Chapter 114
Fantasy is beautiful at any time, but when it comes to reality, the contrast becomes particularly tragic.
At the beginning of his career, Jiang Xuan fantasized about all kinds of wonderful possibilities for him. He thought he was quite capable and he used to be willing to be Qin Huai's supporting role and support him from behind. Of course, he also recognized Qin Huai's abilities. If Qin Huai was not perfect and excellent enough, how could he have been thinking about him since his student days? But in his heart, he was no worse than Qin Huai. It all depended on whether he was willing to show himself.
His successful employment made him guess that although Qin Huai was the person in charge of the civil communication project team, he might not have much power. The ultimate authority over such things must be in the hands of the official. The reason why Qin Huai could be the person in charge was just luck. Otherwise, with his ruthless treatment of him in the first place, how could he not have done something behind his back to allow him to join the company smoothly?
In his fantasy or the future he had imagined for himself, even if he couldn't trample Qin Huai under his feet, he could at least stand shoulder to shoulder with him and compete with each other. He wanted to let Qin Huai see how blind he was to choose that nephrite flower.
He knew Mu Nan well. She was not the kind of gentle and considerate person who was good at dealing with things. She was spoiled and willful. Although he did not pay attention to Mu Nan himself over the years, he did arrange for people to collect some information about Mu Nan. It was just that because Mu Nan became more and more of a homebody and rarely interacted with people, he did not collect much information. But even from this little bit, he could tell how isolated and depressed Mu Nan was without Qin Huai.
Jiang Xuan felt that Qin Huai felt more guilty towards Mu Nan now, and Mu Nan would definitely take advantage of Qin Huai's guilt to do all kinds of things. After a long time, all the guilt would be consumed. Mu Nan was not outstanding enough to attract people's attention, so they would break up sooner or later, and Qin Huai would definitely regret his original choice. As for himself, as long as he grasped the opportunity of work and showed his personal charm, he would definitely fulfill the saying that if you ignore me today, I will make you out of reach tomorrow!
But after officially joining the company, Jiang Xuan discovered that Qin Huai may not have big power, but he still has small power, such as allocating work and grouping people. Their work requires not only personal ability, but also teamwork. In a project, as long as one person lags behind, the progress of the entire project will be dragged down.
But if there was only one person, it wouldn't be a problem if the others shared the burden. But what kind of people were assigned to the same group with him? The programmer in his fifties had stiff fingers. The young man in his thirties coughed all day long as if he had tuberculosis. There was another one who was even worse. He held a book in his arms every day and no one knew what he was reading. When he was asked to practice, he moved as slowly as a snail.
What's the use of relying on him alone with such a bunch of old, weak and sick people? What makes Jiang Xuan even more unbearable is that in such a group, he is not even the team leader. The team leader is a smiling fence-sitter who always says yes to whatever others say. He has no toughness at all, let alone ability. I really don't know how such a person was selected.
Jiang Xuan, unable to bear it any longer, knocked on Qin Huai's office door. He felt that they really needed to have a good talk.
Qin Huai knew Jiang Xuan would come to see him, but he didn't expect that he couldn't help himself after just a few days, so he was not surprised to see him. He said expressionlessly: "The groups are divided after ability assessment and consideration. Your original test score was just that low. If you were not assigned to this group, do you want to join a group? Then you have to ask the members of the group if they agree."
Jiang Xuan quickly said: "You know what I am capable of. I was delayed because it was too cold and I had frostbite on my hands and couldn't move."
Qin Huai: "I know? What do I know about you? Whether you get frostbite or not, whether you can move around or not is your business. I divide you into groups based on your work ability. If you have any objections, don't take such a low score."
Jiang Xuan's eyes turned red: "Qin Huai! Why do you hate me? Mu Nan is not my relative, why should I take extra care of him? If you want to take the responsibility for him, then you should take the responsibility yourself. Did I bully him or persecute him? You have no right to treat me like this!"
Jiang Xuan's grievance was real. He had nothing to do with Mu Nan. Mu Nan was such a grown-up, not a three-year-old child who needed to be fed. Could she not survive without someone? She wouldn't know how to make a living and why would she need care? Just for such a small matter, she broke off their friendship of so many years and even regarded him as an enemy. He really hated and felt aggrieved.
And this kind of Jiang Xuan really broke Qin Huai's perception of him again. He really felt how blind he was. How could he be friends with such a stupid and vicious person for so many years? Looking at Jiang Xuan who was furious and pretending to be pitiful, Qin Huai's eyes were cold and not touched at all: "So what do you want to say? The evaluation score is not your own? You have a reason, but others don't? This weather only freezes you, not others?"
Jiang Xuan took a deep breath: "I just want you to be fair to me."
Qin Huai smiled when he heard this: "Then tell me, how was I unfair to you?"
No matter how good Jiang Xuan was at arguing, he couldn't make any sense of this. It was an open exam, and the groups were divided based on scores. How could it be unfair? Everything was fair, everything was fair, open and just. But it was obviously Qin Huai who schemed to put him in the old, weak, sick and disabled group, but he couldn't produce any evidence.
Seeing him speechless, Qin Huai's expression turned cold: "I said, you'd better never appear in front of me again, otherwise you will bear the consequences."
Jiang Xuan raised his head and looked at Qin Huai. He knew that Qin Huai must have done something! Although there was no evidence, he believed in his intuition!
"I just don't understand why you hate me so much? Do you really want to force me to death?"
Qin Huai didn't care that he was yelling in the office. Not to mention that Jiang Xuan's case itself was untenable. Even if he was really innocent, in the real workplace, good people would always be rewarded, or justice would always defeat evil. This only happened in TV dramas. What's more, Jiang Xuan might not be the righteous party he thought he was.
"Whether you live or die is none of my business. You are using work time to talk about personal matters. If you can't distinguish between public and private matters, I can fire you."
Jiang Xuan clenched his fists tightly. No matter how ambitious he was, he had to bow his head in the face of reality: "Why do you want to kill me? I won't provoke you. Can't we just pretend that we have never met? My parents still need me to support them, and you used to call them uncle and aunt. Do you really want to starve my whole family to death!"
Qin Huai said coldly, "You were also someone Nan Nan once called Jiang Xuan brother. You said that you have nothing to do with Nan Nan anymore, so what do your parents have to do with me? I said, either never show up in front of me and the past will be written off, or if you show up, I will settle accounts with you once and for all."
Jiang Xuan was yelling in Qin Huai's office. Some people who were closer to Qin Huai's office heard it. Naturally, some people would gossip. When they were eating in the break room, Zhou Chuanghong asked a question, and Qin Huai did not hide it: "We were classmates. I went abroad and asked him to help me take care of my brother. Not only did he not take care of him, he also lied to me for several years, so we broke off our friendship. Now his test scores are low, and he thinks I was behind the scenes."
Zhou Chuanghong was speechless: "So shameless? He has paranoia because he is incompetent? Damn, I never thought he was that kind of person."
Qin Huai put away the lunch box and said, "So there is a new notice this afternoon, which is related to your own performance."
After the lunch break in the afternoon, everyone soon received a new notice. There will be an evaluation every month in the future. The last place in the evaluation for three consecutive months will be dismissed. The first place every month will receive additional subsidies and rewards. This has mobilized everyone's enthusiasm to a great extent. Although in the current environment, even if there is no adjustment, having a job to make a living is enough to motivate people.
As for Jiang Xuan, he only saw the request for dismissal. He felt that this was Qin Huai's conspiracy. He was fired openly, which would deal a direct blow to his body and mind. As a programmer who worked on computers, he could only move bricks to survive besides this job. Once his hands were broken, he would never be able to return to this industry.
While Jiang Xuan was unable to extricate himself from the love-hate counterattack plot in the workplace, Mu Nan, who had a very important role but had never faced him head-on, was still working hard on the farming mode. After a few days of hard work, he finally integrated the upstairs and downstairs a little, and made some space on the second floor to successfully plant alfalfa. Alfalfa can be harvested several times a year as long as the temperature, water volume and soil nutrition meet the standards.
Although he has few rabbits at home, he doesn't worry about harvesting too many and not being able to eat them all, causing the nutrients to be lost or dying. He can just put them in the space after harvesting them. It's a good opportunity to accumulate more feed now. No matter what kind of rabbits he raises in the future, as long as they eat grass, he won't have to worry about not having feed.
Because Qin Bing was previously responsible for patrolling the entire District 2, and there was no Internet or telephone at that time, if people living in District 2 needed any daily necessities, they could only report to patrol soldiers like them, and they would continue to report. Although there is Internet and telephone now, there is no formal exchange area platform, so Mu Nan can only find Qin Bing.
Looking at the lively rabbits, Mu Nan took a few photos of the little rabbits and sent them to Qin Bing: "Do you have chickens? The kind that lay eggs. Let's trade the rabbits for chickens."
Qin Bing had a day off today, but he couldn't miss his daily training. He was exercising in the dormitory when he received a message from Mu Nan. He was a little surprised. He didn't expect that the two rabbits were actually raised and had babies. He replied to Mu Nan that he would ask, then put on his clothes and went to the logistics department. Unfortunately, there were no chickens at the moment. They didn't have any.
But there was a group of people who were residents living on the outer ring road. When they were taken by the government to relocate away from the epidemic-stricken areas in the city center, they took away a lot of supplies, including some live poultry. Although they have now established contact and started to exchange supplies, they can only transport some frozen meat. If they transport live poultry in this weather, I am afraid they will be frozen to death when they are delivered. We do not have the conditions for that at the moment.
After Qin Bing asked the logistics department, he replied to Mu Nan: "Not yet, but meat will be available soon. Eggs may have to wait until the weather warms up a bit."
Mu Nan replied with a "good" answer. It was a pity that there was no food, but it didn't matter. He had plenty in his space. But if there was no food outside, he wouldn't be able to give Qin Huai dishes with eggs at noon. There were only a few things in the house that could be served. He was afraid that Qin Huai would get tired of the same food at noon. He also didn't know when the subway underground would be able to resume operation.
If it is officially operational, he can deliver lunch to Qin Huai at noon, and he can bring more things, such as noodles, some dumplings and fried dumplings that don't taste good after being left out of the pot for too long, he can put them in an insulated bag, and when he arrives at Qin Huai's unit, he can take them out directly from the space through the insulated bag, ensuring that Qin Huai can eat the freshest food.
However, these are just thoughts for now, and we can only hope that the road can be opened to traffic as soon as possible.
Mu Nan removed some weeds from the vegetable basin and threw them into the rabbit hutch, then washed his hands and went downstairs. Although the electricity was on and the floor heating at home was turned on again, the main reason for turning it on was to allow the vegetables to grow. Although there was floor heating in the room, it was still not as warm as sleeping on a kang. In addition, Mu Nan knew that the temperature would drop to a new low during this period, so he naturally would not go back to sleep in the room and still slept on the kang on the first floor.
After adding some firewood to the stove, he just climbed onto the kang when he saw another message from Qin Bing. He hadn't read the content yet, so he thought it was about the chicken, so he quickly clicked on it and saw Qin Bing asking if his brother had gone to work. He said, "Yes, he has gone to work. What do you want to talk to my brother about?"
Qin Bing said, "No, if you are the only one at home, don't open the door to anyone during the day. We checked the license plate number you mentioned last time. It was indeed a group of people who wanted to break into the house to rob, but they were not the murderers of the dismemberment case. They have never killed anyone. The murderer should be an acquaintance."
Mu Nan thought about it and replied: "As for acquaintances, we don't have any acquaintances except those in our own yard." So if we want to commit a crime, we can't do it on their side.
Qin Bing: "Last week, a 20-year-old boy who lived alone in an apartment building was murdered again. The information we can investigate now is limited. We can only judge from the damage done to the house that the victim opened the door on his own. And according to people who live nearby, they didn't hear any sounds of struggle, so we infer that it was an acquaintance who committed the crime."
Mu Nan thought it was the people who knocked on the door last night and said they wanted to take the temperature and exploit the loophole. It turned out that it was not the case. Another person was killed. Before, it was in District 2, but now it is District 1. This means that the murderer should be nearby. It is still a bit scary to think that there is a murderer hiding nearby. After thinking about it, Mu Nan asked Qin Bing, "Was the second victim also dismembered?"
Qin Bing: "Yes, the scene was very tragic, so I reminded you to be more careful, especially to people you know, and be more cautious."
Mu Nan asked, "Is there anything missing from the last corpse? Was it taken away and eaten by someone?"
Mu Nan thought that cannibalism was not impossible. Although he was now living a life with no shortage of food and the outside world seemed to be in order, the world had indeed changed. No matter how much effort the government put into maintaining this order, everyone knew that the entire society was in ruins. No matter how long it would take to recover to the past, at least now, no matter where they were, they were actually in a seemingly calm but undercurrent of chaos. It was expected that someone would cross the bottom line of human nature.
After a long while, Qin Bing replied: "No, the body was finally put together completely, and no large parts were missing, but some pieces of meat were minced too finely, and the body of a recent victim is still being processed, so the possibility of cannibalism cannot be ruled out for the time being." After all, if the murderer had taken away a pound or two of meat, it would be a bit difficult to discover if the body was dismembered to that extent.
Qin Bing also gave Mu Nan some tips on what to pay attention to when being alone at home, as well as the emergency measures for encountering some emergencies. Although Qin Huai would give him lessons every once in a while about what Qin Bing said, and his explanations were even more detailed than what Qin Bing sent, Mu Nan still read it carefully. After thanking Qin Bing for the reminder, he forwarded it to their small group of neighbors to make everyone more alert.
As soon as he sent the message, Qin Huai's message came in soon. Mu Nan told Qin Huai what Qin Bing had told him, that another boy was killed in the apartment building: "So you have to be on guard against acquaintances you know, but thinking about the few people in our yard, it should be impossible, but don't worry, I won't open the door casually if you are not at home."
Qin Huai smiled and said, "It's still early. Take a nap under the covers. I'll go home when you wake up."
Mu Nan was already on the kang. He had taken off his heavy clothes and was lying in the quilt playing with his mobile phone. Seeing that it was already past Qin Huai's lunch break, in order not to disturb Qin Huai's work, Mu Nan said that he was going to take a nap, ended the chat, put on an eye mask, got into the quilt, and fell asleep in a short while.
Maybe it’s because the daytime nap is relatively short and the sleep is concentrated in those few hours, so not only will you sleep particularly deeply, but if you are woken up after not sleeping well, you will also be more irritable when you wake up.
When Mu Nan was woken up by the sound of a message on his mobile phone, he was annoyed, but he was afraid that it was Qin Huai who sent him the message, so he struggled to wake up, took off the blindfold and adjusted to the light for a while, then took a look and saw that it was not Qin Huai. His annoyance escalated directly, and he threw the phone aside and didn't want to pay any attention to it.
However, after being woken up, it was a little difficult to fall into a deep sleep. He tossed and turned in the quilt for almost half an hour, but could not fall asleep. He had to find his phone again to see who had sent him the message. It turned out to be Liang Yu, with whom he had hardly chatted.
Liang Yu was the person he met during casual chatting when he went to pick up his ID card last time. However, there was no internet access at that time and they had not exchanged phone numbers. It was later that Liang Yu added him from the large group of District 2.
Like the previous high-rise buildings, they also set up a group in the villa area. Because this area is directly divided into two areas, for the sake of clarity, the group is called Area 2 Group. This makes it convenient to notify each household in the first time if anything happens, and it is also convenient for people living here to exchange some information or barter items. Mu Nan also joined the group. After all, if there is a notification, if you are not in the group, you may not be able to be notified in the first time.
Liang Yu also lives here, so he added him privately through the group, and of course added his brother as well, but they never chatted.
Although he is at home every day, he is also very busy. In the morning, after Qin Huai gets up, he has to take out the breakfast prepared in the space the day before and give it to Qin Huai to eat. He also has to take the lunch to Qin Huai before leaving. After Qin Huai goes to work, he takes a nap, and when he wakes up, he has to get up to do the housework and wash the clothes. However, now that the floor heating is connected, the temperature in the house has increased, the water pipes are unblocked, and the washing machine can be used. It is much easier than before. He has to mop the floor, go up and down three floors, and clean the places that the sweeper can't reach manually. He has to water the vegetables, weed, and clean the rabbit's room.
After a busy day, it was almost afternoon. I took a short nap and waited for Qin Huai to get off work. The day passed like this. I didn’t have time to hang on the bed and check my phone every day, so I basically didn’t chat with anyone.
Liang Yu sent him a message saying that he had just finished playing cards at Huang's house and since it was still early, he wanted to come and play with him. However, this was half an hour ago and he didn't get a response from him. Liang Yu didn't send any more messages, probably because he had gone home.
Mu Nan didn't like to interact with people he didn't know well, especially letting people he didn't know well step into his territory. Besides, the two of them had only met once. What was he playing at? Was it an awkward chat? He felt uncomfortable just thinking about it, so he replied, "Sorry, I was busy with other things this afternoon. I just saw it."
Liang Yu replied quickly: "It's okay, are you home?" followed by a smiley face emoticon.
Mu Nan sighed. He still wanted to come. Before he could figure out how to refuse, Liang Yu sent another message: "Would you like some cookies? I made some cookies. Although the conditions are limited, the cookies made under limited conditions taste pretty good. Can I send some to you to try?"
Seeing this, Mu Nan quickly said: "Thank you for your kindness, but I don't eat sweets. I'm a little busy now, so let's not chat anymore. 88." He tapped the message with his fingers and sent it almost in seconds, for fear that if he was one minute late, the other person would be standing at his door knocking.
After sending the message, Mu Nan threw the phone away, thinking that no matter what Liang Yu sent, he would ignore it and pretend that she was busy and didn't see it. But fortunately, Liang Yu just said, "Let's make an appointment when we are free" and didn't continue. Mu Nan immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, although he was enthusiastic, he was not so enthusiastic that he had no emotional intelligence.
He checked the time and saw that his brother still had more than an hour before he got off work, so he took a screenshot of the short conversation and sent it to him, jokingly saying, "I always feel that this guy is too enthusiastic. Do you think he likes you or me?"
Qin Huai looked at the brief conversation and frowned: "No matter who you like, don't bother with him in the future." No matter what the reason, it is better to stay away from people who are trying to please you.
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