Chapter 1387

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Wang Xiaohua piloted the Rural Cafeteria at the Changjiang Village Committee for nearly a month and produced an extremely detailed report summarizing the potential problems and their solutions.

He then took this report, first showed it to Zhong Hongtao; Zhong Hongtao found no issues, then showed it to He Gaofeng; He Gaofeng found no issues, and he personally went to the County Town to find Xiao Xueqing to seek her advice.

Xiao Xueqing saw this report, as well as the detailed processes and methods for the Rural Cafeteria proposed in the report, and first praised Wang Xiaohua:

"Xiao Hua, your idea is good; the small-scale pilot also achieved good results, however, promoting it on a large scale will likely be difficult."

Wang Xiaohua was stunned:

"County Mayor, what do you mean by that?"

Xiao Xueqing said:

"Your plan idealizes every participating Civil Servant, assuming they will all be as dedicated as you, but in reality, ten thousand Civil Servants have ten thousand different states; most are just ordinary people doing this job only to make a living, to get by, nothing more."

Hearing this, Wang Xiaohua's expression turned heavy:

"It's not that I didn't think of this; it's precisely because I thought of it that I plan to strengthen supervision over food ingredient procurement and formulate food preparation rules when pushing the Rural Cafeteria to the various village committees in Shangang Town — for example, eggs must be made into boiled eggs or tea eggs — to maintain integrity throughout and reduce corruption in the intermediate links somewhat."

Xiao Xueqing said:

"Your idea is correct; it should reduce some corruption, but have you considered that if there's no benefit in the middle, the people below won't be motivated to do the work; without motivation, the Rural Cafeteria will only become a face-saving Image Project to cope with Leader inspections, and they might not even cook for those fools every day — only when Leaders come to inspect will they summon the fools to go through the motions; after all, fools won't file complaints, and even normal Villagers generally don't dare to speak up against Village Cadres."

Wang Xiaohua's face was full of astonishment; he had to admit Xiao Xueqing's words were very reasonable, and her deductions fit human nature very well.

At this point Xiao Xueqing added:

"But this isn't your fault; many people fresh out of university entering Society are even more idealistic than you; most wouldn't even think to use whole ingredients as much as possible to reduce kickback links; the fact you thought of this already counts as very good."

Wang Xiaohua humbly asked for guidance:

"Then County Magistrate Xiao, do you have a perfect solution?"

Xiao Xueqing said:

"There is no perfect policy in this world; any policy will have people exploiting loopholes; we can only say choose the lesser of two evils; this degree of tightness is crucial — too loose breeds corruption, too tight lowers efficiency and even turns into an Image Project; so the 'Doctrine of the Mean' we Chinese speak of isn't useless; at least in Officialdom, whether dealing with people or formulating policy, one must adhere to the Mean; the greatest taboo is extremism — either left or right — such thinking is absolutely unacceptable, otherwise good intentions lead to bad results."

Hearing this, Wang Xiaohua fell silent involuntarily.

After a long while, he finally spoke:

"Does this mean corruption must be allowed to exist to a certain extent?"

Xiao Xueqing glanced at Wang Xiaohua; his asking so directly stirred a hint of wariness in her heart.

If she spoke the truth and Wang Xiaohua had secretly recorded it, and the recording got out, wouldn't that ruin her official career?

Although she felt Wang Xiaohua had a 99.9% chance of not doing such a despicable thing as secret recording, the way of an official requires caution at every step; safety lies in prudence.

So regarding Wang Xiaohua's question, she could only answer very tactfully:

"Corruption is absolutely not allowed to exist; that's why our Country has been cracking down hard on corruption, and I'm doing my best to do my job well and promote integrity; it's just that some things won't cease to exist just because we wish they didn't."

Hearing this, Wang Xiaohua nodded and said:

"I understand, County Magistrate Xiao, thank you for your guidance!"

Wang Xiaohua bowed deeply.

After listening to Xiao Xueqing's words, Wang Xiaohua's mind did not arrive at a clear answer.

Only a general direction for action.

Additionally, he couldn't help recalling the old events when he first tested into Tsinghua University and Xiao Xueqing personally arranged student aid for him.

Back then Xiao Xueqing contacted major entrepreneurs in the County Town, using the pretext of advertising for them, and solicited substantial donations; Niu Chunsheng alone donated five hundred thousand, and there were over ten entrepreneurs ahead of Niu Chunsheng, not to mention entrepreneurs like Zhang Sheng who put down a huge sum of one million.

The total of all these donations added up to an unimaginably huge amount.

Yet the scholarship that finally reached Wang Xiaohua's hands was only three hundred thousand.

Additionally, a student aid fund was established in Wang Xiaohua's name, but the total investment of this fund was only one million.

As for where the remaining money went, those in the know all understand perfectly.

Previously Wang Xiaohua felt Xiao Xueqing's conduct was too much about using power for private gain and oppressing people with power.

Now hearing Xiao Xueqing's discourse, he felt her approach back then also had its own operating logic.

The entrepreneurs got advertising; Wang Xiaohua got 300,000 in scholarship money; and the various departments headed by Xiao Xueqing got a share of the profits for arranging the matter.

At least from this view, everyone got what they wanted.

This is also why, during that absurd large-scale performance show back then, every person at every link knew the situation perfectly, yet not a single link had anyone stand up and shout opposition — the important reason lies here.

Wang Xiaohua couldn't help feeling this is the so-called "existence is reasonable."

But immediately he was violently startled, breaking into a cold sweat.

If he considers this phenomenon reasonable because it exists, and beautifies it because all parties profit, he will gradually identify with this value system, and then gradually practice it!

At that time, his becoming a link in corruption and bribery would not be far off!

He had promised Li Jianjia he would not degenerate into someone like her father Li Zhongxian!

Wang Xiaohua bid farewell to Xiao Xueqing; he came to the County Park side, found a public toilet, and at the faucet outside the toilet fiercely washed his face.

Looking at himself in the mirror, he already looked somewhat fatigued.

The fervor in his heart seemed to have dimmed somewhat.

On the propaganda board outside the park, the five large characters "Serve the People" stood prominently.

At this moment Wang Xiaohua realized how heavy, how difficult these five characters are.

Knowing and doing — between them, how many obstacles lie in between.

As the great man said: "The pass is iron-hard, the road long; now we stride forward anew; striding anew, green mountains like the sea, setting sun like blood..."