Chen Zheng, a son of a peasant family, was admitted to the Hedong County Party Committee Office with the first score in the written examination and became the secretary of Zhou Weimin, the county party secretary. When he first entered officialdom, he remembered to "see more, listen more and talk less." When he went to the countryside for the first time to investigate the Lijia Town Tea Cooperative, he witnessed the fierce collision between ideals and reality: the expectations of tea farmers, the perfunctory behavior of cadres, the disappearing project funds, and the meaningful silence of Sun Defu, deputy director of the Construction Bureau.
A sudden murder brought Chen Zheng into the center of the whirlpool of grassroots interests. Under the guidance of County Party Secretary Zhou Weimin and Office Director Zhao Dahai, he gradually understood the true meaning of power: not to control, but to assume responsibility. From the training of villages and towns to the game of municipal bureaus, from the party in charge to the vision of the provincial department, Chen Zheng sticks to the bottom line in every decision - protecting the rights and interests of the people during land acquisition and demolition, rejecting the transfer of interests during investment promotion, and facing his former colleagues in the anti-corruption storm.
This is a realistic work about the persistence and growth of idealists in the ecology of Chinese officialdom. Through Chen Zheng's complete trajectory from a young secretary to a mature leading cadre, it vividly demonstrates the complex picture and reform process of China's grassroots governance in the new era. The story not only has a profound insight into the operation of power, but also a sincere tribute to the brilliance of human nature. It also explains the increasingly dazzling weight of the five words "serving the people" as time has polished it.
