Frustrated That Iron Refused to Become Steel

"You said I was old-fashioned?"

Hearing Cai Minying's assessment of him, Li Ye could not help shaking his head with a laugh.

Just moments ago, when he had been discussing the Japanese economy with Cai Minying, he had completely taken control of the conversation, practically leading her around by the nose. Yet now she had turned around and called him old-fashioned?

If I'm old-fashioned, then what does that make you, a top student who studied abroad?

In fact, Cai Minying represented a portion of the "most elite" people of that time. They believed that, like the young students once sent to America, they had brought back the "true scriptures" from overseas and hoped to wield a great axe and remake this decrepit world.

Moreover, after returning home, these people were entrusted with important positions. Even for many years afterward, they exerted enormous influence over the mainland economy, especially its financial development.

And in Cai Minying's eyes, Li Ye, who spoke of "going among the masses," was clearly still steeped in the rigid atmosphere of the times—a frog at the bottom of a well, a hopelessly provincial bumpkin.

"Aren't you old-fashioned? You clearly received the teacher's painstaking instruction and came into contact with the most cutting-edge economic knowledge, yet you refuse to cast aside your old ways of thinking.

"You clearly have the ability to go to a more suitable department and contribute to the current economic reforms, yet instead... You truly wasted the teacher's painstaking efforts. It's a waste of knowledge."

Several senior brothers and senior sisters had attended Li Ye's wedding, so Cai Minying knew that Li Ye had the ability to enter a department like the Economic Committee. Yet, to everyone's surprise, he had gone to an automobile factory instead.

And in less than a year, Li Ye