Seizing Dreams

Ch118.2 – Reporting for Duty

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“I’ll apply for an office this afternoon.”

During lunch, Lin Ze used his card to get food for Situ Ye and Yu Hao. Yu Hao was stunned when he saw the prices in the canteen — braised meat for 1.20, sauteed broccoli with fungus for 80 cents, braised fish for 1.20, and the rice was free flow!

Yu Hao, “This canteen……”

“It tastes so bad.” Situ Ye steeped his rice in soup gloomily.

“Just make do with it, you’ll only have to eat here a few times.” Lin Ze said, “Once we’ve applied for an office we won’t get to eat at this canteen anymore. Yu Hao do you know how to cook?”

Yu Hao, “I do……a little. I learnt from Zhou Sheng.”

“He must have felt really helpless when you came to Beijing ba.” Lin Ze said.

Yu Hao answered, “It’s still okay, he’ll fly over every weekend to visit me.”

Lin Ze and Situ Ye nodded. Lin Ze said, “Our team only has me right now since they won’t give Xiao Ye a position, and the office hasn’t been applied for yet. They said that it would be difficult to process unless the group recruits more people.”

“What about the one who was doing an interview with you?” Yu Hao asked.

“He’s an author.” Situ Ye said, “The legendary coal boss committed murder. He came to help us temporarily, but got bitten by a dog the last time and went back to Chongqing for an injection.”

Yu Hao, “……”

Lin Ze said, “Pass your form to me after filling it out in the afternoon. I’ll go process it, and hopefully it’ll work out this time.”

Yu Hao, “So……we won’t be working here all the time, right?”

“Reporters aren’t with the editors.” Situ Ye said, “It’s too noisy, and so chaotic.”

Yu Hao thought, that’s good then, this newspaper office was really in too much of a mess. Lin Ze said, “There are a lot of youngsters here. The teachers’ offices are all very quiet. Reporters have their own offices too……”

Situ Ye said, “The editorial office is still better though. Sitting in the reporters’ office for a day can smoke me straight into a piece of bacon.”

“Light an incense stick at Yonghe Palace in the afternoon.” Lin Ze said to Situ Ye, “Pray for blessings that our office application will definitely get approved this time.”

Situ Ye said helplessly, “Fine, fuck.”

Yu Hao, “……”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Yu Hao thought, this really is a strange place, and no one seemed surprised at his appearance. They asked him to eat cookies with them and even asked him to get some hot water for them as if it were natural. The girl beside him and the editor in front were playing ‘poem sequence’, and the two editors behind were playing Ludo.

A fat middle-aged man came. He put his bag down and said affably to Yu Hao, “Yu Hao?”

Yu Hao nodded, then got up to shake hands with him. He wondered if this was the teacher who was supposed to guide him.

The middle-aged man smiled, “Hello hello.”

Yu Hao, “Hello hello.”

Middle-aged man, “Could you lend me this desk for a while?”

“No.” Yu Hao said expressionlessly.

Both sides fell into an awkward silence for a short moment. The middle-aged man walked away again, started wandering around everywhere, and got rejected by editors everywhere.

“Do you guys lack that many workstations?” Yu Hao asked the girl beside him.

“Because that desk of yours used to be for reporters who wanted to revise their manuscripts at the last minute.” The girl said to Yu Hao while eating melon seeds, “Now they’ve been moved to the side with the toilet, so of course they’re all unhappy.”

“Place your stuff on it.” Another editor taught him, “Put some hidden weapons on your chair, then no one will come and take your seat.”

“Annoying.” Another editor said, “Plonk your ass down on it for a few hours, and you’ll be too lazy to get up.”

Yu Hao was utterly speechless now. He texted Zhou Sheng for a short while in the afternoon. Zhou Sheng had already boarded the plane on the other side and was ready to go to Guangzhou. He tidied himself up to look a lot more energetic now, and as an assistant, he carried himself even better than the boss who was taking him there.

【Everyone says your custom-made suit looks good.】

It seems like Zhou Sheng had fully gotten accustomed to playing the role of the successor to his company.

Yu Hao smiled as he looked at the selfie he took. Just one glance at Zhou Sheng and all of his fatigue today was swept away; he felt all energetic again like he had just come back from the dead. While Yu Hao filled out his form, he chatted idly for a bit. Lin Ze came over to take away his work form and ID card to photocopy them.

The reporters’ manuscripts came again, and the entire office delved into chaos. Yu Hao had drank two cups of coffee so he could settle down a little. He borrowed a professional book for editorial proofreading and started studying it seriously; he should make up for the gaps in his knowledge as much as possible ba……near six o’clock, Yu Hao was about to ask the girl next to him when they would get off work, but suddenly realised that all the people around him had changed!

The girl next to him had turned into an uncle, and a bespectacled fatty sat behind him. Everyone in the office had changed! And what’s more frightening is that these people knew one another, and they all seemed calm and composed as they chatted idly in an orderly manner.

Yu Hao got quite a huge fright from this; he thought that he was being filmed in some kind of variety show. He looked around filled with trepidation and wondered, where is this? Who am I?

“Who are you?” Yu Hao asked the uncle next to him.

The uncle looked baffled and looked up from his manuscript. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

In the editorial office, the fans squeaked as they revolved, and the fluorescent lights illuminated everyone’s faces into a ghastly pale colour. People everywhere who he didn’t recognise began to look up from under their desk lamps one after another, and they all looked at Yu Hao in unison.

“Who are you guys?” Yu Hao asked fearfully, “Who am I?”

This scene was practically like a nightmare. Yu Hao immediately looked down and texted Lin Ze. He took a photo of his surroundings, then Lin Ze called.

“Why aren’t you off work yet?” Lin Ze asked, “It’s already 6.30, go and get dinner ba.”

“What’s going on here?” Yu Hao asked, “Why did everyone’s appearances change?”

Lin Ze, “They are the editors and proofreading staff for the night shift……there was a change in shifts.”

Yu Hao, “……”

The surrounding people realised that Yu Hao was startled, and they all burst out into laughter. Yu Hao felt incredibly embarrassed and hurriedly packed his things before bowing to the rest, then left in a panic.

“Boss, you didn’t tell me when……”

“Just call me Ah Ze.” Lin Ze said, “You don’t need to punch in, just come whenever you want and help me occupy this table. Your work card will be given to you tomorrow. Oh right, when you’re free later help me receive someone……but if you aren’t free then you don’t need to care about him.”

Lin Ze sent the train number to Yu Hao. Yu Hao took a look, and Situ Ye said from a side, “Come and have dinner, just leave that alone.”

“It’s okay! I’ll go pick him up!” Yu Hao answered. He returned to his hotel first and suddenly remembered that he hadn’t completed the most important task today……he hadn’t actually managed to rent a house yet. The first day of work had been utterly chaotic. He didn’t have the time to look for a house at the last minute now either, so he should just go and pick up the other person first ba. Zhou Sheng had given him more than 30,000; it would be fine if he stayed in a budget hotel for a few more days.

Yu Hao now truly felt that being with Zhou Sheng was the happiest time in his life. Ever since they got together, he barely ever had to worry about money. A few years ago, if he was living the life where he only had a few thousand yuan in savings, then he would definitely be beside himself with worry right now.

Zhou Sheng’s flight was delayed. He urged him to get dinner, and asked him to eat something more expensive. Yu Hao went to a Mr. Li’s to get dinner and thought, this tastes so bad……the braised pork here was steamed for too long and wasn’t sticky at all, while the pickled vegetables weren’t steeped long enough in advance……forget it he was away from home right now, so he can’t be too picky.

Zhou Sheng’s plane finally set off. Yu Hao looked at his watch while he rushed to Beijing’s West Railway Station. He made a call, but the other side’s phone was turned off.

Yu Hao didn’t prepare a banner for receiving someone, so he could only try his best at the dark exit to identify who he was supposed to receive from the photo Lin Ze had sent him.

“Jin Weicheng Laoshi!” Yu Hao resorted to this last move. He started shouting, “Is Jin Weicheng Laoshi around?”

There was a young, plump man in the photo who looked like a mountain, wearing basketball clothes. Yet, Yu Hao searched high and low and didn’t see anyone who resembled the person in the photo. After yelling for half a day, a hand suddenly reached out from behind and somehow landed on his shoulder without anybody’s notice. Yu Hao got a large fright.

“Stop shouting.” A tall, skinny man said weakly, “I’m here……”

Yu Hao, “……”

Yu Hao looked at his phone, then at the tall and skinny man in front of him. The other party was wearing thick, old glasses and looked to be around 40-years-old. He was a bit hunched over and wore an old, silk shirt that was all yellowed out from being overwashed, gray trousers, and old-fashioned sandals. A knitted bag was slung over his shoulder, and he held a briefcase in his left hand and an orange tin remodelled as a thermos cup in his right. He looked like he had just walked out from a drama set in the era when the Cultural Revolution first started — a swindler who carried a stack of documents with him and opened up dummy companies everywhere to deceive others.

Yu Hao thought, this can’t be right, they can’t be the same person ba!

“That’s my photo from ten years ago.” That man said, “I’ll show you my reporter ID.”

Yu Hao saw his reporter ID, and the name stated on it was Jin Weicheng. It even had a “Korean nationality” sign on it. Yu Hao hurriedly shook hands with him and introduced himself. Jin Weicheng was 1.9m tall and extremely skinny. He stood thinking for awhile, then looked down and said to Yu Hao, “I’m starving right now, let’s go eat something first. Will the editor-in-chief in your office subsidise meals?”

Yu Hao pondered over it a little and said, “Yes, please eat whatever you like.”

This man looked like a fraudster and seemed like he hadn’t eaten for several days. Yu Hao thought that Lin Ze didn’t tell him what to do after picking this person up, so he brought him to a restaurant outside the railway station and ordered a set meal for him. Jin Weicheng said, “My phone ran out of battery, I can’t look for Editor Lin.”

Yu Hao called Lin Ze, but he didn’t pick up. A moment later, Situ Ye sent him a message:【Take him out for dinner, then find a place for him to stay. Free and easy. He’ll report to the office by himself tomorrow.】

Situ Ye transferred Yu Hao 500 yuan through WeChat. Yu Hao dared not accept it and said that he would cover it first and bring the receipts over tomorrow. Situ Ye didn’t say anything in response to that. Yu Hao realised that Lin Ze seemed quite busy, and it would be quicker if he looked for Situ Ye to resolve some issues.

When Jin Weicheng saw food, he began gobbling it all up.

Yu Hao thought that he should be another member of their team. Previously, Lin Ze had told him that he would arrange for a reporter teacher to guide him, and that person should be this guy. Jin Weicheng ate two mouthfuls of rice and kept looking for an outlet to charge his phone. Yu Hao hurriedly passed him a portable charger. Jin Weicheng took out a Xiaomi phone with a cracked screen and began browsing the news.

This guy was almost as tall as Fu Liqun, and he didn’t know where to put his legs while he sat in the restaurant’s booth, so he could only lift them up and step on one side. Beijing was a very tolerant city; there are quite a lot of foreign workers here — there were both rich people dressed resplendently and travel-worn migrant workers, so no one would toss them strange glances no matter where they went. Yu Hao liked this aspect of the city very much.

Zhou Sheng was still broadcasting his journey after he arrived at Guangzhou. Yu Hao was really sleepy at first, but after talking to Zhou Sheng, he felt energetic again.