1051 Good Things Come in Pairs (1/2)
Grandma Gu pushed her spectacles up her nose, looking at Richard as she spoke. ”Wow! This bird sure knows how to speak!”
”Gah gah! I'm a big bird! He's the small bird!” Richard pointed at Zhang Zian with a wing.
Zhang Zian didn't have the time nor the energy to give Richard a good dressing-down, and he asked Wang Qian to quickly bring over a chair for Grandma Gu to take a seat. What if she lost her footing and fell in his shop?
Grandma Gu still looked the same, wearing a sheepskin vest over a thick button down, a red armband on her arm, black pants, and a file clamped under her armpit, the picture of productivity.
”Grandma Gu, what brought you to our shop? There's nothing exciting happening, and I remembered I'd paid all of my maintenance and management fees last month.” The moment Zhang Zian saw Grandma Gu, he naturally thought of all kinds of fees or fines that she might have been there for.
”No, I'm here to congratulate you today.” She gleefully opened her file, picking out a document. ”Previously, didn't I nominate you for our city's model worker? You're a hardworking child, you kept showing up on TV to accept interviews, and didn't your dog win that, what was it, Berlin International Film Festival? You brought glory to our country, so you naturally won! Here, the documents are all done!”
Zhang Zian was surprised at first, before he remembered that Grandma Gu had brought this up previously. But he hadn't expected to actually get the prize. He couldn't help but feel it was unbelievable.
”Grandma, you didn't get something wrong, right? Didn't you nearly nominate me for the Women's Pacesetter Program?” He made sure to confirm, worried that Grandma Gu had had a moment of folly. If he had gone on stage as a member of the Women's Pacesetter Program, that would have been embarrassing…
”Ugh! What rubbish are you saying? I definitely didn't get it wrong!” Grandma Gu grumbled. ”If you don't believe me, just look at all these documents. They're all approved.”
Zhang Zian took the documents, perusing them for a while, and he did find his own name on them. But the list was very long—almost two to three hundred names long. Thank goodness it was arranged in alphabetical order, or it would have been quite difficult to find one name.
”So many winners?”
Even though he was glad that he had won the prize, it was just a little disappointing. If this many people had won the prize, then it wasn't really a valuable prize to win, was it?
Grandma Gu immediately explained, ”Lad, you don't understand. We only pick winners once every three years. All these names you see are people that had made ground-breaking contributions to Binhai City's economy and society. They're all workers, farmers, researchers, managers, engineers, and other workers of our society.”
Oh, once every three years. Then that wasn't too bad…
Zhang Zian understood that he was categorized under ”Other Workers.” But he didn't fit in all the other previous categories anyway.
”After the list was confirmed, I wanted to tell you right away,” Grandma Gu added. ”But the name list had to be on display for a week, and only after there was no disagreement on it could it be official. I was afraid that you would be let down afterward, so I only came to you immediately after the week was over.”
”Then… This… Do I have any…?” Zhang Zian wanted to ask, but he was a little ashamed to.
Grandma Gu slapped her own thigh. ”You wanted to ask whether there's a monetary reward, right? I'm here to send you some money!”
Zhang Zian immediately perked up at hearing that, as though someone had given him a shot of adrenaline. Who wouldn't be excited about money literally falling from the sky? Was there anything happier than this?
”Master, you have to treat us to a great meal tonight!” Wang Qian and Li Kun immediately called out, wanting in on the good news. They wanted a proper good meal today, and not just any fast food.
”Don't worry! I will!” Zhang Zian patted his chest. ”You choose the place!”
Grandma Gu whipped out her wallet from her pocket, picking out four notes and passing it to Zhang Zian. One fifty dollars, three ten dollars. ”Here, the subsidy as the model citizen. 80 dollars every month, this is this month's.”