Chapter 75: The Youth Service Team

In the winter of 1994, state-owned enterprises across China began phasing out the “hereditary job system,” opening their recruitment to external applicants. At just 16 years old, Zhou Yan and her two cousins left their rural village in Kun City, traveling halfway across the country to Banshan County to seek work and earn a living.

By early the following year, her two cousins had found jobs at nearby chemical plants. However, due to her young age, Zhou Yan was unable to secure similar employment. Reluctantly, she joined the Youth Service Team organized by her uncle-in-law, Gao Hongde.

The Youth Service Team, nominally under the jurisdiction of the local neighborhood committee, was ostensibly established to address unemployment among young people in the county. In reality, it functioned as a small construction crew. Gao Hongde, Zhou Yan’s uncle-in-law, served as the foreman. Among the workers were ex-convicts who had completed their sentences and migrant laborers like Zhou Yan, hailing from villages all over the country.

Construction work was grueling—exposed to harsh winds and scorching sun. Being both young and inexperienced, Zhou Yan wasn’t assigned critical tasks on-site. Her duties consisted of carrying bricks and shoveling cement into buckets for the skilled workers.

The work was entirely mechanical, leaving no time for rest. By the end of each day, her arms were too heavy to lift even a bowl of rice, her bones ached during sleep, and her calves swelled painfully, requiring her to prop them up with blankets just to find some semblance of comfort.

For the first six months, Zhou Yan worked tirelessly. Back in her rural village, no matter how hard she labored in the fields day and night, the harvest barely fed her family. But here, within her uncle-in-law’s service team, food and lodging were free, and after the first month, she earned enough to buy herself a pair of leather gloves from the Chunhui Market.

She felt immense gratitude toward this job.

However, as she settled into life in Banshan and became familiar with the wage structures across various industries, her initial sense of self-sufficiency began to wane. Learning that despite working harder than anyone else, she earned far less than her two cousins employed at factories shattered her psychological equilibrium.

During the busiest period of construction, the Youth Service Team undertook a project to rebuild a two-story government office building. Dissatisfied, Zhou Yan frequently requested leave from her uncle-in-law, claiming illness more than half the month. When she did show up, she slacked off, often hiding in the shade to avoid serious effort.

One particularly exhausting day, the sun blazed overhead. Outside the construction site, beneath the shade of a tree, a girl in a chiffon dress flirted with her boyfriend on a motorcycle.

Around Zhou Yan’s age, the girl sported fashionable curls, her ears adorned with heart-shaped gold earrings that swayed as she laughed.

Had her boyfriend gifted her those gold accessories? Was her rose-patterned dress bought by her parents?

Zhou Yan envied her deeply, her eyes practically boring holes through the girl.

Her mind wandered, and her actions followed suit. While assisting a mason by adding cement to his bucket, she accidentally knocked over several carefully stacked bricks. Immediately, her uncle-in-law publicly berated her, ordering her to leave and return to her hometown if she didn’t want to work.

Passersby gathered to watch, and Zhou Yan, humiliated, threw down her shovel and fled to cry behind the construction site’s barriers.

Summer cicadas buzzed incessantly, and heat radiated from the newly paved asphalt road. Alone on the curb, tears streaming down her face, Zhou Yan sat despondently. Nearby, a black sedan was parked.

After what seemed like an eternity, as Zhou Yan wiped her nose with her sleeve, the driver’s window rolled down. A young man with naturally curly hair smiled and asked, “Hey! Need some tissues?”

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A week later, Zhou Yan informed her aunt and two cousins that she had secured a position as a saleswoman at a real estate company in Banshan. Packing her belongings, she moved out, now wearing tiny gold beads in her ears.

Her boyfriend, Xiao Luo, was the personal chauffeur of Shi Kaiji, the boss of Kaiji Real Estate. Hailing from Heishui, five years older than Zhou Yan, he considered himself half a fellow townsman. According to him, since arriving in Banshan at 18, he had worked odd jobs alongside Boss Shi before finally driving his car once the latter succeeded.

As the saying goes: when the boss eats meat, he drinks soup.

Xiao Luo not only drove but also handled domestic affairs for Shi Kaiji, available 24/7. With no time for romance, he remained single.

He wanted to marry Zhou Yan immediately but hesitated due to her young age, fearing gossip. Thus, during their courtship, they referred to each other as “cousins.”

Through “Cousin” Xiao Luo’s introduction, Zhou Yan, having dropped out of middle school, began selling villas at the Banshan Garden sales office.

Back then, real estate primarily revolved around welfare housing; luxury villa projects like Banshan Garden were virtually uncharted territory. A salesperson’s entire toolkit consisted of a model, brochures, and price lists.

However, commission rates were enticing—a single villa sale equaled a year’s earnings as a laborer. Thus, Zhou Yan approached clients enthusiastically. During the day, she studied successful colleagues’ pitches; on dates with Xiao Luo, she memorized brochures and price lists; at night, lying in her dormitory bed, she rehearsed introductions and dialogue for the next day.

Her efforts paid off. Thanks to Kaiji Real Estate’s astute marketing strategies, Zhou Yan successfully sold two properties during her tenure. Yet, before receiving her year-end commission, she discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant—with “Cousin” Xiao Luo’s child.

Zhou Yan’s immediate thought was to resign, accompany Xiao Luo back to Heishui to hold a belated wedding, and settle down to raise the child. Xiao Luo vehemently opposed this idea, insisting he had left Heishui with no intention of returning to such a desolate place. Having just gained some standing, he refused to abandon his career for marriage and rural life.

Moreover, Zhou Yan’s position at the sales office wasn’t easily replaceable. If she quit today, tomorrow someone with higher qualifications would take her spot.

After much negotiation, they agreed Zhou Yan would continue working until year’s end, concealing her pregnancy until she received her commission. Then, they’d use the money to return to Xiao Luo’s hometown, marry, and start anew.

Pretending to have gained weight, Zhou Yan remained at the sales office until seven months pregnant.

On New Year’s Day 1996, Xiao Luo and Zhou Yan planned to visit her hometown, Kun City, for a three-day trip to propose to her family. Before boarding the train, Xiao Luo stepped out to buy cigarettes—and never returned. Alone, Zhou Yan boarded the train to Kun City. After disembarking, fearing something had happened to her boyfriend, she immediately purchased a return ticket to search for him.

But Xiao Luo had vanished completely from Banshan. His rented apartment stood empty, and he had resigned from his driver position the previous month. On the day Zhou Yan briefly left Banshan, Xiao Luo, still posing as her “cousin,” falsely reported an emergency in her hometown and withdrew her pending commission into his bank account.

After the holiday, Zhou Yan sat despondently outside the sales office. Their clandestine relationship exposed within the company, strangers informed her that “Cousin” Xiao Luo had married and fathered children in his hometown before coming to Banshan to support his wife and two young sons.

She had been deceived.

Ashamed of her naivety and terrified of societal judgment for bearing a child out of wedlock, the underage Zhou Yan neither reported the crime nor contacted her parents or relatives.

Thus, with nowhere to turn, Zhou Yan hid in Xiao Luo’s rented apartment until March of the following year. As her pregnancy advanced and approached its due date, she resolved to end her life one windy night.

Early that evening, she attempted suicide by sealing the windows and turning on the gas stove—but a utility inspection had cut off the supply, rendering her efforts futile.

Next, she tied a stocking to the doorframe in the bedroom and attempted to hang herself. However, the rotten wood couldn’t bear her weight, snapping as soon as she kicked away the stool.

Undeterred, Zhou Yan tore a bedsheet from her bed, dressed warmly, and ventured into the streets to find a sturdier location. Walking through the night, enduring excruciating pain, she eventually stumbled upon a tall, sturdy dead tree in an overgrown field. Its angle was perfect for climbing and hanging.

Just as she pulled out the bedsheet, a sharp pain gripped her abdomen, forcing her to groan and double over.

Wave after wave of agony coursed through her pelvis, accompanied by an unsettling sensation between her legs. Rushing to a nearby outhouse, she barely managed to remove her pants before something emerged from her body.

By the time she regained awareness, a series of fleshly separations had occurred, dropping her newborn into the cesspool below. It felt as though a boulder had crushed her insides.

Drenched in cold sweat, Zhou Yan heard hurried footsteps approaching the toilet. Quickly pulling up her pants, she fled, abandoning the life she had carried for ten months in a cesspit with no chance of survival.

Zhao Fugui sat silently across from Zhou Yan, absorbing her story. After what felt like an eternity, he poured her a cup of now-cold tea, watching her spill it nervously across the table.

He understood—she was only 17 then, lacking the ability to discern right from wrong or the resolve to raise a child alone.

But thinking of the infant abandoned in the cesspool, Zhao’s heart clenched. Unable to bear it, he softly asked, “That cold night… did the baby… did it freeze to death?”

Zhou Yan shook her head, her voice hoarse. “I don’t know. That night, my mind went blank. I returned to the rental, collapsed, and slept without knowing anything.”

After giving birth, Zhou Yan fell into a deep sleep that lasted a full day and night. When she awoke on the third day, she revisited the outhouse area but found no trace of the child. No villagers had reported finding a dead infant, nor had anyone taken a live one to the local clinic.

Aside from her weakened body and the shocking stretch marks on her stomach, everything seemed like a nightmare abruptly ending. Perhaps fate intervened, granting her another chance at life.

Recovering for about a week, Zhou Yan pretended nothing had happened, pushing aside her grief. Gathering her meager savings and valuables, she left Banshan and continued southward in search of work.

Over the next twenty-plus years, she drifted through countless low-level jobs. At one point, she nearly succeeded as a restaurant manager in Pengcheng, overseeing twenty-some young waitresses.

However, witnessing frequent sexual harassment by patrons and her boss toward subordinates led to threats against her life, forcing her resignation.

Her life resembled floating duckweed—earning some money, experiencing fleeting romances—but always burdened by the secret rotting within her heart, preventing true intimacy with others.

A few years ago, she returned to Banshan, purchasing a small truck to scour the streets and nearby villages for any sign of her possibly surviving child.

Whether boy or girl, tall or short, alive or dead—she knew nothing. Searching vast sea of people was akin to finding a needle in a vast ocean, guided solely by intuition.

How ironic—that to survive, she had abandoned her own flesh and blood, yet now, having lived and accumulated some wealth, she remained unsatisfied, haunted by the one thing she could never forget.

If the child survived, it would be wonderful. If they thrived, she could die without regret.

Fortunately, Banshan’s population was only a little over a million. Last year, in an urban village, she encountered the woman who had collided with her near the outhouse at a shop called “Jiabao Bedding Textiles.”