After she said that, I was mortified.
I had always considered myself at least somewhat educated, yet here I was, unable to understand something that even A-Xiang, who hadn't finished elementary school, understood perfectly.
After dinner, we chatted for a while longer.
Then the work bell rang.
We were working overtime that night.
Under normal circumstances, the factory worked until ten. Days without overtime were rare, and whenever there was a rush order, we sometimes worked through the entire night.
I had hoped to see Lijuan that evening, but it looked like that would be impossible.
Back when I was in school, I often stayed up until ten as well.
But those late nights had been for studying—for my future.
What about now?
What was I staying up late for now, working myself to exhaustion for the sake of one or two hundred yuan a month?
That wasn't why I had come to Dongguan.
After a full day of manual work, my arms were sore and aching, and my fingers were almost numb.
Sometimes I could barely pick up the tiny metal pieces.
After eight o'clock, I was so exhausted that my head felt heavy and foggy.
We were allowed to talk and sing during overtime at night, but we were so tired and sleepy that who still had the energy to sing?
When we finally got off work at ten, I wanted nothing more than to collapse onto my bed and fall straight asleep.
But I couldn't.
The weather was so hot, and I was covered in sweat and smelled terrible.
There was no way I could go to bed without washing myself and doing my laundry.
The men's shower room was on the first floor.
The women's shower room was on the second floor, at the far end of our dormitory.
Because I had difficulty walking, I was always half a step slower than everyone else.
By the time I carried my bucket into the shower area, it was already packed with girls waiting to wash.
There were four tiny shower stalls, each just large enough for one person and one bucket.
Three of them were occupied, with long lines waiting outside.
But the fourth one stood open.
There wasn't a single person waiting outside it.
I asked the girl standing beside me in line:
“Can't we use that shower?”
The girl seemed frightened of something.
She lowered her voice.
“Yes, you can.”
I was even more puzzled.
“Then why isn't anyone using it?”
She turned her head away and stopped answering me.
Just then, A-Xiang came in and joined the line behind me.
I asked her:
“Can I use that shower?”
A-Xiang immediately stopped me.
“That one is for Miss Zhao. We can't use it until she's finished showering and washing her clothes every night.”
I became anxious.
“But the lights go out at midnight. We still have to wash our clothes after showering. I'm exhausted. She hasn't even come back yet, and who knows when she'll arrive?”
Before A-Xiang could stop me, I picked up my bucket and walked into the shower stall.
As I closed the door, I saw all the girls waiting outside staring at me in astonishment.
Under their gaze, I felt a mixture of worry and secret pride.
I thought to myself:
They're so old-fashioned.
It'll only take ten minutes to shower. Surely Miss Zhao won't come back during those ten minutes.
And even if she does, I'll be out in no time.
This shower stall was a little cleaner than the others.
I quickly stripped off my dirty clothes, filled a cup with water, and poured it over myself.
To save soap, I rubbed only a little into my palms and spread the foam over my body.
After washing myself, I carefully opened the packet of shampoo I'd brought from home.
I squeezed half of it into my hair and worked it into a lather.
I put the other half back.
I wanted to save it for next time.
Just as my hair was covered in foam, I heard someone angrily pounding on the door.
“Who's in there?”
It was Miss Zhao.
But I wasn't particularly frightened.
I answered casually:
“Can you give me five more minutes? I'll be done soon.”
As I spoke, I hurriedly rubbed my hair faster.
But my answer only made her angrier.
She began kicking the door repeatedly.
“Who gave you permission to use this shower? Don't you know the rules? Come out! Now! If you don't, you'll be sorry!”
Only then did I realize how serious the situation was.
I quickly pulled on my dirty clothes without even washing the shampoo from my face.
With my hair still covered in foam, I opened the door and stepped out.
The girls still waiting in line burst into laughter when they saw me.
Miss Zhao looked at me with disgust, as if I were some kind of plague.
“Stay away from me! Don't let me catch you doing this again!”
She grabbed her bucket and angrily entered the shower stall.
Then, almost as if to make a statement, she slammed the door shut.
The bang made me flinch.
Embarrassed and miserable, I stood there with foam still covering my hair and joined the line for another shower stall.
I heard someone nearby whisper:
“So this is what a high-school graduate is like? No manners at all. She's even worse than me, and I didn't even finish elementary school.”
I wished the floor would open up and swallow me.
As far as I was concerned, I hadn't done anything wrong.
Yet somehow everyone seemed convinced that I had.
Or perhaps I really had been wrong.
I never imagined that Miss Zhao, who was so stern and reserved during the day, could lose her temper so violently over something like this.
Only later, piecing together bits and pieces of gossip from my coworkers, did I learn more about her.
Miss Zhao had once been just like us.
She had been an ordinary factory worker, with only a junior-high education.
After working at this factory for just three days, the owner had come to pick her up in his car.
From that day on, she had begun managing the rest of us.
About a week later, I finally saw the legendary factory owner myself.
He was a thin, dark-skinned local man in his forties, with a surprisingly pleasant and harmless-looking face.
When I saw him, we were eating breakfast in the courtyard, each of us holding a bowl.
Breakfast consisted of a huge bucket of plain rice noodles in watery broth.
There was almost no oil and no salt.
Those who got up early could scoop out more noodles.
Those who arrived late were left with little more than the broth.
Just then, the middle-aged man casually walked out of Miss Zhao's room on the first floor.
He was wearing pajamas and looked as though he had only just woken up.
Many of the veteran workers didn't seem surprised at all.
Some even greeted him ingratiatingly.
I was completely stunned.
Miss Zhao—the beautiful, charming young woman I had admired—how could she possibly have fallen for this middle-aged man who was already well past his youth?
I simply couldn't understand it.
The factory sometimes kept us working as late as nine at night.
Because I spent every day staring at those piles of glittering yellow metal pieces, sometimes even my dreams at night were filled with gold.
It made me miserable.
People said that gold would shine anywhere.
But in this little factory, I felt that even real gold would be covered in dust.
I couldn't help admiring the young men and women who worked there.
Their wages were painfully low.
Their lives were hard.
Yet every day they joked around, teased one another, and somehow seemed perfectly content.
In that environment, I had only three things to look forward to every day:
Lunch.
Dinner.
And getting off work.
Each day seemed to last forever.
A few times, when I got off work early, I went to wait outside Lijuan's factory.
Every time, I ended up disappointed.
I even called Chen Gang, but he was probably working too and never called me back.
Perhaps because I was young, my foot healed surprisingly quickly even without any medicine.
Half a month later, after we finally finished the previous rush order, the factory did something almost unheard of:
They gave us one full day off.
After breakfast, I hurried over to the Liangguang Electronics Factory across the road.
It was Wednesday.
I had only the faintest hope—perhaps one chance in ten thousand—that I might see Lijuan.
All the employees at the factory wore matching short-sleeved shirts.
The men wore pale blue.
The women wore pink.
Someone once told me that pink was the color of princesses, a color that made girls look even more beautiful.
I looked at the girls in their pink uniforms with envy.
I wondered when I would ever have the chance to wear one myself.
Unfortunately, the recruitment board at the factory gate was completely empty.
I was disappointed.
Workers were constantly coming and going through the gate.
But there was no sign of Lijuan.
Just as I was about to leave, I suddenly saw her.
She was walking toward the gate with a group of girls, all of them dragging their exhausted bodies along.
“Lijuan!”
I shouted.
She saw me too.
She immediately ran toward me.
Before she could say a word, tears were already streaming down her face.
It turned out that ever since she had started working there, she had been forced to work overtime every day.
Often, they worked through the entire night.
And sometimes they weren't even given food.
Just like that day.
They had started work at eight the previous morning and had worked continuously until after nine the following morning.
Exhausted and starving, they had no choice but to go outside to find somewhere to eat breakfast.
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