Chapter 1363: The Best Times (Part 2)

Chen Xiang's hometown is in a mountainous area in the southwest. Although the administrative level is a county, the total population of the county is only 170,000, which is not even as large as the population of some developed towns along the eastern coast. Moreover, the annual output value here is also very, very low, basically there is no industry that can be sold, so there is no job.

Chen Xiang has lived in this small county for more than ten years, and there has been basically no development in the county for more than ten years. It will always be a main road. The reason why it is called the main road is not only because it is the only two-way lane used in the whole county, but also because it is the most lively place in the county. There are dozens of stores open here to provide shopping places for the residents of the county.

Most of the houses in the county are low-rise buildings, and seven floors are considered tall buildings. Because the buildings above need to build elevators, it is a bit too extravagant to build an elevator room for this impoverished county. Even if it is repaired, few people can afford to live in an elevator room. Because the per capita monthly income here is only 1,750 yuan. In fact, it has always been difficult to find a job with more than 1,500 yuan in the county.

In fact, Chen Xiang's family conditions are relatively good in the county, and their family runs a hot and sour noodle shop in the county. A bowl of hot and sour noodles costs five yuan, which is not expensive. But for people in this county, it is not cheap. The education level in the county has always been very poor. Even though Chen Xiang studied hard, his grades were not very good.

If you go to high school, there will be no way out, because most of them will not be admitted to college. So the parents decided to send Chen Xiang to a technical school in Jinan thousands of miles away. At least this can be regarded as allowing his son to go out to see the market. You can also find a good job outside in the future.

Poor parents all over the world, there is only so much Chen Xiang's parents can do for Chen Xiang. They have lived in the county all their lives, knowing that there will be no future and no development here. So they gave Chen Xiang a lot of savings to go out to study.

Chen Xiang has not been home for a year. Because the round trip fare is too expensive to go home. He works part-time in Jinan during winter and summer vacations, earning a little tuition and living expenses by himself. This time he took the hyperloop home to surprise his parents, telling them that their son is now a promising future. Once you graduate, you can get a job with an annual salary of 150,000.

I got off the train with Teacher Wang, and under the guidance of Teacher Wang, Chen Xiang got on the bus back to the county. Not the kind of bus I made two years ago, but the same suspension car as Jinan. But obviously the price of this ticket is more expensive than the old bus. So many people may not necessarily choose to take this kind of car.

In Chen Xiang's memory, the road back to his hometown from the city has never been easy. Not to mention the potholes on the road, there are also nine bends and eighteen bends. Most drivers are reluctant to run this mountain road because it is too dangerous. Not to mention the driver, even a passenger like myself will tremble with fear every time he sees the driver turning a corner on the edge of the cliff, fearing that if the driver makes a mistake, the whole car will fall off the cliff. And this is not unheard of, every year there will always be some passenger cars overturned over the cliff.

Usually, it takes nearly ten hours to run this long-distance provincial capital, which is only 270 kilometers long. Inconvenient roads are also one of the main reasons for restricting the development of the county, and it is inconvenient to go out and in. Movement of people is also difficult. However, there are still many natural villages scattered on the mountains in the county, and their conditions are even more difficult.

When the suspension car drove to the road that was supposed to enter the mountain, Chen Xiang couldn't help but grip the handle of the seat tightly. He looked very nervous, Teacher Wang glanced at him: "What's wrong?"

"I'm a little scared on the way into the mountain." Chen Xiang said honestly. However, Teacher Wang smiled calmly: "Don't be afraid, a new road has been built now." Teacher Wang pointed to the distance with his finger.

A line spans the mountains and connects two mountains that are more than ten kilometers apart. Originally, this road needed to circle hundreds of kilometers in the mountains, which was dangerous and slow. A flying rainbow descends from the sky, and the natural danger becomes the way.

"This bridge is called Feihong Bridge. Because there is fog in the mountains in the early morning and the sun refracts a beautiful rainbow. It is said that you can see a beautiful rainbow on the bridge every morning." Teacher Wang said to Chen Xiang with a smile: "Of course, This bridge is not a rainbow falling from the sky, but an engineering miracle created by construction workers in just half a year."

"Can this bridge be repaired in half a year?!" Chen Xiang couldn't believe it.

"Hehe, Xiao Chen, aren't you a professional mecha pilot? You should know how much the productivity of the whole society has been changed after the engineering mecha was put into production. A skilled engineering mecha driver can outperform dozens of Hundreds of traditional construction workers. They are almost omnipotent, welding, handling, lifting, calibration, surveying and mapping, calculation. Why do you get a salary of more than 100,000 yuan as soon as you graduate? Because the company knows how much value you can create, You alone can equal the workload of a working group in the past. Relatively speaking, in fact, you have saved costs for the company.”

Listening to Mr. Wang talking about these things that he never understood or understood, Chen Xiang thought to himself, no wonder he can get such a high salary.

The suspension bus drove smoothly on the Feihong Bridge as usual, with mountains on both sides and deep cliffs under the bridge. A group of birds fly over the arch of the bridge, the car is driving on the flat ground, but the people are in the air. Teacher Wang said: "Those engineering miracles in the past will become normal engineering projects in the future. It was impossible to build such roads and bridges for a county in the past. But now it is possible."

"Why?" Chen Xiang was a little confused: "Is it because of the appearance of engineering mechs?"

"This is just one reason, and more importantly, controllable nuclear fusion. Do you know that there is a [nuclear city] in the middle of our country?"

Hearing Teacher Wang's question, Chen Xiang nodded: "Yes, our teacher said that this place is now called [Chinese Heart]."

"That's right, it's the [Heart of China]. Because Tony Stark's Ark reactor has been realized, and a spaceship that can go to the moon to mine helium-3 has been created. This has made a huge breakthrough in our controllable nuclear fusion. The country All the original residents of [Nuclear City] were relocated, and a huge controllable nuclear fusion reactor was built. It is clean, efficient and pollution-free. Now it supplies 75% of China's electricity."

"Now the price of electricity has fallen below the bottom line we could have expected. The cost of electricity is almost zero. In addition to paying part of the equipment loss and human resource costs, our country has actually begun to develop in the direction of free energy. Because There is no need for energy, so the production costs of various materials such as steel and cement have been suppressed. Coupled with the large-scale use of engineering mechs, the current construction costs are beginning to shrink rapidly. But at the same time because The large-scale use of engineering mechs has caused many people to lose their jobs. Do you know that almost 30 million industrial workers in our country have lost their jobs this year."

Teacher Wang talked about this to Chen Xiang, and Chen Xiang shook his head blankly: "Are there so many? I don't feel it."

"Yeah, you don't know. You can't even feel it. Because the country has launched a lot of new construction. The super building city plan submitted by the Stark Group, and these super large engineering projects in our country are launched one by one. Because the cost is Compressed, financial pressure eased. National funds can start a lot of industrial projects. These projects absorb a large number of traditional workers who have lost their jobs due to the rise of new industries. And as a superhero, Tony Stark is also very clear that he invested so much The multi-engineering mecha has brought engineering and manufacturing into the 3.0 era. He may have foreseen this wave of unemployment. So he also invested a lot of money in the world. For those who have been unemployed by their own industrial upgrading plan Training. Although it is impossible for everyone to progress along with industrial upgrading, just like you are successful in upgrading, there will also be losers. But this is inevitable. At least Tony Stark has invested in this Quite a lot of money to do it. It’s a combination of these factors that you don’t feel a clear wave of unemployment, you don’t feel a clear sense of social unrest.”

Chen Xiang nodded his head half understanding. Because of these things, have the roads in my hometown been repaired? This is also a good thing. The suspension car traveled for an hour to complete the journey that used to be ten hours. At the station, Chen Xiang said goodbye to Mr. Wang and broke up.

Standing at the gate of the station, Chen Xiang was a little surprised. Is this his former county town? ! Now the entire county is like a big construction site, which is completely different from the one that has remained unchanged for ten years.

Chen Xiang saw a large truck transporting a large amount of I-beams to a construction site for a building, and an engineering mech directly grabbed an I-beam and flew it into the sky, and then placed the I-beam on the part that needed to be welded . Immediately afterwards, another engineering mecha flew over and welded the I-beam with the welding torch in its arm. With the cooperation of the two mechas, the high-altitude welding operation was completed in just one minute. This is unimaginable in traditional welding, which requires the perfect cooperation of cranes and workers. Maybe it takes more than an hour before and after welding a single I-beam like this. Now with the engineering mecha, the efficiency has been increased by more than sixty times.

The roads in the county town have also been repeatedly widened, from the original two lanes to four lanes. A large number of engineering personnel are constructing new buildings. Chen Xiang found his hot and sour noodle shop based on his memory. The business in the store is surprisingly good, in sharp contrast to the lukewarm business in the past.

Chen Xiang noticed that most of the people who came here to eat seemed to be people working on construction sites. They were all wearing safety suits and helmets. Chatting while eating hot and sour noodles. Chen Xiang's parents were busy in the store and didn't see Chen Xiang at all.

However, Chen Xiang also noticed that among the crowd eating here, there were two people who looked a little strange in their attire. Because they weren't wearing those dirty overalls and safety helmets. Instead, he was wearing a set of gray tights, which was a bit like the kind of sportswear in the gym.

And they obviously don't fit in with those construction workers. Those construction workers were chatting about their hometown dialect, making all kinds of pornographic jokes and who made mistakes in mixing the cement today, or who didn't fix the steel bars properly. But these two people were talking about inclination angle cutting, power compensation, heat decay consumption and other issues.

Chen Xiang listened carefully, he knew all these questions. Because this is the knowledge I have learned in school. It's just that my own experience is not enough. I haven't heard or encountered many things the two of them talked about. After the two finished eating the hot and sour noodles, they scanned the QR code to pay, and told Chen Xiang's parents who were still busy in the kitchen to pay, then got up and left.

Chen Xiang noticed that other workers in the store looked at them with envy, jealousy, and unwillingness. But these two people didn't care about the eyes of these traditional construction workers at all, and even treated them as if they didn't exist. It was as if they were no longer in this world.

They walked to the door of the store, where they heard two gray engineering mechs exuding a metallic luster that looked very sci-fi.

Chen Xiang learned this type of mecha in school, and it is the new sub-flagship engineering mecha of the Stark Group. The Chinese translation is "creator". The price of a mecha is as high as 11,000 renminbi, and you must have a B+ level driver's certificate to be allowed to drive it.

Don't look at yourself as a B-level certificate holder, it seems that it is not much different from B+. But Chen Xiang is very clear that there is actually a huge gap in this small level.

"Dress." The two stood in front of the mecha and shouted the password.

"The sound comparison is correct, and the pupil membrane comparison is successful. The mecha is turned on." In the voice full of mechanical science fiction, two 2.5-meter-high mechas opened the internal operating space. The two pilots enter the mecha, and the mecha closes. Under the slightly envious eyes of the passers-by and the jealous eyes of their co-workers, the two flew away in the mecha.

Chen Xiang glanced at the other construction workers in the store, and he thought of what Teacher Wang had said to him. Perhaps the value created by the dozens of other workers in this shop in one day, the amount of work they can complete is even less than what others can do in a day. So it's no wonder that the two mecha pilots couldn't talk to them at all. The two are not at the same level at all. There is also a huge difference in income.

Others wear engineering mechas at work, so they don't need to be exposed to the wind and the sun. There is a life support system inside the mecha, which can keep the driver in a comfortable state all the time. In addition to being more nervous mentally, they will not be too tired physically. Presumably these people think that the work of mecha pilots with high wages is easy. So they will be a little dissatisfied.

But so what? Chen Xiang suddenly thought of a sentence: Those who cannot keep up with the times will be eliminated by the times. How many people will be weeded out with the rapid progress of the times?

This is your best time, but what about everyone else? too? Or do they think this is actually the worst of times? Chen Xiang suddenly thought of this for no reason. But he didn't think about it in a hurry, because his mother, who had been busy all the time, was bringing out a bowl of hot and sour noodles from the back kitchen. She saw Chen Xiang and shouted happily: "Xiangxiang!"

"Mom, can you not call me by my nickname!" Chen Xiang was a little ashamed. It really made him feel shy to call him by his nickname because he is such a grown-up person.

"Why are you back?!" After serving hot and sour noodles to the guests, the mother couldn't help but stepped forward and asked with concern: "Aren't you studying at school to prepare for the graduation exam?"

"I finished the exam the day before yesterday, and signed a work agreement yesterday. I have already found a job." Chen Xiang gave his mother a surprise, but there are too many outsiders here, and he can't talk about his work income.

"Really?! That's a good relationship. You go to your brother Chen Tie's house to sit for a while, and wait until you finish your work at noon. I will go home with you." Mother happily patted Chen Xiang on the shoulder.

Chen Tie is Chen Xiang's cousin, originally a cheerful person. They played together when they were young, but ever since Chen Tie was in a car accident at the age of sixteen and his leg was broken, he never laughed again, he didn't even read a book, and he was depressed at home every day, only chatting with Chen Xiang I'll be a little happier. Chen Xiang was going to give Chen Tie a surprise, but he didn't expect that he would give himself a surprise on the way to Chen Tie's holiday.

"Brother Tie! Your leg has grown?!" Chen Xiang looked at Chen Tie's other intact thigh in disbelief. Chen Tiezheng just came home from grocery shopping.

"Yes! It has grown." Chen Tie smiled, but the smile was not so happy: "Osborne's Limb Regeneration Center opened a medical point in the provincial capital. I went to queue up to register, and it was my turn five months ago." I did. I went to the doctor. My broken leg was healed."

Chen Xiang didn't notice the bitterness in Chen Tie's smile, and he said happily, "This is a good thing!"

"Yeah, it's a good thing. Although the doctor said that growing a new leg may shorten my life by five to seven years. But it's worth it. It's better for a disabled person to live to the age of seventy than a healthy person to live to the age of sixty." Chen Xiang agreed with what Chen Tie said.

"Let's not talk about it, we brothers are going to have a good drink today." Chen Tie put his arms around Chen Xiang's shoulders and walked home.

"Brother, you went wrong." Chen Xiang pointed to the road and said to Chen Tie when passing by Chen Tie's house.

"That's right. The family house is sold."

"sold?!!!"

"Yeah, I sold it. I also spent all the compensation for the accident that year. You don't know how expensive the Osborne Medical Center is. In order for my leg to grow back, my family has sold all valuable things Yes. I also borrowed 30,000 yuan from your family. But don’t worry, I will go out to find a job and pay it back. Even if I go to the construction site to move bricks, I will not owe this money.”

Seeing what Chen Tie said so confidently, the corners of Chen Xiang's mouth twitched. But in the end, he still didn't say what he wanted to say.

"Brother, maybe the construction site will not even need brick movers in the future. This era has changed now. Those who can't keep up with the rapid pace of this era will be eliminated."

For some reason, Chen Xiang suddenly thought of the high-speed train. This era is like this fast-moving train, how many people can keep up with his pace without being eliminated? The world is changing rapidly. What was popular yesterday is obsolete tomorrow.

The way of life that was considered normal yesterday will become obsolete and ridiculous tomorrow.

If Chen Xiang had read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, he might have said with emotion: This is the best of times, and it is also the worst of times. Use this to whine.

The only thing Chen Xiang thinks about now is if so many people can't keep up with the train of the times, what will they do?

Note: The stories written in this chapter are partly based on the 2008 financial crisis.