Chapter 5

The next day, the list for the City No. 1 Primary School’s teacher recruitment was published.

Su Ye’s name was not on the list, and sure enough, those selected were all from technical schools.

Although Su Ye had mentally prepared for this, seeing the list still left her feeling disappointed. She asked a teacher from the middle school department, “When will the middle school teacher recruitment list be announced?”

“We’re not sure yet,” the teacher replied.

He Meimei was teaching middle school students at the First Middle School. After school, she stopped by to take a quick look at the list of primary school teacher recruits and happened to run into Su Ye, who was also there to check the results.

He Meimei quickly scanned through the list of teachers hired this year. All three of the technical school graduates had been exceptionally accepted, and the remaining two had been assigned to the Second Primary School.

She comforted Su Ye, saying, “I have a relative who works at a liquor factory. They’re short on female workers, and if you’re not picky, you can go take a look. I’ll have him write you a recommendation letter.”

Su Ye didn’t have the luxury of being picky anymore. In order to avoid ending up sweeping streets or cleaning public restrooms from dawn till dusk, she was now open to anything.

She smiled with joy upon hearing this. “How could I be picky! Thank you, Comrade He.”

“Don’t call me ‘Comrade He.’ It makes me feel like a leader is calling me,” He Meimei laughed. “Just call me He Meimei. Normally, I should call you ‘sister-in-law,’ but since you’re younger than me, I feel awkward taking advantage of that.”

He Meimei was about 26 or 27 years old, while Su Ye had just turned 18. They were from completely different generations.

Su Ye, pretending to be older than she was, waved her hand dismissively, saying, “It’s fine. Call me whatever you like.”

He Meimei took Su Ye to the liquor factory to meet her relative and introduced her to the opportunity. Su Ye handed over the recommendation letter from the organization, and the man nodded after reading it.

A military wife, from three generations of poor farmers, she looked like an entirely respectable person. He nodded in acknowledgment.

Her primary school education made him frown slightly. Although the work at the factory wasn’t highly technical, being illiterate was another matter.

He absentmindedly invited her into his office and pulled out a piece of paper from his drawer, copying down some literacy test questions.

When Su Ye glanced at the paper and quickly wrote down the answers, he was taken aback. “If you get all these questions right, you can start working at the factory tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get them all right. If I get even one wrong, don’t hire me,” Su Ye said confidently.

If Su Ye couldn’t even get such simple elementary school addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems right, she might as well just apologize by cutting her belly open.

Su Ye never imagined that one day she would have to rely on elementary school knowledge to find a job. But being able to eat state-provided food still made Su Ye happy. Regardless of whether it’s a black cat or a white cat, the one that catches mice is a good cat.

8 ÷ 0.25, 3 × 1.26, how many 0.5 are there in 100, and how long would it take to finish a cup of water if you take half every day? Does this mean the streamer is looked down upon? ^[1]“Using a sledgehammer to kill a chicken” is an expression that means using excessive force or resources for a simple or trivial task. It’s similar to the English phrase “using a … Continue readingUsing a sledgehammer to kill a chicken.

Finding a job sometimes seems hard, but sometimes it’s quite easy. This time, it was almost certain.

That woman from the Women’s Federation must have something wrong with her.

He Meimei was a straightforward person.

When Su Ye left the liquor factory, the live stream posted a job-seeking reward.

Ding—The streamer successfully found a job and was rewarded with ten jin of Fuxiang flour.

When Su Ye heard “Fuxiang flour,” she almost drooled. She and He Meimei walked to the entrance of the military compound, said their goodbyes, and Su Ye ran home.

Ten jin of fresh flour packed in a snake-skin bag. Su Ye used a knife to cut open the bag, and the white, shining flour dazzled her eyes. After almost a week of eating coarse grains and nearly vomiting, Su Ye was so moved that she shed tears.

Her heart was pounding, and her head spun with dizziness.

This wasn’t just ten jin of Fuxiang flour, it was clearly fragrant, fragrant RMB!

With the Spring Festival approaching, every household wanted to get some Fuxiang flour for the New Year. The market had already reached a “flour is hard to come by” level. It could even be exchanged for cloth, gold and silver jewelry, watches, and other valuable goods, becoming the most powerful form of hard currency.

Holding ten jin of Fuxiang flour, Su Ye almost felt like she had reached the peak of her life.

Su Ye had often heard the older generation in her family mention that in those distant times, flour was something that only appeared on the dining table during the New Year, and there was only one meal with it a year. Children would look forward to it from the beginning of the year to the end. Su Ye had never believed it, but now, she did.

Su Ye cherished the fine flour she had gotten this time and didn’t consider selling it on the black market for now.

Su Ye quickly made hand-pulled noodles with the Fuxiang flour. The soft dough was gently pulled, stretching into long, delicate strands, and the flour emitted a faint wheat aroma.

The thin, soft noodles were dipped in sauce. The sauce was made from radish preserves dried and chopped in the summer, mixed with chili sauce and garlic chives. It was spicy and fresh. The tender, smooth noodles fell into her stomach, and Su Ye finally tasted a bit of the flavor of being alive.

If regular hand-pulled noodles were so delicious, how amazing must the egg noodles she sold on the black market have been? Su Ye thought, and then made another bowl of noodles to stop the hunger.

Slurp. So fragrant! The instant noodles in her hand immediately seemed less appetizing. A bullet screen comment appeared:

Ding—Completed a bowl of spicy hand-pulled noodles. The streamer gets a leaf of green vegetables as a reward. The reward will not be issued yet. Please keep working hard, streamer!

After finishing her meal, Su Ye saw this system message, and her temples twitched. Was it really necessary to be this stingy?

She suspected that by the time she saved up for a piece of green vegetable or a slice of pork belly, she would have starved to death.

‘What exactly does ‘work hard’ mean?’ she pondered while washing the dishes. During this time, Su Ye had tried hard to organize the household affairs with little result, not even receiving a reward as small as a leaf of vegetable. She cooked a meal once with 5g of pork, but the later meals didn’t even get a 1g pork reward.

Sometimes, though, the system was unexpectedly generous, rewarding a job application or securing a job with a pound of egg noodles or ten jin of Fuxiang flour.

—

Su Ye had not yet been confirmed for the job at the liquor factory, but the news of her being rejected for the elementary school teacher position unexpectedly made its way to the Women’s Federation office.

“What’s going on with Comrade Su Ye? She’s been with the army for a month now, and her job issue still hasn’t been resolved,” the Women’s Federation leader asked about Su Ye.

“Her husband is fighting on the front lines. It’s our responsibility in the rear to take good care of their families and not let military spouses feel neglected,” she said earnestly to everyone.

The leader’s dissatisfaction was obvious, and the entire office didn’t dare breathe too loudly.

They all thought of Su Ye at the same time. Since joining the military family unit, she had caused quite a few headaches. She ate two jin of grain per day and used up her entire ration coupon halfway through the month, as if she’d never had a full meal before. She borrowed bowls from the canteen and left them unwashed for a week. And she refused the jobs introduced to her by the organization. The first thing that came to everyone’s mind when thinking of her was the term ‘lazy and gluttonous’.

For a lazy woman like her, not finding a job seemed perfectly normal.

Li Hongli, diligently organizing some documents, said matter-of-factly, “She’s just too picky. This job’s too tiring, that job’s too dirty, and she even looks down on night shifts. When good jobs are offered, she doesn’t have the ability to seize them.”

One female colleague murmured, “Li Hongli didn’t offer her any well-paying jobs—”

Her original words were likely that Li Hongli only introduced low-paying jobs to Su Ye. But speaking like this actually offended Li Hongli.

Li Hongli wasn’t angry. She defended herself confidently, saying to the director, “How have I not introduced her to good jobs? I’ve been considerate, but she has to work hard herself.

You know, it’s the end of the year, and most places don’t want to hire new people. She only has an elementary school education. Why should we offer her the best jobs? Just because her husband holds a high position? Should we make an exception for her? This is a new society now, and we don’t do things like that. Giving her special treatment would be unfair to other military wives, who all find jobs based on their own abilities.”

Another female colleague chimed in to support Li Hongli, “Su Ye only has elementary school education, but when she came to the office, the first thing she set her sights on was the elementary school teacher position. That’s a city-run school, and they only hire people with secondary school diplomas.”

With everyone saying similar things, the director frowned, convinced that Su Ye was indeed overly ambitious. It’s not a problem if a woman is uneducated—education can be made up for. What’s worrisome is when someone is unreasonable, overly ambitious, and aims for high places without the ability to match.

The most troublesome type for the Women’s Federation was precisely people like that, who couldn’t be reasoned with.

“Li Hongli, you need to continue working on her mindset. This year, we must secure her position!”

Li Hongli stood up solemnly, saluted, and said, “Leader, I will do that!”

—

At the teachers’ office of the No. 1 School in the city.

Among all the middle schools in the city, the No. 1 High School offered the best welfare benefits. Although everyone received the same monthly allotment of 30 jin of grain and a salary of 35 yuan, the school provided grain subsidies during the Spring Festival, mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, and even cloth coupons each quarter. The conditions were comparable to those of teachers at national key technical schools.

Today was the last day for announcing the results of the teacher recruitment, and the list had been neatly compiled, but everyone still looked worried.

“Will this person be accepted or not?” a teacher asked as they took out Su Ye’s test paper, feeling reluctant to let go.

“All correct?” asked the middle-aged teacher wearing glasses, his tone indifferent.

He was the one who had created the exam for the middle school division. Since the middle school department didn’t have a shortage of teachers and it was the end of the year, the whole office was rather indifferent about hiring anyone. The most important thing was that the teachers hired couldn’t be lacking in ability.

Although some people on the surface had a technical school degree, in reality, their abilities varied greatly. Education is the foundation of the country, and once hired, these individuals could not easily be dismissed—wouldn’t it be a waste of the children’s time?

“Teacher Zhou, all correct,” the teacher answered.

“Then hire them. What are you all so worried about?” Teacher Zhou asked, frowning slightly.

The corner of the office, where a few teachers responsible for the recruitment stood, suddenly erupted when they heard this. All correct?

Teacher Zhou’s exam questions were no easy feat.

However, when they pulled out the materials and took a closer look, everyone was deeply disappointed. The applicant turned out to be just a woman with a primary school education.

“How can we hire someone with such qualifications?”

“Why not? She got it all correct, didn’t she?” Zhou Yi said, then returned to grading the papers.

Teacher He, who was responsible for supervising the recruitment exams, had a particularly strong impression of Su Ye, especially since she had voluntarily asked to take the middle school exam. At the time, it seemed like a casual request, but now it had become the topic of heated debate.

Su Ye’s perfect score ^[2]“Stood out like a beacon” means that something was very noticeable or conspicuous, much like a bright light or signal (a beacon) that can be seen from a distance.stood out like a beacon among a pile of failing and blank papers. If anyone else had done better, this discussion might never have happened.

To hire or not to hire? This was an agonizing dilemma.

After hesitating, the school delayed announcing the hiring list. Two days later, Teacher He found out that Su Ye was planning to work at a liquor factory. This was a big deal—it was like poking a hornet’s nest. When the teachers had pushed her away and didn’t appreciate her, now that she was leaving, they were suddenly anxious.

“What’s so good about liquor? It’s a crumbling factory.”

“Yeah, isn’t being a teacher more respectable? Besides, our salary and food benefits aren’t bad at all! Thirty jin of grain is not little!”

“She hasn’t even completed the paperwork yet, right? Old He, go talk to the principal. I’ll find out what’s going on, and tomorrow let that girl come in for class.”

The vice principal was called in. He carefully flipped through the written exam papers. Su Ye’s handwriting was neat, and the paper was filled with checkmarks. He immediately understood why everyone was debating so fiercely.

In terms of academic qualifications, this person was certainly good, and the exam results were outstanding. However, the No. 1 High School had never hired a teacher with such low qualifications, and no one dared to set that precedent.

The vice principal deliberately asked, “Having knowledge alone is not enough. A teacher needs to know how to teach. If she can’t teach well, teacher Zhou, are you responsible?”

Zhou Yi casually looked up from the pile of papers, “She’s fine.”

The vice principal received the affirmative response, and after a long pause, he made the difficult decision, “Then add Su Ye to the list.”