The next day, at the evening end of the shift, Yi Zhonghai did not head straight back to the Quadrangle Courtyard as he usually did.
He deliberately lingered for a while near the corner outside the factory wall. Before long, a worker wearing greasy work clothes, walking with a slight limp and with darting, shifty eyes, approached him.
"Master Yi, did you look for me?" The man was named Liu Laizi. Nominally a second-grade locksmith, his actual skill was mediocre at best; he drifted along in the workshop by buttering people up and running errands for superiors that weren't convenient to do in the open.
His father had received a small favor from Yi Zhonghai back in the day.
Yi Zhonghai let out a hum, pulled out half a pack of Da Qianshan cigarettes, lit one for himself, and handed one to Liu Laizi. Liu Laizi took it, looking profoundly flattered, and quickly struck a match to light it for Yi Zhonghai.
"Did you see the publicity board over there? Those two newly painted display boards." Yi Zhonghai blew out a ring of smoke, his expression obscured behind the swirling haze.
"I saw them. Su Changshun painted them, didn't he? They're flashy, and I heard the Director praised them," Liu Laizi replied offhandedly.
"Flashy is fine, but when we carry out socialist construction, we value being down-to-earth; what we hate most is formalism! Even less can we tolerate the slightest distortion of policy, or things with an unsteady standpoint!" Yi Zhonghai's tone suddenly turned serious, carrying a kind of anxious political acute awareness.
Liu Laizi was taken aback, feeling somewhat lost. "Master Yi, what do you mean?"
Yi Zhonghai leaned closer, lowering his voice. "This kid just arrived, and he's wet behind the ears. Look at the big headline on his display board—the one that says 'The East Wind prevails over the West Wind, victory belongs to the people!' Those two characters for 'the people' are written much too... floating! Take a closer look: isn't the falling stroke of the 'ren' character way too short? It looks almost like half of the character 'ba'! Can the character 'ba' be written carelessly? In this day and age! If this is seen by someone with an axe to grind who twists its interpretation, claiming he's satirizing something—like the remnants of the Eight Banners leaning toward capitalism—on a small scale it's an unsteady standpoint, but on a large scale... that's an ideological problem! It's sabotaging unity! It might even... be handing a knife to overseas reactionary forces!"
Listening to Yi Zhonghai's meticulous, peeling-the-cocoon analysis, Liu Laizi felt a chill shoot straight up from the soles of his feet!
Was this looking at a display board? This was clearly taking a magnifying glass to pick bones in an egg—and poisonous bones at that! A single calligraphy style in a display board headline could be interpreted as carrying such massive political risk?
Looking at Yi Zhonghai's slightly blurred yet exceptionally calm and righteous face behind the smoke, he understood in his heart that this old man was out to destroy Su Changshun completely!
Weren't these twisted interpretations that Yi Zhonghai mentioned ultimately going to be turned into public opinion and severe political problems through the mouths of himself or others?
"This..." Liu Laizi hesitated. The risk of this matter was too high, and it was easy to get himself dragged into it.
"Think about it," Yi Zhonghai said, seeming to see right through his thoughts and guiding him step by step. "Your son is due to take over your job and step into your shoes next year, right? When the time comes, my apprentice quota..."
He trailed off meaningfully, took a deep drag of his cigarette, and shoved the remaining half into Liu Laizi's hand. "This isn't difficult. It just needs a few sharp-eyed, high-consciousness comrades to spot the problem, taking an attitude of responsibility toward the collective and the revolutionary cause... and bring it up! You're an old-timer in our factory with a consistently firm standpoint, and I see... you have plenty of this awareness! Understand? This is a meritorious deed!"
He added specifically, "Make sure not to conflict with Su Changshun openly. Just happen to discover the problem by chance, report it to the workshop, or talk about it privately with someone from the Security Section—the most important thing is to let others know! Make the leadership take it seriously!"
With things put this way, the carrot, the big bread, and all the perks were fully arranged.
Liu Laizi gripped that half-cigarette that still held some warmth. His palms were ice-cold and his throat was parched. After a long while, he squeezed a single word out through his teeth: "...Fine! Master Yi, I... I understand what to do."
Watching Liu Laizi clutch that half-cigarette as if it were a ticking time bomb as he trudged away and disappeared into the shadows of the corner, Yi Zhonghai wore an extremely sinister smile on his face. He tossed away his cigarette butt and ground it out fiercely with his foot.
"Su Changshun... you want to pull the rug out from under me? I'll strip that red publicity-expert skin right off you first! Once your display board is pointed out as having a serious political error, let's see how Zhao Shiwu protects you then! Let's see if Director Yang still praises you! Without the factory's backing, I'd like to see what confidence you have left to cross swords with me in that Quadrangle Courtyard!"
The evening wind blew past, carrying a biting chill. A fatal trap aimed at Su Changshun, utilizing the invisible sharp blade of "political correctness," was quietly laid out right in front of the Rolling Mill's publicity board.
***
The next day, not long after work started in the morning at the Rolling Mill.
Yi Zhonghai suppressed the gloom in his heart and gripped his file at the locksmith bench just as usual. But his ears were constantly pricked, catching every little stirring movement in the factory area.
Sure enough, around nine o'clock, on the path outside the workshop leading to the canteen and the small square, voices gradually became much noisier and livelier than usual.
"Hey, did you hear? Over by the publicity board..."
"Which publicity board? The new one?"
"Yeah! The one right outside the canteen entrance! There's a whole bunch of people gathered there pointing and talking!"
"What's going on?"
"Not sure, sounds like the writing on that board... has a problem?"
"The writing has a problem? Su Changshun painted that, right? What kind of problem could he have?"
"Tsk... they say the 'people' character in the title... doesn't look quite right..."
The murmur of discussion spread like ripples. Some people were purely watching the fun, some carried curiosity, while others caught a whiff of something unusual and wore looks of doubt and alarm.
Yi Zhonghai's heartbeat accelerated quietly—it had achieved the effect he was hoping for! He gave a familiar coworker next to him a wink. The man caught the hint instantly, raised his voice, and shouted, "Hey, everyone! I heard someone wrote reactionary characters on the new display board! Want to go take a look? Let's hope nothing serious actually happened!"
That shout instantly detonated the curiosity of even more workers.
Quite a few people dropped the work in their hands and surged in a crowd toward the publicity board at the canteen entrance.
Soon, twenty or thirty people were surrounding the publicity board, pointing and gesturing at the display board Su Changshun had just put up not long ago, a buzzing sound of discussion filling the air.
"Oh, goodness! Everyone, look! That 'people' character... isn't that tail way too short? And it's curling upward?"
"Now that you mention it, it is a bit weird! It looks like the character 'ba'..."
"You write 'people' and it turns into 'eight'? These days... what's that supposed to mean?"
"Shh! Keep your voice down! You can't just go spouting nonsense like that!"
"I'm not spouting nonsense! Everyone take a close look! It really does look like it! If this gets seen by the Security Section or the people upstairs..."
"This Su Changshun has got some nerve! Just got here and he dares to pull a stunt right under the tiger's nose?"
"Could it be... he really has some ideological problems?"
"Oh man, if there really is a problem, won't our whole Propaganda Section end up getting criticized along with him?"
The crowd's emotions were ignited. Suspicion, unease, thrill-seeking, and schadenfreude intertwined.
Yi Zhonghai mingled at the back of the crowd, watching as that pointed-at "people" character—along with the clumsy modifications Liu Laizi had hastily made the night before—was infinitely magnified under the scrutiny of the masses. A faint, ruthless smile that was virtually imperceptible surfaced at the corner of his mouth.
It worked! This fire was lit!
"Make way! Make way! Someone from the Propaganda Section is here!"
Just at that moment, a loud voice rang out. Su Changshun appeared with his usual sleepy, lazy look, carrying a bucket of paint in his left hand and holding several paintbrushes in his right, strolling lazily as he squeezed through the crowd from the back.
Right behind him followed Section Chief Zhao of the Propaganda Section. Section Chief Zhao's complexion didn't look too good; he had clearly rushed over upon hearing the rumors.
"What are you all gathered around for?" Section Chief Zhao frowned, pushing through the crowd to the very front. He stared at the display board and instantly spotted the tail of the "people" character that had received key attention, his brows knitting into a knot.
Of course he could also see that the shape wasn't right; it looked like an "eight," causing his heart to skip a beat. This was no trivial matter!
"Xiao Su! What's going on with this 'people' character of yours?" Section Chief Zhao demanded sternly, his tone carrying severity and a trace of hard-to-detect worry.
In his heart, he thought well of Su Changshun, but if a political error of this magnitude really occurred, no one could save him!
Everyone's gaze instantly focused on Su Changshun's face, while Yi Zhonghai's eyes were practically brimming with schadenfreude.
***
Upon hearing this, Su Changshun didn't answer Section Chief Zhao immediately. Instead, he stepped up to the display board with a look of astonishment, stretched out his neck to examine that tail of the "people" character closely, and even traced shapes in the air with his finger.
His eyeballs rolled, and he understood the situation completely in his heart: "Old Dog Yi is playing dirty enough. Wanting to frame me with a literary inquisition?" he sneered inwardly, while keeping his expression completely calm.
The surrounding crowd held their breath.
Suddenly!
Su Changshun smacked his thigh hard! The sound was so loud it startled several nearby coworkers.
"Oh, my dear Section Chief Zhao, esteemed senior masters! My apologies! Truly apologies." His face piled up with annoyance and self-reproach, but a flash of cunning clearly flickered in those eyes. "It's all my hands' fault for being itchy!"
The crowd: "???"
"Yesterday after I finished painting, the more I pondered on the way home, the more I felt that the headline—'The East Wind prevails over the West Wind, victory belongs to the people'—had the momentum, but it wasn't festive enough! Not revolutionary enough! Not... blazing red!"
Su Changshun spoke at top speed, and his hands weren't idle either; he snatched up a paintbrush, dipped it fully in golden-red paint, and directly made a few quick, sweeping strokes on the empty space beside the display board, outlining an extremely eye-catching, glittering golden sun!
While painting, his mouth didn't stop moving either, his voice loud and full of breath: "A flash of inspiration hit me in the middle of the night yesterday! The great victory of our worker-peasant revolution, the people being the masters of their own house—doesn't that resemble a red sun rising majestically? With boundless light illuminating the earth?"
As he spoke, his paintbrush dropped with absolute precision—right on the location of that short tail of the "people" character that had previously been pointed and whispered at!
Swipe! Swipe! Swipe!
The rich, gorgeous golden-red paint covered it over! He ingeniously integrated that awkward little short tail into the core outline of this giant red sun!
Several thick, powerful radiating lines symbolizing light burst outward vigorously from the tail area! The core part of the entire red sun perfectly enveloped, reshaped, and transformed that deformed portion of the "people" character into an indestructible solar core!
In an instant!
That malformed tail that might have been interpreted as the character "eight" was completely transformed into the source and starting point of the revolutionary red sun radiating boundless light!
The visual impact was nothing short of stunning! Brilliant! Politically correct to a fault!
"Whoa—!" Quite a few people in the crowd gasped, followed by an explosion of amazed exclamations!
"Holy cow! He painted it like this?!"
"Adding this sun! It's peerless!"
"Look, it wasn't a problem at all! Su Changshun purposely left that spot to add this red sun core!"
"Gorgeous! This lifts the spirit so much!"
"Tsk! He really is an artist after all, he's got ideas! Those people gossiping earlier were truly blind as bats!"
The wind instantly reversed! Those earlier looks of doubt, unease, and even the mindset of picking faults had now transformed into heartfelt praise and the sudden realization of "so that's how it was."
Section Chief Zhao's tightly furrowed brows instantly smoothed out, and his face even carried a hint of appreciation and pleasant surprise: "Xiao Su... that middle-of-the-night flash of inspiration of yours really is... a stroke of divine genius! Adding this sun is wonderful! It's added right where it needs to be, completely hitting the theme!" The stone in his heart dropped, and at the same time, he felt that Su Changshun genuinely had some real skill.
Back in the crowd, Yi Zhonghai's face looked as though he had just been heavily slapped across the cheek.
The hands he had clenched inside his work pants pockets had fingernails that were practically digging into his flesh! His meticulously planned fatal blow... had actually been forcefully twisted by Su Changshun's sudden, flashy stroke of divine genius into a glorious highlight moment?
It felt just like putting all his strength into throwing a heavy punch, only to strike a thick pile of cotton, while the back-reaction left his own wrist aching with pain.
"Oh, my dear Section Chief Zhao, please stop praising me!" Su Changshun finished his stroke, putting on a modest, embarrassed expression.
His eyes darted around, sweeping across the variously expressed crowd, before he deliberately sighed in a tone laden with complaint.
"I was purely tinkering blindly! Who would've known it almost caused certain comrades with poor eyesight to mistake the core of our blazing red sun hanging high in the sky for some unlucky nonsense! Tsk tsk tsk... eyesight like that really needs some training, otherwise being able to see political problems just by looking at a display board is going to hold back socialist construction way too much!"
"Hahaha—!" An amused wave of laughter burst from the crowd.
Quite a few people even glanced at those individuals who had shouted the loudest earlier about it looking like an "eight," their gazes carrying banter and disdain. Those few people blushed fiercely, wishing they could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.