Chapter 51: Qipao
It was another Friday, and Subway Line 3 in Cuizhu City was more frighteningly crowded than any other day of the week. Xin Junmao finally squeezed himself onto the subway, almost leaving his shoulder bag outside the subway during the process. Fortunately, he managed to forcefully pull the shoulder bag back from the door crack just before the subway started moving.
Xin Junmao breathed a sigh of relief, standing in the middle of the crowded crowd, carefully protecting his shoulder bag.
Although Cuizhu City is a first-tier city with strong public security, thieves and perverts are basically very rare, but it’s always better to be cautious.
Standing among the crowded crowd, Xin Junmao relaxed his feet. With the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd pressing tightly against him, he didn’t need to exert effort to stand steady and wasn’t afraid of falling.
He still had to take the subway for another hour and a half, then transfer to a half-hour bus ride to get home. It was rush hour now, so he might not find a seat. Since he might have to stand the whole time, he needed to conserve some energy.
Watching the subway travel through the underground tunnel, everything outside was a blur, and Xin Junmao’s attention seemed to fly away with the high speed, gradually losing focus as he began to daydream.
Today’s interview had failed again. This was probably the thirty-third company or organization he had interviewed with since graduating. Although he didn’t get an explicit rejection from the interviewer, Xin Junmao could confirm based on his extensive experience with failed interviews that he hadn’t been selected.
Xin Junmao graduated from an ordinary second-tier university in the Shenzhou Region, majoring in information management（ a field that focuses on computer programming and management, basically just in name, but he graduated with a management degree）. He had a relatively introverted personality and no great ambitions. After graduation, he just hoped to find an ordinary clerical job to coast along, not planning to seek a profession matching his major, since the internet industry was too competitive now, and he was well aware of his lack of talent in computers.
However, his hopes didn’t come true, because in this era of great fusion in this world, talent is not scarce. Even ordinary clerical positions have professionals with matching majors, and current companies hiring fresh graduates require at least one year of work experience to start.
Of course, Xin Junmao later learned that for some clerical jobs, work experience isn’t that important. The main thing is that companies want to hire good-looking women or men, and good-looking women are more important than good-looking men.
Xin Junmao’s fate with handsomeness was like his relationship with a girlfriend—nonexistent.
When the subway carriage was no longer so crowded, Xin Junmao didn’t plan to look at his mobile phone, because doing so would inevitably lead to browsing social platforms on the internet, and thus seeing messages from family and friends.
His parents might ask when he would get home and how today’s interview went.
His friends might post their reflections and complaints about working a full day, while at this moment holding their significant other’s hand and having dinner together in some restaurant.
He didn’t want to be a son who only vented his incompetence to his parents, nor a friend who envied and was jealous of his friends.
But he knew he would ultimately become the person he didn’t want to be, just like how as a child he never imagined he would end up so destitute. The guy who once boasted about getting into prestigious universities based on his first-grade full marks had eventually become an unemployed drifter.
In two hours, he would finally return home, have to face his parents’ questions, vent his incompetence, desperately shift blame for his failure, and finally slam the door to his room.
And late at night, he would eventually open his mobile phone WeChat, and in the undisturbed quiet, browse through chat groups where his presence had gradually faded, secretly envious, secretly jealous, cynical, feeling his talent unrecognized, eventually calming down inwardly, feeling guilt, mocking his own mediocrity, then browsing job platforms sleeplessly.
Day after day, without beginning or end…
Xin Junmao knew that continuing like this, he would one day be anxious to the point of collapse. The only cure for his current situation might be finding a job he wanted—one his parents wanted, his classmates and friends thought he could do, his future girlfriend and her parents would approve of, and society deemed respectable.
In a momentary daze, Xin Junmao broke out in cold sweat from fright. Looking at the now uncrowded carriage, he wiped the cold sweat from his neck and found a quiet corner to sit down.
He had been like this lately, startled by his own thoughts.
He felt that, for now, in this world, nothing could be more terrifying than his chaotic future.
“Dongshen Station arriving, doors on the right side will open. Passengers exiting please take your carry-on luggage and exit through the doors on the right…” The subway announcement sounded on time. Xin Junmao glanced at the digital television above the subway car door, calculating how many stations until his stop.
People who don’t want to play on their mobile phones get bored, their eyes wandering around. Xin Junmao’s gaze soon noticed a poster on the platform wall, promoting a concert by music prodigy Haimofen. During his interview today, he had overheard people in that company’s office talking about how this effeminate violinist would perform a brand new great work at the concert, with celebrities vying to attend, and tickets now extremely hard to get.
Then Xin Junmao started daydreaming again. He thought that if he had shown some perseverance in elementary school to continue learning guitar, even if he couldn’t become a singer now, he could be like that someone from middle school, teaching music in a school, which would be pretty good.
He thought expressionlessly about things he knew were impossible, but for him, this was much better than imagining himself as the protagonist of a wish-fulfillment story, because it was more “real.”
Daydreaming Xin Junmao suddenly caught a whiff of an orchid-like fragrance, a scent that was somewhat dizzying and heart-racing. He instinctively followed the scent with his gaze and saw a celebrity beauty seemingly stepped out from the 1920s or 1930s, wearing a plum blossom qipao, gracefully entering his carriage.
Looking at that peerless beauty capable of captivating fish and toppling geese, Xin Junmao was somewhat stunned. It was a beauty he had never seen before; he couldn’t imagine that such perfection existed in the world—jade bones and icy skin, flawless.
On this woman, he felt the greatness of the creator and the bounty of the world.
Perhaps heaven had arranged this encounter for him in the dark, allowing him, in his most destitute and dejected moment, to behold such a beauty’s stunning visage and feast his eyes, thereby soothing his long-pent-up heart.
Only when the qipao woman noticed his line of sight and cast a smiling gaze at him did he startledly retract his eyes, sitting tensely in place, panickedly looking elsewhere in the carriage.
At this moment, Xin Junmao only then noticed that his carriage was completely empty, and the two adjacent carriages were also empty. The entire subway was quiet, as if the whole world had no one else besides him and the qipao beauty before him.
He rarely shared a room with a woman, as he never had the chance. Xin Junmao was a bit nervous, especially under the pressure of her stunning beauty.
Not sure if the qipao woman noticed his awkward emotions, she seemed to tease him on purpose by choosing to sit directly across from him, making Xin Junmao even more uncomfortably lower his head.
On the way waiting for the subway to arrive at the station, Xin Junmao didn’t dare lift his head the whole time, at most sneaking a few glances at those long legs in woven bamboo high heels. He could almost hear the woman across from him lightly laughing after seeing through his lecherous behavior.
Finally arriving at the station, Xin Junmao hurriedly fled the subway. When preparing to go down the stairs, he couldn’t help turning back for another look at the qipao woman’s beauty, but to his disappointment, she had already disappeared.
Carrying a sense of loss, Xin Junmao exited the subway station. On the way to the bus stop, he accidentally bumped into someone without paying attention.
Smelling a wisp of refreshing incense smoky scent, Xin Junmao suddenly perked up, as if breaking free from invisible chains, startled awake. He quickly apologized to the youth in front of him: “Sorry, sorry!”
“No problem.” The youth’s mild voice relaxed Xin Junmao’s mood. Slowly looking up, he saw the youth had a handsome appearance, with a friendly and approachable smile and a pair of dark, deep black eyes.
This volume’s story is quite special, please add to collection and such.
