Chapter 137: Renting A House
After the three of them left Haozi’s place, the boy led the two of them wandering around, looking for jobs online every day. They stayed in inns at night, some places costing only tens of yuan for a room, some places being extremely remote and requiring climbing six or seven floors, costing eighty to ninety yuan a night.
The boy supported his girlfriend and brother. He was actually very upset, but afraid they would also get upset. No matter where they went each day, their dinner was always at a restaurant, where he would order a few dishes and drink alcohol.
Actually, he was also numbing his troubles in this way. He had no idea how much money he was spending.
He went back and forth to various districts in Changzhou, wandering for half a month. Everything he saw online was about factories.
Finally, in front of an intermediary’s shop, dozens of people gathered, handed over their ID cards to be sent to some factory. After a long period of thought, the boy asked for his ID card back. But he didn’t leave; instead, he used his eloquent persuasion to communicate with others.
Most people said it was their first time here and they didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, three girls said they had just been there yesterday and it wasn’t good, and today they were getting their ID cards back and leaving. The boy added several WeChat contacts, and also added these three girls.
That night at the inn, the boy chatted with these three girls. One of them had an excellent personality. The boy learned from her that a factory she had worked at previously had very good treatment, and he got the contact information for the intermediary she had used.
He contacted that intermediary, who sent him a location.
The next day, the boy, along with his girlfriend and Gouzi, took the subway towards that location.
As they got off the subway, a girl at the subway entrance was handing out flyers for a ride-hailing app. The boy chatted with her for a while, and they were giggling and laughing so much that it made his girlfriend feel suspicious and a bit unhappy. But the boy later talked to her about it.
Because the boy was a little different now. When he interacted with people, he was mostly acquiring information. He would communicate, converse, and chat casually, seemingly just talking, but he was actually obtaining the things he wanted to know.
For example, with this girl promoting the ride-hailing app, the boy only talked to her for a short while and learned that she used to work in a factory, but later disliked being managed and started doing this. She rented a room near the subway station for five hundred yuan a month, and then applied for this job at the company. She decided her own work hours, starting and finishing whenever she pleased. On good days, she could earn three to five hundred, or even seven to eight hundred yuan, and on bad days, two to three hundred. Those who worked in this field had similar employee numbers. When someone used the app to book a ride for the first time, they would earn about twenty yuan. How much one earned depended on their individual ability. The boy acquired all this information, added the girl on WeChat, and also gave her a heads-up, saying he would ask her for help if he didn’t understand anything.
The boy’s first time using this app was incredibly cheap. He rode for a long time and only spent a little over one yuan. Er Bai, this was unbelievably cheap.
Upon arrival, he met the intermediary at the factory entrance. The intermediary was also very talkative and chatted happily with the boy.
After the three of them entered the factory, they stayed within its premises. The boy was always worried if his girlfriend would get used to staying in the dormitory. His girlfriend said it was fine, as she had stayed in dormitories when she was in school.
When they started working, Gouzi and the boy were fine. His girlfriend was young, only nineteen, and hadn’t experienced much. For the first two days, she was quite happy, but afterwards, she was always being criticized. Then she started faking illnesses, one day a headache, the next day leg pain, which really troubled the boy. Whenever the boy suggested taking time off to see a doctor, his girlfriend would say it wasn’t necessary.
What illness? Laziness. As soon as she got home, she felt better by sleeping. As soon as she started work, she felt unwell. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t feel unwell at work? Moreover, everyone, when they first start working or change jobs, feels uncomfortable for the first week to half a month; they have aches and pains. Even after working for a long time, this is all normal.
Many people think this is some kind of trial by immortals, or that they can’t continue working because the immortals are testing them. Nonsense! Those are words spoken by fools. Everyone is like this. If you don’t call it laziness, and you can’t endure a little hardship, you blame it on this trial or that trial. Does this immortal have the leisure to test you and prevent you from working? They are just full of idle, baseless fantasies.
Only after being deceived and losing money do they wake up. Some never wake up; after being scammed, they continue to believe and then act all mysterious, helping people solve problems, and indeed, some of them actually do get better. It’s just fools deceiving fools. If they understand, they are helped; if they don’t understand, it doesn’t work. It’s all about human hearts comforting human hearts.
If you weren’t living in Huaxia, and were thrown abroad, forget about these spirits and immortals healing you. Even if a follower of Brother Jesus came and read the Bible to you, if you believed it, you would get better. This trivial matter is treated as if it were something grand.
Some people say that if you heal a child, the child doesn’t understand anything, so how do they get better? If you believe, your magnetic field changes, and your changing magnetic field naturally influences the child’s magnetic field to change as well. People like that are incredibly foolish.
They don’t understand anything and just repeat what they hear. They lack culture and don’t want to learn, believing whatever people tell them. If you can stabilize your own mind, you don’t need any mantras or incantations; it’s something that can be resolved by just muttering a few words, but they have to bring up all sorts of other things.
It took the boy and his girlfriend nearly half a month for her to start working properly. Many times, the boy didn’t want to deal with her anymore, but she was so young and had come out with him, so he couldn’t bear to abandon her. He couldn’t bring himself to be the kind of scumbag who would bring someone out and then abandon them.
He supported the two of them for a long time, and his girlfriend would cause trouble from time to time. The pressure on the boy was immense, making him so stressed that he would wake up with blood in his mouth every morning.
Finally, they managed to get through it, and they were both working and earning money. But it was still the same; his girlfriend would pester him to go out and play whenever she felt like it, leaving the boy physically and mentally exhausted.
To support the two of them, he incurred a lot of debt. He borrowed five thousand yuan initially, but paying it back little by little each month wasn’t simple. Sometimes, when they didn’t have enough to spend, he had to borrow more.
A friend, worried that he wouldn’t have enough money with him while he was away, called him unsolicited and transferred him several thousand yuan. He would remember this kindness for a lifetime.
They had been staying in the dormitory for exactly one month. His girlfriend didn’t want to live in the factory anymore and went out to look for a place. The boy found a two-story house. The first floor was a garage, and the second floor had a separate apartment. It was newly renovated, with a new water heater, air conditioner, and range hood. It was a one-bedroom, one-living room, one-kitchen, one-bathroom unit. However, the price was a bit high, with the rent alone costing eight hundred yuan per month.
There were cheaper options, but they were very dilapidated, dirty, and full of insects. There were also some around six hundred yuan that were newly renovated, but they were on the fourth floor, and the neighbors were separated by just a wall.
The boy liked to sing and didn’t want to disturb others, nor did he want his girlfriend to suffer any hardships. Gritting his teeth, he rented the most expensive one. It required a two-month deposit and one month’s rent upfront.
At the end of each month, he paid the rent for the following month and the utilities for the current month.
At the time, his girlfriend thought it was very simple, believing that renting the apartment was all that was needed. The boy said it would require a lot more money, but she didn’t believe him.
The boy took her to buy all sorts of daily necessities, as well as kitchenware and various seasonings, spending over a thousand yuan inside and out. Later, he also bought a small refrigerator. His girlfriend always washed clothes by hand, and the boy, fearing she would be tired, found a fully automatic washing machine for four hundred yuan from a second-hand appliance store. He washed it several times before they used it.
His girlfriend was young and very stubborn. At first, she didn’t want to use the washing machine; in reality, she didn’t know how and was too embarrassed to say so. Later, she found hand-washing too troublesome. The boy taught her how to use it, and then she learned. In fact, the boy had just learned himself; who would bother studying such things?
The boy did all the cooking because he knew how to cook many dishes, while his girlfriend knew nothing. The boy didn’t let her touch the kitchen knife either, fearing she might injure herself.
When the boy first started using a knife, he had cut himself many times. He knew that one could easily get injured if not careful. He kept the knife dull and didn’t sharpen it, only letting his girlfriend use it occasionally. Because a dull knife was less likely to cause injury, a scratch or bump wouldn’t be a big deal.
However, it was awkward for the boy to use. Some things were difficult to cut, but he got used to it after a while, as he was no ordinary warrior.
Things gradually got better. Although the pressure was still immense, it was certainly much better than in the initial stage after they came out.
