Chapter 12: The Darkest Week of Life
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “You’re missing an ID card.”
A few rural youth pushed a little boy forward to her: “He didn’t bring it, just let him give his number.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan raised her eyelids slightly and saw that the boy was thin in stature, with shoulders only as wide as two palms, and a chin smoother than that of a girl. Obviously, he was a minor.
Jiang Xiaoyuan reached out and pulled over the sign that read “Minors Not Allowed,” getting her hand dirty with dust.
The little rascal gave her a playful smile: “Sister, don’t judge me by my appearance. In fact, the kids in my family are all experienced.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan coldly chuckled: “Whether you’re experienced or not remains to be seen. Aren’t you still in middle school? If you don’t study well and mess around here, what will you do when you grow up?”
Drawing from her own experience, every word she said was heartfelt, but unexpectedly, the little rascal quickly retorted: “Be a network manager!”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “…”
This was truly an irrefutable blow.
The boss came down from upstairs, glanced over, waved at Jiang Xiaoyuan, indicating she should shut up and mind her own business.
This internet cafe was run very irregularly. It was as chaotic as it could be inside, and the boss only cared about making money and playing on the computer. All sorts of people and things were allowed inside.
The boss strolled over to the cash counter, took out the money from the drawer, glanced at Jiang Xiaoyuan, meticulously checked the accounts in front of her, and seeing that she indeed hadn’t engaged in any trickery or theft, he was quite satisfied. He briskly pulled out one hundred and fifty yuan and paid her salary for the week.
With a cigarette in his mouth, the boss grumbled, “If you ever don’t want to come back, tell me in advance, and I’ll give you back your ID.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan collected the money and boldly held out her hand to him, “Give it back to me now.”
It was truly the darkest week of her life.
Once, Jiang Xiaoyuan thought that being sent by her father to a bird-speaking ghost town to learn pottery from foreign devils was the lowest point in her life. She thought that having to go to the office to sign in every day was a great infringement on her personal freedom. She thought that Feng Ruixue’s betrayal was her biggest failure as a person.
Later on, she realized that the terrifying car accident, the frightening lighthouse, and the terrifying Sister Zhang’s home were the darkest places in the world.
It wasn’t until she spent a week in this dark internet cafe that she truly understood.
The job recommended by the bag snatcher was unreliable.
The so-called “lodging” provided by the boss was simply a makeshift bed in a small storage room near the toilet. Her roommates were several crooked and broken computers. The monitors, sprawled all over, stared at her every move with their dark square faces.
The walls of the small storage room were made of foam, offering no sound insulation. When she was on duty, she was bombarded with the constant noise of “kill, kill, kill.” Then she had to fall asleep amidst the “kill, kill, kill.” Twenty-four hours a day, she was immersed in the smoky atmosphere, longing for peace more than anything else. Her desire for peace rose to the height of life’s ideals.
Wanting to maintain personal hygiene, Jiang Xiaoyuan had to beg the boss to let her use the bathroom on the second floor.
The lock on the bathroom door was broken. Every time she went in, she had to find a piece of string and carefully tie the door shut. Then she would take a thrilling battle shower—because if she took more than ten minutes, the angry boss would directly turn off the water supply.
As for changing clothes, she picked them up from the next door’s small, run-down supermarket. When she bought them, she didn’t even dare to open her eyes. After all, the whole set of clothes, including a set of dentures and a towel, cost a total of twenty-three yuan. It was the first time in her life that she bargained with someone, using the same arguments Zhang Tian had tried at the hospital, and successfully convinced the boss to waive three yuan off the total.
In the midst of such hardships, Jiang Xiaoyuan thought about quitting her job on average three times per minute. In the end, miraculously, she managed to endure it all—because she ranked all the intolerable things in her life in order of severity, and “not repaying debts” beat out all the competitors to claim the top spot. In order to fulfill her promise to repay her debt within a week, she had to get this one hundred and fifty yuan salary.
Leaving the internet cafe, Jiang Xiaoyuan stood on the roadside, greedily taking in a few lungfuls of car exhaust, feeling like she had come alive again. She called Qi Lian, asked for an address, and after figuring out the general location, she initially planned to take the bus there. However, after calculating in her mind, she felt it wasn’t worth spending two yuan for a three or five-kilometer journey, so she decided to walk there for environmental and cost-saving reasons.
In just seven or eight days, Jiang Xiaoyuan’s concept of money had changed from “thousands as the smallest unit” to “cents under the dollars, every penny counts.”
Qi Lian lived in an old community, in a one-bedroom apartment. Jiang Xiaoyuan initially suspected he was a professional gangster, but upon arriving at the home of her creditor, she found it wasn’t quite the case—Qi Lian didn’t have a TV, the living room was clean and tidy with a few small fabric sofas, surrounded by several towering bookshelves, not the knives, guns, swords, axes, and hooks she had imagined, but filled with an artistic… even scholarly atmosphere.
There was a small workbench in the corner with a desk lamp, a pen holder, a pile of messy papers, and an old computer.
Jiang Xiaoyuan was very surprised and thought to herself, “Maybe I was too nervous that day. He really seems like a cultural worker.”
Just as this thought flashed through her mind, Qi Lian sat opposite her, loosened his collar, rolled up his sleeves to reveal the eight-pointed beast tattoo on his forearm. He threw his glasses beside the computer, squinted slightly with eyes sharp as knives, the corners of his eyes long and sharp, giving him a cold and indifferent appearance. His hair fell onto his nose, and he leaned slightly on the sofa, casually lighting a cigarette.
Qi Lian: “What’s up? Do you need something?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “…”
This time, it wasn’t just a nervous illusion; he really did seem like a big thug.
“I’m here to repay the money,” Jiang Xiaoyuan counted out one hundred and thirty yuan exactly and placed it on the coffee table, “Thank you for last week.”
Qi Lian paused for a moment, then chuckled vaguely: “You really are…”
What he meant by “really” remained unsaid. After a moment’s pause, he straightened up a bit, looked Jiang Xiaoyuan in the eye, and asked, “Do you really not remember me at all?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan almost had a heart attack from his words.
Nowadays, she dreaded two things the most: people asking her for money and people asking her if she remembered anything—she would cut it off halfway and feel guilty.
Qi Lian’s gaze pierced through the haze of smoke. Jiang Xiaoyuan, who almost had the illusion that he won’t find out, right?, became more and more panicked.
Her chest tightened, and she thought to herself, “It can’t be that coincidental. I wouldn’t be so unlucky to meet someone I know here, would I? What if he finds out? What if he thinks I’m the one who killed the original owner?”
The more Jiang Xiaoyuan thought about it, the more guilty she felt. The more she thought about it, the more afraid she became. In the end, she had almost imagined for Qi Lian how he would dispose of her body.
As Jiang Xiaoyuan became more and more panicked, Qi Lian flicked the cigarette ash, calmly saying: “Well, you were probably too young back then.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan sat dumbfounded on the sofa, unable to recover for a long time.
Qi Lian: “What did you do this week?”
“At the… internet cafe,” Jiang Xiaoyuan stumbled for a moment, realizing that the crisis had temporarily passed, she quickly blinked her eyes and repositioned her tongue, “As a… network manager.”
Qi Lian frowned slightly: “Why did you go to such a chaotic place?”
“I’ve already quit. I’ll go find another job later,” Jiang Xiaoyuan replied.
Qi Lian listened quietly for a moment, then he pinched out the cigarette and stood up: “Looking for a job, huh? Come with me.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan was taken aback: “But I don’t know anything…”
“You’ll learn slowly,” Qi Lian replied as he changed his shoes. Suddenly, he paused, raised an eyebrow, and glanced at Jiang Xiaoyuan, “By the way, aren’t you curious about when and where I saw you before?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan froze again.
After staring at each other for a moment, Qi Lian inexplicably smiled, his “second boot” still suspended, and then casually changed the subject.
“Let’s go,” he said, “It’s not far.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan was extremely nervous and reluctant to get closer to this person. She cautiously said, “It’s not necessary. Actually, on my way here, I saw a restaurant that’s hiring waiters. I’ve already talked to them…”
Qi Lian interrupted her: “What’s good about working in a restaurant and serving dishes? It’s greasy, and you won’t earn much. I’ll take you to a clean and safe place, with food and lodging provided. Most of the customers are women, and the working environment is safe.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “I…”
Qi Lian turned back: “Are you coming or not?”
Jiang Xiaoyuan: “…I’ll go.”
“Clean and safe,” “food and lodging provided,” and “safe working environment”—these three phrases hit her Achilles’ heel. Should she stay away from this person, work miserably in a small restaurant carrying plates, or take a gamble?
Jiang Xiaoyuan only hesitated for a second before making the latter choice, which was a bit pathetic.
Jiang Xiaoyuan silently rehearsed her lines a few times before cautiously asking, “Where did you see me before?”
“When we were kids,” Qi Lian said without turning his head, “My mother’s family is from your area. My uncle got married, and she took me back to her family’s home. I saw you there once. Back then, you were still running around with snot dripping from your nose. How much people change as they grow up! I didn’t even recognize you at first when I saw you at the hospital, but after I went back home and thought about it for a long time, I remembered that there seemed to be a little girl your age named Xiaoyuan.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan felt that there was something wrong with what he said, but she couldn’t quite figure it out, so she asked, “How did you know it was me?”
Qi Lian: “I made a phone call and asked someone. Everyone keeps in touch when they’re away from home…except you. Once you leave home, no one can find you. Everyone at home is worried. I only found out when I made a phone call. Now there are several people looking for you.”
Jiang Xiaoyuan suddenly felt lonely and silently thought to herself, “The person you are looking for is dead.”
She didn’t want any connection between her current self and the past “Jiang Xiaoyuan” in this time and space.
“Remember to call home. When you have time in a couple of days, I’ll take you to meet the people from your hometown,” Qi Lian said. “Well, we’re here.”
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✨
