Silent Dedication Amid Steel and Concrete

On the red-soil hills of Yunxi County, Jiangzuo Province, in the summer of 1995, sixteen-year-old Li Jiye put away his report card showing he had placed sixth in the county on the high school entrance exam. He gave his spot at high school to his younger brother and enrolled at the Jiangzuo Water Conservancy and Electric Power School, hoping to carry on the family trade. Four years later, clutching his diploma in Industrial and Civil Construction, he believed he could find his footing in the tide of the times with his skills. He never imagined that the next thirty years would take him through a jungle of reinforced concrete, where following the rules would prove harder than earning fame and fortune.

From site supervisor to nationally registered supervision engineer, he wore out one blue uniform and hard hat after another. He had banged on tables with contractors over a one-centimeter rebar cover or loose scaffold clamps, and faced uncontrollable problems like counterfeit steel. Caught in the industry's race to the bottom and the bind of unlimited responsibility with limited authority, he gradually went from holding on to his original ideals to struggling to survive.

An investigation in 2012 was like a thorn, piercing his ideal of serving the people. He watched contractors use connections to twist right and wrong, chased overdue supervision fees for two years with a smile, and saw young colleagues change careers because the pay was too low.

This is not a story of a meteoric rise. It is the career of an ordinary man. He entered the construction industry with ideals, then spent twenty-five years measuring the distance between ideal and reality: on one side, an uncompromising belief that there is no such thing as close enough in construction; on the other, the helplessness of an industry where a smooth path is hard to find. On one side are the red-line standards on the blueprints; on the other, the gray areas where interests collide. Who can hold the line?