Chapter 8#
Qiming Manufacturing Plant#
Chen Ziqing felt a swarm of insects buzzing in his ears, making a clamor. He barely heard his own voice, which had changed its tune: “What did you say?”
“Can’t be bothered to talk nonsense with you.” Zong Huaitang was about to close the window, but Chen Ziqing quickly pressed down on the window frame. “You’re lying to me, right?”
Zong Huaitang intended to pry open the hand on the window frame and force the window shut. But when he looked up, he saw the person outside the window with wide, drooping eyes, looking as if he were teetering on the edge of collapse and deeply stricken. A teasing thought arose in his mind: “Yes, I’m lying to you. How idle am I, how perverted are my interests, to lie to a grown man like you so late at night just for fun.”
Chen Ziqing took a deep breath. Zong Huaitang wasn’t lying to him. He knew it; the second he heard it, he confirmed it for no reason.
He just didn’t dare to believe it now.
He had never thought about the original owner.
The target turned out to be the original owner.
In that case, his line of thought was correct, and things had indeed developed according to common sense. A and B were people on the second floor of Building 9, and “our corridor” really was that floor.
Chen Ziqing saw the dawn of victory; he would be able to leave this world soon. He grinned happily, but his smile suddenly froze.
Wait.
The previous incidents were done by the original owner, but what about tonight?
The original owner was dead.
And before he died, he suffered an unbearable fright. On the night of his death, someone had entered the dormitory.
Chen Ziqing’s breathing quickened. It seemed this mission required submitting two answers. He organized his words to respond to the person in the window: “Technician Zong, I’m sorry, I was just too surprised. You don’t know, actually I…”
He paused, his voice weak and tinged with a bit of melancholy: “After I hit my head and woke up, I lost some memories. I don’t remember some things.”
This would explain why he had to ask someone else about something he clearly did himself.
Chen Ziqing didn’t get a response after speaking. He noticed the other person’s gaze seemed to linger on his mouth. He subconsciously pursed his lips; they were a bit dry, so he stuck out his tongue and licked them.
“I haven’t told anyone else about this, not even the hospital knows. I only told you. Can you keep it a secret for me? I’m afraid if word gets out, the factory will send leaders to take me to a hospital out of town for a head scan. What about the workshop then? I’m not selfless, I can’t reach that lofty glory. I just want everyone to get more bonuses under my leadership every month so their families can live better… Technician Zong, are you listening to me, Technician Zong?”
Zong Huaitang finally withdrew his gaze: “Don’t remember?”
“Don’t remember.” Chen Ziqing lowered his voice. “I have no impression at all.” He touched the gauze on his head. “It should be intermittent amnesia. I’ve seen it in books. Whether it can be recovered depends on luck.”
Zong Huaitang raised an eyebrow. It was impossible to tell if he believed him or not.
“Technician Zong, do you know why I wanted to break the wires?” Chen Ziqing muttered to himself. “There must be a reason. I wouldn’t go pulling wires for no reason.”
Zong Huaitang looked at him leisurely.
Chen Ziqing blinked: “Do you want me to beg you again?”
Zong Huaitang found it inconceivable: “Xiang Ning, are you crazy?”
Chen Ziqing picked at the wood grain on the window frame one by one, stole a glance at him, and then lowered his head, expressing his thirst for the answer pitifully and stubbornly.
Zong Huaitang: “…” Why is he acting so affected?
Unable to watch any longer, he turned and lay down on the bed: “To scare people.”
The world went quiet.
Zong Huaitang thought he had sent the person away. Just as he lifted his waist to pull the quilt from under him, there was a “thud” next to him.
Chen Ziqing had climbed through the window. He threw himself to the bedside in a state of confusion and spoke before Zong Huaitang could angrily drive him away: “I pulled the wires to scare people?”
Zong Huaitang’s face turned cold: “Take your foot off my shoe!”
“Sorry, sorry.” Chen Ziqing immediately did as told and moved to the side. “Technician Zong, who was I trying to scare?”
Zong Huaitang lay on the edge of the bed to pat the dust off his shoes. After patting them, he aligned the two shoes. He looked up at the person standing very obediently and asked abruptly: “Master Xiang, what time is it now?”
Chen Ziqing was stunned: “I’m not wearing a watch. Right now, I estimate it’s about two in the morning.”
Zong Huaitang’s tone was gentle: “Still quite early, isn’t it, Master Xiang.”
Chen Ziqing gave a dry laugh: “Technician Zong, go to sleep, I’m leaving now.” He went out the same way he came in, thoughtfully closing the window for Zong Huaitang, not forgetting to drop a sentence, “I feel ashamed for entering your dormitory without asking for your opinion. I will write an extra apology letter and hand it to you along with the one I promised yesterday. Good night.”
Zong Huaitang sniffed disdainfully. Saying good night to people so casually, what’s wrong with him.
.
Chen Ziqing didn’t sleep when he went back. He crawled up in the morning with dark circles under his eyes, groggily squatted on the cement floor of the dormitory to brush his teeth, spat the mouthwash onto the toothpaste foam to dilute it, wet his hands to rub his face a few times, and went out.
Today, Chen Ziqing didn’t check the door lock as frantically as yesterday. He directly asked someone from the next dormitory to help lock the door, then left under the other person’s confused gaze. When going down the stairs, he missed a step. If a worker hadn’t pulled him in time, he would have fallen flat on his face.
“Thank you, comrade.”
Chen Ziqing thanked him and left. When he was almost at the first floor, he suddenly looked back. The stairs were empty.
Where was the person who pulled him just now?
Must have gone upstairs.
Chen Ziqing went to room 107 with a face full of sleepiness.
In the dormitory, Tang Xiaoguang stood in front of the washstand, applying face cream in the mirror and admiring himself. Hearing the knock on the door, he asked strangely: “Who is it?”
Chen Ziqing outside the door shouted: “Comrade Tang, it’s me.”
“So early.” Tang Xiaoguang muttered and continued to look in the mirror and wipe his face. Zong Huaitang’s voice sounded faintly from the room behind the curtain, “Looking for me.”
“No way?” Tang Xiaoguang went to open the door. “I think he’s here for me.”
He rubbed his hands and smiled sweetly: “Master Xiang, you came to find me. Are you going to take me to get familiar with the workshop production process today?”
Chen Ziqing said awkwardly: “Let other masters take you to get familiar with the workshop process. I have other things to do. I’m looking for Technician Zong.”
Before Tang Xiaoguang could react, footsteps came from behind, accompanied by two words: “Make way.”
Then the hand he was holding the door with was pushed aside.
Zong Huaitang walked out of the dormitory and stood at the door. He was holding a belt in his hand, his stubble unshaven, giving off a sense of sloppiness and dash. “Said he’s looking for me, what are you blindly joining in for?”
Tang Xiaoguang blushed, went back to the room to put on his jacket, and took his lunch box to get porridge.
Chen Ziqing watched Tang Xiaoguang disappear into the stream of people going to the cafeteria for breakfast. Looking at the pale morning light on the horizon, he said to Zong Huaitang: “Technician Zong, today I will read Mr. Guo Moruo’s literary works. I personally really like the… Achoo…” presented in his works.
“Achoo—Achoo—”
Chen Ziqing sneezed three times in a row, almost sneezing his brainstem out. He rolled down his sleeves and tucked his hands inside: “Why does it feel like the temperature is dropping? Technician Zong, do you feel it?”
“The temperature dropped. Will your left leg feel uncomfortable? You must remember to apply the medicinal wine I asked Comrade Tang to give you yesterday. Three times a day, rub it slowly until it’s warm.”
Zong Huaitang ignored him. He lowered his head to fasten his belt. Sensing a gaze drifting up and not leaving, he immediately got annoyed: “You have to stare even when I fasten a belt?”
Chen Ziqing felt wronged: “No, I was thinking about something.”
Zong Huaitang looked him up and down, from his messy hair to his yellow sneakers stained with toothpaste foam: “To figure out who you wanted to scare, did you make some Plan A or Plan B overnight?”
Chen Ziqing shook his head: “No plan. I always feel that sincerity is the ultimate principle.”
Zong Huaitang listened as if it were a joke: “Don’t make people laugh their teeth out. Do you know how many strokes are in the word ‘sincerity’?”
Chen Ziqing wrote in the air on the spot: “18 strokes.”
A face of innocent expression saying “How about it, did I count right?”
Zong Huaitang was inexplicably stunned for a while. He ruffled his thick, fluffy short hair, frowning tightly. Not awake yet, better go back to sleep.
.
Chen Ziqing didn’t even go for the check-up. He focused on Zong Huaitang for the next two days, sticking to him like a shadow.
Zong Huaitang walked with a female worker after work. Turning a corner and catching a glimpse of the head behind the rock, he was scared to death.
He lost all interest, said goodbye to the female worker, and turned back to find the stalker. The word “Scram” had already run a marathon in his mouth and was about to reach the finish line.
The stalker gave him a bag of fried dough twists (mahua).
Zong Huaitang ate the mahua and swallowed the word “Scram” along with it.
Seeing the situation wasn’t bad, Chen Ziqing whispered: “I want to figure out who suffered, so I can go talk to them and clear up the cause and effect, to avoid them having a knot in their heart and delaying work. Once you tell me, I won’t chase after you anymore.”
Then he added: “Not only will I not chase after you, but I will also repay you.”
“Is that so?” Zong Huaitang pulled a mahua out of the bag. “Then how will you repay me?”
He bit into the mahua and said slowly: “First, you can’t offer yourself in marriage. Second, you can’t make me promoted or rich. So I ask you, how will you repay me?”
Chen Ziqing was speechless.
Zong Huaitang glanced over. When not full of empty words, he was a bit more pleasing to the eye. He sat on the rock and said lightly: “The person you scared was Zhong Ming.”
Before the syllable of the last word was fully uttered, the person in front of him ran away without even saying hello.
Discarded after use.
Zong Huaitang crushed the mahua. He thought to himself, there won’t be a next time.
.
Zhong Ming was washing his bicycle by the canal. Many workers were also washing nearby. Large cargo ships moved at a snail’s pace with the waves, and wild ducks played among the lush reed leaves.
The sunset glow hit the water.
Zhong Ming turned the pedals in the water. Splashes flew everywhere, hitting his face and head. He wiped his face casually and heard a shout: “Master Zhong, Master Xiang is here, seems to be looking for you.”
Before Zhong Ming could lift the bicycle up, the person ran over to call him, hesitating and saying somewhat embarrassedly: “Zhong Ming, I just remembered that I did something wicked to you. I was confused, my mind wasn’t clear, I was possessed by a ghost and went astray.”
Zhong Ming’s expression changed as soon as he heard it.
Chen Ziqing adjusted his breathing. When Zong Huaitang relented and revealed the truth to him, the mission target came out: it was Xiang Ning and Zhong Ming. He originally wanted to submit it immediately, but the moment the system asked him to confirm, his heart skipped a beat. He thought it was better to be cautious and confirm it first.
So he came over.
“I remember I pulled the wires to scare you, but I don’t remember the process and the reason.” Chen Ziqing kicked the turf with his toe, looking ashamed.
“You secretly pulled the wires while I was using the toilet,” Zhong Ming said rigidly. “As for the reason, the deputy director position.”
Almost as soon as Zhong Ming finished speaking, that fragment of memory was added to Chen Ziqing’s mind, filling the gap.
The poetry the original owner read didn’t teach him that kind of knowledge, right? Where did he learn it? To naively think that pulling a wire could scare someone out of the factory, this was very inconsistent with his shrewdness and IQ.
One must know that in this period, the status of a worker was still a hot cake, and no one would easily give up this rice bowl.
Chen Ziqing turned his head and smiled at the curious workers looking over, then turned back to face Zhong Ming: “Didn’t I do it secretly? How did you know it was me?”
Zhong Ming picked the mud out of his fingernails: “I have ears and eyes.”
Chen Ziqing said to himself, he had them too. When he encountered the power outage, why didn’t he catch any clues?
“So you took revenge on me?” Chen Ziqing said bluntly.
Zhong Ming lifted the bicycle out of the water: “I won’t hold it against you.”
“You mean, you didn’t take it to heart?” Chen Ziqing said. “Then who else knows I scared you?”
Zhong Ming suddenly fell silent.
Chen Ziqing sensed something was wrong and pressed on step by step: “I have the right to know.”
The seat was wet. Zhong Ming didn’t even wipe it, straddled it with his sturdy legs, and sat on it. Amidst Chen Ziqing’s obstruction, he rode the bicycle away.
Chen Ziqing went to Zhong Ming’s dormitory to find him at night. The roommate told Chen Ziqing that Deputy Zhang had invited Zhong Ming to a big restaurant for dinner, along with other lower-to-middle-level leaders from the first workshop and the factory.
Chen Ziqing wasn’t invited to this gathering. He didn’t know; maybe Deputy Zhang thought it was inconvenient for him, a wounded person, to attend the dinner.
Chen Ziqing went to the main gate of the living area, chatting with comrades from the security section while waiting for Zhong Ming.
After nine o’clock, a group of people split into small groups of two or three, leisurely coming towards the gate. None of them rode bikes; they walked, and the sound of rustling conversation was mixed in the wind.
Chen Ziqing waved: “Master Zhong, back so late.”
Perhaps Zhong Ming saw his persistence, or maybe Zhong Ming didn’t want to get entangled with him on this matter, so he shouted to the back: “Sun the Second.”
Sun Chengzhi was bullshitting with someone at the end of the team. Although he lived at home, sometimes he didn’t want to go back and would find a nest in the staff building to squeeze in for a night, basically at Zhong Ming’s place. The senior and junior brothers were very close. Tonight, after eating, he followed the main group back to the factory directly.
“What’s up?” Sun Chengzhi bragged with a grimace, responding in his spare time.
Zhong Ming said: “Come here for a moment.”
“Wait a bit!” Sun Chengzhi’s foot was on the curb, bragging enthusiastically. “Almost done!”
Zhong Ming said to the person who only reached his chin: “Wait for Sun the Second to finish chatting.”
Chen Ziqing had many guesses during the waiting time. One of them was verified from Sun Chengzhi’s mouth not long after.
Sun Chengzhi shook his leg unscrupulously: “My senior brother is magnanimous and doesn’t hold grudges, but I can’t do that.”
Chen Ziqing had lingering fears. Fortunately, he didn’t submit the answer. He rubbed the back of his neck which was sweating a little cold sweat: “I deserve it for you using the same method to scare me, but how could you scare me in the mountains and make me fall? If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have broken my head.”
Sun Chengzhi’s eyes almost popped out: “I fucking ran to your dormitory the night you were discharged, planning to hide in the cabinet and come out in the middle of the night to pretend to be a ghost to scare you. Before I could implement it, my senior brother threw a paper ball wrapped around a stone from downstairs to hit the glass and called me away. I left in a hurry and shook the wire, scaring you by accident. What else is there? Why are you pouring shit on my head!”
Chen Ziqing’s mind went blank.
At this moment, a tall and thin figure inserted into the trio. Zong Huaitang stood blatantly beside Chen Ziqing to listen, holding a box of open matches in his hand, counting them for fun.
Zhong Ming glanced at Zong Huaitang: “Technician Zong, aren’t you going back to the dormitory?”
“I’m waiting for Master Xiang.” Zong Huaitang chuckled.
Zhong Ming stopped talking.
Chen Ziqing didn’t notice their exchange, staring straight at Sun Chengzhi: “Sun the Second, you didn’t take an eye for an eye and break the wires behind my back?”
Sun Chengzhi deliberately spat towards his feet: “Who is as childish as you!”
Chen Ziqing opened his mouth. A pile of things he wanted to say rushed out, crowding him into a headache. He followed the crowd in a trance.
Zong Huaitang leaned towards him and whispered in his ear: “Master Xiang, why can’t I understand?”
Chen Ziqing murmured: “Who doesn’t.”
Zong Huaitang watched helplessly as he walked into a tree, pulled him back, and looked at his hand in disbelief: “I really have a bodhisattva heart.”
.
Under the dormitory building, the small leaders of various workshops greeted each other and left.
Chen Ziqing subconsciously followed Zhong Ming. Sun Chengzhi couldn’t hold back and scolded him angrily: “It’s you, not finishing with once, but shamelessly doing it twice or three times to my senior brother. If he hadn’t stopped me, I would have reported you to the factory director long ago!”
“…” Chen Ziqing’s head hurt even more. “I only did it once.”
Sun Chengzhi pointed at him and called Zhong Ming: “Senior brother, did you see? I said a dog can’t change its habit of eating shit. You said he changed. This is called changed? No, I’m going to whip him…”
Zhong Ming restrained his second junior brother’s shoulder to prevent him from striking.
“Xiang Ning.” Zhong Ming scrutinized Chen Ziqing seriously. “In the few days after you were discharged, I encountered the same thing again. It wasn’t you?”
Chen Ziqing didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “You caught me when I wasn’t injured. Now that I’m injured and weak, can I be more agile? I can’t evolve.”
Zhong Ming’s face tightened, and Sun Chengzhi stopped cursing.
Xiang Ning made sense. But if it wasn’t him, then who did it the last few times?
“Fsshh”
Zong Huaitang struck a match.
The sound and light fermented the weird atmosphere, and all three people present looked over.
That small cluster of flames flickered in the evening breeze and went out in an instant.
Just then, someone in Dormitory Building 9 shouted at the top of their lungs: “The power is out in the corridor—”
All the light bulbs on the east side of the second-floor corridor went out.
What happened?
Chen Ziqing looked up high. One floor had two main lines, east and west. Now the west side was lit, and the east side was pitch black.
It was like dividing a corridor into two, cutting it in half.
A creepy feeling rose from the bottom of Chen Ziqing’s heart. He stuck closer to Zong Huaitang. Thinking that the other party was straight and it was inappropriate, he leaned towards Zhong Ming, then paused. This was also a straight man.
Forget it, better hug myself.