" It is neither a well-known big city nor so remote that it can be imagined as mysterious, beautiful, or magnificent, but Ouyang lives and works there, which connects me to the land."
Prologue
On the evening of October 2023, in the WeChat group, Ouyang excitedly sent a message, "I saw elk on the way to the village tonight. A huge herd crossed the middle of the road! Although this is an elk reserve, there are only 2,000 elk in total, so meeting them on weekdays is hard. In that instant, I saw more than a dozen elk."
I immediately replied in the group, "Gosh, you guys are fortunate then. But why are the elk herd!"
Ouyang replied, "The elk reserve is fenced, but this side is very primitive; there is only a dirt road, and just now, that group of elk went from one forest to another ...... The starry sky here is also excellent! Mobile phones can't take clear pictures of the stars, you know!"
Her enthusiastic words took me on the night bus that traveled through the narrow country roads; the roadside was layered with trees and shrubs of high and low cover, the headlights shone on the ground, forming a half-arched white fan, many ghostly animal shadows pattering and swaying in the road. Their eyes reflected a greenish-white light, and their hooves flickered from the headlights, exposing their bellies' fluffy, soft fur. At the same time, their upper bodies were still submerged in the not-quite-black night, presenting an even denser ink-coloured silhouette. In the car, no one dares to make a move, and after the first few exclamations of surprise, the chatter dies down as everyone gazes on, enjoying the fleeting miracle.
It had been more than a year since Ouyang went to work in Shishou, and this wasn't the first time she'd shared her Shishou life with the group; there were still many traces of Shishou in our WeChat group, and among them, the memories related to going to the countryside for cultural performances, local food, renting an apartment, and cycling seemed to run deeper than ever.
I've heard her tell stories of her colleague in charge of performances at The Public Art Institution standing by the river in a strapless dress in the freezing wind, presenting songs to the villagers; I've seen her send photos of her and her colleagues going to eat beef bones the size of face pans after work.
I was on the other end of the phone when Ouyang went to the police station to report a dispute over a rented apartment with her neighbor. The neighbor had wrapped barbed wire around her door, so she had to climb through a window. I also learned that she started playing badminton, bought a bicycle, and often shared the kilometers she rode and the sights she saw along the way with her circle of friends.
These not-so-dramatic changes were enough to make those who knew her well look surprised. After all, in September, we traveled back to Chongqing together to attend a mutual friend's wedding. As the Taxi crossed the Chaotianmen Yangtze River Bridge and headed up Nanshan Mountain, Ouyang suddenly mentioned that she had never been to Nanshan Mountain. When I asked her why she hadn't been to Nanshan in the seven years she'd been here, she looked out the window at the river and said, "Ever since you guys graduated(friends from the undergraduate period), I've spent the last three years of graduate school lying around in the dormitory." She has laid over three years in this way and is now a regular at the local gym.
(The Sanyi Temple ferry is Ouyang's favorite place to ride)
No one expected her to go to Shishou, a county in Hubei that ]none of us had heard of , not even herself.
Shishou, from the simple and rough association of the name, seems to be directly translated as stone head. It is neither a well-known big city nor so remote that it can be imagined as mysterious, beautiful, or magnificent, but Ouyang lives and works there, which connects me to the land.
That connection didn't start on my trip to Shishou; the memories can be rewound further to the summer of 2022, Shanghai.
After three months of quarantine without a hitch, I took a lunch break to see a dermatologist at a hospital near my workplace after I fell on my face while cycling to work after being released from quarantine. After a flurry of routine medical operations, I slipped out the back side door in the hot sun to avoid the steady stream of people and happened to receive a call from Ouyang when I was buying water at a street kiosk, so I stood outside the shop to answer it, and also to catch the cold air-conditioning air that was leaking out of the shop.
The call was about a group interview for talent introduction, and Ouyang said she did okay, but thought she was probably not going to be selected.
"You don't know, there are too many people with good backgrounds in this interview, only one will be accepted... I guess it's not my turn, I can only see if I have a chance to make up for it if others don't go."
I am not clear about this set of examination processes, and I could not distinguish the differences between the provincial examination, national examination, and so on, these winding examination types and requirements.
I have only heard others talk about all the contents related to the "national preparation examination" and "government civil service examination." The end of the universe has not sucked me in yet. However, there are too many people who are trying to go to the end of the universe. Occasionally, when they pass by me, they will give me some popular knowledge about "how to get to the end" and the reasons why they must go to the end, as well as rumors about "what the end should be like."
Note: In the aftermath of the epidemic, the economic environment has deteriorated, companies are laying off employees, and competition for jobs is fierce. People begin to yearn for stable jobs, and passing the exam to become a government employee becomes a popular choice. On Chinese social media, people laughingly refer to "taking the civil service exam" as "the end of the universe," meaning that no matter what your academic background or aspirations, you will eventually start taking the civil service exam in order to have a stable life .
Since Ouyang started looking for a job, she had already set her sights on getting into the civil service no matter what. I often heard her say, like our art students who want to enter the system of work, there are no particularly good paths, many exams are restricted, and some exams we do not even have the qualifications to apply for. In this case, Talent introduction examinations, which are interviews without a written test, have been considered a very good way to become a civil servant.
"Ugh, I guess it's a waste of effort again to come so far for an interview," Ouyang's slightly frustrated voice came from the mobile phone, and I nodded my head in agreement where she couldn't see me, my eyes fixed on a man in a courier uniform next to my feet.
He's cowering in the narrow shadows of the awning like me, sitting on the street steps, the hem of his trousers slouching down to his groin, his hand cupped around a fluorescent orange popsicle as he nibbled away at it, 'chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp..."
Seeing him chewing so freely, my back teeth suddenly felt a chill, this chill along the gums to the back of the head, which reminds me of this week's business is not much progress; I do not know what I can write in the weekly report to the boss next week.
(Courier boy chilling in front of Minggo Supermarket, outside the south gate of Yueyang Hospital. )(The text: Hello? Your test ended? How you feel?)
"It's okay, no matter whether you get in or not, anyway, you go as a way to accumulate interview experience, and like you said, in case the people in front of you don't go, maybe it's your turn.", I said as I stopped a taxi and reported the company's address, the lunch break will soon be over, and it is best to go back in time for the afternoon rush before office hours.
It is said to go back before the end of the lunch break; in fact, many colleagues in the company will not really take a lunch break; some people eat with one hand holding a sandwich and one hand holding the mouse. Some people will even be so busy that they forget to eat lunch and only remember to take the cold takeaway to the microwave to heat it up when they are accessible in the afternoon.
Plus, the distance between each desk is not big enough for anyone to set up a recliner in the narrow aisle. Also, a lunch break is not enough for people to fall into a deep sleep, so everyone wraps a blanket around their desk and lies down on it, listening to the sound of crackling keyboards and faking sleep for a while.
This scene reminded me of the break in secondary school when the lunch break was not allowed to go home (the school claimed that this rule was to facilitate unified management); you could only sleep on the table if you wanted to rest.
Many people bought pillows specially designed for sleeping on the table, avoiding the situation where your face is directly pressed against the cold, hard table and making your arms a little easier. However, keeping the folded position for a long time still torture the cervical spine, lower back, stomach, and intestines.
Every time I woke up from sleep dripping with saliva, I felt bloated in my stomach, so I would always bury my head in my arm, face to the drawer, and secretly burp for a long time to exhale the gases held in my stomach.
Later on, when I read "Tui Na" and saw that the owner of a massage parlor, Sha, ended up in hospital with stomach bleeding due to his long hours of sitting on a low stool curled up and squeezing the feet of his customers after meals, I would empathize with him. Although I have not developed the same serious gastrointestinal problems as Boss Sha, I think my various cervical and lumbar disc problems should also be related to being forced to fold my body for a long time.
(Eye masks, pillows, small blankets, and the constant sound of keyboards are the most common sights during lunch breaks in Internet companies.)
(The text: the sound of keyboard)
This painful "folding" is copied and passed on. Without teachers and classmates, there was always the sound of keyboards replacing the sound of pages turning in the school days, endlessly asking people, "Why don't you study/work harder?".
Even so, when I could ride a taxi freely in Shanghai and report a particular workplace, I felt comforted by the sense of order, and I think Ouyang's pursuit is probably the most reinforcing of this sense of order. People always want to get into a solid shelter, and it doesn't seem intolerable to fold oneself mentally or physically in order to fit into this shelter.
The final result of that group interview was just as Ouyang said: she didn't make the cut, and she came in third or fourth place. The fluke of "maybe the person in front of her didn't want the position." didn't happen, and she had to move on to other interviews.
I don't remember precisely how Ouyang got into The Public Art Institution in Shishou. Still, it seemed like it took quite a long time (in retrospect, it was only two or three months), and after my phone was filled with all sorts of anxious chats, one day, the end came out of the blue.
Ouyang said: "I passed one exam; I'll go to Shishou. That's it. I just can't bear to take another exam anymore. Shishou is close to my home, which is not bad."
"Where is Shishou?" This question used to come out of our mouths, but now Ouyang and I can give our answers more comfortably. Although our answers are subjective, they do not come from a Wikipedia entry, nor are they a series of latitude and longitude numbers on a map.
A cold, hard place- name is warmed by being carried in one's arms. And beyond the physical movement of space, fate turns the page without moving, unexpectedly, even without making us feel a thing at the moment!
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