When her mobile alarm went off for the third time, Su Ying had no choice but to crawl out of her warm bed, however reluctantly.
She had been dawdling under the covers for ages; she picked up her mobile, which was charging on the bedside table, and glanced at the time—it was already 7.18 am.
If she didn’t hurry up and get out of bed, and if she didn’t make it to the office first to open the doors, she’d be greeted by her colleagues lining the corridor with their sarcastic, snide remarks.
She sighed and resignedly crawled out of bed, but the moment she stepped out, the cold made her shiver all over; even the yawn she let out turned into a puff of white vapour.
Su Ying glanced at the air conditioner hanging on the opposite wall, looking more like a decoration than anything else, and silently resolved that once she had the money, she would run the air conditioning all night—no, all day—through the winter!
The first thing Su Ying did after getting up was not to go to the bathroom to wash up, but to walk through the living room—which was cluttered with a jumble of miscellaneous items—to open the fridge. She took out a mixed vegetable dumpling pack bought on a community group-buying platform for 50 cents off, an egg discounted by less than 50 cents, and a carton of milk nearing its expiry date for less than two yuan.
She placed the buns, egg and milk into a two-tier egg boiler, added water, pressed the switch, and immediately shivered her way back to her room.
Su Ying shared a three-bedroom flat with a mother and daughter. She rented the master bedroom, which had its own bathroom, offering plenty of privacy and sparing her the need to share a bathroom with her flatmates.
The mirror reflected a fair, delicate face: willow-shaped brows and almond-shaped eyes, the classic look of a demure young lady. Su Ying spat out the foam from her mouth and sighed, ‘Ah, what a hard life.’
But there was no time to dwell on her misfortune. She applied a quick, light make-up routine in three minutes, hurriedly grabbed the packed lunch she’d prepared the night before from the fridge, and stuffed the breakfast from the steamer into the large pocket of her padded coat before rushing out the door.
As soon as she stepped outside, she saw that one lift was stuck on the 16th floor and the other on the 24th. Su Ying cursed under her breath: those two beasts again.
She rented a flat in a resettlement block: two lifts serving eight households, with a total of 26 floors. During the morning rush hour, commuters and schoolchildren all jostled together, and waiting for the lift could drive one to the brink of madness. To make matters worse, there were always a few utterly selfish residents who would hold the lift button at their own floor, refusing to let it move on.
Fortunately, her flat wasn’t very high up—only the ninth floor—so she made a snap decision to take the stairs.
The stairwell was littered with scrap metal and cardboard boxes. She’d barely descended a few floors when, despite being extremely careful, she found herself stepping in either chicken droppings or the urine of some unknown creature.
She silently vowed to herself that once she had money, she would definitely rent a flat in a block with a proper management service!
Once she had money, once she had money, once she had money.
This thought reached its peak once she was back on her electric scooter.
Even though the scooter was fitted with a thick windscreen, even though she was wearing a full-face helmet, even though her neck was wrapped tightly in a scarf that claimed to be lambswool but was actually polyester, and even though she was riding as slowly as possible, a bone-chilling cold still seemed to surge at her from all directions.
Her wish list grew even longer.
For instance, a small four-wheeled electric car—even if it cost as little as thirty or forty thousand yuan, as long as it could shelter her from the wind and rain; or a proper, genuine down jacket to replace the shoddy cotton-padded coat she’d bought on Taobao for eighty yuan back in her university days.
When Su Ying arrived at the office, teeth chattering and shivering, Liu Ying from the sales department was already waiting at the entrance. She looked at Su Ying and said with a forced smile, “It’s good to be young—you get to sleep in.”
Su Ying could, of course, tell she was taking a dig at her for sleeping in. But work didn’t start until half past eight, and it was only just past eight now. She’d been nagging away, and when Su Ying offered her the keys to let herself in, she’d refused. Who was she to blame?
Su Ying merely cursed under her breath and meekly opened the door.
Su Ying worked as a receptionist at a renovation firm with fewer than twenty employees. Though called a receptionist, her role actually encompassed HR, administration, sales, client reception, and even cleaning.
Working hours were from 8.30 am to 6 pm, with a one-and-a-half-hour lunch break during which she was not allowed to leave the premises except to eat. She worked six days a week with one day off; as it was the service industry, there were no weekends, and she could choose either Monday or Friday as her day off. Public holidays were compensated with time off after the holiday, but—
That was merely the boss’s flowery rhetoric. She’d been working there for two and a half years and had never once had her public holidays compensated; it was all unpaid overtime.
As for triple pay, that was out of the question. After all, they didn’t even pay her social security contributions, let alone a housing fund.
So, with such long hours and such a wide range of duties, surely her salary must be high?
Nothing could be further from the truth. Her monthly salary is a fixed 2,600 yuan, with a 400-yuan full-attendance bonus. If she takes a single day off, 100 yuan is deducted from her pay, and the full-attendance bonus is forfeited.
What a rip-off!
Although Su Ying had already cursed the boss’s entire family a thousand times over in her mind, she still resigned herself to the situation and turned up for work diligently, never missing a single day.
Because jobs in Chuncheng are simply too hard to come by!
Especially for someone like her, with a college diploma in a useless arts subject like Human Resources Management.
This certainly wasn’t her first job. She’d once thought that, having at least attended college, she was better off than those who’d finished secondary school and gone straight into a factory to turn screws.
However, the reality was that her first job after graduation was as a receptionist at a pre-school. Not only was she responsible for welcoming visitors, but she also had to handle sales, communicate with parents, and even wipe children’s bottoms—literally wipe their bottoms. The pay was a paltry 2,000 yuan, and she lasted less than half a morning; after wiping two children’s bottoms, she bolted immediately.
Her second job was advertised on a recruitment app as an HR role at a live-streaming company. But as soon as she arrived, they told her the HR team was already full and suggested she try being a streamer because she was young and pretty. She listened to their sky-high promises—about only having to stream for three hours a day and easily earning over ten thousand a month—and turned on her heel and ran.
The third job…
The fourth job…
…
So when she landed this job, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The pay was passable, and the company seemed somewhat legitimate. No social insurance? So be it. After all, apart from the boss and his girlfriend, no one else in the company had it either.
Most ordinary working-class people like her in Chuncheng didn’t have social insurance either.
Thinking of it that way, she felt a great deal better.
Speaking of the boss’s girlfriend, Luo Xin, Su Ying was utterly envious.
Luo Xin was a bona fide ‘rich, beautiful, and privileged’ young woman in the city. Her father worked in construction, her mother was a pampered housewife, and they lived in a 300-square-metre penthouse in the city centre—a single-unit flat with a private lift—complete with a live-in maid, and they also owned a large villa in the suburbs.
Luo Xin herself drove a red BMW Mini, carried a Louis Vuitton handbag, and her social media feed was filled with photos of her and her girlfriends checking in at trendy restaurants or travelling all over the place. Whether it was Zhi City’s barbecue or Tian City’s spicy hotpot, she would head to any place that was currently all the rage to check it out and have a bit of fun in the surrounding area.
She had the time, the energy and the money.
Su Ying could only scroll through her feed with envy, hoping to be born into a better family in her next life.
She lamented her own tragic past—her father’s affair and remarriage when she was young, her mother’s departure to a distant land, and her university days funded entirely by student loans and part-time work—but she soon pulled herself together.
After all, she was the kind of go-getter who’d paid off 48,000 yuan in student loans just two and a half years after graduating!
She stood up straight with pride and surveyed her workplace, where she’d been working for two and a half years.
She’d finally paid off the last instalment last month, so from now on, she could finally use her earnings to buy a few things she fancied.
The very first thing she’d do as soon as last month’s wages came in was to replace this padded jacket she was wearing!
Just thinking about it filled her with anticipation for the future.
This cheerful mood lasted until just before the end of the working day, when her boss called a meeting.
Su Ying was used to this by now. Those evil capitalists had greed running through every pore; they never held meetings during working hours, but instead took up the workers’ already pitifully scarce free time after work.
Su Ying sent a message to the contact at the top of her WeChat list, labelled ‘Senior Brother’:
[Senior Brother, I’m working late tonight. It’s probably to discuss the New Year’s Eve event, so don’t wait up for me.]
He replied with a cute ‘OK’ sticker.
Su Ying frantically typed in the chat window: I’m so jealous of you, Senior. You’ve probably already had dinner at the office and are back home, comfortably playing games by now.
But she immediately deleted the words one by one and closed the chat window.
Someone who spends all day saying how envious they are of this and that is bound to get on people’s nerves.
She didn’t want to annoy Senior.
Su Ying sighed and went from department to department, informing everyone not to leave after work as the boss wanted to hold a meeting. Naturally, as expected, she was met with curses and dirty looks from her colleagues.
Su Ying rolled her eyes inwardly. It was the boss who wanted the meeting; if they had the guts, they should take it up with him. What good was it to take it out on her? A bunch of pushovers who were all talk and no action.
Su Ying’s hunch was spot on. The meeting was to prepare for the upcoming New Year’s Day sales campaign. The boss had made the department managers sign a pledge, demanding they aim for three million in sales, and had effectively cancelled the New Year’s Day holiday.
Su Ying knew that not only would there be no New Year’s Day holiday, but she wouldn’t get a single day off until the Spring Festival break.
By the time the meeting ended, it was already past seven in the evening, but Su Ying couldn’t leave just yet. She still had to tidy up; by the time she’d finished—even if it was just a quick sweep—it was nearly eight o’clock when she finally locked up.
She was just about to ride her electric scooter home when she suddenly remembered that at this hour, the fresh produce section of the Jiajia Mei supermarket on the basement level of Wanda Plaza would likely be offering discounts, so she swiftly turned around and headed straight for Wanda.
As soon as she arrived at the supermarket, she heard the in-store PA system playing a DJ’s set, and the staff in the fruit, vegetable and fresh produce sections were all shouting, ‘Discounts! Discounts!’
She had intended to head straight for the fresh produce section, but as she passed the vegetable area, she stopped in her tracks when she heard a sales assistant shouting, ‘Vegetable mystery boxes for one yuan! Vegetable mystery boxes for one yuan!’
These so-called ‘one-yuan mystery bags’ consisted of the staff grabbing a random assortment of leftover, less-than-fresh vegetables and popping them into a bag. Su Ying picked up two bags that looked decent enough; she could make some spicy hotpot with them when she got home.
There was very little meat left in the fresh produce section, but Su Ying still managed to pick up a piece of second-rate pork belly at half price, which she could use to make braised pork once the holidays began.
After paying and stepping outside, she spotted a banner at the lottery kiosk by the supermarket exit proclaiming, ‘This outlet has won a 300,000 yuan jackpot’.
She couldn’t quite recall where she’d heard it, but apparently, life follows a sort of law of conservation of energy: if things keep going badly, perhaps a huge surprise is waiting just around the corner.
That’s why Su Ying always bought a lottery ticket whenever she felt unlucky. Of course, so far, she hadn’t even won a 10-yuan consolation prize; she simply treated it as a contribution to the nation’s welfare cause.
Without a second thought, Su Ying walked over to the two-yuan machine and bought a ticket.
If she won, even if it was just the 300,000-yuan prize, she could take a break and stop working this rotten job that paid a mere 3,000 yuan a month and left her feeling constantly put down.