Wu Yunliang was a junior college graduate from Hebei Province, already twenty-eight years old, with a home in the countryside. He had long since married and had two children, both back in his hometown looking after his parents.
He had failed to get into an undergraduate program, but his attitude toward studying had always been serious.
The saying that education could change one's Destiny was no lie to people in the eighties and nineties. Getting into junior college had already changed his Destiny. He might be assigned to a factory or a government office back home, and his household registration would be changed to an urban one.
But he wanted better, so he studied even more tirelessly. He majored in mechanical engineering and had the best grades in his department.
When jobs were assigned, he was sent to Jinling Group as the top student in mechanical engineering. He knew of Jinling Group. He had known it back when it was still Jinling Textile Factory—making water-jet looms, selling denim clothes, earning foreign currency. He also knew that Wang Yan had given a speech at Peking University and organized a university student inspection group.
He knew Jinling Group was a good employer, but he had initially refused because he did not want to be too far from home. Yet when his advisor told him that joining Jinling Group meant being assigned housing, earning over a hundred yuan in wages, being allowed to bring his family along, having jobs arranged for them, nearly free medical care and education, and other generous benefits, he firmly declared that he would obey the state's arrangements.
So he wrote a letter home explaining where he was going and painting a picture of the future. He packed his bags, bid farewell to his dorm mates and classmates, took