CH 8

The printer spat out pieces of paper, the ink scattered on it still wet. Xu Qi categorised each document and placed them beside the printer to be binded.

Occasionally, colleagues that took a trip to the pantry would pass by, and the thick smell of coffee would follow.

It was a Monday morning, everyone was barely awake.

“Are you sure, where did you hear this news from?”

“Why would I tell you if this was fake? I heard all this from Wu Dong, he already saw the layoff list. You and I aren’t on it.”

“That’s good… but is it really okay to say it?”

“Aiya, just relax. It’s not our turn to worry about the relationship between Wu Dong and the director. It’s not like I forced him to say it. In fact I find him a nuisance. He dangles around every day, thinking that just because he has some background he’s tall, rich, and handsome. So frustrating, I have no idea where all his confidence comes from.”

He lowered his voice as he spoke, obviously unpleased with Wu Dong’s daily actions.

Xu Qi didn’t want to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, but the printer was just nice located right outside the pantry. A few sensitive words couldn’t help but drill into his ears, especially the word ‘layoff’, which heaved a heavy stone onto his dull emotions.

He instinctively felt a sense of unease.

“Xu Qi, I was still thinking why you weren’t at your seat, turns out you were here.”

A colleague tapped Xu Qi’s shoulder, waiting for him to turn over before revealing his agenda. “Director Wang asked you to go to his office, he has something to tell you.”

Xu Qi glanced at the pile of unbinded documents. Not far away was Director Wang’s office, its door left ajar. His heart skipped a beat, the word ‘layoff’ swinging back to his ears. “Right now?”

“Yes, you can leave the work first, I’ll look after it for you.”

“Okay, thank you.”

Seven years in the workforce, and he had resided in a total of three companies.

The first closed down not long after opening, and the second had been reported for tax evasion. On that day, he went to work as usual, but he never expected to enter an office full of police. It almost made Xu Qi think that he had also committed some illegal act. Good thing his position was too low, the police didn’t ask him a single question.

This company, which was also the third, was the one Xu Qi had managed to stay in for the longest thus far. 

He majored in Business Administration at university. Due to his lacklustre score, options for his major were little to none. He would often hear classmates joke around about being unemployed after graduation.

Xu Qi never took it as a joke. For people like him with average abilities and a university that was even more unheard of, those words were like an accurate portrayal of his life.

Xu Qi started school a year later than others, thus the majority of those around him were younger, yet every single one of them had more self-motivation than him, and had obtained notable achievements. People that entered at the same time as him were already in higher positions, only he was left in the bottom ranks, disposable and unimportant.

The past few years he had fortunately avoided being laid off due to other employees making huge mistakes. In addition, he rarely captured anyone’s eyes. He just takes his thin pay and goes through each year peacefully.

Xu Qi wasn’t sure if this good luck would continue to follow him.

“Were you the one who handed in this document?”

Director Wang turned his computer around and pushed it towards Xu Qi. The anger could be heard through his thick local accent.

Xu Qi looked at the screen. It was one of the works that Wu Dong had tossed to him for ‘help’. He sunk into silence for a moment before replying, “It was me.”

The confirmation invoked catharsis within Director Wang. He pointed at Xu Qi’s nose and reprimanded Xu Qi without leaving any face for him.

“Where were your eyes when you checked? There was an additional 0 in such a large sum of money, and you dared to submit it? Every single word and punctuation on the contract isn’t allowed to be wrong. If it wasn’t for little Dong reminding me, who knows what kind of trouble this could’ve brewed.”

When Xu Qi heard Wu Dong’s name, his eyes twitched. Before he submitted the contract, he had checked from top to bottom. He didn’t remember making this kind of low-level error.

But Director Wang wasn’t here to listen to excuses. He scolded Xu Qi for ten minutes straight, and in the end, they derailed from the mistake he made and ended up at Xu Qi’s mediocre performance and how he didn’t make any achievements after all these years. It was as if he scolding him for how worthless he was.

When Director Wang got tired of scolding, he grabbed his cup and took a sip of tea. He lowered his head and waved his hands as if he didn’t want to see Xu Qi, wanting him to quickly disappear.

Xu Qi buried his head and closed the office door, keenly picking up the glances that turned away from him.

Soundproofing in the office was bad, those ugly words were probably heard by half the people on this floor. After the break, news that Director Wang had scolded him would become an after-lunch gossip and spread through the company.

Everyone pretended that they didn’t hear anything, comforting was out of the question.

Xu Qi was walking back to his post when an arm suddenly wrapped around his shoulders. Wu Dong’s absent-minded smile entered his field of vision as he leaned forward to ask, “Brother Xu, were you scolded by Brother Want just now?”

“… No.”

“Nonsense, I heard everything when I was outside. He was sure viscous in his scolding. It was just a small mistake, was there really a need to make a big deal out of it?”

Sounds as if he was speaking out for him.

Xu Qi didn’t answer. He nudged to the side, attempting to shake off the arm stuck on his shoulder.

Wu Dong seemed as though he couldn’t feel Xu Qi’s rejection. He walked back to his seat with Xu Qi, leaned against the side of his table, and asked inexplicably, “Brother Xu, you’re not angry at me are you?”

“I’m not,” Xu Qi didn’t understand why he asked that. He looked at Wu Dong’s face but he could only recall that contract and the mistake he had no impression of.

The feeling of unease weaved itself into a dense spiderweb, sealing his tightening throat.

Xu Qi’s expression had been seen by Wu Dong. He immediately walk forward and shirked his blame cleanly. “I also didn’t know Brother Wang would be so angered. If I had known I would’ve never done this. Don’t worry, I’ll help put you in better light later in front of Brother Wang, and he’ll forget this matter after a few days.”

“You were the one that edited the numbers?”

Wu Dong rubbed his nose, not caring at all. “Yep.”

Xu Qi closed his eyes. He was terrified that that disgust and hatred would leak into his expression when he looked at Wu Dong’s face. He asked with a shaky breath. “Why did you do this? I already listened to you and finished all your work for you, why would you still……”

“Look at the way you said that, did I do anything to you?”

One sentence and he was unpleased. He ripped off his fool’s mask and folded his arms, sneering, “I just wanted to achieve some things in front of Brother Wang, I didn’t want to do anything to you. Xu Qi, you think too highly of yourself, we’re all colleagues here, is there really a need to remember all those little things so clearly?”

“You wanted to take credit, so you tempered with the contract I wrote?”

“Watch your words. Don’t you know that a single sentence from me can make Brother Wang fire you?”

Xu Qi didn’t want to end up in a conflict with Wu Dong in front of everyone. The office area had no covers, and Wu Dong’s overbearing voice had already attracted many colleagues’ eyes.

Under the attention of the crowd, Xu Qi felt as though he was being suffocated, and his face became as white as a sheet of paper.

Wu Dong was stunned by his appearance, scared that something might happen. The arrogance in his tone subsided a little, but in an attempt to save face, he threw out a provocation. “I wanted to stand up for you just now, but it seems that there isn’t a need for me to go out of my way anymore. Anyways, the time you have left in the company is limited. When the time comes don’t try and hold on.”

The people cast looks of pity as Xu Qi.

Wu Dong’s words were like the last ultimatum issued directly to Xu Qi, blatantly announcing: Your name is on the layoff list.

The fingers on Xu Qi’s knees twitched. There was nothing other than boundless annoyance towards Wu Dong’s clamours.

A face surfaced on the black screen of the computer. Xu Qi took off his glasses and propped the pulsing corners of his forehead. After closing his eyes for three minutes, the screen in front of him split into two, and strange images would start to appear, unable to unify.

A part of his brain has broken, and he didn’t know how to fix it.

Whenever others saw Xu Qi, they would think that he was frail and sick due to his pale complexion and depressive aura, but it wasn’t the case.

From the health checkup last year, other than a slightly weak lung capacity, Xu Qi was within the normal range for all other areas. He was just as healthy as everyone else. He had a complete body, appearance-wise at least. It was just that he was slightly thinner, slightly more inconspicuous.

But Xu Qi certainly felt a part of himself rotting away slowly, and no medical equipment could ever detect it. Only he could feel this agonising torture; it was as if he was dying by a thousand cuts.

It seemed that he was sick, and the roots were hidden too deep. To dig it out they would first have to cut away that past of his, dripping with blood.

Xu Qi thinks, he was a weak and useless person that didn’t dare to bring up a divorce with his cheating wife, and didn’t dare to rebut his superior and colleagues that trampled all over his dignity. Every single thing in life that made him frustrated, he would choose to avoid and equivocate.

In exchange, a failed, terrible, and messy life wasn’t such a strange thing.

At the dinner table, Xu Qi was more silent than usual. Usually, he was already quiet enough, but Liang Yue could still feel that Xu Qi was hiding something.

“Did something happen today?”

“Nothing much.”

Xu Qi wasn’t willing to say, and Liang Yue’s needless caring stopped there.

The television in the living room was shut. Liang Yue didn’t like being bothered by anything other than work calls when she eats, and the only sound in the room was the clatters of chopsticks against porcelain plates. Xu Qi gripped his fingers subconsciously and slowly spoke, “If I quit my current job…”

“What did you say?”

Liang Yue dropped the vegetable she just picked up, biting the word ‘quit’ heavily as she questioned, not knowing if she was laughing at Xu Qi’s childish words or finding it inconceivable. “Is there something wrong with your job now? Or did you already think of what to do for your next job?”

Xu Qi grit his teeth, squeezing out a low voice, “I haven’t.”

Perhaps Liang Yue thought this conversation was too much of a joke. She didn’t give any warnings, instead just melted the grating voice with a light chuckle. She picked up the food and continued to eat as if she didn’t hear anything.

She wasn’t even willing to ask for the reason.

The food in Xu Qi’s mouth tasted as bland as water. Whenever he swallowed they would grow pointed barbs, slicing from his throat all the way to his convulsing stomach.

After dinner, Xu Qi washed the dishes as usual, cleaned up the kitchen and returned to his room. As he put down the third line of his diary, the sound of a door closing came from outside. Xu Qi put down his pen and went to the living room. On the carpet of the living room were Liang Yue’s slippers. She just went out.

At this moment, every movement from Liang Yue made Xu Qi panic-stricken.

He turned off the lights. As he leaned towards the window, he saw a white Audi drive out of the area. Xu Qi could tell just from the model that it was Liang Yue’s car. Only when the car lights disappeared into the streets did Xu Qi realise, cold sweat was oozing out from his hands gripping the window sill.

He returned to his room, pacing around hurriedly. He opened Liang Yue’s WeChat and crafted a message, deleted it, rewrote it, and even after writing numerous versions Xu Qi still couldn’t press send.

So what if he asked?

As long as Liang Yue wanted to lie, she could come up with all sorts of replies.

Xu Qi returned to WeChat’s main page. Barely anyone looks for him; the notifications in the corner were all official announcements and advertisements. When he looked down, he saw Liang Jinxue’s profile, which he added last Saturday, sandwiched between official accounts and the File Transfer Assistant.

The pale crescent moon shone like a silvery claw in the night sky.

He couldn’t control his fingers. The message in the chat was the automatic reply sent after adding friends. This hard-earned contact could finally be put into use.

Xu Qi typed out a single sentence, and without editing anything, he pressed send.

: Where are you?

Quickly, Liang Jinxue replied: Outside.

Xu Qi stared at the word, pursed his parched lips, and wrote with difficulty: Are you alone right now?

Five minutes passed, and what he had just sent was still the most recent message.

Xu Qi gripped his phone tightly. No matter the obstacle, no matter if what was supposed to happen would eventually happen, he didn’t want to just watch himself go through another relationship that failed from start to end, watch as his precious thing was taken away by Lin Jinxue once again.

Until his phone buzzed.

Lin Jinxue: Yes, is there anything?

That sentence seemed to have some otherworldly magic, hooking only Xu Qi’s soul, and somehow he had typed out the word: Yes.

Following, he added: It’s urgent.

He had something.

So don’t go and meet Liang Yue.

The opposing party kept silent for so long that Xu Qi thought Liao Jinxue would never reply again, and he wanted to follow-up with another message.

Liao Jinxue: Do you want to come over?