Finding an Opening to Break the Ice

The mayor's office on the seventh floor of the municipal government building seemed to have become an isolated island cut off by an invisible barrier.

When Secretary-General Qian Yongnian knocked and entered again, his smile was even more solicitous than it had been that morning. He carried a thick stack of documents.

"Mayor Lin," he said, setting the documents gently on the desk, "these are the lists of government-funded projects from the past three years and some of the audit reports you requested. However..." He hesitated. "Retrieving certain files takes time and requires procedures, particularly for the Guangming Peak Project overseen by Comrade Ding Yizhen, which Secretary Dakang of the municipal Party committee is personally spearheading. The materials require coordination across multiple departments, so we may not be able to assemble everything at once."

His words were watertight: he had both carried out the order and tactfully erected obstacles, shifting responsibility onto "procedures" and "departmental coordination." It was a textbook bureaucratic response.

Lin Yanzhou did not immediately leaf through the documents. He merely looked up at Qian Yongnian. "Thank you for your efforts, Comrade Yongnian. These will be enough. As for the rest, follow procedure. I'm in no hurry."

He deliberately stressed the word "procedure," making Qian Yongnian's heart skip a beat. Qian hurriedly nodded his agreement and withdrew.

Silence returned to the office. Lin Yanzhou knew that Qian Yongnian was only a mouthpiece and an outpost. The real contest lay ahead.

He opened the top document, an audit summary of Jingzhou's municipal government public budget expenditures. His eyes swiftly scanned the key figures, and his red pencil circled one expenditure item, which carried a vagueness that would not withstand close scrutiny.

But he did not delve into it. He simply picked up a pen and jotted something in the notebook beside him.

What he needed was not an auditor's precision, but a hunter's instinct to find an opening that would break the deadlock.

The workday ended, and the sounds of people leaving gradually filled the building. Lin Yanzhou remained seated in his office. Outside the window, the sky darkened, and the streetlights in the municipal government compound came on one after another.

His secretary, Xiao Chen, slipped in quietly. "Sir, the car is ready. Are we going back to Building Two, or...?"

"We're not going back." Lin Yanzhou stood and picked up his coat. "Let's take a look around the Guangming Peak Project. Get a different car, something less conspicuous."

The car left the bustling area and turned into an old neighborhood. Beside an aging park, he got out.

An elderly man was practicing tai chi. Lin Yanzhou watched quietly for a while, waiting until the man finished his routine.

"Sir, you must have been practicing for quite a few years?" Lin Yanzhou stepped forward to strike up a conversation.

The old man turned and sized him up. "You've got a good eye, young man. I've been practicing for over thirty years. What, do you know something about it too?"

"A little." Lin Yanzhou smiled. "Watching you practice is a pleasure."

The two began chatting about tai chi, and without their noticing, the conversation shifted to the park's surroundings. "This is a nice park, but the facilities are badly worn," Lin Yanzhou remarked casually.

"We've reported it several times." The old man shook his head. "They say there's no budget. Our old neighborhood doesn't get the attention the new districts do. And that public toilet-they said last year they would rebuild it, but nothing's happened yet."

Lin Yanzhou looked in the direction the old man pointed and indeed saw damaged facilities and a dilapidated public toilet. His gaze shifted to a long queue in one corner of the park. "Who are those people?"

The old man sighed. "They're all from the nearby residential compounds, here to fetch well water. Construction on the Guangming Peak Project polluted their water supply."

"Isn't the government doing anything about it?"

The old man shook his head. "Whichever department we go to, they pass the buck. They all have their eyes on big projects and major construction. Where would they find the time for our chicken feathers and garlic skins?"

Lin Yanzhou chatted with him a little longer, then politely took his leave.

Once he was back in the car, he told his secretary, "Contact the parks bureau and the subdistrict office. Verify the damage to the park facilities. I want recommendations on how to address it tomorrow. Also, investigate how far Jingzhou has progressed in implementing 'toilet construction.'"

"Xiao Wu, let's take a look at the residential compound up ahead."

Less than five minutes' drive away, the scene was entirely different. The streets were narrow, and a strange odor hung in the air.

After getting out, Lin Yanzhou saw several elderly people sitting and chatting. At the sight of an unfamiliar face entering, they all stopped talking and studied the young man curiously.

"Sir, may I ask what those people are carrying water for?" Lin Yanzhou asked, pointing at the people carrying buckets not far away.

"Young man, you're not from around here, are you? What else would we fetch water for besides drinking?"

Lin Yanzhou pointed at a tap water pipe. "I see you have running water. Why go so far to fetch it?"

"Oh, don't get me started!" An elderly woman grew agitated. "That water has a strange smell, and even boiling it doesn't help! Drinking it gives you diarrhea and makes your hair fall out. Who knows what diseases we'll get if this goes on!"

"It's all because of that Guangming Peak Project over there!" A middle-aged man pointed toward the faint outline of the enormous construction site in the distance, visibly agitated. "They said some underground pipe had been broken. But what really happened was that they were demolishing a chemical plant and didn't want to pay to treat the wastewater, so they secretly discharged the chemical wastewater straight into the Qingshui River. It all seeped into our water supply!"

"How many times have we reported it! We went to the Qingshan District government, and they said the water contamination was caused by demolition in Guangming District. They had no money to clean it up, so Guangming District had to pay! We went to Guangming District, and they said we belonged to Qingshan District, and the site hadn't been handed over to them yet, so it wasn't their responsibility. They said it was the construction crew's problem and told us to go to the project office. We went to the municipal government, and they said they'd already referred it to the district! They just keep kicking us back and forth like a ball!"

Lin Yanzhou did not linger. Back in the car, he told his secretary, "First, notify the municipal health commission to provide free medical examinations for the residents first thing tomorrow morning, paid for from emergency funds. Second, notify the deputy mayor in charge, the municipal water company, the environmental protection bureau, the Qingshan District government, the Guangming District government, and the principal person in charge of the Guangming Peak Project's construction contractor. Tomorrow morning at nine, we'll hold an on-site working meeting here. I want to hear their reports face-to-face."

"Yes, sir!" He could sense the anger suppressed beneath his superior's calm tone.

He had originally intended to use livelihood initiatives such as the "toilet construction" directive issued by the higher authorities that year as a lever, gradually working his way in. Instead, he had encountered the sharpest, most indisputable sore point affecting people's lives: "drinking water safety."

He wanted to see with his own eyes how the various departments would continue "kicking the ball" in front of him.

He wanted to tear through that bureaucratic verbiage and lay the barest problems on the table, securing some benefits while solving problems affecting people's lives.