He frantically searched everywhere; the watch was one he had begged his mother to buy for him after he graduated and started working.
His family was clearly wealthy, but they were unwilling to spend more money on him. At that time, he even pretended to be sick, and in the end, his mother bought him the money without his father's knowledge.
Those weren't ordinary department store goods; they were imported goods from the Friendship Store, which cost only a few yuan in the entire city of Beijing at the time.
It cost a full five hundred yuan. He was always very careful when wearing it, afraid of bumping or hitting it. How could it suddenly disappear?
Qi Bowen was upset and searched along the same route for a long time without finding anything. He hurriedly went to the ticket office.
"My watch is missing, please help me find it quickly," Qi Bowen ordered the staff over there.
"Comrade, are you in trouble?" The train security staff glanced at Qi Bowen, and despite his unpleasant tone, they still dutifully asked him a question.
"My watch is missing, don't you understand? Do you know how much that watch costs? You probably couldn't earn it back even if you worked your whole life."
"You'd better find it right now, or you'll be in big trouble. It was gone right at your train station, but it was still there when you got off the train."
Qi Bowen felt that everything had gone wrong since he left Beijing.
"If you're so rich, why are you looking for something? What does it have to do with us if you lost it yourself?" Several staff members also got angry.
What gives him the right to look down on people? They are permanent employees. His commanding tone makes it seem like they are under his control.
"You...you dare to talk to me like that?" Qi Bowen was stunned. In Beijing, who would dare to talk to him like that?
It's true what they say, bad people come from remote and impoverished areas; a bunch of ignorant fools.
"Why wouldn't we dare? If you have any problems, go to the police. We're just ticket sellers at the train station; we can't do anything to you."
These days, people with a stable job are incredibly confident.
If he had spoken politely, they might have even helped him report it to the police, which is why they wouldn't have bothered with him.
They're here all the time, they've seen everything, if something's gone, it's probably been stolen by pickpockets.
They're not willing to tell him the truth; let him guess.
Qi Bowen saw that everyone around him was laughing at him, and no one was willing to come up and speak up for him, something he had never experienced before.
He stormed off the train platform. Oh well, it's gone. He'll just have to go back and beg his mom to buy him another one.
Having never experienced any hardship, Qi Bowen, aside from feeling that he was unlucky, didn't really think that a watch was more important than his pride.
He didn't want to bother with a bunch of ignorant fools.
Qi Bowen looked at this desolate place and had no clue what to do.
Without a watch, he didn't know what time it was. Looking at the sky, he realized it was getting dark, so he decided to go to the state-run restaurant to eat something first, and then stay at the guesthouse for the night.
I'll go to Kangping tomorrow; it's probably too late for buses to run then.
When Qi Bowen arrived at the state-run restaurant, there were hardly any people inside.
He habitually ordered a few dishes. Normally, the waiters wouldn't even look at people properly, but this person was even more arrogant than her.
They even ordered two meat dishes in one go, which clearly showed they were not short of money, and the person's attitude improved considerably.
"One dollar and seventy-five cents, half a pound of grain coupons." The man wrote the items down on the slip and prepared to hand it to the kitchen.
Qi Bowen reached into his inner pocket and realized he only had one yuan and one jiao left. He put his luggage down; he still had money inside.
Luckily, he was smart and took all his money with him before he left.
He calmly reached into his pocket for money, but after searching for a while, he found nothing.
He poured out all the clothes with an incredulous look on his face, only to find that there was nothing inside, and one of his latest garments was missing.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and pay." The waiter understood perfectly well what he was doing.
She rolled her eyes at Qi Bowen. She thought he was something special, but it turned out he was just putting on a brave face.
Thinking about how they dine and dash at state-run restaurants, who gave them the guts?
"I have money, my money is gone." Qi Bowen had never been so humiliated.
When he was in Beijing, even if he didn't have any money with him, the state-run restaurants wouldn't say anything; he could just pay them next time he went.
They used to greet him with smiles when they gave him tips, unlike now.
How did he fall into such a sorry state in just a few days?
"Hmph, if you want to eat, pay up. If you don't have money, get out." The waiter at the state-run restaurant wouldn't listen to him.
Qi Bowen left the state-run restaurant looking annoyed.
Even if he were stupid, he would know that his money had been stolen, and his watch wasn't just lost, it was stolen.
Who stole it? He couldn't help but think of Comrade Xiao Yang, who had been traveling with him all the way.
He lied to him? He actually lied to him? And he even treated him to a meal and bought him a train ticket.
Qi Bowen cursed under his breath, then looked at this unfamiliar place, feeling completely lost.
He only had a little over a dollar left, so he couldn't go to the guesthouse anymore, otherwise he wouldn't even have money to buy a ticket tomorrow.
He rummaged through all his pockets, but found he had no money.
This isn't Beijing; nobody knows he's Marshal Li's grandson, and nobody's helping him.
Hungry and bewildered, Qi Bowen finally arrived at the station and saw many people waiting for their trains.
He found another place to stay and went there, intending to spend the night there.
I'll buy a ticket to Kangping Steel Plant tomorrow, and then I'll see his mother.
In Qi Bowen's memory, he had never suffered like this before, starving and without even a place to sleep.
He was unaware that the person whose identity he had taken over had lived such a life for over twenty years.
He waited anxiously until dawn, then used his last dollar to buy a train ticket and his remaining ten cents to buy two steamed buns.
Without water, he ate two steamed buns to fill his stomach, but he couldn't take it anymore.
But once he got on the bus, he realized that it was even worse than a train.
He threw up as soon as he got on the bus; all that steamed bun was for nothing.
He was exhausted, hungry, and sleepy, and arrived at his destination in a daze.
Seeing the even more desolate place, he mustered his last bit of willpower and asked for directions, making his way to the steel plant step by step with great difficulty.
"I'm looking for someone, the director of the steel plant. He has a wife surnamed Li, and I'm a relative of his." Qi Bowen didn't know what his great-aunt's husband's name was.
His mother may have told him this before, but he didn't take it seriously. He only knew that he was a minor director at the steel factory.
The old man guarding the gate glanced at Qi Bowen and could tell at a glance that he was a poor relative from the countryside; they didn't have such a person around here.
"None of the department heads in our steel plant have wives with the surname Li. There was one a couple of years ago, but she was transferred and I heard she went to the provincial capital."
The old man probably guessed who he was looking for.
"What? They went to the provincial capital? Where in the provincial capital did they go?" At this moment, Qi Bowen felt dizzy. He had no money. Where was he supposed to find them?
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