Chapter 3#
Qiming Manufacturing Plant#
Back in the hospital, Chen Ziqing carefully recalled Zong Huaitang’s expression at the time—casual yet composed.
The embrace between two men held no ambiguous undertones; Zong Huaitang simply had the posture of someone lending a supporting hand.
It was just that this body had a slender waist, and Zong Huaitang had large hands. When he supported him, his fingertips hooked around, turning the support into an embrace.
Being gay himself, he was just being overly sensitive.
After Chen Ziqing finished his mental construction, another person appeared in the ward, wearing a striped hospital gown. He had red lips and a pale face, the only person with fair skin he had seen so far.
“Master Xiang, I’ve come to see you.”
The voice was soft and sticky.
Chen Ziqing leaned against the headboard: “Comrade Tang, that’s very thoughtful of you.”
Tang Xiaoguang could walk, move, and run. His benefactor was in the same hospital, living on the first floor, yet he only showed up now, taking his sweet time.
Hearing the other party say this, he didn’t feel awkward either.
Pouting, Tang Xiaoguang placed the tin can he was holding and a basket of apples on the bedside table: “For you.”
These were all things others had bought when visiting him; he was tired of eating them and didn’t want them anymore.
Chen Ziqing eyed the tin can. So this was the legendary malted milk extract. He was momentarily dazed.
Tang Xiaoguang took out a stack of brand new 10-yuan bills from his pocket, counted ten, and handed them to Chen Ziqing: “Keep this one hundred, buy some nutritional supplements.”
Chen Ziqing spoke righteously: “Comrade Tang, I’ll accept the food, but I absolutely cannot take the money…”
Tang Xiaoguang interrupted him: “Just take it, I don’t want to owe anyone favors.”
Chen Ziqing’s eyelids drooped slightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the money. He hadn’t seen this kind of RMB before; there were so many people printed on it.
“Since Comrade Tang puts it that way, I will accept it,” Chen Ziqing said thoughtfully. “I’ll hand it over to the labor union to use as prize money for the next collective activity.”
Tang Xiaoguang gave a thumbs up: “Master Xiang’s lofty realm commands my admiration.”
“Not at all, not at all.” Chen Ziqing seemed to handle it with ease, but his palms were sweating. Although he could disregard the original owner’s style of doing things, he couldn’t change too much, otherwise he might face the risk of being fed incense ash water to exorcise evil spirits.
“You’re too modest.” Tang Xiaoguang finished his perfunctory remarks and said, “Master Xiang, do you know about the sick leave the factory arranged for you?”
Chen Ziqing gave a hum of acknowledgement.
“Originally, the factory only arranged ten days for you. It was because I asked Section Chief Li to plead on your behalf that you got such a long time, and it’s paid leave too… At first, Section Chief Li didn’t agree with my opinion, but I didn’t give up, I insisted on fighting for you…” Tang Xiaoguang had a few scratches from branches and abrasions on his face, and a scabbed cut on his left ear. He spoke vividly and colorfully, so lively that one couldn’t help but focus on listening.
Chen Ziqing used the tin can to weigh down the money, his head turned toward that direction, wondering what he was thinking, seemingly not listening to Tang Xiaoguang.
Tang Xiaoguang noticed, but he took it as a form of disguise.
This Xiang Ning usually asked after his well-being, was particularly concerned about his emotions, and when asking about his feelings on coming to the manufacturing plant and inconveniences in life, for every sentence he said, the other party would write a sentence in a notebook. He was incredibly attentive.
He wasn’t a girl; Xiang Ning couldn’t be trying so hard just to take advantage of him and date him.
So he must have found out about his family background from somewhere and wanted to curry favor with him.
Today, the opportunity finally arrived, and he would definitely use it.
So he waited for Xiang Ning to lose his patience and reveal his hypocritical little tail.
What would be the first step to strike while the iron is hot and get closer to him? Discussing poetry?
Tang Xiaoguang was a mechanical and electrical major; he didn’t know about poetry. Later, he would just wait for the other party to finish reciting and then clap his hands.
Wasn’t that what he wanted?
“Comrade Tang, is there anything else? If not, I’m going to rest.”
Tang Xiaoguang’s confidence took a heavy blow. His face was full of disbelief. Was he chasing him away?
It must be playing hard to get. He had read The Art of War thoroughly; he couldn’t be wrong.
Hmph, let’s see how he continues!
Tang Xiaoguang walked to the door with feigned affectation: “Then I’m leaving, you rest.”
Unexpectedly, the person on the hospital bed suddenly called out to him: “Comrade Tang.”
Tang Xiaoguang revealed an “I knew it” expression. He turned his head back disdainfully, and halfway through the turn, he heard a sentence.
“Please close the door behind you.”
“…” Tang Xiaoguang was mortified. He stomped heavily on the concrete floor as he left. In the evening, when he went downstairs for a stroll and pretended to pass by room 103, he found that a worker’s family member had moved in, and the quilt on Xiang Ning’s bed was folded.
Where was the person? Where did he go? He couldn’t be dead, could he? Tang Xiaoguang ran quickly to find the doctor.
The doctor said the patient’s indicators met the discharge standards, and since he was very eager to return to the factory, he was allowed to go back to recuperate and come back for a check-up in two days.
Tang Xiaoguang was in a trance. Is he a monster…
Head broken and bleeding during the day, discharged at night—what is he if not a monster?
.
Chen Ziqing stood in the corridor of the staff dormitory and sneezed. He bit into the apple Tang Xiaoguang gave him, forcefully biting off a large chunk, puffing out his cheeks as he chewed slowly.
He didn’t know if there was a filter, but the apples in this period were sweeter than any he had eaten, and the color was beautiful too.
Before finishing one piece, Chen Ziqing took another bite. Sweet juice flowed from the crisp flesh. A drop was about to escape from the corner of his mouth, but he promptly licked it into his stomach, leaning out to look down at the people and scenery under the setting sun.
The people were workers chatting and laughing in the yard after dinner; the scenery was the living quarters of the manufacturing plant.
This was the south side of the factory. Dormitory buildings were stuck one to another, surrounding the yard. There were dozens of them, all two-story buildings made of red brick, with red window frames and door sills.
There was a large water tower in the yard. Several female workers sat on long wooden benches nearby, crocheting clothes, with pattern charts resting on their laps.
Chen Ziqing craned his neck to look left and right. Qiming Manufacturing Plant was built on the edge of Ling County, with a canal behind it and large patches of farmland on both sides. As far as the eye could see, it was full of spring vitality.
The production area and office area were in the mountains in front, separated from the living area by a wide road.
From his current position, Chen Ziqing could see some workshop roofs hidden in the lush trees. When he had looked enough, he reached out to flick the leaves in front of him. This tree was taller than the dormitory building, its branches reaching the roof.
A burst of noise drifted to Chen Ziqing’s ears from a distance. He followed the sound to find its source.
On the tree-lined fork in the road, Zong Huaitang was giving a female worker a ride on a bicycle, lowering his head to say something to her, at a distance ambiguous enough to be flirting.
A circle of onlookers surrounded them.
Chen Ziqing was nearsighted and had astigmatism, but this body’s eyesight was surprisingly good. Standing in the corridor, he could take in the teasing smile on Zong Huaitang’s face.
Zong Huaitang had changed out of his light gray shirt. He was wearing a white shirt, and the feeling was different from when he shed his disguise in the office. The real him was loose and at ease.
A handsome crippled man and a beautiful woman—wonder if a love story will unfold. Chen Ziqing wasn’t interested. He ate the apple down to the stem and a few small seeds, then turned and went back to the dormitory holding it.
.
Workers whose homes were nearby didn’t live in the factory, so staff buildings weren’t in short supply. There were multi-person rooms, single rooms, and double rooms. Married couples and lower-to-middle-level leaders had double rooms.
After the original owner became a team leader, he moved from a multi-person room to a double room. The dormitory didn’t have bunk beds, nor two beds side by side or opposite each other. A brick wall was built to divide the dormitory in two, with an opening left by the wall covered by a curtain. One person lived in the inner half, and one in the outer half.
The person living inside had to go through the outer door to enter and exit.
Zhong Ming lived inside, and the original owner lived outside.
Chen Ziqing only found out that Zhong Ming had moved out today after returning from the hospital.
Workers could write an application to report what kind of dormitory they wanted to live in, and the review time was about two weeks.
It seemed Zhong Ming had long been unwilling to live with the original owner.
Chen Ziqing lifted the curtain to observe the room Zhong Ming had lived in. There was only a bed, a cabinet, a table, and a chair; everything else was gone. He let down the curtain and looked around the original owner’s room.
The furniture was all solid wood, the area wasn’t small, and the style was warm and had a very homely feel. Many university dormitory conditions he saw online weren’t this good.
The downside was no water heater and no private bathroom; there was only one toilet per floor.
“Brother.” Ma Qiangqiang ran in from outside wrapped in a layer of cool evening breeze. “Zhong Gu is chatting with Accountant Zhang, she’ll be a bit late.”
Chen Ziqing picked up a few work clothes draped over the end of the bed to check them. Seeing they were washed, he put them on the bed and folded them one by one: “Hasn’t she gone home yet?”
“Not yet.” Ma Qiangqiang wiped his forehead. “She said she’d come see you before leaving.”
Hearing him panting heavily, Chen Ziqing asked casually, “Where did you come from? Why are you sweating so much?”
Ma Qiangqiang hemmed and hawed: “No, no, didn’t go anywhere. I, I was just running in the factory.”
Can’t lie, full of holes.
Chen Ziqing didn’t pursue it. This probably had nothing to do with the mission. Ma Qiangqiang didn’t look like someone who would sneak around damaging electrical wires.
“Let me do it, I’ll fold them for you.” Ma Qiangqiang wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and went over to help him fold clothes.
Chen Ziqing started to probe for clues: “Little Ma, have you heard anyone suspecting who pulled the wires apart?”
Ma Qiangqiang was blank: “What wires?”
Chen Ziqing said: “Isn’t there someone who always breaks the corridor wires?”
Ma Qiangqiang blinked: “No.”
Chen Ziqing: “…”
Ma Qiangqiang thought of something and suddenly got anxious, unable to fold the clothes properly: “Brother, maybe you should go back to the hospital? The head is very fragile. Bleeding so much from the back of the head usually… I heard people say you look fine now, but in two days you’ll become a fool and won’t recognize anyone… Your memory is already messed up, I’ll carry you back right now…”
Chen Ziqing’s face looked bad: “Stop talking for a moment.”
Ma Qiangqiang obediently shut his mouth tight.
Chen Ziqing bit his fingernails. Ma Qiangqiang was silly and unreliable. Wait for Zhong Gu to come and ask her; her range of activities in the factory was wide, visiting various departments, so she knew a lot.
Unexpectedly, Zhong Gu gave the same answer.
Never even heard of it.
Chen Ziqing realized the situation was not good.
There was no information related to the wires being broken in the original owner’s memory. He thought it was a block on the host…
Turns out there isn’t any at all?
Chen Ziqing lowered his eyes to look at his unevenly bitten fingernails. Could this matter be known only to A and B on the mission board? They said they wanted to catch the person, so why hide it?
Moreover, if the corridor wires were broken, wouldn’t there be a power outage? It’s impossible for others not to notice.
The only explanation that makes sense is that after breaking the wires each time, that person connected them again.
This contradictory and bizarre direction…
The back of Chen Ziqing’s head throbbed with pain. A and B didn’t reveal which building it was, and the workers weren’t discussing it, so wouldn’t he be unable to determine even the building and floor? He was completely in the dark. He had thought the mission was simple; sure enough, pies don’t fall from the sky.
He suddenly stole a glance at the void. The system wouldn’t be monitoring, right?
“I don’t mean to complain even a little bit. I’m very grateful for this opportunity,” Chen Ziqing said with utmost sincerity in his heart. “I will overcome difficulties with a grateful heart.”
Regardless of the filling, it’s still a pie.
.
Chen Ziqing sent Zhong Gu and Ma Qiangqiang away with an irritable heart. He went out for a walk.
The original owner’s cause of death involved the mission. He lived in Building 9. According to common sense, the “our corridor” mentioned by A and B should be this building, this floor.
As for the possibilities that don’t follow common sense, there are too many, so ignore them for now.
Chen Ziqing looked left and right. Like in the dormitory, loose electrical wires intertwined on the walls on both sides of the corridor, drooping like vines. He inspected along the wires bit by bit.
Most of these wires were old, with red, blue, and yellow ones connected together. Some places were already cracked, exposing the copper wire inside. Since it didn’t affect usage, no one bothered with it.
At the junctions of some lines, the connections were wrapped with black tape.
Chen Ziqing learned through the original owner that the main switches for all staff dormitory corridors were in the electrical room, turned on uniformly at dark and turned off uniformly at dawn. He used his hand to brush away a spiderweb hanging on the wire suspended above, and a few wisps of dust drifted down.
This is the main line.
Hanging below it section by section are the branch lines, corresponding to individual small light bulbs.
The main line and branch lines are like a big tree and its branches.
If a branch line connection is broken, the light bulb in that area won’t light up.
Chen Ziqing stopped at the doors of all the dormitories on the second floor for a while. The connections he saw were all intact, with no traces of being vandalized.
No discoveries whatsoever.
Chen Ziqing glanced at the sky. Before he could take a step back, shouting came from a nearby dormitory. He didn’t want to get involved, but just then the door opened and a worker came out. Seeing him, the worker looked quite panicked, so he had to go in.
“What are you doing?”
Three or five workers hurriedly hid something: “We weren’t doing anything. It’s just the Technical Department playing ping pong against the Workshop. It’s for real this time, we were discussing who would win.”
Chen Ziqing pretended not to notice the playing cards under their buttocks: “Just discussing? No betting wages on either side?”
“No, no.”
“The Technical Department’s main player is Technician Zong, and the Workshop’s main player is Master Zhong. We feel the Technical Department will win by a narrow margin.”
“Team Leader, what’s your opinion?”
Chen Ziqing said: “The Workshop wins. The Workshop has Master Zhong; he looks very formidable.”
“What about the Technical Department?”
“No good.”
When Chen Ziqing stepped out of the dormitory, he muttered in a low voice: “Technician Zong has no technique.”
This was the original owner’s conclusion. Zong Huaitang played everything casually in the entertainment venues and still won in the end because everyone gave him face for the sake of his factory director brother; he had no skill.
Chen Ziqing’s opinion was passed to the ping pong court, including his mutter.
Zong Huaitang gave an imperceptible sneer and threw the ping pong paddle onto the stone-paved table: “Call him over.”
Everyone tried to smooth things over, and even Zhong Ming said a sentence, although he hadn’t yet recovered from the shock of Xiang Ning praising him.
“Master Xiang still has an injury on his head. He can’t walk such a long way; he was carried back by Little Ma.”
“It’s getting late, let him rest.”
“Yes, yes, if there’s anything to say, better to say it tomorrow.”
“No. He devastated my spirit and my will. I won’t sleep well tonight, tomorrow night, or even for the next month. This will affect my work efficiency, and my mistakes might cause losses to the workshop and the factory. For such a serious problem, he must apologize to me.” Zong Huaitang looked as if he had suffered endless grievances. He sat on the edge of the table, one long leg bent, his shoe kicking the brick table leg, and pointed at a person. “You go pass the message.”
That worker ran back and forth, bringing the words heard from the dormitory to Zong Huaitang: “Master Xiang said three words: I am sorry.”
Zong Huaitang was stunned. Just like that? So boring. It felt like his appetite had been whetted only to be deliberately ignored.
“Ask him if he wants to make a bet,” Zong Huaitang tapped the edge of the table with the paddle, tap, tap. “If I win, he barks like a puppy.”
The worker ran another trip and relayed the message exactly as it was: “Master Xiang said he doesn’t know how to bark like a puppy.”
“What’s there not to know? Isn’t it just…”
Zong Huaitang suddenly covered his mouth and bent his back, his temples throbbing. I almost fell for such a trick?
Is he playing with me?