On My Way - Chapter 51

Chapter 51 - Was Your Life Worth It?

Later, I arranged Old Feng’s funeral.

His ex-wife and daughter were abroad and were unwilling to come.

His ancestral home was in a poverty-stricken mountain village in Sichuan, but his elders had all passed away, and he had long since cut ties with his relatives.

As for friends, he had a volatile temper, a petty mind, and wasn't particularly loyal to others; he had no friends.

Only I remained.

I didn't hold a grand ceremony—the body had been gnawed away by wild beasts, so what could I have done?

I simply selected an expensive burial plot and secretly burned some paper money for him.

"These days, civilized ancestral rites are the standard; if I get caught, I'll be fined," I muttered while squatting there. "Still, I have to burn some. If you hadn't kicked me out of that car back then, the one lying here today would be me."

Chinu was filled with murderous rage when he first broke out. If I had been in that car, I wouldn't have survived either.

As the ash-gray paper money flew into the sky, burned out, and turned into drifting cinders, I finally said it aloud.

"Master, tell me, was your life worth it?"

After he was gone, the company uncovered a series of issues involving his misconduct and acceptance of bribes, triggering a major personnel cleanup.

Consequently, none of his former subordinates came.

The flames of that purge didn't reach me; instead, I successfully transferred to the head office as a manager in the Second Project Department. The oldest person under me was twelve years my senior.

Everyone believed this was because I had truly, physically risked my life to complete that project.

Only I knew in my heart that it was actually because I had aligned myself with General Manager An very early on.

Sixty percent of those materials had been provided by me.

If that beautiful afternoon had gone as planned, we would have boarded the train smoothly.

I didn't feel there was anything wrong with me at all.

This is the corporate world. When "your own people" kill each other, of course, you have to strike a fatal blow. This was the principle he had taught me.

But he died.

In the final moment before his death, he had brutally kicked me out of the car to let me escape.

I felt absolutely disgusted with myself.

The tongues of fire licked the yellow paper, burning higher and higher, making my eyes ache.

I wiped my face, stood up, and said for the last time: "Master, I'm leaving."

In the black-and-white photo, he stared at me with a stern face. He would never again be able to trip me up.

And from now on, if I caused trouble, there would no longer be anyone to protect me.

—

Chinu died in the fire at the mine.

Actually, the call he made to Yu Shixuan went through, but when she kept asking how I was doing, he hung up.

Then he decided to take me with him to the grave—yes, you can never understand the mindset of a madman.

But it was also because of that call that his approximate location was determined, allowing the police to arrive in the vicinity.

This time, I recuperated in the hospital for two months. When I returned, I officially started working at the head office.

The head office is in a very high-end business park with tulips and fountains, facing a large shopping mall.

It’s just that the building itself is a bit old, the exterior glass is always filthy, and the weather always feels gloomy.

Everyone in the office has a degree from a top-tier university (985 project schools). People focus on their own tasks at their desks and don't speak unless necessary. Aside from the hum of the printers, the entire office area is completely silent.

No one gets close to you, and no one ostracizes you. Everyone eats in the cafeteria together, makes coffee in the pantry, and occasionally shares gossip, but beneath the warmth, there is always a sense of detachment.

This is fine, though I occasionally think of Old Feng. When was the first time he used a coffee machine?

Did he also get gently reminded by Human Resources about his attire, leading him to throw away the LV shirt he bought at a night market?

Did he also feel like a groundhog in an urban jungle?

These questions will never have an answer.

Old Feng's former office is right above mine. The new director is an engineer who returned from Sweden, surnamed Jiang. He is different from any boss I’ve worked with—very academic, with a sense of ease that makes his subordinates feel comfortable.

He doesn't call frequent meetings, he doesn't feed us corporate motivational drivel, and he doesn't particularly like me, either.

Once, I was in a hurry to get some materials from another team and pressured them a bit too much. The other party was a graduate born after 2000 who refused to provide the materials, citing, "Our team is having a team-building event today."

I'll be damned...

If I were at a construction site, I would have cursed them out. But here, there are rules. I could only say: "This deadline wasn't set today. You said you would submit it to me by Friday."

"The team-building event was scheduled by Director Jiang," she said, sounding very arrogant and cold. "If you have an opinion, Team Leader, you can go tell Director Jiang."

After that, there was no more news on DingTalk.

I was dumbfounded. Later, when Director Jiang heard about the incident, he smiled slightly and said, "But Team Leader Ren, sometimes you push yourself too hard."

"Yes, perhaps my 'street-smarts' are too heavy, and I need more guidance from my superiors."

I am struggling to adapt here.

Back then, I had to use gestures and words, racking my brain just to make the workers understand what I meant.

Now, it takes me a long time just to follow the colleagues' train of thought.

Before, because we had to meet project deadlines, the most important quality on the construction site was to "risk one's life."

But now, there is no need to risk one's life. What matters is following procedure and handling every complex, trivial detail day after day.

I have to use all my strength just to maintain the same efficiency as others—which means my career growth path is essentially sealed.

That evening, after finishing my work, I went to find Yu Shixuan.

At that time, her awards hadn't been announced yet, and her job hunt wasn't going smoothly, so she could only take on some freelance illustration work online.

But she wasn't short on money.

Although her parents were heartbroken and refused to see her again, they still entrusted her sister to transfer the dowry they had prepared for her into her account.

After half a life of absurdity, she remains a young, beautiful, and wealthy woman—children from rich families always have a buffer for their mistakes.

"So, you're sad because you feel your boss doesn't like you?" She poured me a glass of whiskey containing a ship-in-a-bottle ice cube.

"Not exactly. Mainly, I feel like I'm not the same type of person as them," I said, leaning back on the sofa.

"You feel your battlefield is on the construction site," she said. "Because among a group of roughnecks, you were the smartest and most meticulous. But among them, you feel like you're nothing, right?"

I didn't answer.

She was wearing a champagne-colored camisole, leaning softly against me, and said: "But dear, you have to realize that there is no perfect job. Doing manual labor is dangerous, tiring, and you’re looked down upon."

Yes, I am "Manager Ren" now. When I go to the owner's unit to deliver things, the secretary says, "Hey, can you just leave things at the door next time? You've dirtied the floor with your shoes, and now we have to clean it."

All these years I've fought for, what I wanted was simply—

"To be clean and respectable," she said. "To put it bluntly, weren't you trying to become a white-collar worker? You are one now."

I was left speechless.

—Although the term sounds like something from a 20th-century magazine story about an unfaithful housewife, it was, in fact, my dream once.

Now, I am no longer in charge of the front-line construction; I handle early-stage project strategy.

My daily work involves sitting in an office, writing project proposals, listening to subordinates' reports, and attending meetings.

I no longer have to run around in the wind and rain, risking my life to meet deadlines, forever covered in dust, forever on edge, waiting for the next disaster.

I can be like other girls: go shopping, do skincare, buy expensive high heels, and wait in line for an hour to eat at a trendy hotpot restaurant.

And, walking around clutching a cup of coffee.

"The thing I like most about my current company is that coffee machine," I said. "When I was a 'factory girl,' my ultimate vision of a white-collar worker was holding an iPhone and clutching a Starbucks cup."

Yu Shixuan rolled her eyes, raised her glass to toast me, and said: "So, Ms. Ren, in order to walk around clutching a Starbucks, are you willing to put in the effort to adapt to the environment?"

"Don't! Don't say 'effort' to me; I am terrified of that word now."

After surviving this brush with death, it feels like I’ve lost something—my vitality, my drive, or whatever it was I relied on to survive...

The doctor said it might be post-traumatic stress disorder caused by excessive stimulation.

I don't know. I am now afraid of overly intense emotions.

No effort, no "risking it all," and definitely no "you die or I die" situations.

Just being this calm, actually, is quite nice.

—

As the end of the year approached, my grandmother made preparations to return to the Northeast to visit my grandfather’s grave and then perform a shamanistic ritual—she insisted that the reason I kept having such bad luck must be that I was being haunted by some vengeful spirit.

The news mentioned that many people were coming down with the flu, so I didn't let my grandmother go back to the Northeast, planning to spend the Lunar New Year in S City.

The old lady wasn't happy and threw a temper tantrum for several days; she believed the New Year needed to be lively and bustling.

I said: "The flu is so serious now; what will you do if you catch it? Don't give me more trouble."

Only then did she begrudgingly give up.

On New Year's Eve, after finishing my last day of work, I saw a woman waiting by my car in the underground parking lot.

She was thin and tall, dressed in a gray wool suit coat, looking sharp and spirited.

"You are?"

"You're Ren Dongxue, right?" She said: "I'm Old Feng's wife—well, ex-wife."

I panicked for a second and hurriedly shook her hand: "Ah, Master's wife, hello. I wasn't able to get in touch with you before."

Actually, I had, but she had refused to come.

"There are some property issues here that need to be handled," she said. "By the way, I felt I should come and see you."

See me for what? You should be the one visiting your ex-husband's grave, right?

I felt nervous for no reason, opened the car door for her, and said: "It's cold, get in the car and we can talk."

She didn't move, but looked at me carefully, then said: "No need. I only have one question for you. What was your relationship with Old Feng?"

"Master and apprentice, colleagues," I said firmly. "Nothing more."

"Did you have feelings for him?"

This was the first time someone had asked me this so directly, even including Old Feng.

I looked into her eyes—slightly sunken sockets, tea-colored pupils—very beautiful, and also very kind.

"Yes."

This was the first time I had said it, and it would be the last: "My father was a scumbag, so for a time, I treated him like a father."

That was the real reason I couldn't be his mistress.

When I looked up at him as he commanded the construction site, when he built furniture for me by hand, and when he went against everyone's wishes to give me the opportunity to run a project independently.

He was once the father I admired in my spiritual world. But that couldn't withstand the entanglements of interest.

"What about romantic feelings?"

"None. I swear, not even a bit."

And the thought of it is disgusting.

She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, then sneered: "I was just wondering how you would answer."

She looked at me with those beautiful, compassionate eyes and said: "If you had said you liked him, I would be too pathetic. But since you said you didn't, he is too tragic.”