Rebirth of Chinese Entertainment, the Diary of a 95 Flower

Chapter 5 Farewell to My Past Self
"You're not telling the truth. As a man, why would you hide your age?"

"I'm really 18, you can call me brother from now on."

"Uncle, you are so humorous."

Jiang Yang slowed down his car and through the windshield he could see the cracked concrete road forming a network of cracks, as well as the job recruitment banners hanging on the camphor trees beside the road.

Yang Chaoyue stopped joking with Jiang Yang and turned his head to look at the familiar street scene outside the window.

Arrived at the factory.

Because she smelled the sour and rotten smell unique to this factory area floating in the humid air.

The smell of burnt oil wafted from the "Longjiang Pork Trotter Rice" food stall diagonally opposite. A few young people in navy blue work clothes were sitting on plastic stools, holding counterfeit mobile phones with cracked screens and playing "Pray to Buddha" out loud.

The street lights on the roadside suddenly lit up at a certain time, casting a warm light and startling the flocks of sparrows on the high-voltage wires.

Several lights flickered on and off for more than half a year.

The dark green cast iron gate was open, with four peeling red characters "Safe Production" welded on it.

A whitened fire inspection certificate that had expired almost a year ago was stuck to the right doorpost, and the card slot of the electronic gate on the left was stuffed with chewed betel nut residue.

Looking at this familiar street scene, Yang Chaoyue felt complicated and indescribable.

In news interviews, it was seen that the children of miners missed the smell of coal slag after leaving the shantytowns.

Medical students finish their night shift internship but miss the early morning smell of disinfectant.

I now feel suffocated by the smell in the factory, and I feel inexplicably reluctant to leave, especially because of my work badge on the assembly line.

Two hours ago, she was a female worker in a textile factory, but now, just after dark, she has become a member of a girl group.

A salary of 5000 yuan, living in a commercial housing complex with a garden, free food and training, the treatment is so good that I couldn't even dream of it.

After I officially start working at the company tomorrow, I must work hard to keep this job.

By the way, the other female group member in the master bedroom should be back at night. She must be a beauty prettier and more professional than me. I should get close to her and get to know the company’s situation. It would be best if we could become good sisters or best friends.

Pushing the car door open, the cold wind blew in along the collar of her chiffon skirt. The temperature difference between the inside and outside of the car was so great that Yang Chaoyue's legs broke out in goose bumps and he exhaled white air:

"Jiang Su, I can finish it in half an hour. Thank you for your help."

"What did you call me?" Jiang Yang turned around and glanced at Yang Chaoyue, who was standing in front of the recruitment column with white air coming out of his mouth.

"Uncle! Uncle Jiang! The word uncle is pronounced with a retroflex tongue sound, I remember." Yang Chaoyue imitated the pronunciation method Jiang Yang had taught her before, with the tip of the tongue raised and forming an obstruction with the front of the hard palate to produce the sound.

"Why call me uncle? Call me brother. You're calling me old again."

"Uncle, you are pretending to be young." Yang Chaoyue smiled.

Sister Chaoyue has a very strong stereotype about herself.

If it were his age in his previous life, Yang Chaoyue would have no problem calling him that, but his current body was really 18 years old, and it always felt a little awkward.

"Keep the 5000 yuan I gave you in advance safe and don't show off your wealth."

Jiang Yang didn't argue much with Yang Chaoyue. He left this sentence and it depended on Yang Chaoyue himself whether he could understand it or not.

He turned and drove toward the textile mill parking area.

Yang Chaoyue heard the news broadcast gradually fading from Jiang Yang's car speakers: "Rumor has it that Chen He cheated on his pregnant wife Xu Jing. His image has collapsed from a good man to a scumbag..."

Who is Chen He?

do not know.

When talking about good men, Yang Chaoyue thought of a TV series called "Love Apartment".

That was a TV series that she loved watching before she dropped out of school. It brought her a lot of joy. Zeng Xiaoxian in the series called himself a good man.

I heard it's already the third or fourth part? I can't remember.

I haven't had time to watch TV series since I started working two years ago.

My aesthetic taste is gradually failing to keep up with the times, and I can’t even sing popular songs anymore.

Entertainment memory cannot keep up with the times.

After get off work, I can’t bear to sleep even though my eyelids are drooping, because this is my only free time.

In the vicious cycle of time poverty, between survival and entertainment, we gradually lose our expression.

Yang Chaoyue raised her hand and looked at the raised nail on her right index finger. This was caused by the nail being accidentally pierced by the machine when she was cutting a zipper in the factory.

I have seen welders in the factory with a black spot of metal chips on their palms that can never be washed off.

A female worker in the factory next door had her eardrum damaged by the noise from the machines, which caused her to suffer from tinnitus for life.

Yang Chaoyue has seen this kind of permanent body symbol shaped by labor so many times that he has become accustomed to it.

He tore off the recruitment advertisement posted by Jiang Yang on the recruitment board, folded it up and put it in his pocket.

A ritual farewell to one's past self.

The dark gate was lit by the dim ceiling light of the security booth, and Yang Chaoyue stepped in.

The familiar smell of engine oil from the assembly line hit her nose, and she subconsciously shrank her neck.

I used to think this smell was suffocating, but now I actually miss it a little.

I no longer have the usual mentality of finally taking a break after a busy day.

I finally don't belong here anymore.

Seeing Yang Chaoyue walking towards the female workers' dormitory, Jiang Yang drove the car into the parking space. Then he saw the old man with his work badge in the security booth walking towards him with a smile: "Here you are again, young man, why are you wearing a suit?"

"Is it safe this time?"

"Don't keep bringing this up. It makes me look so embarrassed."

Jiang Yang opened the car door and lit a cigarette for the old man.

The old man exhaled smoke and said, "You kid, you're so cunning. You even talked about joining a girl group, but you're obviously just looking for a date. I saw you and Yang Chaoyue coming together. That girl is pretty, I remember her."

"They really are forming a girl group. The recruitment advertisement is still posted, right in the middle." Jiang Yang pointed to the recruitment column outside.

"Where?" The old man squinted his eyes and looked over: "I don't see any advertisements recruiting girl groups."

"I don't know which idiot tore it, and specifically tore mine. Never mind, I'll just park my car for half an hour."

Jiang Yang paid the parking fee and followed the old man into the security booth.

The window glass was covered with a poster of Zhang Bichen from "The Voice of China".

Jiang Yang sat on a small stool, waiting for Yang Chaoyue while chatting with the old man.

at the same time.

Yang Chaoyue walked up the stairs, and the voice-controlled lights lit up one floor at a time with the sound of his footsteps, but the sensor on the third floor of his dormitory had been broken for a long time.

Arriving at the iron gate of the dormitory in the dark, Yang Chaoyue touched the 5000 yuan in her pocket and remembered what Jiang Yang had reminded her before.

Don't show off your wealth...

When I opened the door, a warm air mixed with a musty smell hit me in the face.

Someone in the dormitory secretly connected an electric blanket, and the aging wiring caused the ceiling light to flicker.

Faded blue-painted iron beds filled the twelve-person room.

At the end of the bed were piled gray work clothes issued by the printing and dyeing factory.

There is a 2014 movie poster of "Tiny Times" on the wall, with the corners curled up.

The old ceiling fan was covered with dust, and the loom downstairs was humming continuously.

"You're back." The female worker lying on the lower bunk at the door was reading Fireworks magazine. When she heard the door open, she didn't even look up. "Have you eaten yet?"

"No." Yang Chaoyue replied.

"It's really you, Chaoyue." The female worker put down her phone, tilted her head in surprise, and said with a smile, "It's rare to hear you speak with a retroflex consonant. I almost didn't recognize it was you."

"Really?" Yang Chaoyue laughed.

She was about to say that she wanted to take the Mandarin language test in the future, but she swallowed the words and clenched the recruitment advertisement in her pocket.

There are quite a few good-looking female workers in the entire factory, and many of them speak Mandarin more standardly than hers.

In other words, many colleagues were able to apply for membership in girl groups through Jiang Yang.

It was just that she was lucky, she applied first and was selected.

If someone competes with her, she will most likely be eliminated.

She looked around the dormitory environment, and then thought about the environment and treatment the company rented for her.

Yang Chaoyue tried hard to suppress the joy in his heart, and ultimately did not intend to share this with his colleagues.

If it were my old self, I would talk about any happy thing.

"Did you get recruited into the girl group, Yueyue?" asked Sister Yan, who lent Yang Chaoyue the chiffon skirt.

Yang Chaoyue looked up and found that several female workers in the dormitory were looking at him.

She came to her bed in the dormitory, picked up her autumn clothes and walked to the bathroom. Her heartbeat suddenly quickened:

"It's not that easy to get a job. The supervisor is right. Thousands of college students will compete with us for this good job. It's impossible for someone like us to get arthritis in our knees."

Suppress the joy in your heart and cover up the truth with self-deprecation.

I feel guilty that I don't deserve this luck, but I'm also wary.

There was a burst of laughter in the dormitory.

When I opened the bathroom door, I immediately smelled the familiar scent of Liushen floral water mixed with toilet cleaner.

Three beige tiles fell off, revealing the words "Wang Li visited here on 2013.6.18" written in ballpoint pen on the cement wall.

The plastic shelves held Clean & Clear facial cleanser and Bee Flower conditioner.

The old-fashioned bolt was inserted with a click.

When she took off her chiffon skirt, static sparks exploded on the back of her neck. She stared at the mold in the cracks in the wall, took a deep breath, and her heartbeat gradually calmed down.

This was the first time I lied to a colleague.

No one should have noticed.

Take out the recruitment advertisement posted by Jiang Yang from your pocket.

Tear into pieces.

Flush into the sewer.

It took the third flush to flush everything clean.

There was a burning feeling in his eyes, wanting to eliminate traces.

The female workers' teasing voices echoed in the dormitory: "Did Yueyue fall into the pit? You flush the toilet so frequently."

"I caught a cold and have diarrhea." Yang Chaoyue's quick-witted lie once again made the female workers burst into laughter.

Wait for the blush on your face to fade away.

Yang Chaoyue changed into his long underwear, pushed the door open, and changed into his casual clothes. He carefully folded the chiffon skirt and returned it to his colleague. The fabric rubbed against his fingertips, and a fine static electricity appeared:

"Sister Yan, thank you!" If it weren't for the chiffon skirt Sister Yan lent me, would I have been able to pass Jiang Yang's interview? I really couldn't say for sure.

"Just put it by my bed." Sister Yan held a small round mirror in her hand and squeezed the pimples on her face: "We share a dormitory, what's there to thank me for? You haven't worn it for a day, so you're giving it back to me? Or you can wear it for a few more days. You gave me 30 yuan, I feel embarrassed."

"No more, I'm leaving."

"Let's go eat. Let's go together. We're tired after a day and we just went back to the dormitory to sleep. We just woke up and went out to have a bowl of sour soup noodles."

"No, I want to resign." Yang Chaoyue's voice ended with a breath, his fingers stroking the corner of his clothes, and his eyes lost focus for a moment.

I wrote a letter of breaking up with my roommate and embarked on another lonely road.

I feel empty inside.

(End of this chapter)