Chapter 11: Are You Also Too Poor?
Twenty minutes later, Jiang Xiaoyuan followed Qi Lian into a roadside fast food restaurant. After experiencing a short and ups and downs life as a lighthouse assistant, she returned to the reality that she had no money to eat.
What was even more unethical was that the restaurant was playing an old song, singing loudly, “I just realized the difference between dreams and reality,” as if a sticky malice was hitting her face.
“I don’t know what you like to eat, so I bought some random stuff.” Qi Lian pushed the food tray towards her, saying, “Don’t be polite.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan weakly smiled at him, feeling overwhelmed, thinking, “I don’t like anything.”
Sitting on the cold plastic chair, facing the greasy fast food, she inappropriately recalled an article she had reposted from a food blog.
“French restaurants are either oily or greasy, with too much meat and tasteless vegetables. Apart from desserts, everything else is mediocre. American restaurants are nothing more than copies of others, lacking in quality. Russian restaurants are loved by the poor and gluttons, suitable for setting up canteens during times of famine. The food made by Germans and British is not fit for consumption by mammals. Japanese people are only drink soy sauce, and as for Koreans, it goes without saying. With their marinating method, even if the meat rots and maggots grow, you can’t taste the flavor. It’s truly sinister and cruel. The people of Southeast Asia have unique tastes. In this magical land, they have a special fondness for the scent of detergent.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan was not good at writing, so she could only borrow someone else’s words. She felt that the critic who wrote this article had hit her noble and aloof heart with every word, and she had praised it greatly.
And now, Jiang Xiaoyuan was still mentally noble and aloof, looking down on the burger and fries in front of her. At the same time, she painfully discovered that her hungry stomach had betrayed her usual standards. A large amount of saliva surged forth like a mountain torrent, attempting to break through and dissolve those shameful starches.
Struggling to preserve a shred of dignity, Jiang Xiaoyuan asked with a thread of air, “How much? Let me pay.”
Qi Lian: “Eighty.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “…”
Damn, not enough money.
Why should this junk food, which feels like eating poison, be so expensive?
Jiang Xiaoyuan stiffly sat there, summoning all her strength, but she couldn’t muster the words “Let’s split the bill.”
Qi Lian knew she didn’t have money, so he smiled calmly, “It’s a dream to treat a beautiful lady to a meal. How could I let a beautiful lady pay?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan didn’t want to listen to his nonsense. She took out the remote control phone that had saved her life, braving the crazy smell of the food, and sent a text message to Qi Lian: “IOU: Jiang Xiaoyuan borrows from Qi Lian one hundred and thirty yuan, to be repaid within one week.”
So, what would she do next?
Jiang Xiaoyuan was worried as she ate. Regardless of what lofty goals one pursues, the primary task is survival. For her, even basic food and shelter were a problem right now.
Without a doubt, she needed to find a job to support herself. But the question is—what could she do?
She couldn’t even operate an excavator.
The Jiang Xiaoyuan in this world didn’t have a decent education.
For great men, diplomas are useless. They shine like gold, and with or without that piece of paper, they will eventually achieve the same success. But for ordinary people, it’s indispensable, because without it, they won’t achieve anything else in their lives.
Jiang Xiaoyuan, undoubtedly, was an ordinary person.
Even if she is a returned overseas student who emerged from an ashtray, with this Ministry of Education-certified degree, she can enter an office building and become a “little white collar worker.” After all, all a little white collar worker needs to do is look good, know how to print and copy, pour water for guests, and be able to use simple office software to be competent. A graduate of the ashtray department can do it, and a graduate of the frying pan and cutting board department can do it too.
But without that diploma, it’s impossible.
Even if Jiang Xiaoyuan had the confidence to create an exact replica of the avant-garde ashtray in the parallel space.
Apart from the job issue, there was another pressing matter—where would she stay tonight? Where would the money for her next meal come from?
Jiang Xiaoyuan forced herself to ask Qi Lian for a few hundred yuan, but after several attempts to muster the courage, rehearsing countless times in her head, she couldn’t bring herself to ask.
She really was not good at borrowing money.
So… should she go to the hospital and find Zhang Tian and urge her to repay the money?
Jiang Xiaoyuan imagined the scene and realized she wasn’t good at demanding repayment either.
Truly at her wits’ end.
Qi Lian had met her by chance, first lending her money at the hospital, then inviting her for a simple meal, not letting her starve on the streets. He had done his utmost as a fellow countryman, practically acting like a modern-day Lei Feng[mfn]Lei Feng (雷锋): a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who became a famous icon of selflessness and devotion to serving the people in China. His life story and image were heavily promoted by the Chinese government during the 1960s and 1970s.[/mfn]. Any further kindness would be abnormal, and even if he offered, Jiang Xiaoyuan wouldn’t dare accept.
In the end, she didn’t utter a word of request for help. After finishing her meal, she bid farewell to Qi Lian, pretending to be strong despite her predicament, and wandered aimlessly with the promise to repay him within a week. She hoped to find a place to stay.
When one is unlucky, even drinking cold water will cause problems. As Jiang Xiaoyuan walked, she was suddenly bumped into by someone, and her entire body was forcefully pulled to the side. Instinctively, she tightened her thin, slender arms around her chest, and her bag on her shoulder was easily pulled away.
The thief succeeded with one blow, glanced back at her, and, with the speed of the wind, disappeared in an instant.
Jiang Xiaoyuan ran after him, shouting, “You bastard, give it back to me!”
It was impossible for a person who could run 800 meters in seven minutes to catch up with a bag snatcher. By now, the night had deepened, and there were few people on the street, all rushing about. No one stopped to look at her when they heard her shouting, let alone offer help.
Jiang Xiaoyuan followed him for a block, but she was so exhausted that she couldn’t run any further. Her throat was burning, and she grabbed onto a power pole by the side of the road, wanting to squat down and have a good cry.
But then she thought again, squatting on the side of the road and crying was too unsightly, like a stray dog. She couldn’t do that, so she could only hunch over, stand up with a vomiting posture, and try her best to calm her breathing… and stop herself from crying.
Of course, even this image was far from good, but at least she was standing.
Jiang Xiaoyuan couldn’t help but wonder what the lighthouse assistant meant when he said he left his dreams to her. Was what he left behind a nightmare?
Jiang Xiaoyuan stood there for who knew how long until suddenly, footsteps approached.
She looked up in astonishment and saw that the thief who had stolen her bag had returned!
Three steps away, the thief tossed the bag back to her and looked her up and down with disdain.
The thief said, “Are you also too poor?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “…”
With a gesture of “forget it, I won’t lower myself to your level,” the thief waved his hand and said, “I’ll give it back to you. This bag isn’t worth two yuan, and it’s too heavy for me.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan didn’t know if she should say “thank you” or go up and slap him.
The thief asked again, “I bet you don’t even have a place to stay tonight, do you?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “What’s it to you?”
The thief clicked his tongue, adjusted his pants, pointed ahead, and said, “Three hundred meters ahead, there’s an internet cafe. They’re hiring network managers. You can stay there at night. Why don’t you check it out?”
Late at night on the street, a bag snatcher pitied her poverty and came to recommend a job to her?
Jiang Xiaoyuan didn’t know if this counted as a legendary experience. She retorted, “Why don’t you go?”
“I won’t do it. It pays too slowly,” the thief admitted candidly, then earnestly advised, “With someone like you, who runs slower than a cripple, you can’t do what we do. You can only do something with no skill involved.”
With that, he glanced at Jiang Xiaoyuan, feeling like he had accumulated some virtue, and then disappeared without a trace.
Jiang Xiaoyuan considered whether she should call the police, but after three seconds, she decided to first solve her survival crisis.
She followed the thief’s recommendation to the internet cafe, where the boss interviewed her while eating instant noodles, checked the authenticity of her ID card, made her deposit her documents, and gave her a job that included lodging. The salary was six hundred yuan per month, with meals provided, not exceeding five yuan per meal. After Jiang Xiaoyuan’s persistent bargaining, the boss agreed to pay her weekly.
This way, she could repay Qi Lian’s one hundred and thirty yuan within a week.
Thirty minutes later, the boss taught her how to register customers and collect money, gave her a list of phone numbers, and said, “Call this number if the power goes out, and if a computer breaks down, let the customer switch to another one. Remember to call this number tomorrow, got it?”
After a pause, the boss added, “You can play on the computer when there’s nothing to do, but be careful not to visit any dirty websites and infect the computers with viruses. Charge customers according to the pricing standards on the counter, don’t give discounts easily, and there’s a monitor on the counter.”
With that, he shook the ID card that Jiang Xiaoyuan had left as a deposit, finished his instant noodle soup in one gulp, and left Jiang Xiaoyuan behind the counter to go upstairs to sleep.
Jiang Xiaoyuan silently listened, knowing that the boss wasn’t telling her not to treat customers well, but warning her to keep her hands clean.
She stared blankly at the old desktop computer and the exposed images of beautiful women on the desktop, realizing that her survival crisis had temporarily been alleviated, and she had the energy to lament her misfortunes.
Jiang Xiaoyuan didn’t use the internet much before, especially when she was studying, she had heard rumors that indoor Wi-Fi could cause radiation, so she didn’t bother to install it. After all, she had plenty of other places to spend her time.
But now, she was surrounded not only by unknown radiation but also by the smoky smell of cigarettes, food residue, body odor… and a room full of unidentified organisms saying “kill, kill, kill.”
But she didn’t even have the energy to complain.
Jiang Xiaoyuan thought blankly about the direction of her future life for a while, without any clue. So she had no choice but to aimlessly play Minesweeper, passing the long, impoverished time.
She got off to a bad start, hitting a mine with her first click and blowing up the entire screen with flowers.
If you like our translation for this novel and want us to release more chapters frequently, feel free to support us on either our ko-fi and paypal ❤️
To read advanced chapters, feel free to visit our
✨ Ko-Fi✨
