Chapter 163 Fate Twists and Turns Jiang Yueming August 2012...
In August 2012, the summer heat had not yet dissipated.
Jiang Yueming arrived in the South for the first time, to this unfamiliar city. Fruit tricycles, breakfast stalls steaming rice noodle rolls, Cantonese songs blaring from shops... everything was noisy and strange.
The unfamiliar geography, the unfamiliar people, and the unfamiliar dialect meant that he could no longer identify a place by a single shop, he could no longer encounter smiling uncles and aunts calling his name on the street, and he could no longer hear the familiar Shengping dialect.
Back in Shengping, Jiang Yueming could even tell where a gust of wind was coming from.
To adapt to local customs, Jiang Yueming began to learn Cantonese, albeit haltingly. It felt like he was back to learning sign language, except that back then, Li Leshan was by his side. Li Leshan neither laughed at him nor showed any impatience.
Jiang Yueming always felt embarrassed whenever he tried to communicate with people in broken Cantonese. At first, he had to guess what they were saying. When he couldn't guess, he could only awkwardly apologize and ask, "Can...can you speak Mandarin?"
The days rolled forward in a daze, but the clock of senior year ticked on with unusual clarity and heaviness.
In his senior year of high school, he began to study with all his might, more seriously than ever before. His mind didn't wander, he didn't sleep, and he stopped fooling around with others. He spent all his time doing practice problems. People said that Jiang Yueming's appearance and behavior were completely mismatched; he looked like a slacker, but his actions were those of a top student. Anyway, no matter how mismatched they seemed, he was now genuinely working hard, as if trying to make up for the time he had missed in the previous two years. It's just that he hadn't studied properly in the previous two years, and now it was hard to catch up.
This place has plenty of factories. The backbone of this city is supported by factories of all sizes. Electronics factories, garment factories, hardware factories... Within a few days, Jiang Yueming found a job in an electronics factory. He worked from nine o'clock to midnight, half the hours of others, so he could only earn half the pay.
Although the working hours were short, there wasn't a single moment of rest. The workload was heavy and demanding, but Jiang Yueming still did it all. He had to make sure that scumbag Li Yong didn't cause any more trouble. Although it was tiring, as long as Li Leshan could get through his senior year of high school peacefully, he felt it was all worth it.
Screws, rivets, bagging, spring clips, box sealing, printing, Mylar, foam... I didn't know anything at first, but I learned little by little. I got scolded, but I kept learning. Eventually, I became fluent.
After that, working and studying at the same time became the norm. In addition, all sorts of people began to line up to enter Jiang Yueming's world.
Lei Zi, the team leader, the eldest sister, the eldest brother, that couple, the crew cut guy, the airplane guy, Lao Jin... there are so many people, some are college students, some entered society in their teens, some spend their lives in their thirties or forties, and some are still out making a living in their fifties or sixties.
Lei Zi is the one who started working when he was a teenager. He's been working for two or three years now and is about the same age as Jiang Yueming, so they have things to talk about with each other, and the two of them are the best friends.
Lei Zi dropped out of junior high school and worked in factories in Nanjing and Dongguan, gaining far more social experience than Jiang Yueming. Lei Zi loved to talk, especially about the shady factory in Nanjing. "That place was simply unbearable! The workshop smelled pungent. We worked from 4 pm to 2 am, and after work we had to 'voluntarily' work overtime until dawn. Everyone there had bloodshot eyes, and everyone was as aggressive as a ghost. They would fight over the smallest things... I didn't even take my half-month's wages. I packed my bags and ran away. If I hadn't run away, I felt like my soul would have been sucked dry."
Jiang Yueming rarely talks about himself. He portrays himself as a poor student, unloved by his parents, burdened with elderly parents and young children, struggling to earn money for his university tuition and living expenses—a tragic figure that would make anyone sigh. Perhaps it's because of this that some of his older coworkers show him a little more concern.
Of course, the factory wouldn't give you easy work just because you're young, but Jiang Yueming worked much more diligently and quickly and efficiently. Sometimes he could even leave work early because he finished his tasks quickly.
After work, sometimes he would rush to the hospital to take care of his grandfather, but most of the time he would go back to his rented room. Although he was so tired after finishing his work that he could barely keep his eyes open, he still had to wash his face to wake himself up, force himself to do a few practice tests, and finally collapse back into bed.
Winter in the South arrives silently, yet sometimes it chills to the bone. It's not the crisp, clean cold of Shengping, but a damp, pervasive, and insidious chill. Each season has its own unique cold, and winter is more unbearable than any other time of year; mornings are pure torture.
Once, while riding my bicycle to school, I was hit and rolled twice on the ground. I had to get up quickly and go to school. Not a second could be wasted. I rode all the way, shivering slightly, not knowing whether it was from the cold or the pain.
However, Jiang Yueming later casually told Li Leshan about this situation as a joke.
As the Spring Festival approached, the factory's wages doubled. For the first time, Jiang Yueming realized how powerful money could be. His long-awaited Spring Festival holiday, which he had been eagerly anticipating, and his desire to go back and see Li Leshan, was shaken by the doubled wages. He was torn between these thoughts and anxieties.
But in the end, he still chose to come back. After dozens of hours of bumpy travel, when he finally saw that familiar figure in the crowd at the exit, all the fatigue and grievances of the past year seemed to melt away in that moment under the dim yellow lights of the station.
When Li Leshan asked him if he hadn't slept well, Jiang Yueming didn't dare say anything, afraid of letting something slip or for Li Leshan to notice. He swallowed the sob in his throat, just like when he first arrived, facing an unfamiliar environment with people rushing around, and he squatted in the corner and whispered to Li Leshan with a smile, "I'm doing alright here... It's just that my speech sounds like singing, and I can never seem to learn it."
His mock exam scores fluctuated wildly, the results of the first, second, and third mock exams tormenting his nerves like a rollercoaster. Once, he bombed a math test, and he squatted for a long time under a tree in the corner of the playground, his stomach churning. But he didn't have time to break down; he had to go to the factory that night, and there were new tests the next day. He did practice problems, reviewed, and analyzed his mistakes. This time, there was no Li Leshan beside him to tell him, "It's okay, take your time." He had to rely on himself for everything.
In early June, the college entrance exams ended. On the day the scores were released, he was still doing his last bit of work on the assembly line. Electronic devices weren't allowed during work hours, but Leizi ran breathlessly to the workshop door, holding his phone, his face filled with unbelievable excitement, "Mingzi! It's your homeroom teacher on the phone! The scores… the college entrance exam scores are out!"
The familiar voice of the homeroom teacher came through the receiver, filled with barely suppressed joy, and announced a number.
That number was more than thirty points higher than his highest predicted score. It was also higher than all his mock exam scores. This wasn't an ordinary exam; in this era where every extra point could mean the difference between winning and losing, Jiang Yueming's thirty-plus points boosted his provincial ranking several times over. The roar of the surrounding machines seemed to vanish in that instant; the world was so quiet that only the pounding of his own heart could be heard.
The words "extraordinary performance" exploded in his mind like a thunderbolt. What followed was not ecstasy, but a huge, almost dizzying sense of unreality, followed by a surging, almost overwhelming bitterness.
He gripped the phone tightly, his knuckles white, his vision blurring. All the struggles and endurance of the past year, his fingers trembling with exhaustion, yet he still forced himself to turn on the desk lamp and open the practice test; the endless tests, the countless knowledge points to memorize, and... all those past experiences converged into a single, concrete number, telling him that all the hardship had not been in vain; all the paths he had walked had not been for nothing.
Jiang Yueming looked up through the oil-stained windows of the workshop at the bright summer sky. For the first time, she clearly felt that the seemingly distant future finally had a tangible light.
Eighteen years old is a damp and tiring time for Jiang Yueming. He was covered in water droplets. Fate twisted Jiang Yueming's body, bringing both sweet dew and sour water.
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