Director Xu’s pronouncement hung in the still morning air, heavier than any brick Liang Bo had ever hoisted. Three hundred days a year. Traveling. Ruyi's stomach dropped like a wet sack of feed. Her plan of retiring to uninterrupted slumber by age twenty was plunging headlong toward the Northern Salt Flats.
She dropped her hands from the super-cement, the mud clinging to her nails. The official sedan, still embedded to its axles in the packed earth, sat tilted like a drunk mule. “Roving Inspector,” Xu repeated, rolling the vowels over his tongue. “A true patriot. We’ll have a vehicle ready for you by noon. Pack light, Comrade Tan. Your first assignment is the Jinshan Grain Depot, a minor dispute over allocation, nothing you can’t resolve with that spirit.”
Ruyi’s mind raced, a furious, uncharacteristic sprint. Three hundred days. That meant three hundred mornings of jolting on unpaved roads and three hundred afternoons of clipboard scrutiny. This was worse than any salt flat. This was torture. She needed a scandal. A real, career-ending, reputation-shredding scandal. Something so foul, so impossible to whitewash, that even Xu's bureaucratic zeal would shatter.
She scanned the courtyard. Ding Dongqiang, who had started this whole mess with his misplaced loyalty, was still beaming, convinced her frantic digging was a new form of dedication. An idea, sharp and desperate, sparked in Ruyi’s mind. If she couldn't get fired for being lazy, she’d get fired for being a criminal. A clumsy, obvious, unconvincing criminal.
“Ding Dongqiang!” Ruyi called, her voice surprisingly steady. The slacker snapped to attention, saluting with an exaggerated flourish. “My devoted disciple! I have a task for you. A mission of utmost secrecy. The ultimate lesson in… strategic idleness.”
Ding Dongqiang’s eyes gleamed. “Master! I knew it! I knew you had a secret technique for avoiding arduous tasks! Tell me your wisdom!”
“Comrade Xu,” Ruyi began, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “has set up a temporary office in the old militia barracks, you know, the one with the broken window latch. He’s got important papers there. Very important. Confidential.” She leaned in, exaggerating her whisper. “I need you to… procure a specific document. An account log. It’s a thick book, bound in red, labeled ‘Quarter Three Outlays.’”
Ding Dongqiang frowned. “Procure? You mean… steal?”
Ruyi waved a dismissive hand. “Nonsense! Think of it as… borrowing. For a very long time. And while you’re there, perhaps you could… misplace… a few of the Director’s personal effects. A fountain pen. His spectacles. Maybe even his lucky abacus. We want to make it look like… poor record keeping. And then, you see, you bring the logbook to me, and I will be… ‘discovered’ with it. A scandal of epic proportions! My glorious career, ruined! My early retirement, secured!”
Ding Dongqiang’s face contorted in thought, then slowly, a mischievous grin spread across it. “You want me to frame you for embezzlement? To get you exiled so you can nap?” He clapped his hands. “Brilliant! The most advanced form of strategic idleness! To get fired *for* being lazy, by *pretending* to be industrious in a bad way! I shall become the master of sabotage for leisure!”
“Precisely,” Ruyi said, a flicker of hope in her chest. “Now go. The Director will be occupied with his sedan. Speed and discretion, my young saboteur.”
Ding Dongqiang scurried off, a determined, if slightly lopsided, shadow darting towards the dilapidated militia barracks. Ruyi watched him go, then sighed, already planning her celebratory nap. Xu, having abandoned the chassis for now, pointed three laborers toward a pickaxe pile with barked commands. Qiao Meilin, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Minutes later, as Ruyi sat on a stone bench, contemplating the ideal posture for her exposure with the stolen volume, a rustle of heavy canvas preceded Qiao Meilin’s dramatic entrance. Meilin stalked towards her, a triumphant glint in her eyes, clutching a thick envelope like a weapon.
“Well, well, Comrade Tan,” Meilin hissed, her voice taut with barely suppressed glee. “Or should I say, ‘Regional Inspector’ Tan. You certainly have a knack for failing upwards, don’t you?”
Ruyi simply raised an eyebrow. “Is this about the Jinshan Grain Depot? Because I haven’t even been there yet. Give me at least a day to fail at something new.”
Meilin ignored her. She ripped open the envelope and, with a flourish, fanned out a series of grainy black and white photographs. Ruyi glanced at them. They were candid shots, taken from a distance, of Ruyi doing what she did best: napping. Ruyi in her hammock, Ruyi under a tree, Ruyi with a straw hat tilted over her face, Ruyi on a pile of sacked grain in the old storage shed, a limp, horizontal figure in every frame. The last photo, a close-up, showed her mouth slightly agape, a tiny trickle of drool at the corner.
“Evidence!” Meilin crowed, practically vibrating with schadenfreude. “Irrefutable proof of your… dedication! While I was toiling away, organizing the brick transport, overseeing the quota, you were… indulging in your ‘strategic idleness’! These photographs, Comrade Tan, will expose you for the lazy fraud you are! The Provincial Director will see them, and your precious ‘Regional Inspector’ title will vanish faster than a stolen ration coupon!”
Ruyi looked at the photos, then at Meilin’s flushed, expectant face. A slow, beatific smile spread across her lips. “Meilin, you beautiful, wonderful snitch,” she said, her voice dripping with genuine gratitude. “You’ve outdone yourself.”
Meilin faltered. “What? What are you talking about? Are you mad? This is your ruin!”
Ruyi stood up, pulling Meilin into a tight embrace. The youth stood rigid as fence posts under the sudden contact. “My dear Meilin,” Ruyi murmured, patting her back. “You are a true friend. An angel sent from the Bureaucratic Heavens. These photos, combined with the ‘embezzlement’ I’m about to engineer… well, let’s just say my hammock privileges are practically signed.” She pulled back, a conspiratorial twinkle in her eye. “You’ll be the one to present these to Director Xu, won’t you? Tell him I was too busy napping to properly embezzle. Make it dramatic.”
Meilin stared at her, dumbfounded, the slick prints sliding from her fingertips into the dirt. “You… you want me to… help you get fired?”
“It’s a win-win!” Ruyi chirped. “You get rid of your nemesis, and I get to finally enjoy my life. Go, Meilin, go! Tell the world of my sloth! Tell them of my crimes!”
Just as Ruyi was mentally composing her farewell speech, a loud, pained grunt echoed from the direction of the militia barracks. Two hulking men in dark blue work coats, their faces stern and unyielding, emerged, dragging a struggling, disheveled figure between them. It was Ding Dongqiang, his trousers ripped, his face smeared with dirt, and a nasty bruise already blooming on his cheek. In one fist, he clutched a red vinyl binder. Behind him, the secretary strode forward with bared teeth.
“Chief Xu!” the secretary barked. “We found this ruffian climbing through the broken sill! And look what he took!” He snatched the binder from Ding Dongqiang’s grip, waving it overhead. “The Quarter Three Outlay record! Pure sabotage!”
A knot pulled tight beneath Ruyi's ribs. Ding Dongqiang was supposed to plant petty nonsense, not get cornered with state files. Ding Dongqiang whimpered through split lips, nose leaking red onto his collar.
Director Xu, still overseeing his sedan extraction, turned, his spectacles glinting in the morning sun. His gaze fell upon the beaten Ding Dongqiang, then on the ledger, then finally, on Ruyi. A cold, hard expression settled on his face. This was not the look of a man who would misinterpret her actions as passion. This was the look of a man who recognized a genuine threat.
For the first time since her promotion, Ruyi felt an unfamiliar twitch in her chest: panic for someone else. Ding Dongqiang, her dim-witted but loyal disciple, was in serious danger. She had to do something. She had to act. She had to exert actual effort to save him. The thought alone was horrifying, a violation of her deepest principles. Yet Ding Dongqiang’s swelling cheekbone and the cold stare from Xu offered no retreat. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for the unwelcome exertion, and began to stride purposefully towards the struggling group, her mind racing to formulate a new, desperate plan.