, he could always hear her pained groans...

His body trembled. Finally, he snatched the documents from the table and hurled them at the face of the pontificating middle-aged man. "Fuck you! You scab!"

A fight broke out!

It was total chaos.

Chu Bamboo slapped a hand over his face. He really couldn’t bear to watch.

But what could he say? In the end, it was exactly what he had expected...

He knew all about the group that spoke up for the Factory Directors.

Not even Jinghai could hide much from him, let alone his own subordinates in the union. Li Xuan was far from an isolated case; in fact, you could say he was the spokesman for a certain school of thought within the union.

For the most part, these people hadn’t been bought by the Factory Directors. Even Li Xuan was just on good terms with them, sharing a meal or two in private.

There had been some in the past, but Chu Bamboo had thrown the evidence in their faces before having them hanged from the lampposts by the gate. Traitors were far more detestable than enemies.

They spoke up for the Factory Directors because they genuinely believed that the Factory Directors supported the entire shantytown district. The reason Chu Bamboo hadn’t stamped out this line of thinking was that, under the current circumstances, while it was wrong, it wasn’t *entirely* wrong.

In the current climate, going on strike was the absolute limit. Protesting was already extremely dangerous.

If you tried to take out the Factory Directors through violence, especially when they weren’t clearly in the wrong... you’d really get hammered!

And from another perspective, the Factory Directors really could move their factories to other cities. The cost would be enormous, but if they were pushed too far and their profits disappeared, it would be their only option.

Chu Bamboo’s original plans for dealing with these guys had all been based on the intelligence he possessed, analyzing their bottom lines and formulating strategies based on those limits.

In comparison, these students were really just impulsive, overly emotional, and completely unrealistic.

’They’re impulsive, but their hearts are in the right place,’ Chu Bamboo thought, nodding slightly as he prepared to leave. He knew something like this would happen when he brought them in. He’d introduced the students specifically to counterbalance the union old-timers, whose loyalties weren’t exactly firm.

A little scuffle wasn’t a big deal. ’After they’re done fighting, they’ll still have to coordinate,’ he mused. ’Both sides will have to make concessions... and eventually, they’ll hammer out an official plan that both parties can grudgingly accept.’

"...Wait, the Director-General? It’s the Director-General! Stop fighting... The Director-General is right outside!"

Suddenly, Li Xuan’s overjoyed voice rang out. The room instantly fell silent.

Chu Bamboo: "?"

Chu Bamboo paused for a moment, then turned his head. He saw that everyone, including those still grappling on the floor, was now staring intently at him through the window.

And then, they all rushed toward him...

A moment later, the meeting room door flew open.

Within a few breaths, five or six students were clinging to Chu Bamboo, snot and tears streaming down their faces.

"Mr. Zhu! It’s Mr. Zhu! It’s really Mr. Zhu!"

"Mr. Zhu, don’t go!"

"We finally get to see you! We finally get to see you again..."

"Mr. Zhu, do you remember me? I... I fainted from hunger in a garbage heap... If you hadn’t brought the Security Corps to save me, I would have died!"

The corner of Chu Bamboo’s eye twitched frantically. ’Gratitude is one thing, but why are you all grabbing me?’ he thought. Besides the ones clinging to him, a whole crowd had swarmed around him.

There weren’t that many people in the meeting room, but right now, it felt uncannily like being swarmed by zombies in a siege.

...

「Two hours later.」

Chu Bamboo walked out of the Union Headquarters, his face etched with exhaustion. "I wonder when they’ll ever grow up," he muttered.

He had only planned on observing, but he ended up getting caught and dragged in to work. And work was one thing, but he even had to soothe his fans!

Damn it, soothing his fans was even more exhausting than reviewing all those documents.

Of course, after he had dealt with everything... he had naturally chewed out both sides. He gave them the scolding of a lifetime.

One side was too extreme, the other was too weak-kneed. If he didn’t chew them out, what was he supposed to do, invite them home for the holidays?

"Ah, Ze, how I miss you," Chu Bamboo sighed with emotion. At times like these, he couldn’t help but think of the excellent successor he had personally selected and painstakingly trained.

A man who appeared as gentle as jade on the surface, but was in fact a deep and strategic thinker. Once his bottom line was crossed, he would never back down and would strike back decisively, yet he possessed the incredible skill to smooth over the resulting turmoil afterward.