Chapter 160 Win a TV at the company's annual meeting?! Who can stop that?!

The temperature inside the auditorium was at least ten degrees higher than outside.

It was the collective breath of thousands and an irrepressible surge of excitement.

If the house allocation earlier was like pouring a ladle of water into boiling oil,

then the current lucky draw segment was like kicking out the bottom of the oil vat, sending flames shooting straight up!

"Let the lucky draw begin!"

The host's voice cracked from shouting, but no one cared.

"Third prize, twenty winners! The prize is..."

The host took a deep breath and suddenly whipped off the red silk cloth covering the long table.

"Red Lantern brand semiconductor radios!"

As the red silk fell, twenty brand-new radios were revealed, neatly lined up.

Their black plastic casings gleamed oily under the lights.

A collective gasp rose from the audience.

In this era, a radio was a hard currency, one of the 'Three Rounds and One Sound' luxury items.

Normally, to buy one, you'd have to save industrial coupons for half a year and pull strings through backdoors.

Now Red Star Technology was just giving them away as third prizes?

This generosity was simply insane!

If that was third prize, what would the second and first prizes be?

"Second prize, five winners!"

"Forever brand 28-inch bicycles!"

Five young men pushed five brand-new '28-inch bars' onto the stage.

Fresh paint, gleaming steel rims.

The bells on the handlebars were rung, making a 'cling-clang' sound.

To the workers' ears, those crisp rings were more invigorating than a drinking song!

"First prize..."

The host deliberately drew out the note, pointing toward a large object covered in red cloth at the center of the stage.

"Yellow River brand 14-inch black-and-white television! One winner!"

Boom!

The place truly erupted now.

Several young men in the back row jumped onto their stools, their necks stretching out like giraffes.

A television! My goodness!

That was a genuine luxury item.

If you had one of those, you'd be the 'King of the Building'.

At night, your home would be so crowded there'd be nowhere to step.

Every girl in the factory would look at you with new respect!

The livestream bullet chats scrolled frantically:

[Holy crap! Streamer is amazing, actually using future-style tactics for an annual meeting!]

[Who the hell could resist this! Everyone's going to go crazy!]

[Wow! 14 inches! Black and white! That 'big butt' design is so full of cyberpunk vibes!]

[That's not just a TV; back then, it was a symbol of household status! With that, your house becomes the CBD of the whole village!]

Lin Xi sat below the stage.

Looking at this group of people driven to a frenzy by a black-and-white television,

a smile hung on his lips, but his heart felt a wave of unspeakable bitterness.

Forty years later, no one would even pick this thing up if it were thrown on the side of the road.

But in 1982, this was the pinnacle of their imagination for a better life.

The lottery box was a giant red paper box, and Li Jianguo was pushed up to be the 'notary'.

The old man was thrilled tonight, his face as red as Guan Gong's, and he walked with a swagger.

He didn't rush to draw the prize; instead, he grabbed the microphone and belted out a verse at the top of his lungs:

"Ancestral home in Hancheng County, Shaanxi, a homestead in Xinghua Village..."

No accompaniment, no intro, just raw shouting.

It was an excerpt from the Qin Opera 'Three Drops of Blood'.

Coarse and raspy, yet it carried a force that felt like it could pierce through the Loess Plateau.

The veins on Old Li's neck bulged; it was a voice forged from eating sand in the Gobi Desert for half his life.

The workers below were stunned for a moment, then burst into wild cheers.

Some beat their enamel mugs to keep time, others hummed along.

This was their version of rock and roll.

After finishing the song, Li Jianguo reached into the box and pulled out a slip of paper.

He squinted at it for a long time before announcing loudly:

"Third prize... Klaus!"

"Old Ke! Come up and get your prize!"

Everyone burst into laughter, the sound shaking the heavens.

Klaus's shock of silver hair was already conspicuous in the crowd.

Hearing his name, the foreigner froze for a second, then jumped up like a child.

He squeezed through the crowd, ran onto the stage, and cradled the Red Lantern radio.

Logically, the technical content of this thing in his eyes was probably equivalent to a Stone Age axe.

In his home in Switzerland,

he listened to top-tier high-fidelity audio and played vinyl records.

But at this moment, Klaus pressed the radio against his cheek and gave it a hearty kiss.

"Good stuff! This is good stuff!"

He shouted in Chinese with a Northwest accent, his face beaming with joy.

"This is my medal!"

Someone in the crowd started heckling:

"Old Ke! Give us a show! Give us a show!"

Klaus didn't act shy; he stuffed the radio into Li Jianguo's arms.

The old man was a bit of a show-off himself.

He unbuttoned his military overcoat and put it on backward.

The lining was white lamb's wool, and he tied a red silk ribbon around his waist from who-knows-where.

"Music!" Klaus snapped his fingers.

The technician backstage was also a bit of a prankster and immediately played a suona piece for a Northern Shaanxi Yangko dance.

Di-di-da—!

Klaus, standing over 1.8 meters tall, began to twist and dance among the group of prize winners on stage.

His movements were filled with Germanic precision and stiffness.

Neck turns thirty degrees left, hips twist thirty degrees right—he looked like a robot that hadn't been lubricated.

Yet his expression was one of pure ecstasy, and he hit every beat perfectly.

This comical scene made the entire auditorium laugh so hard the floorboards vibrated.

In that laughter, there was no 'foreign expert' or 'technical authority'.

Only a silly old man from the Northwest who loved to dance the Yangko.

The netizens in the livestream joined in the fun:

[Holy crap! Screen-capped! Is this the legendary Industry 4.0 version of the Yangko?]

[Every joint's rotation angle is locked at 30 degrees. Is Professor Klaus using his body to calibrate machine tool precision?]

[Klaus (Twisting Hips version).gif meme has been generated, help yourselves!]

When the second prize was announced, Chen Xiaodong was dumbfounded.

This genius youth, known for having a 'microkernel architecture mindset',

pushed the '28-inch bar' bicycle—which was slightly too large for him—

looking exceptionally comical standing on stage.

He was still growing and wasn't very tall.

On a 28-inch bike, he probably couldn't even reach the pedals all the way down, so he'd have to ride by sticking his leg through the frame.

In a corner below the stage, Chen Xiaodong's parents gripped each other's hands tightly.

His father's eyes were red as he whispered to the person next to him:

"That's my son... he's a programmer!"

His mother wiped away tears, watching her son clumsily ring the bicycle bell on stage, her eyes full of pride.

The first prize was ultimately drawn by a workshop worker.

The moment he lifted the television,

tears of excitement fell directly onto the screen, and he pinched his thigh hard, fearing it was a dream.

With the big prizes drawn, the festivities seemed like they should be winding down.

But the host gave a mysterious smile and pointed toward the auditorium doors:

"Manager Lin said that the lucky draw is about luck."

"But our Red Star Technology doesn't just rely on luck."

"Open the doors!"