Reborn as a Noble's Son

‘”‘Zhenbang, we are receiving so many gifts, they are about to fill up the entire hotel. Look at this…” Under the lead of Cao Guangchun, director of the Tianfu Province Young Civilized Office, they visited ten national youth civilization review sites in Tianfu Province in three days. On this journey, all except Wuhou Community Committee, Chongqing City Public Transportation Company Line 218, and National Highway 38 Liangzhou Toll Station gave Nie Zhenbang and others quite a bit of gifts before leaving.

At the moment, in a room in the Rongcheng Hotel of Tianfu Province, looking at the gifts occupying half of the room, Zheng Gensheng’s eyebrows knit together.

Zhang Min, this girl, was, however, laughing uninhibitedly, saying: “Director Zheng, why worry? We’ve accepted the gifts, and I believe there will be solutions.”

What Zhang Min said made Zheng Gensheng annoyed, and he criticizes with a stern face: “Zhang! Why would you say something so thoughtless? Are gifts meant to be accepted at will? You’ve just started working and are unaware of many things, you must be cautious in your future work. Corruption and degeneration often start from these things. Starting off with accepting gifts, soon enough it becomes money. In the end, it’s only a road of no return.”

Watching Zhang Min on the side with her head lowered in scolding by Zheng Gensheng, sticking her tongue out in a dismissive manner, Nie Zhenbang can’t help laughing:”Alright, Old Zheng, don’t scare little Zhang.”

With that, Nie Zhenbang also said to Zhang Min, “However, Zhang, Chief Zheng isn’t wrong. As the saying goes, ‘A pin stolen today, a gold tomorrow,’ significant corruption often starts from small issues.”

Subsequently, Nie Zhenbang turned to Zheng Gensheng and said, “Old Zheng, don’t worry. I had a purpose for openly accepting all these gifts. Shengli, sort out these items to see which units sent these gifts and make a list for me. Now that the review process is complete, it’s time to return these gifts to the Tianfu Province Committee. I believe that even Secretary Guo would not be able to object then, right?”

With the conversation ending here, Zheng Gensheng seemed to have an epiphany. He looked at Nie Zhenbang, full of admiration, saying that playing his cards very cleverly.

Soon after, Zheng Gensheng also laughed and said,” That’s one way to look at it. Based on this point alone, we wouldn’t qualify for the national youth civilization award. But, Chief, if we operate this way, Tianfu Province will only have three quotas left. Will Secretary Guo from the Tianfu Province Committee…?”

At this time, the youth civilization number was not worthless as it was in the old times. As one of the first batches of youth civilization numbers, it can be said that they are truly achievements. All have been acquired through hard work. Nie Zhenbang’s group is evaluated under the standards of ten years later, and all can be awarded the national youth civilization number.

Besides, don’t look at these candidate units that don’t have much to do with the committee. But both the top and the bottom attach great importance to it.

From the perspective of the Tianfu Provincial Committee, the more national youth civilization awards in Tianfu Province, the more outstanding the youth work and ideological work of the Tianfu Provincial Youth Committee. The same rationale applies to the units below. This can add points to the political future of these officials. No one would dislike it.

“Let it be three. Since it’s already like this, we can’t slap our own faces. So, it’s decided. I believe, even Secretary Guo can’t say anything.” After a moment of contemplated, Nie Zhenbang knew that even if there were only three spots in this lab of Tianfu Province, it would inevitably give the Tianfu Provincial Committee some thoughts. However, the situation has evolved to this point, and it’s no longer just his decision. Out of the ten candidate units in Tianfu Province, it so happened that only three had not given a gift. If one were to pick out a candidate who gave a gift, that would be even more unseemly.

In this selection, the Youth League Central Committee, and Wei Bin’s side adopted a method of publishing results right after evaluating a province. This method ensures that each province would not object. On the other hand, it would also avoid creating an embarrassing situation where each province would run to Jingcheng to lobby their case after the evaluations are done.

Rongcheng

At this moment, Nie Zhenbang is sitting on the sofa in the office of Secretary Guo of the Tianfu Provincial Committee, he remains calm and stares straight ahead without looking askance.

In front of the desk, Secretary Guo has a serious expression, looking at a stack of documents on the table. After a long while, he finally said, “Chief Nie, I’m really sorry, I didn’t expect such a thing to happen in our Tianfu Province. This is due to our lack of effort in our work. On behalf of the Tianfu Provincial Committee, I will submit a self-critique to the Central Committee.”

Nie Zhenbang clearly understands that this is merely an attitude presented by

Secretary Guo. He wouldn’t really submit a self-critique to the Central Committee in front of himself. Otherwise, it would seem like Secretary Guo was trying to find a way to save face.

Listening to Secretary Guo’s words, Nie Zhenbang couldn’t help but laugh, and said immediately, “Secretary Guo, you’re being too harsh on yourself, in fact, we also didn’t do a good job. I believe that if we had directly declined, those units wouldn’t have sent us anything, it can’t really be considered an issue of style. It’s in our nature to reciprocate in kind. It is understandable. In fact, it seems we might have been a bit inappropriate, we seem to have intentionally misguided. Please bear with us, Secretary Guo.”

Nie Zhenbang clearly understood that people like Secretary Guo were not fools. They probably had guessed his intentions long ago. Rather than hiding it, it was better to be straightforward, which would make him appear more open and candid.

Indeed, when Nie Zhenbang spoke like this, the expression on Secretary Guo’s face eased. Earlier, Secretary Guo was worried that Nie Zhenbang was deliberately targeting him. Now, it seemed that it was just because he was afraid of directly rejecting him. With this in mind, the matter was not so serious anymore.

Immediately after, Secretary Guo also stood up, giving Nie Zhenbang a thumbs up: “Chief Nie, I admire you. You are highly capable. As expected of a cadre sent down from the Central Committee. Shall we go to the meeting room together?”

At this moment, in the meeting room of the Tianfu Provincial Committee, all the leaders of Tianfu Provincial Committee including the Director of Tianfu

Provincial Committee’s Youth Civilization Office, Cao Guangchun, were seated.

At the moment, Nie Zhenbang was specifically arranged to sit next to Secretary Guo of the Tianfu Provincial Committee. The Vice Secretary who had welcomed Nie Zhenbang at the airport was also sitting next to Nie Zhenbang.

On the wall of the meeting room, there was a large red banner that read, “Tianfu Province National Youth Civilization Review Meeting”. It seemed a little odd that a mid-level official like Nie Zhenbang was sitting amongst high-ranking leaders. However, nobody found it strange. Although Nie Zhenbang’s rank was not high, he was a representative of the Central Committee, much like an ancient imperial envoy. Even if this envoy was only seventh rank, he was from Jingcheng.

As the Director of the Youth Civilization Office, Cao Guangchun took up the role of the moderator. He looked around the venue and said loudly: “Leaders, comrades, next, we invite Secretary Guo to speak.”

Secretary Guo of the Tianfu Provincial Committee is not old, about forty years old. In this era, which had just begun advocating for the youthfulness of leaders, Secretary Guo was extremely young among the high-ranking officials. After serving a term here, he could either transfer to the Central Committee or be sent down to take charge of local affairs. Therefore, Secretary Guo attached great importance to the selection of Youth Civilization.

Seeing that everyone in the meeting room warmly welcomed him with applause, Secretary Guo raised his hand, scanned the surroundings, and said in a deep voice: “Comrades, I want to say something in front of Chief Nie. The review this time was a great lesson for us.”

As he spoke, Secretary Guo picked up the documents from the table and gestured: “Do you know what this is?”

“Comrades, this is the gift list that Chief Nie and others received. I have taken a look. The value is high. That’s why I discussed with Chief Nie According to standards, these units are fully qualified to be rated as National Youth Civilization. But why are they worried? Why did they send gifts? This is not how revolutionary work should be done. Have we forgotten our glorious traditions? I suggest that all units that sent gifts should be disqualified from the review this time. As for our Tianfu Province, regardless of how many we get, we count that.”

This kind of talk coming from Secretary Guo gave a different meaning. If it was said by Nie Zhenbang, it would be a veto from the superior. But if Secretary Guo said it, it would be an internal matter of Tianfu Province. The conflict was significantly less.

Of course, the phrase ‘count what we get’ was just Secretary Guo being polite. No matter what, Tianfu Province’s three quotas were indisputable.

At the entrance of the Tianfu Provincial Committee, two special cars, the latest Audi 100 models, were arranged for Nie Zhenbang and others. Because of competition, the prices of luxury cars like Audi and Mercedes were much cheaper than in the past. As such, many domestic units had much more luxurious cars than before. Secretary Guo and his team personally escorted Nie Zhenbang and others to their cars.

The car started slowly, and soon it was driving out of Rongcheng and heading towards Chongqing City. At this moment, Nie Zhenbang and Zheng Gensheng were in one car, while Zhang Min, Yu Shengli, and Cao Guangchun were in another.

At this moment, Zheng Gensheng greatly admired Nie Zhenbang’s tact.

Looking at Nie Zhenbang next to him, he said: “Zhenbang, you played this well.

You didn’t offend anyone and still managed to win over people’s hearts.”

Looking at the highway leading to Qianzhou Province, Nie Zhenbang pinched his eyebrow and said with a smile: “Old Zheng, you can laugh now. We might start feeling the headache when we reach Qianzhou. Now that Tianfu Province has released a quota, Qianzhou and Caiyun might start eyeing it too.” (..)