Biking ten kilometers in the middle of the night was somewhat tiring. I slept past ten o"clock. I checked my phone and saw a message from Princ.i.p.al Zhang, and a missed call from my college roommate.
Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s message: Your next cla.s.s will be at 12 am three days from now. I will send you the cla.s.s topic and location one day in advance. Spend these days preparing for the cla.s.s. Your salary will not be deducted. Additionally, I heard that you ruined your clothes yesterday. I will refund expenses for you at the end of the month and every month after.
This message put a stop to all my questions. After thinking about it for a long time, I only sent back the word "OK."
The training inst.i.tute was irregular, the cla.s.s schedule was inhuman, the students were unfriendly, the coworkers played with chainsaws and slept in the bathroom; none of that was a problem. The important points were that the hours were short, the salary was high, rooming was included, and there was no need to clock in.
If I always taught from 12:00 to 2:00 at night, I could have a part-time job during the day.
Princ.i.p.al Zhang was such a kind and considerate lady. It was a pity that she was abroad. If she returned to China in the future, I had to treat her to a good meal and thank her for taking care of me.
After replying to Princ.i.p.al Zhang"s message, I called back my college roommate.
"h.e.l.lo," said my roommate Xia Jin"s voice over the phone, "is it Shen Jianguo?"
"It"s me. I haven"t changed my number," I replied.
Xia Jin exchanged greetings with me. Then he said, "Our mall is putting together a promotion this weekend. We need to recruit some temporary staff. Do you have time on the weekend? Do you want to earn extra money?"
"Of course," I agreed at once.
"OK, 8:00 a.m. on Sat.u.r.day, XX Mall. Two days in total. There may be work until midnight both days."
I considered the following days. Today was Friday, and the next cla.s.s was on Monday. There was no conflict in time, so I could say, "No problem."
Xia Jin had been my roommate when I was an undergraduate. He studied human resource management. After graduation, he didn"t take the postgraduate entrance examination, but went straight to work. Three years later, when I graduated from graduate school, we was already an HR manager at a large shopping mall. He worked very hard, but his annual salary was very good.
Over the past few years, every time he needed to hire temporary staff, he would come to me. He knew that I needed money and would help me earn some extra. After all these years I was used to it and had become a skilled worker, as well as acc.u.mulating experience .
Having determined that I would have some extra income this weekend and knowing that Princ.i.p.al Zhang would pay for my clothes, I felt very pleased. I ran out of my room to wash up.
As usual, my two roommates weren"t in their rooms. The arrangement of Liu Sishun"s bedroom was exactly the same as yesterday, while Li Yuanyuan"s room had gained a toilet. The wig that had been tossed on the bed before was now inside the toilet.
I really didn"t understand Li Yuanyuan"s attachment to the toilet. Why would a girl have such a strange fetish? Had Princ.i.p.al Zhang really not considered recruiting a psychologist?
In fact, I wanted to talk with Li Yuanyuan about this issue. Of course, I respected everyone"s preferences. Just like my love of money, sitting on the toilet was a common hobby. As long as it wasn"t a psychological problem, there was nothing else to say.
Unfortunately, that night I fell asleep too early and didn"t get to see my two colleagues, who were busy working in the daytime and could only be seen late at night.
On Sat.u.r.day morning, I biked to the mall as usual. Xia Jin simply explained our a.s.signments to us temporary employees and bustled off to prepare for the promotion.
I put on a heavy teddy bear costume to solicit customers, distribute flyers, and help the promoters to had out prizes. I was busy all day.
At six or seven o"clock in the evening, the people invited by the shopping mall stopped working, and I finally had time to breathe and sit on the ground to rest.
Just then some brats ran over to surround me. They hit me on the head. With the bear"s thickly-padded head in the way, it didn"t hurt, but it didn"t feel very pleasant. I was very tired, not in the mood to play with children, so I stood up to find a quiet place to rest.
But instead the children chased after me and kicked my b.u.t.t. Who knew where the parents had gone off to; they didn"t come to stop their children.
I couldn"t run fast wearing the costume. When I was about to take off the headgear and give the children a lecture, I heard a familiar voice beside me: "Stop that, all of you. There"s a person inside that costume. They"re tired from working all day. Don"t bully them."
I looked up and saw Ning Tiance.
Today, he was wearing normal clothes, a white T-shirt, dark blue jeans, white sneakers. He looked young and neat, my favorite type. Very handsome.
When the children saw an adult had come, they ran away quickly to avoid being disciplined. I looked at Ning Tiance with my head to one side. He looked much better in these clothes. His legs were very long. Why did he have be on the path of feudal superst.i.tion?
Ning Tiance patted my fluffy arm and consoled me. "Children don"t understand anything. Don"t get discouraged on their account."
What a nice person, I couldn"t help thinking.
I wanted to take the costume"s headpiece off and thank him, but thinking back to what had happened the night before yesterday I felt embarra.s.sed. Instead I took out a candy from the costume"s pocket and put it in his hand.
I had snuck a taste of this candy while I was on break. It was delicious, so I had kept several pieces for myself to eat when I was tired. Wearing a costume like this was sweaty work, and having some sugar was a good way to deal with it.
After Ning Tiance took the candy, I thanked him with a cupped fist, and he smiled. "Thank you."
Then he peeled the candy, put it in his mouth, and said to me, "It"s delicious."
Simple clothes accompanied by his neat smiling face really did make a person look beautiful.
There was something special about Ning Tiance. Even dressed in ordinary clothes, he seemed to be glowing.
After throwing the candy wrapper into the garbage, he nodded to me and left. I watched him go, raising the teddy bear"s fat hand to wave at him.
He didn"t look back. He didn"t see me wave goodbye to him.
I felt a little strange. I sat on the ground holding my head and thinking deeply about I didn"t know what until the foreman told me that the evening shopping peak was coming and asked me to stand at the gate of the mall to attract customers, so I got up and stopped thinking.
The mall did good business. The number of customers only started to gradually decrease after ten o"clock. The mall closed at 11 o"clock and the temporary employees left. I stayed to help Xia Jin clear up. He always paid overtime.
It wasn"t until 12 o"clock that we wearily finished the day"s work. We would go back to work at 8 o"clock the next morning.
I look at Xia Jin"s thinning hair and grieved silently. Someday I would also look like this.
We were so tired that we were in no mood to reminisce about the past. We went to the restroom. While we were washing our hands, we heard a watery noise coming from the women"s toilet next door. It didn"t sound like there was someone there but rather like something was leaking.
As an HR manager, Xia Jin had some responsibility here. He bravely went into the women"s room to check. I waited for him at the door.
A few seconds later, I heard a heavy thud and Xia Jin"s scream.
I wanted to go in to see what had happened to him, but held back: what if he had run into some lady?
So I stood at the door and shouted, "What"s the matter, Xia Jin?"
"Ghost! There"s a ghost! Ah!" His screams were more and more desperate.
I rushed in and saw Xia Jin sitting on the floor, water staining his expensive pants. Even though they weren"t my pants, seeing it still upset me.
I fearlessly helped him up and asked, "Where is the ghost? I"ll go take a look. There"s no such thing as ghosts, only people playing tricks."
"No… I saw a woman"s head coming out of the toilet!" Xia Jin"s legs were shaking and he was leaning on me with all his weight.
A woman"s head coming out of the toilet… how come that sounded familiar?
I leaned Xia Jin up against the wall and went to try the stall doors.
"Don"t…" stammered Xia Jin. "She hasn"t come out, let"s hurry and run away…"
He hadn"t finished speaking when the door of the women"s bathroom was shut by a gust of wind. This knocked Xia Jin off balance and he slid to the floor again.
How could he be so gutless?
"It"s only the wind. There are windows open everywhere in summer, isn"t it normal for there to be a wind?" I put my hand on the handle of a toilet stall.
"But our mall is totally enclosed, except for the stairs and the emergency exits. Even the toilets have central air-conditioning." Xia Jin was on the point of tears. "Do you see any windows in the bathroom?"
"Then it"s just the air-conditioning. I have some experience with this. The air-conditioning on a bus sometimes makes a vortex. It"s pretty interesting." As I spoke I opened each stall in succession.
At the last one, the stall seemed to be locked from the inside. After I confirmed that this was not a utility room, I knocked on the door. "Is there anyone there? The mall is going to close. If there"s anyone in there, come out quickly."
"Just — just now… that woman"s head, it — it came out in that stall. How — how can it be locked now?" Xia Jin was so scared that he couldn"t speak properly.
"It must be the prankster. They got scared when they saw us coming and now they don"t dare come out."
I continued to knock on the door. "Madam… no, I don"t know whether you"re a man or woman. The person in there, if you do that again, we"ll call the police. Open the door."
I banged on the door with all my strength, making a very loud noise. Faced with criminals, the thing to do was to act stronger than them. Xia Jin and I were two strong men. Even if there really were criminals we"d still have the strength to restrain them. Anyway, the stall wasn"t very large, there couldn"t be more than two of them in there.
I wasn"t afraid of chainsaw-wielding maniacs with psychological problems. I certainly wouldn"t be afraid of a joker playing at ghosts in the toilet.
"I"ll kick down the door if you don"t come out."
I stepped back and raised my leg, preparing to kick. Then I heard a familiar voice from behind the door. "Don"t, I"ll come out."
The door of the stall opened slowly, slowly. Xia Jin gasped in fright.
A girl with short hair wearing a white dress stood in the stall looking at me. When I saw her, I was furious. "Li Yuanyuan! I already bought you that toilet you like so much. If you really want to sleep in the bathroom, we"ll go home and talk it over. There"s no need to scare people at the mall."
Xia Jin asked in a daze, "You know her? Go home? Is that your girlfriend?"
These three questions of his were so irritating they gave me a stomachache. I quickly explained, "Of course not. This is my roommate, we live in the same apartment. She has a special hobby and likes to being in the bathroom."
At this time, I thought of Liu Shishun"s saying that Li Yuanyuan liked to sneak into people"s houses in the middle of the night and ended up getting beaten up. At that time, I"d been quite sympathetic to Li Yuanyuan. Witnessing this scene, I could understand why Li Yuanyuan was always getting beaten up.
"Xia Jin, she"s just a little eccentric. For my sake, don"t blame her. I"ll take her home." I told Li Yuanyuan to come over and apologized to Xia Jin in her stead.
Li Yuanyuan didn"t speak. She made a deep bow toward Xia Jin.
Xia Jin waved a hand, smacked his chest and said, "As long as it"s not a ghost. You look after her. Don"t let her come back to our mall. If rumors about ghosts get out, it won"t be good."
"Yes, yes, I"ll have a good word with her when we get back."