Chapter 31 Wounded So this is love.
When Chu Yanxi arrived at the textile factory on Monday, she heard that the third batch of layoffs would be posted the next day.
To be honest, Chu Yanxi wasn't worried about her own fate, since she didn't want to work as a textile worker anymore. The person she was worried about was Ruan Xiaofen.
Although Ruan Xiaofen's salary was far from enough to cover her mother's medical expenses, this job at least ensured that she would have enough to eat and wear. In this way, even if her father and brothers couldn't be relied on, even if her mother passed away, Ruan Xiaofen would still have a job and a workplace to rely on.
If a person has someone to rely on, they won't be driven to despair.
But what if she's on the layoff list?
Having lost her job, Ruan Xiaofen's mother became the only person she could rely on. To keep her mother alive, she was willing to give everything, from her body to her soul.
Thinking of this, Chu Yanxi stared intently at Ruan Xiaofen.
In the morning, Ruan Xiaofen's expression was relatively calm, and she even smiled when she saw Chu Yanxi. However, after entering the workshop, her movements on the spinning machine became stiff and slow, and her eyes stared blankly at a point in the void, as if she were absent-minded.
After lunch, when I returned to the dormitory, my roommate quietly wiped away her tears. She said she had inquired and found out that in addition to the age-based layoffs, all workers over 45 years old would be laid off, and Workshop 3 might be shut down, meaning all workers in Workshop 3 would be laid off.
Although the state has put forward three lines of defense for laid-off workers in state-owned enterprises: basic wages, unemployment insurance, and minimum living allowance, for old factories like Hongxing Textile Factory that have been losing money for years, all laid-off workers are paid a one-time resettlement fee based on their years of service, and then the workers have no further connection with the factory.
Like Chu Jianguo, a veteran fitter with 30 years of service, before being laid off, his average monthly basic wage was only 320 yuan due to the factory's partial shutdown. Based on a compensation of one month's salary for each year of service, he received a settlement fee of 9600 yuan—this was all the buyout money he received after a lifetime of work. After that, the company would no longer care for him regarding his livelihood, health, or death.
Ruan Xiaofen had only worked for six years, with an average monthly basic salary of just 260 yuan, and her compensation was only 1,560 yuan. This amount wasn't even enough to cover her mother's dialysis costs for one month.
The layoff compensation was far from enough to solve her mother's survival problem, so it's no wonder that she was driven to take desperate measures and steal technical data to exchange for money—since she was going to leave the factory anyway, and she had no other way to make a living, she might as well steal something and sell it.
When Chu Yanxi returned to work in the afternoon, her supervisor called her to move some things. When she came back, she found that Ruan Xiaofen was not at her workstation.
This time of day is when the technical department is most likely to relax, and it is also the time when most of the technical department staff go to the administration building for the weekly meeting as usual. Usually, only the old Wang, who is old and likes to doze off, is left to keep watch.
This gap was obviously revealed to Ruan Xiaofen by someone with ulterior motives, and she has most likely already begun to take action.
Chu Yanxi immediately got up, intending to leave through the side door of the workshop and head straight for the technical department office. Just as she reached the door, she saw Old Zhou from the security department patrolling the corridor with two other people, seemingly conducting a routine security check before employees were laid off. If she went over now, she might be questioned, and it might even expose Ruan Xiaofen.
The thought of Ruan Xiaofen's tragic future filled Chu Yanxi with a sense of urgency. She suddenly remembered the open-air storage yard behind the workshop, filled with abandoned machinery. Although it was difficult to navigate, it allowed her to bypass the main road and the security guards, reaching the technical department office from the other end of the corridor. Without further hesitation, she turned and quietly slipped out of the workshop's back door.
Inside the yard, rusted machine parts were piled up like mountains, and the air was thick with the smell of rust and machine oil. Chu Yanxi moved quickly through the pile of scrap. She needed to climb onto a tall, abandoned winding machine to get past a bunch of obstacles ahead. She used both her hands and feet, gripping the cold, red-rusted iron frame as she climbed upwards, the ground creaking under her feet.
Just as she was about to step onto a seemingly flat steel plate platform at the top—an accident occurred!
The steel plate had been rusted through by years of wind and rain, and only the surface maintained the illusion of being intact. It was simply not able to support the weight of an adult.
"Crack—Splash—"
With a sharp, teeth-grinding crack, Chu Yanxi lost her footing and plummeted downwards! Before she could even scream, her body slammed heavily onto a pile of hard, sharp-edged scrap parts below, tumbling and crashing before finally coming to a stop.
"Well……"
A sharp, tearing pain shot through her, especially from her right ankle, causing her to groan and her vision to blur. She bit her lip hard to keep from screaming.
What was that sound?
"There's some commotion at the freight yard, go check it out!"
Immediately, the alert shouts of security personnel and the chaotic sound of running could be heard from afar.
The noise from the freight yard also startled Ruan Xiaofen, who was searching for documents in the technical department office. She was already on edge, and when she heard the chaotic footsteps coming from the other end of the corridor, she was terrified and hurriedly opened the door to look out at the commotion.
At this moment, Chu Yanxi lay amidst the cold, oil-stained iron lumps, wracked with excruciating pain and drenched in cold sweat.
"What happened?! Who's there?!" The security personnel rushed to the edge of the freight yard and quickly found Chu Yanxi lying motionless in the ruins.
"They seem to be from Workshop 3."
How did she fall?
"Quick! Call the factory doctor!"
Almost simultaneously, Lu Zhe arrived with two union colleagues. Upon seeing Chu Yanxi, who was being helped to his feet amidst the ruins of the freight yard, pale-faced and with his right ankle twisted unnaturally, a sense of panic overwhelmed him. He disregarded everything else and rushed over, staggering to Chu Yanxi's side.
"Chu Yanxi!" he cried out, his voice trembling with fear. He reached out but dared not touch her, his hand trembling in mid-air.
Upon hearing the news, Chief Zhou of the Security Department rushed over and, with a stern face, scolded, "Why aren't you at your regular shift? What are you doing in this freight yard? Which workshop are you from? Don't you know any rules?"
Upon hearing this, Lu Zhe immediately became furious and turned around to roar at Lao Zhou.
"What are you security guards doing?! Why aren't there warning signs for these old, abandoned pieces of equipment?! Why aren't there safety tape?! Such a huge safety hazard is right here in the factory area, is this how you do safety work?! Who will be responsible if someone dies?! Huh?!"
"It's clearly your fault for not paying attention to safety in the freight yard, how dare you blame her? She was handling scrap parts during her work hours, which led to her fall and injury. Your security department is not to be shirking responsibility!"
Old Zhou and several security guards were stunned by the barrage of angry shouts. Old Zhou opened his mouth, his face turning red and then white. Lu Zhe was usually seen as a reasonable and somewhat bookish union official; when had they ever seen him so out of control and so aggressive?
Chu Yanxi endured the pain and looked up at Lu Zhe. Seeing the undisguised panic and anger in his eyes, and his unwavering support for her, her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
This person doesn't seem so unlikeable.
The factory doctor rushed over and, after a preliminary examination, looked grave: "Your right ankle is severely sprained, and there may be a bone injury. You must go to the hospital immediately for an X-ray. You also have multiple bruises and need to rest."
Lu Zhe made a quick decision: "Use the factory's three-wheeled motorcycle, I'll take her to the workers' hospital!" He squatted down, looked at Chu Yanxi's lips, which were white from biting them in pain, and said in a low voice quickly: "Hang in there, I'll handle things here."
Chu Yanxi pulled Lu Zhe's arm and whispered, "Go check on Ruan Xiaofen, don't let her..."
Lu Zhe nodded emphatically.
Chu Yanxi was carefully lifted onto the back seat of the three-wheeled motorcycle, with Lu Zhe sitting beside her and supporting her.
Chu Yanxi remained calm throughout the entire process of getting X-rays, bandaging, and treating her wound at the hospital. The diagnosis was a severe tear of the ligaments in her right ankle, accompanied by a minor bone fracture. She needed a cast to immobilize her ankle and to rest for at least a month, during which time she could not bear weight.
Lu Zhe busied himself with the paperwork and getting the medicine, his brow furrowed the entire time. By the time everything was settled, dusk was approaching. He took Chu Yanxi back to her home in this world—the low-rise tenement building on the edge of the factory area—on his three-wheeled motorcycle.
When Lu Zhe helped Chu Yanxi, whose face was pale and whose leg was in a cast, climb the dimly lit stairs with difficulty and knocked on the peeling wooden door, it was Chu Yanxi's mother in this world, Wang Guifang, who opened the door.
"Xiaoxi?" Wang Guifang's eyes widened instantly when she saw her daughter's appearance. The spatula in her hand fell to the ground with a clatter, and her voice was trembling with tears, "What happened to you? How did you get like this?!"
Chu Jianguo, who was silently smoking inside, rushed out upon hearing the noise. Seeing Chu Yanxi's leg in a cast and her disheveled appearance, the usually taciturn old fitter's eyes immediately reddened, his lips trembled, and he sighed heavily, slapping his thigh: "Sigh! What really happened?"
Wang Guifang hurriedly helped Lu Zhe to lay Chu Yanxi down on the bed, tears streaming down her face: "What are we going to do? The layoff list is about to be released, and you're injured now, what are we going to do..." Her words were incoherent, filled with heartache for her daughter and fear for the future.
Chu Jianguo squatted by the door, puffing on his cigarette. In the swirling smoke, his hunched back looked particularly old and helpless.
"Mom, Dad, I'm fine. I just slipped and fell. I'll be fine after a while." Chu Yanxi endured the throbbing pain in her ankle and tried to make her voice sound calm and even a little relaxed. "It's a work injury. The factory will reimburse my medical expenses."
She glanced at Lu Zhe, who was standing by the bed with a complicated expression, and gestured for him to say something.
Lu Zhe quickly nodded in agreement: "Yes, uncles and aunts, don't worry too much. The factory has policies for injured workers, and the labor union will also provide assistance."
Chu Jianguo silently stubbed out his cigarette, walked to the bedside, looked at his daughter's pale face, and gently touched the edge of the cast with his rough hand, his voice hoarse: "Does it hurt?"
"It doesn't hurt." Chu Yanxi shook her head, forcing a smile.
Lu Zhe comforted the two elderly people for a few more minutes, left some doctor's instructions, and then got up to take his leave. He needed to return to the factory immediately to deal with the mess Xiao Fen was making.
The door was gently closed, leaving only Chu Yanxi and her "parents" in the room.
Under the dim light, Wang Guifang stretched out her hands, rough and cracked from years of hard work, with slightly deformed knuckles, and carefully grasped Chu Yanxi's uninjured left hand. Her movements were very gentle, as if afraid of hurting her daughter, or as if confirming that her daughter was really right in front of her.
"Xiaoxi..." she began, her voice thick with nasal congestion and lingering sobs, as she launched into her characteristic rambling, a mixture of heartache, lingering fear, and tender concern, "You child, how could you be so careless? You can't just climb that pile of scrap metal like that! It's so dangerous! Luckily... luckily you didn't fall any harder, if... sigh!"
Her words trailed off, sometimes continuing, sometimes stopping, a mixture of uncontrollable complaints and a sense of relief at surviving a disaster. Her rough thumb unconsciously rubbed her daughter's hand repeatedly, conveying a clumsy yet burning warmth.
"Mom, I'm fine. I just twisted my ankle. It'll be fine after a while." Chu Yanxi wasn't used to such intimate contact and straightforward emotional expression, but the touch and nagging from her "mother" were like warm water, slowly seeping into her habitually frozen emotional shell, bringing a strange and sour feeling.
Wang Guifang clearly didn't believe it, or rather, she needed to vent her inner panic and worry through this rambling. "You make it sound so easy! It takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone! How painful that must be, watching the factory..." She stopped there, seemingly afraid of adding more pressure to her daughter, and just sighed heavily, tears welling up in her eyes again. She quickly wiped them away haphazardly with the back of her other free hand.
Just then, Chu Jianguo, who had been standing silently to the side, moved. He didn't say anything to comfort her, but just looked at his daughter deeply, his eyes containing too many complex emotions—heartache, anxiety, and a sense of self-blame as a father who was powerless to protect his daughter.
He turned around and silently walked out of the room.
After a while, he came in carrying an old washbasin with chipped enamel edges and faded red double happiness characters printed on it. Warm steam rose from the basin. He gently placed the basin on the stool beside the bed, making a soft "clink" sound. Then, he wrung out the old but faded towel in the basin and walked to the other side of the bed.
Unlike Wang Guifang, he didn't ramble on. Instead, he silently and gently began to wipe Chu Yanxi's cheeks with a warm towel.
Chu Yanxi could feel her father's large, calloused hands, stained with engine oil, yet remarkably steady and warm. Through the towel, he carefully avoided any areas where she might get scratched, gently wiping away the fine beads of cold sweat, dust, and grime that had seeped from her forehead and temples due to the pain and discomfort. His movements were slow and focused, as if he were performing an extremely precise piece of metalworking, afraid of hurting her in the slightest.
Then, he changed the basin to a basin of clean hot water, wrung out the towel again, and began to wipe Chu Yanxi's hands, especially the palm that might have been scraped when he fell. He lowered his head, his gray hair was somewhat dazzling under the light, and his brows were tightly furrowed, as if all his worry and helplessness were transformed into these silent and extremely careful movements.
The mother's gentle nagging and the father's silent wiping were like two thin streams of warmth, slowly flowing into Chu Yanxi's long-closed, calm heart.
So this is what love is.
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