Early the next morning, just as Xiao Liang arrived at the office, Zhang Feili came in with Liu Weiwei. Both of them looked uneasy.

They were visibly exhausted. Zhang Feili had even put on light makeup, but it couldn’t hide the dark, puffy shadows under her eyes. She kept yawning, barely able to hold it back. Both of them had stayed up all night organizing yesterday’s speech transcript.

The deputy finance officer Wu Qiyan—an old hand with over a decade of accounting experience—had also taken notes. But even with the three of them working through the night at Zhang Feili’s parents’ home, they still hadn’t managed to piece together more than twenty thousand words. That was probably less than a third of what Xiao Liang had said yesterday, and even then, parts were missing or inaccurate.

Looking back on it now, they realized something: Xiao Liang’s speech had contained plenty of examples, but almost no filler. It was all substance. And yet they had only managed to capture this much.

They felt a bit guilty.

“This is fine,” Xiao Liang said after flipping through the pages.

“Print it out and distribute it to everyone. There are gaps and inaccuracies, but let them revise it based on their own notes. We don’t need perfection right now. I was just helping you sort out the key points. Later I’ll organize everything into formal workflows—at that point, I’ll need everyone to contribute properly.”

He then went to Gu Peijun’s office for a brief coordination meeting, giving people time to handle their original duties. At nine o’clock, he gathered everyone in the meeting room again—and didn’t stop talking until eleven.

Meanwhile, Gu Peijun brought in the remaining members of the village committee. A joint meeting was held between the village leadership and the juice factory staff to discuss the production recovery plan.

The first—and most critical—step in restarting operations was this:

The sales department would pull together the factory’s most capable staff to form a new sales team, responsible for contracting out inventory clearance. Within a fixed timeframe, they had to liquidate stock and recover funds. Any profit above cost would be distributed as performance bonuses to the sales team. If they failed to meet the target, all bonuses would be void.

Apart from Liu Weiwei and Xu Xiaodong—who were inexperienced and newly hired—most of the others, including Xu Lihuan, Wu Qiyan, and Zhang Feili, who had been with the factory for three or four years despite failing the college entrance exam, were considered veterans.

Even if they had never worked in sales before, they still had a basic understanding of marketing and distribution—especially after Xiao Liang’s detailed explanation that morning.

On the whole, they agreed with the outsourcing plan. But there was still one concern:

Expecting them to clear at least sixty percent of inventory in just two months felt… unrealistic.

“There’s no room for negotiation,” Gu Peijun said firmly.

“If we don’t pay off what we owe the fruit farmers by September, we won’t get any fresh fruit this year. And if we try to source concentrated juice elsewhere, first, we don’t have the working capital, and second, there won’t be any profit margin left at all.”

He wasn’t trying to pressure them unnecessarily—but the timeline had to be clear.

Only with such a hard deadline could they secure approval from the village committee and support from the township. Otherwise, it would look like they were simply handing out benefits to themselves.

He couldn’t accept that.

“This is a do-or-die situation for the factory,” Xiao Liang said calmly.

“If we can’t hit the target in two months, then there’s no point talking about saving the factory. Honestly, if it were up to me, two months is already too generous. It doesn’t even reflect what we’re capable of.”

The three village committee members only thought he was boasting.

But the new sales team representatives—who essentially spoke for the factory workers—had a different reaction.

The two deputy factory directors and the office director were all close confidants of Xiao Yujun. But news had already come in from the county Public Security Bureau that formal investigations had been opened against them. At this point, no one cared what they thought anymore. They were just waiting for Gu Peijun to report to the township and initiate their removal.

With Gu Peijun handling the village committee affairs and acting as interim factory director, and Xiao Liang representing the township’s assigned oversight role, the three village committee members had no reason to object.

Gu Cheng had even spoken to them privately the day before—asking them, for the sake of appearances, to give the young men a chance.

So in the end, no one opposed it.

Fourteen people signed the proposal together, forming a unified resolution.

Gu Peijun then took the document directly to the township office to find Liang Chaobin, coordinating a time for Wang Xingmin to review the production recovery plan that afternoon.

After a quick boxed lunch, they spent another two hours refining operational procedures. Then Xiao Liang led everyone into the warehouse to conduct a full inventory check, using the real conditions there to explain modern inventory management principles in simple terms.

At around 3:30 p.m., Liang Chaobin called directly to the factory and asked Xiao Liang to come to the township office.

He didn’t wait for a bus. He borrowed a bicycle and rode straight there.

After Gu Peijun’s earlier report, Deputy Township Head Liu Hui—who oversaw industry—had come by. Wang Xingmin decided to call in Fan Chunjiang as well so they could collectively discuss the plan. At the same time, Liang Chaobin was instructed to bring Xiao Liang over to gauge, indirectly, how both Xiao Liang and the factory staff felt about the proposal.

Although townships had supervisory authority over village enterprises—and Nanting Village was in a particularly sensitive situation—after all, the juice factory still technically belonged to the village. So as long as Wang Xingmin, Fan Chunjiang, and Liu Hui didn’t raise objections, there was no need to escalate it to a formal Party-government joint meeting.

“You’ve read the proposal. What do you think?” Liang Chaobin asked, tossing a cigarette and lighter across the desk.

Xiao Liang lit it, sat down across from him, and answered evenly:

“There’s no alternative. It has to be a do-or-die move.”

“Juice has a shelf life of twelve months. If we wait another three or four months, no distributor will touch this stock anymore—they won’t have enough time to push it through retail channels.”

“Director Gu sees this clearly, which is why he’s mobilized the entire capable workforce for this fight. The bonuses are there to motivate people—to make sure everyone goes all in.”

“If we miss this window, the factory is finished. Hundreds of millions in debt, expired inventory, unpaid wages stretching half a year. Nanting Village won’t be able to handle that.”

He exhaled slowly.

“Of course, if it really comes to that, it won’t be our responsibility anymore. It’ll all be on Xiao Yujun’s rotten mess.”

“At that point, the five-million-yuan credit union loan is one thing. Supplier debts might still be manageable. But seventy-plus workers unpaid for half a year, and hundreds of farmers across Yunshui, Xikou, and Suceng still waiting for their money…”

He gave a faint, almost indifferent smile.

“That’s when things get interesting. We’ll just sit back and watch.”

For Xiao Liang, having been reborn into 1994, the most important change wasn’t knowledge.

It was composure.

He had seen too much in his previous life—too many tangled outcomes, too many collapses and recoveries. Now, whatever the situation, whether he could solve it or not, he felt no fear. No panic. Not even hesitation.

He sat across from Liang Chaobin with complete calm, even willing to spell out the consequences of failure without flinching.

He didn’t mind if they felt the weight of it.

He didn’t mind if they realized how ugly things could become.

And if this path didn’t work?

Then he would simply take another.