08 I am a bathing assistant

Zhang Chenling ran back to the assistive device exhibition area of ​​the "Old People's Expo", gasping for breath. Before she had time to adjust her breathing, Ni Yue, who was walking towards her, grabbed her arm.

"Cousin, Xiao Ma and I just contacted a few nursing homes. They want us to provide bathing training and experience sharing for their employees. It's paid! Xiao Ma sounded out the situation and said they could pay two to three thousand!"

"Okay, okay, that's great. It's not a wasted trip!" Zhang Chenling responded hurriedly. In fact, she didn't hear what Ni Yue said at all.

After wandering around the exhibition hall for a whole day, she never ran into Xu Zhiqian again.

In the evening, Xiao Ma Ge sent Ni Yue and Zhang Chenling back to Xiangyang South Road.

Before getting off the car, Ni Yue said that they had gained a lot today and suggested that everyone have a meal and drink together to celebrate. However, Xiao Ma Ge declined, saying that he would find a designated driver after drinking and would be scolded by his wife if he got home late.

The two sisters got off the car at the entrance of the alley, walked straight into a small restaurant nearby and ordered a bowl of yellow croaker noodles each.

...After the last mouthful of delicious fish soup slid into his stomach, Ni Yue still looked unwilling to give up and kept muttering that he wanted to drink beer.

Zhang Chenling suggested: "Since you want to drink so much, I'll take you somewhere!"

"Xiaoshengbb" is located on Changle Road, the center of the universe in Wutong District.

The shop isn't big, almost nonexistent, with a single takeaway window. Customers can either take their beer away or finish it right there. The shop specializes in local craft beers at all price points, catering to a wide range of budgets. This has garnered a loyal following, known as "B fans." Every night, locals and strangers, Easterners and Westerners, those with long hair and bald heads, acquaintances and strangers, gather in small groups to chat and enjoy a hearty drink, creating a lively atmosphere.

As usual, there was a lot of noise outside the "whispering" party tonight.

Zhang Chenling pretended to look around casually, but did not see the man she had met during the day.

The two sisters sat on the side of the road, holding beer bottles in their hands, with the canvas bags they had just received today as a cushion under their butts, drinking and chatting casually.

Ni Yue glimpsed a Japanese yakitori restaurant across the street. A small blackboard hung on the stylish round window. As the night grew darker, he could just make out the words written in chalk: [Today's Special: Lantern Yakitori...]

There is also a picture below: a bamboo stick picks up two yellow eggs.

I couldn't help but ask Zhang Chenling, "Cousin, are lanterns particularly popular in Shanghai?"

"Yeah, most Japanese restaurants in Shanghai have lanterns, and I always see guides to Shanghai lanterns on Xiaohongshu... Why, you want to try some?" Following Ni Yue's gaze, Zhang Chenling understood. "I've been to this restaurant before, and their lunch set is very cost-effective. I'll bring you there next time!"

Ni Yue muttered, "It's okay, I'm just asking."

Of course she wasn't asking casually.

The female Lao Deng who always quarrels with Sister Paoqiu in the comment section is nicknamed "The Lantern Goddess"!

Ni Yue stared at the small blackboard, muttering to himself, "This person claims to love eating lantern goddesses? What a pretentious act! No wonder she's attracted to the flirtatious second male lead from Aquaman!"

For some unknown reason, I took out my phone and saw another unread message from the online literature app - it was as glaring as a red warning sign.

As usual, the "Lantern Goddess" responded to herself in the comment section.

After a quick glance and seeing words like "a scumbag-attracting physique" and "masochistic and self-destructive tendencies", Ni Yue finally couldn't bear it anymore.

The thought of a face-to-face fight rushed into her mind again. She clicked on the "Lantern Goddess"'s profile picture and quickly wrote a private message:

Hello, Lantern Goddess! My love for the overbearing CEO is my personal preference. I don't want or need to convince anyone to accept my preference, and there's no need to reach an agreement with you! If you won't stop verbally attacking me, why don't we set a time and place to have a face-to-face debate?

As Ni Yue puffed out his cheeks and officially declared war on his online friends, Zhang Chenling's thoughts drifted back to that rainy night...

Before they had even taken a few sips of the wine, the two women were already deeply immersed in their own inner worlds and unable to extricate themselves.

After issuing the challenge, Ni Yue had no time to catch his breath when he suddenly felt a cold and wet sensation on his arm, as if a snake was crawling on him. He shuddered with fear, "Ah!"

Turning around, I saw a man sitting less than half a meter away.

The beer bottle with water droplets hanging on it in his hand was exactly the snake that had caused the panic just now!

Just as she was about to lose her temper, unexpectedly, the moment her eyes met the man's, a blush floated across the sky, completely covering the anger on her face.

The man who used the beer bottle to cool Ni Yue's arm had a handsome face.

His facial features were sharp, his eyes were rebellious, his hair was messy and a little curly, and he wore a silver earring on one ear, which emitted a dim light in the twilight.

"Sorry, I hope I didn't scare you just now!" He grinned mischievously.

Although, but...Ni Yue couldn't get angry.

Zhang Chenling heard her scream and looked over immediately.

Seeing that it was a handsome guy who was chatting her up, she tactfully kept silent and even moved her butt away.

Give young people opportunities.

"Is this your first time here? I've never seen you before!"

"Yes, I just moved to Shanghai from Beijing."

"Oh? How do you like Shanghai?"

"It's great, very fashionable! But it never stops raining, and the clothes won't dry after washing."

"May's weather is pretty good, you'll have to wait until the rainy season to suffer!"

The man complained about the weather a few times, his eyes passing over her intentionally or unintentionally, "...your skirt is really beautiful!"

After his gaze paused briefly, he looked away in a gentlemanly manner.

Ni Yue's usual T-shirt and jeans were not washed yesterday and were not yet dry. Before going out this morning, she hurriedly found a blue and green floral wrap dress and put it on. She sat on the ground for fear of exposing herself, so she bent her legs and inadvertently created an extremely charming pose.

Although he knew that the man's compliment was easy, Ni Yue still felt appreciated and said thank you with pursed lips.

Seeing that the atmosphere was becoming increasingly ambiguous, Zhang Chenling on the side forced herself to suppress a smile.

"Are you in the fashion industry?" The man raised his hand, pointing to an office building on Nanjing West Road not far away, and asked Ni Yue, "I know a few girls who work for luxury companies in Plaza 66. They have a very similar temperament to you. Of course, yours is even better!"

"Thank you!" Ni Yue blushed and thanked him. Then, she frankly denied his guess, "I'm not in the fashion industry. I'm in the elderly care industry."

"Elderly care? I've never met anyone in this business," the man's tone subtly changed. "Do you run a nursing home? Or do you make food for the elderly... Hericium erinaceus biscuits or something like that?"

That’s diabetic food! Zhang Chenling rolled her eyes.

"Neither. I'm a bath assistant."

"Bath assistant?" The man was obviously surprised when he heard this. "Bath assistant in the elderly care industry? Isn't that... someone who bathes the elderly?"

Full marks in reading comprehension.

"That's right. We bring bathing equipment to our customers' homes and help them bathe. However, our customers include not only the elderly, but also young people with limited mobility..."

As Ni Yue explained, he didn't notice that the light in the man's eyes gradually disappeared. His eyes became erratic and no longer focused.

When his gaze returned to Ni Yue's face, the man raised an eyebrow and asked in a slightly exaggerated tone, "Doesn't that mean you have to deal with shit, piss, and fart all day long?"

As he spoke, he unconsciously moved his butt away, as if the woman in front of him was shit, piss and fart.

His change of expression was like a wake-up call. Ni Yue instantly woke up from her previous spring feelings and realized that she was being discriminated against. She felt like she had something stuck in her throat and couldn't speak.

The man gave her a playful look, as if to say, "I'm really sorry, but you know what I mean!"

Then, without even saying goodbye, he stood up, greased his feet, and slid away smoothly.

Zhang Chenling witnessed the whole process and couldn't help but stand up in anger.

Unexpectedly, the next second, Ni Yue also jumped up like a firecracker, rushed in front of Zhang Chenling, and yelled at the man's back: "Hey, don't leave yet, explain yourself clearly! ... Hey, I'm talking to you!"

The man turned around, looking guilty.

Ni Yue stepped forward, hands on her hips. "You're right, I deal with shit, piss, and farts! So what? You don't poop, pee, or fart, do you?" She raised her hand and pointed at the high-rise building the man had pointed at. "Or do those girls in Plaza 66 not poop, pee, or fart?"

Her slightly trembling fingertips pointed at the man's nose again. "Do you think there won't be a day when you're lying in bed unable to move? On that day, won't you need help bathing? Every old, weak, sick, or disabled person has the right to take a clean, hot bath, and I'm the bathing assistant who helps them bathe! Do you have any objections to this?!"

Her voice became increasingly high-pitched, and she almost broke her voice when she uttered the last word.

The B fans who were gathered in groups holding wine bottles and talking loudly stopped and looked over here curiously, not knowing what was going on.

The man's features wrinkled into an awkward frown. This scene clearly made him feel very embarrassed. He waved his hands in panic, denying it. "No, no, no! I have no objection! Your job is great, really, it's great... Well, I have something else to do. I'll be leaving now. We'll talk next time."

After saying that, he turned and disappeared into the night.

"Who wants to talk to you, a piece of stinky shit!" Zhang Chenling stabbed the man viciously in the direction he left.

Then he patted Ni Yue on the shoulder and said with a smile: "Good job, I didn't realize that you are good at arguing with people!"

Ni Yue turned around, with two tear marks on his face.

When he was a child, Ni Yue was also a thorn in the side. He tore up the homework books of male classmates who bullied him, stuffed snowballs into the collars of bullying senior students, and even confronted strict and harsh teachers in class.

But after living in Beijing for many years, her edge has been restrained a lot.

Perhaps it was the size of Beijing that made her realize her own smallness, or perhaps it was the occupational disease of early childhood education. In short, after all these years of struggling in Beijing, her edges and corners were smoothed out bit by bit, she became softer, learned to go crazy calmly, and no longer confronted others head-on easily.

Just now, she rarely released the anger instinct that had been suppressed for a long time, and made the bad man feel ashamed.

But the pleasure of victory was so short-lived, and she soon fell into depression.

Being discriminated against on the basis of one's occupation is always frustrating.

What was even more frustrating was that, looking at his exhausted back, Ni Yue suddenly remembered that just now, that damn "lantern goddess" had ridiculed herself in the online comment section as a "scumbag attractor".

Absolutely right!

Damn it! Tears welled up in her eyes, and the moment she turned around and saw her cousin, they flowed uncontrollably...

Zhang Chenling was about to comfort Ni Yue when she saw a dark shadow walking quickly towards them on the curb.

He reached out and handed Ni Yue a pack of tissues.

Ni Yue was surprised and tried hard to open his tearful eyes to see who the kind-hearted person who came in the moonlight was.

It was a man wearing a black shirt, jeans and a dark blue baseball cap. Ni Yue remembered that when the two sisters were buying beer at the "Little Whispering BB" window just now, this man was in line in front of them.

As the night deepened, there was a street lamp right above the man's head, casting a large shadow under the brim of his hat. His facial features were hidden in the darkness, and his expression was obscure and unclear.

Ni Yue's blurred vision inevitably focused on his chin.

It was a very recognizable chin - there was a groove of neither deep nor shallow in the middle, dividing the chin into two parts... the buttocks.

The man didn't say anything, he was chewing gum, his butt and chin moving rhythmically.

Seeing Ni Yue's tearful eyes wide open and a bewildered look on his face, he extended his hand forward again and made a pleasant nasal sound, "Here~"

Uh, Ni Yue took the tissue blankly.

The man pressed the brim of his hat and turned away.

Watching him cross the street and walk into the yakitori restaurant that the two sisters had just talked about, she suddenly woke up from her dream, lowered her head, took out a tissue and wiped her tears.

Zhang Chenling sighed upon seeing this: "There are still quite a lot of good people among these B fans!"

This kind man's simple help healed Ni Yue's tear glands.

She wiped her tears and stopped crying. She sniffed lightly and asked her cousin, "Did you see what that person looked like?"

Zhang Chenling suddenly stood still, without saying a word, her eyes swept over Ni Yue's shoulder, staring straight into the distance.

Ni Yue was confused and was about to turn her head to look back, but Zhang Chenling suddenly pulled her arm and said, "Let's take the beer home!"

"Why?" She didn't understand why her cousin suddenly went crazy.

"My stomach hurts and I need to go to the bathroom. I can't hold it any longer. There's not a single clean bathroom on this street. I need to go home quickly!"

Without waiting for Ni Yue to respond, Zhang Chenling picked up the canvas bag and hung it on her arm, then ran towards home with a bottle of wine in one hand.

His movements were very agile and his steps were wide, so he didn't look like he had shit stuck in his butt.

"Hey, wait for me!" Ni Yue shouted while packing his things from behind.

But Zhang Chenling didn't even turn her head, and disappeared as soon as she turned around.

Ni Yue didn't know that his cousin had just seen an acquaintance.

The two women quickly put aside the unpleasantness that happened besides "whispering".

However, none of them expected that Ni Yue's emotional outburst would be like opening the gates of hell. Less than 48 hours later, she sparked an even more intense quarrel at a client's home.

The client that day was an elderly man named Qian who was nearly 80 years old. He was paralyzed due to a spinal cord injury and had been bedridden for many years.

When his son contacted Zhang Chenling, he gave her a heads-up, saying that his father hadn't taken a hot bath in two years and had been wiping his body with a towel.

Xiao Ma Ge joked while steering, "So today we're basically doing some housecleaning?"

The two sisters were amused by his dry humor.

"Then can we wear masks?" After laughing, Ni Yue asked a soul-searching question seriously.

"It's not impossible." Zhang Chenling answered after thinking for a few seconds.

Although Ni Yue made such a suggestion, she also clearly remembered that the bathing assistance manual stated that in order to avoid psychological barriers among the elderly and allow them to enjoy assisted bathing more relaxedly, it is not recommended for bathing assistants to wear masks and high-level protective clothing when providing bathing assistance unless they suffer from infectious diseases.

Come to think of it, after being bedridden for two years, a few fully-armed Bayonet soldiers suddenly entered the room. If you didn't know, you would be scared to death!

"I'll prepare a few extra masks. If you need them later, just wink at me."

As Ni Yue spoke, he stuffed a few N95 masks into his work clothes pockets.

Their work clothes are a misty blue waterproof apron with sleeves, printed with the four-character logo "The highest good is like water" that Zhang Chenling spent 9.9 yuan to have someone design on Pinxixi.

A few minutes later, Xiao Ma Ge parked the van steadily at the entrance of the community.

Unexpectedly, this initial cleaning job started off in a disastrous way: the client's home was in an old public housing complex with no elevator.

Fortunately, the corridor is wider than that of the old Shikumen houses, and the floors are not too high - "Fourth floor!"

Hearing what his cousin said, Ni Yue almost dropped his jaw in shock, "The fourth floor isn't high?!"

Zhang Chenling and Xiao Ma Ge smiled at each other, "Since we're here!"

So, Xiao Ma took the lead, and the two sisters followed on his left and right, and everyone lifted the bathing equipment up in a staggering manner.

This split bathtub is made of hard plastic and, with accessories, weighs a full 30 kilograms. Three people stood at the customer's door, panting with exhaustion, some wiping their faces and sweat. Before they could even ring the doorbell, they heard the door creak open.

A foul odor suddenly hit me in the face.