Second Aunt Song's house was about the same as Wang Yan's, though perhaps a little larger, with the courtyard extending a bit farther outward.
She and her husband both worked at the textile mill. They had met there, fallen in love, and gotten married. They had three children: the eldest son was sixteen, the second son fourteen, and their youngest daughter eleven.
Second Aunt Song was a production team leader at the textile mill, with five or six women under her, and she worked alongside them. Her husband was an accountant in the mill's finance department, though not a department head.
As the children ferociously dug into the canned beef, Wang Yan and Second Uncle clinked glasses and drank.
Second Uncle smiled. "Little Wang, I heard you're going to be the technical leader at our mill?"
"What technical leader?" Wang Yan waved a hand. "I'll just be leading the maintenance crew in their work. We'll still be repairing equipment. Other than a few young guys who just joined us, the rest are all veterans. They studied under me before. They could take apart and reassemble the machines in our mill with their eyes closed. What technical work is there to speak of?"
"Ah, you can't put it like that. Our mill has over three hundred people, and you're the most educated among us. You even learned advanced knowledge at university. The leadership surely wants you to bring in new ideas and improvements. And you haven't been telling me the truth. Recently, no one sees you around the mill except at mealtimes. Those veteran maintenance workers all said you've been secretly studying ways to improve the machinery."
"What secret?" Wang Yan shook his head with a laugh. "The maintenance work doesn't need me; they can solve all those problems themselves. I'm