I said to Bai Lin, "I was so scared. I thought I had gone to the wrong place and arrived at a pyramid scheme den."
Those companies either require age or work experience, there is no room for negotiation.
The second one was a foreign trade company. They asked me to introduce myself, and after asking me some questions about the future prospects of the company, they asked me, "Why did you wait so long after graduation to find a job?"
"Uh..." I was stuck.
"Can you tell me about the most impressive failure or setback you've experienced recently?" the other party asked again, "How did you solve and deal with it?"
"Uh..." I was stuck again, and suddenly Mu Chenghe's figure popped up in my mind. The most frustrating experiences in my life happened to him. I was at a loss when I thought of him, as if someone had peeped into my thoughts. In the end, my face turned red and I squeezed out a stupid sentence, "Can I not say it?"
So, no one responded to me anymore.
When I reported to Bai Lin again, she burst into laughter.
She said: "You should tell the truth, maybe he thinks you are a talent."
I asked, “Why?”
Bai Lin said: "You have been defeated many times against Mu Chenghe and each time you fight, you become more and more courageous. If you were to work as a salesperson in a company, how could you not be a talent?"
Later, Bai Lin found a job opening for me online. I wrote a cover letter and sent it with my resume. Then I left her house.
"How about you stay here? You don't have to work anyway," Bai Lin said.
"If my senior brother comes back, I'd feel embarrassed to let him sleep on the floor." After saying goodbye to her, he took the bus home.
There was still a long way to go from the station to my neighborhood. I was wearing earplugs and turned into the shortcut I used to take without thinking. Halfway through the walk, I realized that I had thought about it during the day and that I shouldn't walk this way at night. Because of the demolition work in the past two days, the original shops have basically moved.
The street lights on both sides were dim, and the walls and roofs had been half demolished.
I stopped and looked around, the distance between coming and going was about the same. At this time, a man came from behind me on a bicycle, and then disappeared in front of me. I could also hear him ringing the bell when he arrived at the intersection.
Because of Chen Ting's incident, my mother reminded me of my safety again and again, fearing that I would be in a tragedy again. But now that I'm halfway through my life, what else can I do
I hesitated for a moment, then continued walking. After a few steps, I felt a noise behind me. I looked back and saw a shadow flashing in the corner of the wall not far away. I felt a little scared and had to speed up my pace. I couldn't help but look back again, but there was nothing. Fear spread from my heart all of a sudden. I took off my earplugs and walked faster and faster, and finally ran back to the gate of the community.
In the middle of the night, while lying in bed, I vaguely heard some unusual noises.
I listened carefully again, and it seemed like there was someone there. My heartbeat suddenly quickened, and I lay flat on the bed, holding my breath to identify the source of the noise. It wasn't in the living room, but in the kitchen.
My mother taught me before that if someone comes to steal, there are two situations.
First, the other person has already entered the room and is already next to you, so even if he wakes up, you have to pretend to be asleep.
"What if someone stabs me twice?" I asked her.
"Most thieves don't want to hurt anyone unless they have to," my mother explained. "If the person comes here specifically to commit a crime, this trick won't work."
Secondly, if the other party has not entered the room yet, or is about to leave, you can suddenly speak loudly or turn on the light, so that the other party will be scared away. So when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, even if I can see, she asks me to turn on the light all the way from the bedroom to the bathroom. Firstly, to avoid bumping into things, and secondly, to avoid encountering bad guys hiding in a corner.
She said: "The purpose of turning on the light is to tell the other party that someone is awake and to leave quickly."
But the safety education my mother gave me since I was young was useless when I was in the situation. She didn't tell me how to judge whether the person's main activity was to commit a crime or to steal. She also didn't tell me whether such a movement meant that the person was entering the house or preparing to leave.
I sat up from the bed very carefully, and then walked barefoot to the bedroom door. There was a rustling sound in the kitchen, as if the other party was prying the door open. I made up my mind and turned on the bedroom light.
The sound stopped suddenly.
Then I shouted, "Second brother, go to the bathroom." Then I deliberately rubbed my body to make some noises, turned off the lights, and stayed quiet in the dark for a long time. After confirming that there was no movement over there, I quietly walked into the kitchen and turned on the lights.
Outside the kitchen is the living balcony, with a plastic steel door in between.
It was summer and the house was on the fourth floor, so I locked this door occasionally. But just before going to bed, I somehow locked it, which happened to stop the man from walking. Maybe the sound that woke me up was made by him trying to pry open the door.
The knife that I used specifically to cut watermelons was originally forgotten by me on the washing machine, but now it was lying on the ground by the door.
My whole body started to tremble. I turned on all the lights, picked up my phone and called the property security guard.
Because the security guard made so much noise, some neighbors also came.
The aunt on the first floor pointed at the property management and said, "How do you manage the property? The building next door was robbed last month, and they promised us that they would increase patrols."
Another uncle said: "The property management fee is so high, are these things still being taken care of?"
The leading security guard smiled and said, "We will take care of it. When the police station comes, we will go and check the surveillance video together."
Another neighbor said, "Xiao Xue, we live on the third floor and nothing happened. It's not like a thief is targeting your home, a little girl like you, and is lurking there to steal."
The person next to him nodded: "Yes, if you are alone, you might as well install an invisible anti-theft window."
The enthusiastic neighbors started talking about it. After a while, the police came and left. When I was left alone, it was already past four in the morning.
I wanted to call my mother, but then I remembered her expression of worrying about me last time, so I had to give up. She was so far away, even if she knew, she couldn't reach me, and it was useless to worry. I sat alone in the big house, and it was terribly quiet. I couldn't help but stare at the kitchen, always afraid that someone would jump out.
Finally, I couldn't help but call Bai Lin's cell phone.
More than half an hour later, Senior Brother Li appeared with Bai Lin.
While surveying the scene, Bai Lin exclaimed, "It's too dangerous! Too dangerous!"
Senior Brother Li checked all the rooms for me again.
Bai Lin hugged me and said, "How about this, I'll move in with you."
Senior Brother Li said, "Come on, if the bad guys come again, it will be useless for both of you to fight them together."
Bai Lin turned to Senior Brother Li and said, "How about you come live with us?"
Senior Brother Li glanced at me and said hesitantly, "That... isn't good."
I know what Senior Brother Li meant. He was a grown man living with two women, and he was afraid of gossip. Besides, he and Bai Lin had finally gone from being a secretive couple in the school dormitory to being a legitimate couple now. It would not be very kind of me to interfere.
So I said, "Forget it. My home is so far from where you work."
Bai Lin asked: "What should we do then?"
I said, "I'm not afraid. At worst I can just find someone to install anti-theft windows tomorrow."
Bai Lin asked again: "Does your property management allow you to install it?"
I said, "Our neighborhood is so shabby, what's there to disagree with? The people downstairs have installed it."
After much persuasion, Bai Lin was finally convinced.
The next night, I was the only one left again.
Before going to bed, I checked all the doors and windows and closed the house tightly. Probably because I barely slept the night before, I fell asleep on the bed. Before I closed my eyes, I thought, if I died like this, it would be considered a closed-room murder case.
I had a very long dream.
In the dream, my father took me to the amusement park. When we got to the gate to buy tickets, we found that our money was lost. Then he said to me, "Tongtong, wait for your dad here. You are not allowed to go anywhere." So I sat on the steps at the gate of the amusement park, licking maltose, and waited and waited.
Later, an aunt came over and said in surprise: "Hey, little boy, your mother's name is Tong Yumei, right? Auntie is your mother's friend. We met last time."
I looked at her and nodded, feeling as if I had seen her before.
She smiled and said, "Why are you here alone?"
"Dad went to look for his wallet and asked me to wait for him."
"Your mother asked me to pick you up. She told me to take you home first because your father has already gone home."
"But Dad said..."
"Who has the final say in your family, your father or your mother?"
I thought about it and answered, "Mom."
"Your mother asked me to pick you up, so shouldn't you listen to me?"
Finally, I looked around and was led away by this man.
Things that I thought I had forgotten suddenly came to my mind in my dreams.
The aunt who took me away from the playground was actually the mother of a female prisoner in my mother's prison. I met her because my mother took me to the prison for a day when she was on duty, and she happened to be visiting her daughter at that time.
Her daughter has been released from prison, but she was put in solitary confinement many times because of fighting with others. Her mother is very strict in this regard, so she was full of resentment after she was released from prison.
That day, the mother and daughter passed by there and saw me, and they wanted revenge.
I can’t remember how many days they detained me, but I just remember that when the police rescued me, my grandmother and father hugged me and cried loudly.
Maybe it was from then on that the relationship between my parents began to fade. My mother no longer allowed me to get involved in anything related to her work.
I turned over and tried to fall asleep again.
The dream changed all of a sudden. I dreamed of the pool of blood at the scene where my father was stabbed, and the machete outside the kitchen door. When I dreamed of Chen Yan's body at the end, I suddenly woke up.
I took a breath, slowly sat up, and prepared to go to the living room to get a cup of water. But when I reached the bedroom door, I didn't dare to go any further, so I turned back and curled up on the bed.
The darkness outside the door frame came with fear. I hurriedly turned on the light, but still felt uneasy, always suspecting that there were thieves hiding in the closet and under the bed. I didn't even dare to look out the window, and I felt that someone was staring at me outside the window.
Just when I was almost suffocated by this fear, I called Mu Chenghe's cell phone.
The call was connected after three rings.
"Xue Tong?"
The moment his voice rang in my ears through the receiver, my psychological defenses collapsed completely.
I spoke incoherently, "I dare not tell my mother. I'm afraid that if she finds out, she won't allow me to stay in City A alone. I also dare not call Bai Lin. I kept them both awake all night yesterday. Although Bai Lin is good to me, Senior Brother Li is still an outsider after all. I can't think of another person after all."
"What's wrong?" His tone also sounded anxious, "Tell me slowly."
"A thief broke into my house yesterday." I wiped my tears and said, "I'm scared to death now."
"Turn on all the lights and the TV, I'll be right there," he said.
When Mu Chenghe came to my house and listened to my messy description of last night's danger and the nightmare I had just had, the first thing he said was: "You can't live alone anymore."
"Bai Lin and Zhao Xiaotang both have boyfriends. I can't let them live with me all the time."
"Are there any other close relatives in the family?"
"There are my grandma and her family. But if they find out what happened at home, they will definitely tell my mom," I said, "and they all dislike me."
Mu Chenghe hesitated for a while, and finally said, "Then you can live with me."
What I didn't expect was that he actually lived in the Teachers' Quarter of A University. The Teachers' Quarter was just across the street from the west gate of A University, and was full of sycamore trees. When I was a student, I never came in once. I only knew that the courtyard was demolished a few years ago, some old buildings were demolished, and two elevator apartments were rebuilt.
Mu Chenghe did not live in the newly built apartment, but in an old building at the back.
The room was spacious, especially the living room. So there was a large workbench in the empty space behind the sofa. There were two notebooks on it, and a pile of books and a stack of papers were placed randomly next to the notebooks. The paperweight was a glasses case.
It must be empty because the pair of black-framed glasses were perched on his nose.
"They told me before that these three buildings are old professors' buildings that are national treasures. It's amazing that you can live here." It can be seen that he is also a giant panda.
"This house was divided up by my father when he was teaching."
"Ah?" I was curious, "Then why did you squeeze Teacher Chen before?"
Mu Chenghe glanced at me and said to me with a very solemn look: "Because this building is haunted, I dare not live here alone."
I opened my eyes wide and couldn't speak for a long time.
He then signaled behind me with his eyes and said, "It is said that the man was hanged on the door frame behind you." Before he finished speaking, I jumped to his side, grabbed his sleeve, stared at the door frame, and suddenly I felt like a gust of cold wind blowing.
But unexpectedly, he suddenly smiled.
"To scare you."
He added, "Weren't you trying to be brave just now? You spoke as if even the devils and snakes would avoid you. Did I scare you with just a few random words?" At this moment, the smile had already reached the tips of his eyebrows.
I let go of his sleeve: "It's the middle of the night, and you suddenly say something like that. Anyone would be a little scared." And I never thought that he would suddenly be in such a good mood and could even play such a joke with me.
The room I slept in was next to his bedroom. The bed was not big, and according to Mu Chenghe himself, it was where he slept when he was a child, so there was only a mattress.
We made the bed and tidied the room. It was almost three in the morning.
I'm not sure why I agreed to his request when he said "Stay at my place". Maybe I was really confused and my mind was a mess, and seeing him was like seeing a life-saving straw. Maybe it was because I had never refused anything he said to me in the past. Maybe I really hoped so in my heart.
Although I was thinking about these things in my mind, I slept soundly until noon.
I picked up my phone and looked at the time, and I immediately wanted to wail. So I quickly got up, dressed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face.
"Are you in such a hurry?" Mu Chenghe put down the newspaper and asked.
"Yeah." I packed my bag. "I've got an interview at ten. I'm almost late."
"I'll get you the milk."
"No, no."
"Do you want me to take you there?"
"I'll take the subway and get there directly." After saying that, I felt like a gust of wind and flew out the door.
When we reached the corner of the stairs, Mu Chenghe quickly opened the door and called me: "Xue Tong!"
I turned around and looked at him suspiciously from a distance of eleven steps.
He raised what was in his hand and said, "Here's yours." Then, he gently threw it to me in an arc.
It was a door key. Perhaps to make it look less flimsy alone, he put it on a metal key ring and attached a Doraemon.
I held it tightly in my hand and smiled at him.
The company I went to interview was a real estate company, which was smaller than the one that kicked me off the list last time.
There were two interviewers sitting in the conference room, one male and one female. The female was older and the male was younger. Yesterday, Bai Lin told me that this company was a family-owned business, and generally the CEO, manager, and accountant were all family members.
After asking some questions as usual, the male manager looked through my resume again and asked, "Do you speak Russian?"
“Russian is my second foreign language.”
"Are you skilled?"
"It's okay." I said bravely.
"Then please introduce yourself in Russian."
After hearing what the other person said, I was dumbfounded. The employment teacher taught us to write down all the characteristics that are related to ourselves as shining points. I was just a little shocked, how could it be exposed so quickly
The Russian version of the cover letter was written by Mu Chenghe last year. I didn't memorize it on purpose.
"Is it okay?" the man asked again.
I was in a dilemma and started to think of a solution.
"Да." I said a word on impulse.
"What?" the man asked back, obviously not understanding.
"Can we start?" I smiled immediately.
The other party nodded.