She forgot that the clothes she used to wear were far more expensive. If she couldn’t handle being an office worker, she should at least be able to do manual labor. Bringing her purchases home, she found Qiu’s mother embroidering cross-stitch in her room.
Already over forty, her prime years gone, and dismissed by Qiu Chi, she had struggled to find a suitable job, occasionally doing odd jobs and surviving on the money Qiu Ru Feng brought home.
“Xiao Feng?” She was surprised her daughter would appear at this hour.
Ru Feng steeled herself and stammered out the excuse she had prepared—that she had offended some powerful person and been fired. Surprisingly, after a long silence, Qiu’s mother accepted this explanation. “Was it Qiu Chi?”
Ru Feng broke out in a cold sweat, neither nodding nor shaking her head. Qiu’s mother then understood, “I told you not to provoke him. What are we going to do now?”
Thinking about the bank card with less than a hundred yuan that couldn’t even be withdrawn, Ru Feng asked, “How much money do we have at home?”
Qiu’s mother took out her wallet and counted for a while, eventually telling her, “Two hundred yuan!”
Ru Feng fell silent. The unsettled hospital bill wouldn’t be paid until the end of the month, and it was only the beginning. Were they supposed to survive on this?
“I’ll go find a job!” After lunch, she went out with several of Qiu Ru Feng’s documents.
If she couldn’t be a white-collar worker, she should at least find a manual labor job to meet her basic needs. However, reality proved that even manual labor jobs wouldn’t hire her. Fast food delivery? She couldn’t ride a bicycle or drive. Outside a company with a bright “Hiring” sign was a requirement for “two years of work experience.” She wondered if her hospital work experience was suitable for a clothing company.
For property management cleaning staff, the old man said, “We require women between thirty and fifty, married with children,” claiming it was about being “reliable.” He looked at her strangely and asked, “Aren’t you running a fever?”
