The staff called out several times in a row. Just as Jiang Si was about to lift her foot and follow the crowd away, someone suddenly called out to her from behind.
Jiang Si turned around in surprise, only to see the two people she had met that day at the entrance of the Artists Association.
Compared to their polished and neat appearance that day, today their faces showed obvious signs of disarray.
Especially Deputy Director Fang. Seeing the dirt and snow stains on her knees and her limping gait, Jiang Si stepped forward to help her up. Although their conversation had been brief that day, the kindness in Fang Wenjun’s eyes was unmistakable.
“Is your knee alright? Do you need me to take you to the hospital?”
Fang Wenjun shook her head. The sudden heavy snowfall had caused all the buses heading toward the plaza to be delayed.
With no other option, she had to walk over.
Fortunately, the small mural team had little to do today, so Qiu Yashu had come along as well.
But as they walked, her young apprentice suddenly slipped.
Acting on instinct, Fang Wenjun grabbed her, and both of them fell to the ground.
Luckily, at the critical moment, she protected her wrist; otherwise, the latter half of the mural’s coloring work would have been delayed.
Fang Wenjun looked pale and frightened as she said, “It’s nothing serious, just a slip on the road.”
“By the way, Comrade Jiang, I think I heard some emergency notice just now. Did something happen?”
Jiang Si had arrived only a few minutes earlier than them and wasn’t entirely sure of the details.
But she guessed that there might be a problem with the wall coating in the mural area.
“What?”
Hearing that the issue was here, Fang Wenjun’s face, already pale from the cold, drained of all color.
This task was not only an honor but also a tough challenge for their Artists Association.
If they couldn’t complete it smoothly, it might be blown out of proportion as a lack of enthusiasm in ideological propaganda — and in the worst case, labeled a major incident.
At this moment, Fang Wenjun ignored the pain in her knee.
“Let’s go. We need to hurry to the assembly point.”
The assembly point was in the conference room on the second floor of the adjacent building.
Huo Tingzhou escorted people to the conference room door, then, like the others in the working group, stayed in the corridor to wait for news.
Inside the conference room, the atmosphere was heavy and tense.
“Everyone, please sit down.”
After President Zhou and the others took their seats, he abandoned his usual gentle demeanor.
He immediately launched into a fierce scolding of Liang Guodong, who was responsible for the mural’s coating work.
“What good does hanging your head like that do now? I warned you over and over to make sure you were prepared for rain and snow.”
“All members of the working group are already in place, and the scaffolding is set up.”
“And now you tell me the mural’s coating has problems? How am I supposed to explain this to these people?”
Faced with this situation, Liang Guodong felt nothing but guilt — but also a bit of grievance.
Seeing this, other project team members spoke up to defend him with a few fair words.
“President, this really isn’t all on Team Leader Liang.”
“This time, the overhang on the mural was extended to 80 centimeters wide.”
“The tarpaulin was hung, and two layers of straw mats were added in front. They did everything they could to prepare.”
No one had expected that the wind in Jing City would be so fierce last night, especially since this area happened to be right in the wind’s path.
Early this morning, when they arrived, they saw the tarps and straw mats blown askew, as if the sky itself had collapsed.
What was even more disheartening was that the strong wind had whipped up snow particles, soaking at least a third of the wall coatings that had been drying for nearly a month.
At first glance, it didn’t seem like much of an issue, but after a whole night soaked in melted snow, parts of the wall were already starting to peel.
If they forced the painting now, let alone the problem of uneven wall surfaces...
Even if the mural was completed smoothly, it wouldn’t take a month before the colors began to fade or the wall started to flake.
If it were just an ordinary mural, it might be forgivable.
But this time, the theme involved the leadership and the workers-peasants-soldiers collective.
If any mistakes like this slipped through later, no one would be able to take responsibility.
President Zhou was also restrained only because he was mindful of this, but even he couldn’t fully control his temper.
Yet the problem was already there.
No amount of scolding would help now. Fang Wenjun asked a crucial question.
“Team Leader Liang, if we repair these areas now, can we still make the deadline?”
“It’s too late,” Team Leader Liang explained. “Because these snow spots aren’t large connected patches, we can only rush to strip off all the existing coating and redo it from scratch.”
“How long would it take to apply a new layer?”
“That’s hard to say—it depends on the weather going forward.”
“If it doesn’t snow again, and the temperature stays like before, it’ll take about ten days for the coating to dry.”
“What?”
At those words, President Zhou and Fang Wenjun both spoke up at once.
“No, ten days is far too long!”
The schedule for this project had been set long ago: about two weeks for sketching and revisions, and ten days for coloring.
After the mural was finished, they still needed to apply two to three coats of tung oil to seal the colors, which would take at least another five to six days.
Every step was tightly scheduled.
Now, if they had to squeeze out those ten days, that would leave only twenty days for the remaining work.
But the theme of this mural was far more complex than anything they’d done before—it was simply impossible to finish on time.
Because of this, the other team members in the meeting room began to murmur among themselves.
“What do we do? If we can’t finish, how will we explain it to the higher-ups?”
They had originally hoped this project would bring them some credit, but now it seemed they wouldn’t gain any face—if anything, they might get punished.
At the thought of this, the meeting room was filled with sighs and groans.
The painting team quietly asked Jiang Si for guidance.
“Team Leader Jiang, what should we do?”
“Don’t rush,” Jiang Si carefully considered before speaking.
Suddenly, the political work group leader proposed, “Why don’t we just change the plan? I remember the creative team has several alternative themes, right?”
“Those are all pretty good. If we pick one with fewer characters and hurry, we should be able to make the deadline.”
“No way!”
As soon as those words came out, the creative team immediately voiced unanimous opposition.
“We’ve invested so much time and effort to create this piece.”
“The problem lies with the construction team. If anyone has to rush, it should be them—not us—so why should we have to change our backup plan?”
Team Leader Liang quickly stood up to apologize. “I’m sorry, everyone. This really is the construction team’s fault.”
“But right now, there’s nothing we can do. We simply can’t squeeze out any more time.”
“You can’t find the time, but that doesn’t mean you can undermine our plan.”
The creative team understood the situation but had no intention of backing down.
As tensions rose and it looked like they were about to argue, President Zhou stepped in and called for a halt.
