Chapter 96: The steel forest, the walls of reinforced concrete are impenetrable...
When we found Zhu Jixiang, he was squatting in front of a McDonald's. He was covered in dust and looked as listless as a frost-bitten eggplant. He had completely lost the arrogant demeanor he had during the Chinese New Year.
Seeing her, he stood up on his knees, walked quickly to her, and asked anxiously, "How is it, sister, did you bring the money?"
His dream of living in the city has been almost shattered by successive blows. Now he just wants to get the money to buy a train ticket as soon as possible, buy a ticket to go home overnight, or simply go back to the county No. 1 Middle School and lie down in his dormitory bed.
Before hanging up, he'd told Zhu Yingning to bring some money, but now, his eyes almost popped out, he couldn't see any trace of money on her. She had no backpack, no bag, and her trouser pockets were empty, even less than his—at least he had a cell phone.
The more Zhu Jixiang looked, the more he found it incredulous: "Where's the money?"
Zhu Yingning didn't respond. Instead, she glanced at the rarely visited back door of McDonald's and said to Zhu Jixiang, "Come with me."
She walked around from outside the house to the alley at the back door of McDonald's. Although Zhu Jixiang didn't understand why, he followed her, thinking that she was going to find a hidden place to give him money. However, just as she stopped and had no time to ask for the money, a strong wind blew towards his face.
The first thing that came to mind was a burning sensation, followed by the sharp crack of a slap, and then a buzzing in his ears. A stinging pain rose and fell on his left cheek, dancing like a dance. It took him a long moment to register what had happened. He stared back at her in disbelief, his lips trembling as he uttered, "...You hit me?"
Zhu Yingning nodded, withdrew his hand, and said, "Yes."
Her attitude was too matter-of-fact. There was no anger on her face, only calmness. As a result, Zhu Jixiang was unable to gather his anger for a while, and his reaction was mainly confusion.
"Shouldn't you have hit me?" she asked softly. "When you took all the cash from the house, did you ever think about Dad's medicine money? Did you ever think about what the rest of the family would do? You selfish beast."
"You—" Zhu Jixiang said angrily, "What qualifications do you have to criticize me?! Aren't you selfish?!"
"If you think I'm not qualified, you can fight back." She looked at him, her voice and expression still without anger.
It was past dusk, the sky was pitch black. A single, barely visible lightbulb lit the back door where they stood. Her features seemed shrouded in a hazy mist, too faint to discern. Only her eyes, large and dark, took up much of the white of her eyes, so dark they were almost indistinguishable from the pupils. Like a cat, a deer, a whale, any ancient, silent creature, though not quite human. Staring at them for too long was almost creepy.
She put her hands in the pockets of her cotton-padded jacket, not saying a word, just staring at him silently. Occasionally, white mist escaped from the tip of her nose with the rhythm of her breathing, but was quickly swallowed up by the cold winter night.
Zhu Jixiang looked at her and swallowed involuntarily because of his guilty conscience.
He did not have Zhu Yingning's ability to stare at others for a long time, so he soon couldn't help but glance away, and his momentum was weakened by this action.
Arguing is like fighting a war; the key is to start strong at the beginning, then weaken and finally exhaust. It was obvious that his energy had dissipated. Zhu Yingning took the initiative to return to the topic and said, "I don't have any money."
Zhu Jixiang then looked at her again: "Are you kidding me? How could you be without money?"
"You stole all my money. Where did I get the money from?" She turned out all her pockets, and they were all empty.
I don’t know what to say to wish you good luck.
"If you want to buy a ticket home, you can work and earn the money for the fare yourself," she said calmly.
"I work?" He swung his arms and sneered, "What kind of job can I have?"
After his money was stolen, he was starving. He considered finding a part-time job to earn some money, at least enough to fill his stomach. But when he asked the McDonald's staff, they said they were no longer hiring. Before participating in the variety show, he had only thought Beijing was welcoming: not only was the economy prosperous and opportunities plentiful, but the people were also exceptionally friendly. Only now did he realize that people weren't friendly to him, but to his money.
Some enjoy supreme service in top-tier cities, while others serve others here. Beijing embraces both, accommodating the ambitions of the wealthy and the shattered dreams of the poor. Reselling dreams, wholesale opportunities—all easy tricks for the wealthy. He thought his arrival would allow him to join the former, but it turns out he can't even reach the threshold of serving others.
A fatal blow.
In this city so vast that he felt as insignificant as a speck of dust, his sister, whom he hated, was the only relative he could rely on. He thought she would understand and sympathize with him after hearing his story, but she remained stern and asked him calmly, "Why don't you look for her again?"
"If you look for it again, you'll be rejected!"
"If you're rejected, look again," she said. "If you're rejected fifty times, look fifty-one times. If you're rejected a hundred times, look a hundred and one times. Otherwise, how do you think people like us who have nothing can survive here?"
He was speechless.
"Let's go." She pointed to the exit of the alley. "Let's go find a job now."
She took the lead and walked a few steps, then turned back to look at him and said, "Brother Xiang, you are my family, and this is your first time making a mistake, so I will give you a chance to correct it. I will work with you. But people always have to pay the price for their mistakes. The money I earn from working is my own, and I won't give you a penny. If you feel hungry and want to eat, use your wages to buy food. If you want to go home, save up for the bus fare yourself. If you can't do that, then you can starve to death here, or be trapped in Beijing forever - I won't care about you anymore."
When she said the word "starve to death", she felt like Xu Sirui possessed her for a moment. Although she did not completely agree with his indifferent attitude, she had to admit that it was really nice to use it occasionally.
She turned and walked out without stopping. Zhu Jixiang was afraid of being left behind, so although he was extremely reluctant, he still took a few quick steps to catch up with her.
What followed was a process that Zhu Yingning was extremely familiar with: he would select all the shops that might be hiring, go in to ask, volunteer, and then be rejected.
As the moon rose, the lights merged into a bright sea, flowing under the night sky. They were jellyfish floating on the sea.
After countless attempts and countless rejections, I finally found my old trade—a flyer distribution job—at a newly opened shopping mall. They were renting out the second-floor stage for a Valentine's Day event, and they needed someone to help with the promotion.
The salary was meager, but it was better than nothing, so Zhu Yingning and Zhu Jixiang took the job.
After a long day of hunger and a long walk, Zhu Jixiang was hanging on by a thread. He lacked Zhu Yingning's outgoing demeanor, was always a little timid around strangers, and didn't speak loud enough. The event organizer, observing from the side, was quite critical of him.
After finally making it to 10 p.m. and distributing all the flyers he had, Zhu Jixiang felt like he was going to have low blood sugar, even if he wasn't already. When he received his ten-yuan salary, he felt devastated. With so little money, he couldn't even buy a few dumplings.
They found a random roadside stall outside the mall and bought some food to satisfy their hungry stomachs.
His stomach hadn't eaten for a long time, and the food from the roadside stalls was greasy. Zhu Jixiang felt a sharp pain in his stomach halfway through his meal. He snatched a pack of paper from the roadside vendor, rushed to the public toilet, and defecated what he had just eaten.
After coming out, his steps were unsteady. He looked at Zhu Yingning and saw that she didn't seem to be worried about him at all. She was chewing something in her mouth. When she saw him come out, she just asked, "Are you still eating? If not, I'll go back to McDonald's and sleep."
“…”
Zhu Jixiang had slept in McDonald's for a night. He had deeply experienced the power of spending the night in McDonald's. When he woke up the next day, the word "falling apart" was no longer enough to describe the fatigue of his body. It should be said that he had a comminuted fracture.
But he had already pooped out the ten yuan he'd just earned, and Zhu Yingning had already eaten her ten yuan. They really had no choice but to go to McDonald's. On the way to McDonald's, Zhu Jixiang tried to struggle: "Sister, can you contact Xu Sirui? You took care of him for a few months while filming the variety show. If you beg him, he'll definitely let us move in..."
He quickly bit off the second half of the sentence and swallowed it, because Zhu Yingning looked as if she wanted to slap him again.
I spent the night lying on the table at McDonald's.
I woke up the next day and continued the work of distributing flyers.
In the afternoon, after receiving another meager salary, Zhu Jixiang's frayed nerves finally snapped. After a whole morning, his stomach was rumbling with hunger, but the money was only enough for a pork knuckle meal, not even enough to order a double combo.
Forget saving enough money to go home. He thought he'd starve to death here before he could save enough for the bus fare. Even if he didn't starve to death, at this rate, how long would it take him to save up two hundred yuan for the bus fare?!
After begging Zhu Yingning to contact Xu Sirui again to no avail, he had to take the initiative to ask for another part-time job as a dishwasher.
"Sure." Zhu Yingning agreed happily and went with him to choose a restaurant in the mall and asked if they were short of temporary dishwashers.
Later, a shop owner took pity on them and let them in to help.
After all, having grown up in the countryside, Zhu Jixiang wasn't incapable of hardship; he simply didn't want it. But now that he had no choice but to endure it, he could only work with all his might. His core needs were two: to eat and to go home. His home, once a cage in his eyes, was now a paradise. At least at home, he had a house, a vegetable patch, and a warm kang, without having to worry about being blown away by the wind and rain, or being left alone.
After finishing his dishwashing job, he took the initiative to suggest going to the tutoring class next to the shopping mall to see if he could find a part-time job supervising students.
No matter what he proposed, as long as it was about finding a job, Zhu Yingning would nod and accompany him.
It turned out that this was just a job of supervising self-study, but there were actually educational requirements. The person in charge asked them how old they were and whether they were undergraduates.
The two people who didn't even have a high school diploma looked at each other in bewilderment, and finally they could only get a cleaning job at a tutoring class at a low price.
At the end of the day, they returned to McDonald's, only to receive new bad news. Perhaps because they had been sleeping there for several nights in a row, the staff came over to ask how old they were, where they were from, and where their parents were. They said, "If you're a runaway, I'm going to call the police."
Zhu Jixiang took out his ID card to prove that he was over 16 years old, which dissuaded the staff from calling the police.
Lying on the table to sleep at night, he was extremely tired and desperate and wanted to cry.
After confirming that Zhu Yingning was asleep, he quietly slipped up to her side and took the money that belonged to her from her pocket.
After counting together, they barely had a hundred yuan, which was one step closer to the two hundred yuan ticket.
He almost cried for joy, even though he knew in his heart that stealing was stupid. When she woke up tomorrow morning and found the money missing, she would definitely be the first to suspect him. However, he still did not put the money back. Instead, he hid it in the sole of his shoe, intending to deny it and say, "I didn't know, I didn't see it."
When she woke up the next morning, Zhu Yingning discovered that her money was missing. She glanced at him, said nothing, and continued to work with him as usual.
He was worried, but he hid his thoughts and didn't reveal any guilt.
In this way, half working and half stealing, on the 19th day of the first lunar month, Zhu Jixiang saved enough money for the fare back home.
Hard seat, two hundred and three yuan.
After buying the ticket at the train station, he turned around and looked at the people coming and going at the security checkpoint with a blank expression.
A father in a suit and tie walked into the security checkpoint with a little girl on his shoulders.
As Zhu Jixiang watched, tears welled up in his eyes without warning.
"I'm so jealous of them." He shed silent tears, but the sound resonated in his chest. "Why weren't they born to be thieves?"
"You can too." Zhu Yingning looked at him with calm eyes.
"I can't." Zhu Jixiang tightly grasped the ticket he had earned by half working and half stealing, and choked up, "...I'm too tired, sister."
Laziness and taking shortcuts are human nature, and he cannot resist this nature.
He turned to her with his cheeks covered in tears and snot: "I am different from you... No, it's you and I who are different. You are different from all of us."
The city was vast, its walls of reinforced concrete impenetrable, reminding him of the description Teacher Chen had given them long ago: a steel forest. He was a flesh-and-blood creature born from the mountains, unable to take root on steel.
And what about her?
Zhu Jixiang looked at his sister, a mother he shared. Her features, somewhat similar to his own, were calm yet tinged with a strange tenacity. She stared at him without a word, neither judging him nor offering any redemption.
How far can she go here?
He shook his head, said nothing more, turned around and joined the crowd going through security check.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
