The factory director pushed open the gates, his eyebrows nearly standing on end. He stood beneath the blazing sun, on the steps, looking down at the workers below.
"If you have any problems, come to me privately. What do you mean by gathering in a mob and letting the foreign guests see you like this?"
He scolded these people who could not distinguish the occasion or understand the priorities. Then he pointed at a middle-aged man standing at the very front. "...(the middle-aged man's name), was this your doing?"
The middle-aged man limped forward and stood on the steps. He glanced at the other coworkers beside him, then nodded. "It was me. I'm dissatisfied with the factory's arrangements, and we all are!"
The middle-aged man's knee had been shattered by shrapnel. He had also gone to war. At the age of thirty-six, he had answered the call of the Peng Joe Empire's royal family, put down his work, picked up a weapon, and gone to the battlefield.
He had taken part in most of the battles of the Nagaril invasion. It was not until the homeland defense campaign, when shrapnel from a ricochet struck his knee, that he left the battlefield.
The doctors had been unable to save his knee—or rather, given the conditions on the battlefield at the time, they had not intended to save it.
A lengthy operation to save one person's knee was not as useful as using that time to save several people's lives.
So they had given him simple treatment, removed the shattered bone, and sent him out of the operating room.
After the operation, he could no longer stand. He was sent back to the rear, and shortly before the war ended, he returned to the Washing Machine Factory to continue serving the war