Rebirth of Chinese Entertainment, the Diary of a 95 Flower

Chapter 6: Pack up, take me away

"Ah, resign?"

Sister Yan looked up at Yang Chaoyue.

The other female workers turned their heads to look over.

Yang Chaoyue felt very uncomfortable as his colleagues' eyes suddenly turned to him.

To be more precise, what was even more uncomfortable was that she didn't dare to speak out her true thoughts.

Yang Chaoyue started packing his luggage and added, "My father's back injury has become more serious. He's often scolded by the foreman on the construction site. I feel sorry for him and want to go back to Yancheng."

His fingers brushed across the crack in the bed board, where a half-broken zipper tooth was still stuck. That's where the blood stain was caused when he dozed off during the night shift last year and got pinched by the machine.

The trauma of having your body mortgaged to the assembly line.

When she stuffed the work gloves issued by the printing and dyeing workshop into her luggage bag, the indelible smell of indigo dye suddenly made her nose sore.

Every time I go to the barber shop, I can always smell the chemical scent of hair dye lingering on the barber's fingertips.

When my father came back from the construction site, he could see cement dust caked between his fingernails.

Just like my job at the bottom of society, the taste of my profession is engraved into my pores.

The female workers were talking at once.

Some people advised Yang Chaoyue to stay, saying that if he left and came back, he might not be able to get into such a good factory.

Some people are reluctant to part with Yang Chaoyue.

Someone shared a folk remedy from his hometown to treat Yang Chaoyue's father's back injury.

Everyone knows that Yang Chaoyue is a filial child.

Whenever I call my dad, he keeps calling me Daddy, Daddy.

We all come from all over the world and live in this cramped dormitory in Shanghai, working together every day to clean cotton, spin yarn, weave cloth, and print and dye.

I go back to my hometown for a month or so during the Chinese New Year, and then gather here again in the spring of the following year to repeat the same thing.

Every year after the Spring Festival, the same group of people return to the same factory.

The reason on the resignation form is always written as family matters.

Everyone saw that this little girl Yang Chaoyue had grown several centimeters taller, so how could they not have any feelings for her?

In the end, he failed to convince Yang Chaoyue to stay.

This kind of thing is not uncommon.

The mobility of female workers in textile factories is inherently high.

Sister Yan, who had lent Yang Chaoyue her chiffon skirt, helped pack her bedding and stuffed it into a snakeskin bag. She then escorted Yang Chaoyue, who was carrying his luggage, to the lighted stairwell on the second floor. "If you change your mind in the next two days, give me a call. I'll talk to the supervisor and keep your bed. You have my phone number, right?"

"There's a phone number for you, Sister Yan!"

"Hey, wait a minute!"

Sister Yan hurried back to the dormitory.

After Yang Chaoyue sent her resignation text message to her supervisor, Sister Yan took out the folded chiffon skirt and said, "Yueyue, this dress is for you."

"That's not good. It's too expensive." Yang Chaoyue didn't take it.

"What's the big deal? I'm not as young as you, my figure is out of shape, and I don't dress as well as you."

Sister Yan laughed heartily: "It's good to go back to my hometown, find a good man to marry, live a down-to-earth life, and then give me wedding candy."

Yang Chaoyue refused again and again, but Sister Yan still stuffed the chiffon skirt into the snakeskin bag.

In the entire dormitory, Sister Yan has the best relationship with her.

According to Sister Yan, she is very similar to her younger sister from her hometown, beautiful, timid, and optimistic.

Unfortunately, Sister Yan’s sister was abducted by human traffickers. When she called the police, they only found a car with a cloned license plate, and the family was helpless.

The only things at home were my younger sister's old children's clothes, which she had worn when she was little.

A missing person notice was forwarded in the hometown group, and the pixels of the photos became increasingly blurry.

"Let's take a picture together, sister. I just bought a Coolpad, it's second-hand, and the photos it takes are much clearer than those of Nokia." Sister Yan took out the Coolpad F2.

"Okay."

Yang Chaoyue raised his scissors hand, took a photo with Sister Yan, and stuffed money into Sister Yan's pocket: "Sister Yan, consider it as the money to buy your chiffon skirt."

She did not touch the 5000 yuan salary Jiang Yang gave her, and used her own savings.

"You don't understand anything, why give me money? Your relationship will fade away." Sister Yan laughed and went back to the dormitory. The cuffs of her sweater were pilling. She hunched her shoulders in the cold wind and touched the bills in her pocket, feeling something was wrong.

When I took it out, I saw there was a full 300 yuan.

Enough to buy two of the latest chiffon skirts from her hometown county.

"You have a bump on your head, that's why I gave you so much."

Sister Yan was deeply touched and quickly put the money in her pocket so that other colleagues wouldn't see it.

The generosity of the poor.

Worthless affection.

In the security booth at the factory entrance.

The old man was very satisfied with the young man. He not only lit two cigarettes for him, but also chatted with him.

First they talked about the labor dispute in a nearby factory, and then about the progress of the Jinggang explosion accident a few months ago.

They even talked a little about the Asian Men's Basketball Championship.

The old man had a strong desire to talk, and Jiang Yang just listened without interrupting.

Another reason is that I hear the voice of the system in my head:

[Under your care, Yang Chaoyue's acting skills have improved. You have received feedback, and your acting skills have increased by +1.]

Have you received the reward from the system?
The old man finally brought the topic back to Yang Chaoyue: "If you ask me, you should change your target. Yang Chaoyue really has no interest in falling in love."

"How did you figure that out?" Jiang Yang asked casually, thinking about the system rewards in his mind.

When did you cultivate Yang Chaoyue's acting skills?

It is clear that I have only trained Yang Chaoyue's lines, and that was only in terms of flat tongue and retroflex sounds.

Or is it that I don’t understand the system’s reward rules?
After thinking about it carefully, Jiang Yang had an idea.

It seems that Yang Chaoyue had understood his earlier reminder not to show off his wealth and put it into practice.

His learning ability is very poor, but his comprehension ability is not bad and his attitude is also good.

First verify your current acting skills and see to what extent they have improved.

"There was a fight between two young men with dyed blond hair at the factory next door. They both wanted to date her, but the girl worked on her sewing machine all night just to get 30 yuan in overtime pay. She didn't even notice the two blonds were fighting at the door and throwing bricks. I was the one who called the police."

The old man poured hot water into an enamel cup. The walls of the cup were covered with brown tea stains. The steam formed circles of light under the ceiling light, reflecting the yellow calluses between the old man's fingers caused by smoke.
"You are different from those two yellow-haired guys. You have good intentions. Those two yellow-haired guys just want to sleep with her, but you simply want to fall in love with her."

"How do you know that? Maybe I want to support Yang Chaoyue?" While speaking, Jiang Yang tried to get into the acting state.

The old man laughed out loud when he heard this: "At my age, it's not like I haven't seen rich men who deliberately support factory girls, but it's not like you. When they talk about the girls they want to support, their eyes are different..."

That’s what I just said.

The old man looked along the rim of the shaking enamel cup and saw a pair of eyes covered with steam.

The ceiling light cast a swaying spot of light on Jiang Yang's face.

Jiang Yang lowered his eyelids to cover his pupils, and when he slowly raised his eyes, his eyelids were half closed.

He loosened his tie with his fingers, and slowly stroked his lower lip with the tip of his tongue. His Adam's apple rolled up and down as he swallowed, like a snake spitting out its tongue.
"If you want to support a factory girl, you have to choose someone with a soft waist and a sweet voice, right? Yang Chaoyue fits the bill perfectly."

With a click, the cigarette ash between the old man's fingers fell on the duty roster.

His fingers, like dead branches, gripped the rim of the cup, his knuckles turning bluish-white.

The cloudy eyeballs reflected the completely different expression of the young man in front of him.

It was exactly the same as what he had seen before, when rich men talked about the girls they wanted to support.

His eyes were filled with lust, as if he was measuring the waist and hip curves of the female workers with a sticky gaze.

In a daze, the old man didn't even bother to open the plastic door of the security booth when it was knocked.

Just by looking at the old man's reaction, Jiang Yang knew that his acting skills worked.

Jiang Yang stood up, pushed open the plastic door, and saw Yang Chaoyue standing at the door in a pilling rose-red cotton jacket.

The faded snakeskin bag he was carrying was tied with a hemp rope, and his red, frozen hands were clutching the canvas bag strap.

The canvas corners were frayed and white, and the zipper was stuck with sewing thread.

Her cheeks were red from the high altitude, her breath was hazy under the light from the security booth, her hair was stained with cotton wool, and she smiled sweetly at Jiang Yang: "I'm ready, take me away."

(End of this chapter)