Work was hard to find.
I didn’t have much education and was pretty introverted, not suited for sales jobs. Relying on my youth, I started doing odd jobs. It was autumn, the season when all sorts of vegetables were off the market. Riding my electric bike, I found a boss named Lv in the shantytown area. She introduced me to the job, and these past few days, I’d been sorting green peppers.
The green peppers were huge and plump, crammed into nylon bags. Two or three female workers stood face-to-face along a long, wide wooden board, one end high and the other low, with a clean woven bag hanging from the lower end. A man would hoist up a bag of green peppers, snap the rope, and dump them out with a clatter, filling the board. I wore gloves to stop them from rolling right off, picking out the damaged or broken ones into another bag while letting the good ones roll into the woven bag.
Eighty-five yuan a day.
The air was thick with the rotten stench of green peppers, and the cement path was piled with their remnants. The rotten muck flowed into the damp puddles on either side. Cars came and went as people grabbed bags of peppers to load up, counting them out far from us workers. Boss Lv glanced our way, lit a cigarette and clamped it between her fingers, barking orders commandingly.
Before long, the sun climbed overhead. Worried the peppers would wilt before we did, the boss immediately urged us to work overtime. There was no shelter overhead for shade, so I kept my head down, and soon my nape was sprouting a row of heat bumps.
After enduring the day, when I got the transfer payment, I could barely straighten my back or lift my head. My stamina was truly too weak. The woman across from me was in her thirties, swinging her arms like she had four of them, a blur amid the pile of peppers. She even helped me out specially—whenever a new bag came from the truck and it was my turn, she’d lend a hand to open it.
They say some people just can’t handle hard labor—probably talking about folks like me. Boss Lv didn’t complain about me, though. When she transferred the money right in front of me, she asked, “First time out working?”
“Yeah.” I hung my head, a bit ashamed that despite my not-so-great family background, I was this useless, unable to carry or lift properly. It was like I’d just left school and gotten knocked flying to the sidelines by the first punch from real life.
“You’ll get used to it after doing it more. No worries.” She comforted me, patting my shoulder.
I resolved to change. That night, I applied some ointment, dug out my rattiest clothes and the sneakers I liked least, got up at six a.m. to run three kilometers—which I managed—and picked up an oversized school uniform from a street stall to wear as sun protection. The next day wasn’t much better, but the weather was kinder with some clouds, so my efficiency didn’t drop too much.
After a week, that batch of green peppers was all sorted, no more work left. On the last day, Boss Lv added an extra two jin of meat to the veggies—barely three or four slices per bowl. I’d always been skinny from being picky with fat and lean, my stomach like a bird’s, but exhaustion made food taste good. I wolfed down a bowl of veggies and two mantou, then leaned against the wall in the shade to rest.
Someone got bored and asked where I was from, so young—university student doing summer work? I said no, but couldn’t keep the chat going. I’m not good at small talk, so we each scrolled our phones.
The food in my stomach exceeded my usual capacity, giving me a surplus of energy. That was the only reason I didn’t faint dead away when I saw the WeChat message.
The food became my backbone, propping me up straight like a pillar as I stood there for a good while.
In the afternoon, we kept at it. My expression was wooden, the sun harsh and blazing. Normally, I’d be the first to whine and frown, but now I was blank-faced and numb, like the sun couldn’t touch me. No little red bumps popped up on my skin, and my ears didn’t peel. My lips cracked so bad the woman across saw and paused when handing over the next bag, pulling out her massive silver thermos: “Have some water.”
I drank, and she watched till I finished, not asking anything, just muttering, “Gotta drink more in this weather, or you’ll get heatstroke.”
I lowered my head, untied the nylon bag’s rope, heaved my waist up with a long exhale, paused, and hid my thanks in the gurgling pour of green peppers.
That afternoon’s workload was extra heavy. Boss Lv pushed to finish all the peppers on the last day. Later, in the rush, no one boiled more water. Thirsty folks just gnawed on a green pepper to suck the juice.
The women gossiped about where the peppers went, but no one had the real answer. Experienced Auntie Liu said the rotten ones went to pig farms, the good ones to big cafeterias. Inexperienced Zhao-jie said the rotten ones got picked over for the Grand Market, the good ones shipped to Beijing. Opinions flew, no consensus. We worked straight till past eight at night. The women got fed up, so Boss Lv offered everyone a hundred yuan for the last day, wrapping it up. A few still quit, saying they had to go home and cook for their sons, taking their eighty-five and leaving, which piled more work on the rest.
In the end, Auntie Liu took the lead, rallying the women to joke around with Boss Lv and bump everyone’s pay to one hundred twenty. That fired everyone up to load the last bag onto the truck.
Thanks to Auntie Liu’s initiative and the late hour, everyone clustered around her on their electric bikes, chatting idly as they rode off. I didn’t like that vibe, so I left five or six minutes later. Once they vanished at the intersection, I pushed my bike over.
Boss Lv suddenly said, “Study hard.”
No one around—the loaders were drinking inside. Stacks of plastic crates from the rotten peppers towered high. Under the eaves, a yellow bulb buzzed, frying moths. Boss Lv stood at the door smoking, pointed at me to show she meant me.
Boss Lv wasn’t local, spoke Mandarin. The women privately called her “kuangkuang”—a slur for out-of-towner. That line was in clumsy Neng County dialect. I got her meaning.
I snapped back, suddenly unsure why she’d say that to me.
Boss Lv laughed again, switching to Mandarin: “You’re still a college student, right? Lied about being twenty-seven… Study hard, get an office job. Don’t do this—look how tiring it is.”
I touched my sunburnt, feverish nape, rubbed it twice, no reply.
Boss Lv yanked the door open, yelled something in some dialect inside. A bit later, she reached in, took a white plastic bag, stuck her cigarette in her mouth, tilted her head, and grabbed a Harbin beer with her other hand.
The bag held mixed braised snacks—like everyone picked a chopstickful from their plates: braised rabbit head, duck feet, chicken feet, pork rind, tofu skin, pig head meat. Stuffed full, two or three fists’ worth, wrapped tight like a soccer ball.
“Take it and eat.” Boss Lv exhaled smoke, shoved the beer and bag into my bike basket, slapped my back hard—shoving me out.
“Thanks.” I could only nod. That WeChat message weighed too heavy for extra thoughts on this random kindness.
Zheng Chenggang was out of prison.
He’d gotten out early. Riding home, lost in thought, a minivan sideswiped me. The front plastic panel died a final death, stripped off and flung away, half its body dragged off, exposing wires inside.
I picked up my stuff, righted the bike. The van sped off—I didn’t even catch the plate.
Next January collapsed before my eyes. Dazed, I pushed the bike home.
I knew right then I couldn’t contact Gan Ling—my body language would spill countless secrets. It wasn’t time to tell her yet. For a split second, I even wanted to beat her to it and kill Zheng Chenggang, keeping him locked away in her sight forever. But I quickly realized it was just an emotional surge, impulse foaming up and vanishing.
I couldn’t see Gan Ling, but I wanted to.
Standing alone, Zheng Chenggang would turn into a dark cloud, hurling thunderous shocks to shatter me. He’d turn, look at me, ask, “Are you afraid of me?”
I was scared to death. Just thinking of him chilled me like winter.
I passed Shen Liu’s repair stall, cut through the noodle shop alley, skirted Old Red Flag, and stopped at Gan Ling’s door.
Then I turned away, rode off, pretending I hadn’t been there.
—
