The Stepmother’s Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era
Chapter 298 - 297: National Day, Four Wedding Banquets

Chapter 298: Chapter 297: National Day, Four Wedding Banquets

A day before National Day, Shen Mingzhu convened an all-employee meeting at the factory and announced the new management regulations and the improved salary and welfare system.

In the management system, two new roles, a quality inspector and a workshop team leader, were created.

The quality inspector is primarily responsible for sanitation, production processes, and sample spot checks.

The workshop team leader is in charge of organizing the team for production, strengthening collaboration among team members, and completing production tasks.

Both positions, including future managers, will adopt an internal promotion mechanism.

On one hand, it can motivate employees to strive for improvement, and on the other hand, the old employees who have worked their way up from the bottom are not only familiar with the business but also understand the needs of the workers better.

The previous system of selecting excellent employees has been upgraded to the selection of excellent teams, and all members of the team granted the title of excellent team for the month each receive a bonus of ten yuan.

This incentive measure excited all the factory workers.

In the past, only one excellent employee was selected per month, with odds of thirty to one. Now by grouping into teams, if thirty people are divided into six groups, the odds are effectively six to one.

Not only have the chances of being selected increased, but also the number of people receiving money.

For workers, regardless of all the reasoning, nothing beats the reality of receiving cold, hard cash.

Besides this, the annual health check for employees has been changed to biannual check-ups, and every quarter, the team leader must organize team members to study the regulations and production standards, and take a unified exam. The exam results are graded as A, B, or C, corresponding to different piece-rate increments.

For example, employees who earn an A grade can receive the highest proportion of piece-rate, while those with a C grade get the lowest.

And the exam results for the four quarters are also linked to the annual bonus amount.

In short, if you want a higher salary, then work diligently and adhere strictly to rules and regulations.

After the employee meeting, Shen Mingzhu assigned the election of the quality inspector and team leader to Du Juan and Shen Hongmei while she busied herself making wedding candies.

This National Day, she received four "bombs."

Ning Yuan’s engagement party, Zhao Dafa’s wedding, Pei Wenping’s younger uncle’s wedding, and Shen Xiangnan’s wedding.

The first three approached her to order wedding candies.

Depending on the price, there were different varieties of wedding candies. For example, Zhao Dafa’s wedding candies used the same specifications as Ning Yuan’s, but instead of chocolate with liquor filling, they used ordinary chocolate, and the packaging was a common red paper box, making it correspondingly cheaper.

The wedding candies for Pei Wenping’s younger uncle were a level lower; neither the snowflake crisp nor chocolate were included, only purple candy was ordered, with the addition of peanut candy and osmanthus honey dates to symbolize the wish for early birth of a precious child.

For Shen Xiangnan’s wedding, Shen Mingzhu prepared twenty kilograms of soft cotton candy without any special packaging.

In the countryside, they don’t fuss over the wedding, and candy is grabbed directly by hand, giving children glee from a handful of sweets.

She didn’t plan to charge for these twenty kilograms of soft candy and considered it her contribution to her brother Shen Xiangnan’s wedding. She would also present a pair of silver bracelets on the day of the feast, thus taking care of both face and substance.

...

Ning Yuan’s engagement party was held by the lake at the foot of Mingyuan Mountain.

In the middle of Riyue Lake there lies an island that spans over thirty acres, rumored to be privately owned by some tycoon.

Originally, there was only a palm-sized rock in the center of Riyue Lake. The tycoon rented the area, and through artificial land filling, transformed the rock into an island.

Access to and from the island relies solely on boats, and to accommodate the guests, the Ning Family prepared three speedboats, two small ferryboats, and one sightseeing ship.

The engagement party took place in the evening, the entire island adorned with lights and flowers, creating a dreamlike and fantastical atmosphere.

The moment Shen Mingzhu stepped onto the island, she felt like she had entered a realm of enchantment.

Compared to Yan Yi’s somewhat traditional Chinese engagement banquet last year, Ning Yuan’s engagement party was completely Westernized, with arches made of fresh flowers and rose bouquets filling the entire venue. Desserts, fruits, and food were all self-serve, and waiters dressed in white shirts and black trousers weaved back and forth with trays of drinks.

"Mingzhu, Pei Yang."

The lights were too bright, dazzling, so that Shen Mingzhu took quite some time to find Ning Yuan among the crowd, but it was Zhong Qing who spotted them first.

Upon learning that Ning Yuan had been called over by his elders, Shen Mingzhu and Pei Yang followed Zhong Qing to find a place to sit.

All over the island, there were pavilions for guests to rest.

The pavilions also matched the style of today’s engagement party well, with white relief pillars and round arches for roofs; they must have been temporarily erected for the banquet.

This showed just how much the Ning Family valued this engagement party.

And the fact that Ning Yuan didn’t choose imported foreign candy as the wedding candy, but asked her instead, truly showed how much he regarded her as a friend.

"What did you prepare for Ning Yuan’s engagement gift this time?"

Faced with the curiosity in Zhong Qing’s hazel eyes, Shen Mingzhu explained somewhat embarrassedly, "Gold bars."

"Ha, I guessed right."

In response to the laughter and slyness in Zhong Qing’s eyes, Shen Mingzhu said calmly, "I can’t afford to give too expensive a gift, and Ning Yuan wouldn’t care for anything ordinary, so I thought gold would be good, as the saying goes, ’love is more precious than gold,’ and it can be used for jewelry or just kept."

Leaning her chin on her hand, Zhong Qing said with a smile, "I made a bet with Ning Yuan that I could guess what congratulatory gift you would bring. I won, and now Ning Yuan owes me a day with his new Lamborghini. Let’s go for a drive then."

"Sure."

Ning Yuan really was busy. Shen Mingzhu hadn’t managed to offer her personal congratulations by the end of the engagement party, but Yan Yi found a moment in his own hectic schedule to come over and greet them.

Shen Mingzhu took the opportunity to give Yan Yi the engagement gift, asking him to pass it on.

The day after Ning Yuan’s engagement banquet was Zhao Dafa’s wedding.

Compared to the Ning Family’s lavish party akin to a castle in the sky, Zhao Dafa’s wedding was much more down-to-earth.

The event was held at Fengcheng’s somewhat famous Ginkgo Building, and Zhao Dafa had generously reserved all three floors of the restaurant, with guests assigned to floors according to their social status.

Zhao Dafa came from the countryside, and his relatives were also rural folk. Rural people generally weren’t as refined or dignified in various aspects, including their table manners, as urbanites. Forcing these different groups to sit together might have made everyone uncomfortable, so it was simpler to separate them.

The first floor was primarily occupied by Zhao Dafa’s relatives and the laborers working under him.

The second floor hosted the bride’s urban relatives and friends that Zhao Dafa had made in his rise to success.

The third floor contained private rooms, occupied by various leaders and business owners.

By rights, the Shen Mingzhu family should have sat on the second floor but, Zhao Dafa had arranged for them in one of the third-floor private rooms.

For Zhao Dafa’s wedding gift, Shen Mingzhu also gave a 50g gold bar.

Whether it was for his house purchase, decoration, the Mid-Autumn Festival mooncakes, or the wedding sweets, Zhao Dafa had always taken good care of her business. Giving him a gold bar as a wedding gift was definitely warranted.

After celebrating at Zhao Dafa’s wedding, it was Chen Liang’s turn.

Chen Liang had just graduated from Petroleum University this year and was assigned to the First Machine Tool Factory. His bride was his high school classmate, currently working as a nurse in a small hospital.

Although the young couple both had formal jobs, they were just starting out and were far from receiving a housing assignment. With no room to live at their parents’ homes, they had to rent elsewhere.

For Chen Liang’s wedding, Shen Mingzhu’s gift was more practical: a four-door wardrobe and a dressing table.

Once Chen Liang’s wedding feast was over, it was finally Shen Xiangnan’s turn.

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