The next day at work, after Xiao Mandong finished tending to the patients on her hands, she found a spare moment and headed for the General Affairs Section. Just as she reached the door, a familiar voice drifted out from inside.
"No, no, I don't care. Are you going to help me or not?"
It was Tang Jing.
Xiao Mandong paused in her steps, leaning against the wall by the door instead of hurrying in.
Tang Jing's voice was sharp, yet thick with a nasal tone of crying, and even through the door, her grievance and discontent were unmistakable.
"I can't stand working at the cashier's desk for one more day. When will I ever get a chance to be a regular full-time employee? It's just counting money all day long, it's driving me crazy. Those poor cheapskates, they'll fumble over a single ten-cent coin for ages, some even dig it out from inside their underpants. I feel like throwing up every time I take their money..."
She wasn't lying at all. Earlier that day, an old woman had spent ages fumbling for a one-dollar-twenty cent note tucked in her underpants, and when Tang Jing took it, she spotted something stuck to the bill and almost lost it. She ran to the toilet and threw up, then scrubbed her hands over and over with disinfectant. If this kept going, she really would go mad. What's more, the cashier position wasn't a technical post, so getting a permanent job there was incredibly difficult. As a temporary worker, she knew it would be much harder to find a good partner than if she were a formal employee, so she had to get that permanent status. Tang Guanshan let out a helpless sigh, his voice lowered to a murmur. "Just hang in there a little longer. In a couple of years, I'll get your aunt to hand over her position to you. Once you take over, you'll still be at the cashier's desk, that's a great spot, way better than her job in the hospital cafeteria. If you worked in a clinic, you might cause a medical accident, and that would ruin your entire future."
He'd thought it over at length the night before, and decided that Tang Jing working as a cashier wasn't a bad idea. She'd been rash and careless ever since she was little, and she really wasn't cut out to be a medical professional. If she could land a permanent job at the cashier's desk, her benefits would be almost the same as a doctor's. The only issue was that Cui Lijuan was still fairly young, so he couldn't bring himself to ask her to step down right away — he'd have to wait a few years at least.
Tang Jing's eyes lit up with hope for a second, then dimmed again. "Wait how many years? By the time she gives up her job, I'll be an old maid. Who's even going to want to marry me then?"
Tang Guanshan rolled his eyes at her. "You, you, you... can't you just sweet-talk her a little? Don't you know the saying you can charm people to their graves and never pay for it? Make her think you'll take care of her when she's old. If she decides you're unreliable and she can't count on you in the future, why on earth would she hand her job over to you?"
The truth was, Tang Guanshan had been drawn to Cui Lijuan back then precisely because she had a paralyzed mother as a burden, which made her easy to manipulate. Back when he was younger, he was too old and too poor, and the only women people tried to set him up with were widows or people so ugly no one would marry them. When he learned about Cui Lijuan, he was immediately pleased. She was an educated youth who'd come back from the countryside, had a high school education, had taken over her father's job at the hospital, was good-looking, and most importantly, had never been married. He'd always wanted a pure, unmarried young woman.
Outside the door, Xiao Mandong could barely believe how calculating Tang Guanshan was. No wonder his stepmother never stood a chance against him.
Xiao Mandong took a deep breath. After the last time she'd accidentally run into Shao Tingting while eavesdropping, she wasn't about to get caught red-handed this time. She'd come back in the afternoon instead.
She'd just turned to leave when the door suddenly flew open. Tang Jing stormed out in a huff, and crashed right into Xiao Mandong.
Their eyes locked. Tang Jing's face was still streaked with tears. She looked shocked at first, then her expression darkened even more.
"What... what are you doing standing here?"
"I came to find Section Chief Tang to get a signature," Xiao Mandong said, waving the application form in her hand for show.
"Liar! When I came out, you were turning to leave, you didn't just get here. How long have you been standing there? What did you hear?"
Just then, Tang Guanshan's voice called out from inside. "Jingjing, stop making a fuss."
Tang Guanshan stood in the doorway, a gentle smile on his face, not a single tell on his features. But his mind was racing. How long had she been there? How much had she heard? Those things he'd said, about Tang Jing tricking Cui Lijuan into giving up her job — had she overheard any of that?
"Section Chief Tang, I'm here to get a coal purchase permit."
"Sure thing, just a second." Tang Guanshan was all smiles and cooperation, grabbing the application form, signing and stamping it in one smooth motion.
"Thank you, Section Chief Tang." Xiao Mandong took the permit, thanked him, and turned to leave right away.
She'd just walked around the corner when she saw a group of people coming toward her.
There was Shao Tingting, her face bruised and swollen, followed by her husband Su Limin, her mother-in-law, and her sister-in-law — who was also her own sister-in-law through their arranged swap marriage, Su Xue.
All of them looked furious. Xiao Mandong stopped in her tracks. She wasn't going anywhere, she had to stay and see how this drama played out.
A cleaning aunt who was standing nearby sidled up to her.
"Tsk tsk... can you believe it? That one with the black and blue face there, she was caught fooling around with Director Zhang from the Urology Department in our hospital. The whole thing came out, and she's been getting beaten every day for the past two days, miserable as can be."
A man standing next to them chimed in. "I saw the photos too, that woman's got some nerve..."
The aunt cut him off immediately. "You seeing photos is nothing. We're neighbors, I get front row seats to the whole show over the fence every day."
"You have no idea how awful she's got it these days. She gets beaten every night, last night she was wailing for half the night, everyone in the family housing compound heard her. Her mother-in-law screamed right in her face that she was a shameless hussy, a homewrecker, a curse on the family, and told her to go back to her parents' house. But she and Su Xue were swapped in a marriage deal — her family won't take her back, they say it's too humiliating, and if they do take her back, they'll make Su Xue come back home too. The Su family can't let that happen, so they've had to swallow their pride and keep her."
Another person pushed through the crowd. "I heard she's pregnant, is that true?"
"Absolutely true. She's been married for years and never had a kid, then she goes and messes around and gets pregnant. Who even knows who the father is?"
"Maybe her husband can't have kids, huh? Why else would she get pregnant with someone else?"
"Tsk tsk, who knows! She's drunk so much bitter herbal medicine over the years, the whole yard reeks of the stinky stuff."
Xiao Mandong said nothing, just watched Shao Tingting.
Right then, Shao Tingting could not lift her head, bearing the stares of everyone around her. All the things people were saying were like sharp knives, stabbing into her over and over. She clutched the hem of her shirt so tight her nails dug into her own flesh.
She was drowning in regret. How had she let herself end up in this mess, how had her life turned out so terribly wrong?
Back when she first got married, things had been good. Her mother-in-law had treated her nicely, hoping that Shao Tingting's side of the family would treat Su Xue well in return.
But once Su Xue got pregnant, her mother-in-law's attitude shifted noticeably. And when Su Xue had a second child, a boy, her mother-in-law started dragging her to the hospital for checkups over and over. All the results came back normal, the doctors just said a baby would come when fate allowed.
Su Limin told her they were still young, there was plenty of time, a baby would come eventually.
But her mother-in-law couldn't accept that. Especially after Su Xue gave birth to that healthy baby boy, her mother-in-law started snapping at her and yelling at her every other day, forcing her to drink bowls of pitch-black, unidentified herbal soup. She even believed in superstitious nonsense, making them kowtow to gods before they tried to conceive, and tucking paper charms under their pillow.
