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Chapter 456: Chapter 456 Jian Jun
After spending some time together, Tong Yaohui was very pleased with Gu Hongwei. He mentioned Hongwei all the time as ’Xiaogu’. Even though their breeding farm hadn’t made any significant progress yet, their relationship was rapidly improving.
The two workers they previously recruited worked at the breeding farm for a short while, but eventually found the work too strenuous and the mountain too boring, and quit within a month.
Tong Yao, with no other options, had to continue hiring. Her recruitment advert hadn’t even been up for a day when several people came to apply. They were all old men and women, and as soon as they heard about the heavy workload, they walked away without even discussing the salary.
Tong Yao felt helpless, and thought she wouldn’t find anyone that day. But just before getting off work, she received a phone call asking if she was still hiring. She could tell from the voice that they were young, and the voice sounded somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.
So she answered, "Yes, we are still hiring. If you are interested in working, come to the ’Kou Kou’ Bubble Tea Shop near Kyoto University for an interview!"
But to her surprise, after hearing her reply, the person at the other end of the phone fell silent, and what followed was the ’beeping’ signal of an ended call.
Tong Yao found it strange, but didn’t pay it much mind. She never expected that when she got to the door, she would see two young men approaching. They looked familiar, and upon closer inspection, she realized they were the same two young men who had previously fought with Gu Hongwei.
Tong Yao assumed the two guys were back to cause more trouble, so she immediately put on a cold face. Deng Wenwen, recognizing them too, quickly ran to stand in front of Tong Yao, protectively asking, "What are you two here for now?"
The one who had been scalded before quickly raised his hands and explained, "Don’t misunderstand, we aren’t here to cause trouble, we are here to apply for the job."
Tong Yao arched her attractive eyebrow, "Was that you on the phone just now?" So that’s why the voice sounded familiar.
"It was me." The young man replied shyly, blushing.
Tong Yao looked at the two of them carefully. It seemed they had been having a rough time recently. They were even thinner than when she last saw them at the hospital. Their clothes were dirty, which made them look like homeless men living under a bridge.
Seeing that the two guys didn’t seem to be there to cause trouble, Tong Yao turned around and went back into the shop, "Come in and let’s talk!"
When Tong Yao didn’t immediately chase them away, the two young men were relieved and quickly entered the shop.
Tong Yao, sharp-eyed as always, noticed that the young man who had been scalded before seemed to have injured his leg – he was limping. She frowned, motioned them to sit down for a chat, but they were worried about dirtying the chairs and chose to remain standing.
The young man who had been scalded introduced himself, "My name is Jiang Jun, and this is Liu Sanwa."
Tong Yao nodded, but instead of discussing work first, she asked about something that had been puzzling her, "Were you two the ones who reported Gu Hongwei for fighting at the university before?"
Wenwen fixed a hostile gaze at the two of them, clearly believing it was them who did it.
To this question, Jiang Jun was taken aback and quickly raised his hands, protesting, "We didn’t, I swear. If we did, may I be struck by thunder and choked to death when I drink water."
Liu Sanwa also hastily followed, "I swear too, we absolutely didn’t do it. You were kind and gave us twenty yuan, we were so grateful, why would we report you? Also, if we really did report you, we wouldn’t dare to come here now! If you don’t trust us, we can go with you to the university to clarify."
On the phone call earlier, when they had heard that the interview was going to be held at this location, they had hesitated for a long time. It was only because Tong Yao had been kind and given them 20 yuan in the past, showing them she was a good person, that they had mustered the courage to roll the dice and try their luck.
If they really had done that kind of dishonorable thing, they would never have dared to come here!
Tong Yao saw that the two didn’t appear to be lying, so she didn’t pursue the issue further. Instead she asked, "Where are you two from? Are you adults?"
These two men were speaking Mandarin, though their accents were not very standard and they spoke with a regional dialect. Tong Yao couldn’t be sure where they were from, and judging by their young age, she wasn’t certain if they were adults yet.
Jiang Jun honestly replied, "We both are from Qing City. During the Qing City earthquake, all of our family members perished. We stayed in an orphanage for a while. After we came of age, we followed some fellow villagers to Kyoto to work. But those people turned out to be wicked. They tricked us into coming here and then sold us. We noticed something was wrong and managed to escape halfway through the journey. Since then, we’ve been roaming around Kyoto..."
Talking about their experience of being deceived, there was clear anger in Jiang Jun’s tone. But when it came to describing their lives after their escape, his voice weakened, as if he dared not continue.
On hearing that they were from Qing City, that their families had been wiped out in the earthquake, Tong Yao pursed her lips and softy said, "If you are willing to stay and work, then please go on."
Deng Wenwen then cut in, "Sister Yaoyao, these two must have done something bad. Look how guilty they look! They might be just making up stories. We cannot hire these kinds of people. Just ask them to leave."
Deng Wenwen had never been to Qing City, and had no idea about the horrors of the Qing City earthquake.
Hearing Deng Wenwen’s words, Jiang Jun became a bit anxious and quickly explained, "We’re not good guys, that’s true, but we haven’t done anything really bad. And we do know to repay kindness."
With that, his eyes began to turn red. He continued with what he had started to say before: "We didn’t have any specific skills and were afraid of being deceived again, so we had trouble finding work. At first, we found food in dumpsters. After that gave us diarrhea, we had no choice but to resort to stealing to survive. But we had our principles, we didn’t steal much, only enough to get by, and never from the poor or the elderly."
Later, they got into a fight with Gu Hongwei. The two of them didn’t have bad intentions at the time. They just watched a movie and couldn’t resist the temptation to try something. But they learned their lesson after that fight.
With the money Tong Yao had given them, they planned to use the money left after paying their medical costs to start some small business, like selling some small vegetables at a roadside stand. But on the first day they set up their stand, some young thugs they had wronged before flipped their stall over.
Later, they started stealing again. A few days ago, they were beaten up when someone caught them. Jiang Jun was severely injured, his leg wound to this day is still festering and he doesn’t have money to treat it.
They finally understood that if they continued stealing, they would end up beaten to death. So they decided to try finding work. The job they had found rejected Jiang Jun due to his injury, though Liu Sanwa did get a job. However, they didn’t pay him a penny after two days of work.
For two days, they didn’t eat anything and relied on drinking water to stave off hunger.
Today, they felt they were pushing their luck by trying to find work and never expected they would end up here with Tong Yao. They were afraid to come in the beginning, but remembering Tong Yao’s kindness and confident she wouldn’t cheat them, they plucked up the courage to come.
By the end of it all, Jiang Jun’s eyes were red, but he didn’t allow the tears to fall.
Once they had cozy lives at home, though it was not affluent, at least they didn’t have to go hungry. But overnight, they lost all their family members and relatives and became orphaned with no one left to rely on. Sometimes when they talked, they’d mention how it would have been better if they had died in the earthquake, as living had become too difficult.
