34 Grilled Cold Noodles
Today was Yang Xiao's last day. Her colleagues threw her a small farewell party during their lunch break. After distributing the cake, they all took pictures with her. Most workplace etiquette is just a formality; everyone does it, so it's natural. If there was one person Yang Xiao missed most, it would be the child she was caring for.
She was a clever and thoughtful girl with a rather complicated name: Yu Jingyan. During the busy year-end season, Beijing was blanketed in snowfall, which quickly piled up thickly. They say it's not cold when it snows, but when it melts. Yet, Yang Xiao often saw Yu Jingyan standing at the subway entrance, unfazed by the cold, eating grilled cold noodles with the kids from another group.
It wasn't until the biting cold wind froze the tip of my nose red that I realized I had to hide in a sheltered area. The two of us took a taste of each other, puffs of white air leaving our mouths.
For some strange reason, Yang Xiao went to buy a bowl of cold noodles the next day after work. Afraid of running into Yu Jingyan, she forced herself to work two extra hours at her workstation before leaving. The cold noodles were steaming hot in her hands, the warmth flowing through the thin paper bowl to her fingertips.
Yang Xiao picked up a piece with a bamboo stick and put it into her mouth. The skin was soft and glutinous, and the sweet, spicy and spicy taste inside was just right.
This is the taste that Yang Xiao likes very much.
Before leaving, she asked the owner of the cold noodle shop if she could top up her card. The owner waved him off, saying it was all cash payments, as he was just running a small business. Undeterred, Yang Xiao told her boss she was leaving and hadn't decided what to give her children. She wanted to get them a late-night snack card so they could come here and find warmth when they were hungry or bullied.
As soon as he described Yu Jingyan's appearance, the boss immediately agreed, saying that the girl and another young man would come here almost every few days, and they had good personalities. They always praised his grilled cold noodles for being delicious. Yang Xiao smiled and replied, "Yes, she has a good personality. If she comes here with a sullen face to eat grilled cold noodles in the future, please enlighten her."
Yang Xiao gave Yu Jingyan a one-year late-night snack card, but she felt it was unhealthy to eat it all the time. She also topped up her breakfast card at the restaurant she often ate at, telling her not to sneak into the tea room early in the morning to grab some snacks and pass on breakfast. When she gave Yu Jingyan this farewell gift, she was holding a folder and wiping away tears.
"Sister, are you really leaving?" Yu Jingyan saw that it was Yang Xiao who put down the folder and reached out to grab her arm. "My mom and dad are not so good to me. Sister, you really are... I also prepared a gift for you. Anyway, I will only stay here for another year. Sister, if you don't mind me, I will do it with you in the future."
After saying that, she bent down and took out an exquisite bag from the cabinet. "Sister, I know you've started to save money to start your own business. I haven't even smelled your perfume these days. Here, I bought you the one you used to love. I don't know if you still like it now."
Yang Xiao's eyes suddenly turned red. How much could an intern earn, and how much did Yu Jingyan put in herself?
When she was in junior high school, Mao Qiu was always worried that he would disturb her studies. Seeing her buried in the problem solving and sweat on her neck, he would fan her with his hands and textbooks. When she was in high school, Ruopeng knew that something happened in her family, so he would always find ways to stuff her with all kinds of delicious food and tell strange jokes. When she was in college, he missed the time to collect the scholarship application forms in class because of his odd jobs. As a result, when he returned home that night, he found a neatly laid form under the desk lamp.
Yang Xiao felt that she was very lucky that she could feel so much kindness even in such a poor life.
After handing over her final work, she realized she didn't have that much stuff. She certainly wasn't going to walk out the door with a boxy cardboard box, a melancholy look on her face, like the movie protagonist who'd just lost their job. Because she'd always had a non-assigned workstation, after returning her computer to the tech department, she could just carry her belongings away in a small plastic bag. The only plant she had that was too hard to carry, she gave to the front desk when she left.
A few days after leaving her job, her dream of sleeping until noon was dashed by her entrepreneurial ambitions. She and her former project team colleague, Mr. Yang (full name Yang Zhi), searched for a good office building, visiting several locations a day. But most of them were unsatisfactory: either too remote for employees to get to work, or too expensive for them to afford.
"Little Mr. Yang, I'm so hot I'm about to quit." Yang Zhi stood in the shade that barely covered half his face, grabbed a corner of his shirt and began to shiver slightly, trying to get some cool air to his chest and back. "Big Mr. Yang, I have all the money. If you quit, you won't get it back." Yang Xiao stood beside Yang Zhi, fanning her face with her left hand, but the heat didn't subside. The cicadas perched in the tree overhead chirped even more cheerfully, adding to the irritation.
"I'm just kidding. Don't look at me! I'm about to drown in sweat, let me shake my clothes again." Yang Zhi said, then turned away, his back to Yang Xiao, and began to pull the edge of his shirt up and down even more vigorously. "Come on, who cares about your flesh?" Yang Xiao pulled out her phone and began to reply to the message on the recruitment app.
In this early stage, apart from the two of them and their own funds, there's no one else to rely on. Naturally, they have to look after the office space and recruit the staff themselves. As for the distinction between Big and Small Mr. Yang, it's purely based on investment. Yang Xiao didn't contribute that much, so naturally, he became Little Mr. Yang. Although no one else calls him that now, they still love to tease each other with the name. After all, a title is still a commander even if there are no troops.
"I think the one we'll see this morning is a good one. It's not far from the subway and bus. And if that doesn't work out, we can take turns driving in advance to pick up and drop off those employees who live far away?" Yang Xiao was so hot that she wanted to surrender. The landlord had agreed to show the house at 1:30 in the afternoon, but it was already 2:30 and she still hadn't contacted him.
When they left the house, they thought about the office building they had seen that afternoon, which was close to the subway station, so they didn't want to expose their company's only asset to the sun. The result of being so concerned about the car was that they were now exposed to the sun.
"Okay. Let's go. Don't wait for that wicked fellow." Yang Zhi gave the order, and the two of them, without waiting for each other, sprinted the hundred meters towards the subway entrance. Yang Xiao was holding a bag, shielding her forehead from the sun, preventing her from getting tanned like Guan Gong. But Yang Zhi couldn't handle it. The delicate young master's face was now flushed red from the sun.
"Is your face going to peel tomorrow?" Yang Xiao looked at his liver-colored face and couldn't help laughing. "Go back and get some aloe vera to fix it." Yang Zhi pouted and leaned listlessly against the subway car. "I'll go to my mom's place to get some help. I, Mr. Yang, have a sunburned face."
"Oh, I was so hot I forgot your mother runs a beauty salon." Yang Xiao nodded in agreement. "If your business fails, can I apply for a receptionist position at Auntie's? I look decent and my Mandarin is OK."
"Stop saying such depressing things." Yang Zhi always believed these unintentional words. He immediately turned around and stared at Yang Xiao, telling her to spit and then touch wood. Yang Xiao did as she was told. After all, he was the boss.
The two's decision to partner on artificial intelligence was partly due to Yang Zhi's influence at his own beauty salon. Yang Zhi's mother dropped out of middle school to learn a trade in Shanghai, and later joined the salon to help out. Initially, she only did cleaning chores, but her quick learning led the owner to teach her some massage techniques.
Over time, Yang's mother figured out the salon's operating principles and returned to their hometown in Hebei to rent a storefront and run the business herself. The business went smoothly, expanding rapidly, eventually opening several locations in Beijing. By the time Yang Zhi was in junior high school, he had become a legitimate second-generation wealthy. In recent years, the salon has introduced new equipment, and customer traffic has skyrocketed.
For a time, the shop was so short-staffed that sometimes they couldn't respond to online inquiries and appointments. Upon hearing this, Yang Zhi decisively resigned from the office and hired someone to integrate the then-nascent AI technology to assist with diagnosis and response. There were occasional hilarious moments, like when a customer asked what products suited their skin type, and the response was: "Eat more vegetables."
As manpower gradually increased, Yang Zhi stopped the money-burning intelligent recovery project. However, he keenly sensed a different aura: What if such intelligent diagnosis could be used in medical treatment? The thought of this made Yang Zhi feel that every cell in his body was screaming, and his blood was boiling.
So he immediately posted on his WeChat Moments: "If you don't want to do this, come find me. Boss Yang has a solution." He successfully lured Yang Xiao, who had failed to transfer to another group, to join. As for why no one else joined, most people probably thought Yang Zhi was dreaming. Yang Xiao initially thought so, too. But as she watched Yang Zhi, his eyes gleaming as he sat before her, she suddenly thought of her old junior high teacher. Her lectures were filled with the same confident exuberance as Yang Zhi's, their content vivid and captivating.
Yang Xiao said she'd go back and think about it, and the next day she replied, "Okay." While Yang Zhi was handing over the work to Yang Xiao, he was also looking for suitable technical personnel. In short, the two of them had been busy from the moment they made the decision until today.
After finalizing the office building, they went back to the landlord the next day to sign the contract. Seeing their straightforwardness, the landlord didn't hide anything. "Building 27, over on the east side. The company there went bankrupt, and there's a bunch of office supplies left there. They asked me to take care of it this morning. I'm too lazy to have anyone clean it out, so you can go and see if there's anything you need. If you need it, just bring it over."
Yang Zhi responded even faster than Yang Xiao, "Okay, thank you."
After the landlord left, Yang Xiao couldn't help laughing. "Looks like Mr. Yang isn't afraid of the bad luck this time. That was once used by a bankrupt company." The quiet and empty office building still had a slight echo. The temperature outside was rising, and since the floor they rented was on the sunny side, the building was getting even hotter and stuffier.
"So what? That person went bankrupt because of poor management. Can't we just do it? Mr. Yang, do you have confidence?" Yang Zhi had to ask her after he finished speaking, to interact with her, "Hurry up and move your things. I'm afraid that someone will take away all the good ones soon."
After that, the two hurried across the campus and found Building 27. A glance at the door revealed it was a media company, a wealthy individual renting a building. They'd even set up a separate area at the end of the first floor for a pool table and a bar. Even the hallways were adorned with elaborate crystal chandeliers, and every floor had a black leather sofa at the corner. Even with the dust, Yang Xiao could tell it was expensive.
"See, Mr. Yang, this is the consequence of extravagance and waste. We can't do this. Can we carry that sofa away later?" Yang Zhi pointed at the sofa in front of him, which was longer than the two of them combined, and was very satisfied. "We can each get one, and we can save money on a cot for lunch break."
"I can sleep on the table." Yang Xiao forced a smile, tilted her head, clasped her hands together, and made a nap gesture. "If you don't want it, then I'll take it. It's both of us anyway." Yang Zhi didn't care what Mr. Yang's napping habits were; he just thought it was a fool not to take advantage of the opportunity.
"Who said I don't want it? I do!" Yang Xiao replied.
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