Chapter 12 I'm a journalist without a diploma

The Spring Festival of 1997 passed quickly.After the Spring Festival, I looked for work everywhere, but this time is the most difficult time of the year to find a job.The contingent of job seekers from all over the world, carrying millions of migrant workers, attacked Yangcheng one wave after another.Although I travel to various newspaper offices in Yangcheng every day, every day I leave with good hopes and return with disappointment.I borrowed more than 200 yuan from a friend, and soon I spent almost the same amount, and I faced the kind of life that was at the end of my rope.It’s okay to eat one or two steamed buns a day, but the most worrying thing is that it’s almost time to pay the rent.Although I paid part of the rent before the Spring Festival, I still owe the family one month's rent. Now, I have two months' rent.This is really an embarrassing thing for me, a poor man who wants to save face.At this point, where can I get money?

Seeing that those who lived on the first floor paid their rent on time, I was the only one who dared not go forward.In order to avoid the landlord's debt collection, I ran outside early in the morning on the day of paying the rent, and deliberately delayed my return until after 11:00 pm.At dawn the next day, although I was so sleepy that I wanted to lie on the bed and sleep for a while, but because I was afraid that the fat landlord would ask me for debts, I suppressed the yawning early in the morning and hurried to the bed before they got up. Slip out the door. As the saying goes, you can hide from the first day of junior high school, but you can't hide from the fifteenth day.On the night of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, even though I came back late, the chubby landlady and her son blocked me at the door as soon as I entered.Hearing their knock on the door, I was embarrassed, but at this time I had nowhere to hide, so I could only bite the bullet, opened the door with a smile on my face, and told them with a blushing face: I don’t have any money now, can I wait until next month? Pay together... The landlady immediately yelled in a rough voice: "Oh, what did you do? I owed my rent last month, why are you delaying paying it this month? This is terrible. No, you have to pay today..." The white and fat kid next to her, as fat as the giant panda in the Guangzhou Zoo, took over his mother's words and shouted at me: "You still What kind of reporter are you? Why are you so poor that you can’t even pay two months’ rent? If you can’t pay the rent, then don’t live in my house anymore.” “Yes, if you can’t pay the rent, then don’t live here anymore "The fat woman snorted: "Huh, besides me, in Guangzhou, there is no place for you to go! If you have the guts, you can leave here..." The mother and son condemned each other in front of me. After more than ten minutes, several residents upstairs and downstairs poked their heads over to peek, and I was so embarrassed that I wished I could find a crack in the ground and sneak in.In the end, seeing that I really had no money, the mother and son had no choice but to leave angrily.Just before leaving the house, add another sentence: Wait for another week, if you have no money, you have to leave here...

Although I was ridiculed, I have no reason to blame others, I can only blame myself.If I hadn't wandered outside casually, if I hadn't always been looking for an ideal newspaper, I might not have reached this point.What kind of work does not support people?However, in any case, I decided not to live here any longer.The rent for two months is 600 yuan, and it is impossible for me to pay it off within 7 days.It's all owed anyway.I will pay them back later.I can no longer tolerate this kind of dependent life, and I can't bear the humiliation that may happen at any time!Didn't the mother and son just say that I have nowhere to go?Fuck it, I can't believe I really have nowhere to go!

The moon on the fifteenth day is round and round, but at this time, the brightness in the sky does not belong to me, a lonely person, or a down-and-out person like me.The moon was blocked by densely packed tall buildings, and the bright light could not shine in front of me at all.Looking up at the bright moon, I have nowhere to reunite, only loneliness and depression in my heart.At this time, the fifteenth moon belongs to someone else, together with this city full of lights. I quickly found a canteen outside and called my friend Xiao Liu, who was currently working as a security guard in a small factory in Haizhu District.I asked him to find a job as a security guard.Xiao Liu replied: There are too many people looking for work during this period, and their unit is already full, so we can only wait and see about the work, but I can move in and live with him.As soon as I heard it, I immediately said: Okay, now I just need to find a place to live, and I can watch while I work.I want to come over tonight, you come and pick me up.Xiao Liu was really loyal. Half an hour later, he rode a bicycle from Jiangnan Avenue in Haizhu District.

I simply cleaned up my things, packed my books, old military uniforms and other useful items from the army, and threw everything I couldn't move into the small room as garbage.Didn't the landlady and her son say I have nowhere to go?Didn't they laugh at me for not living anywhere but his house?I'm leaving now.Tomorrow, the pair of mother and son who are so fat that they can barely walk will feel uncomfortable for a few days after they suddenly find out that I left without saying goodbye-of course, they will only feel uncomfortable because they don’t know where to find me to recover the rent of several hundred yuan.

When I rolled out all my homes with the help of Xiao Liu, I realized: Am I running out of debt?Yes, I was evading debts, just like Yang Bailao avoided Huang Shiren and Mu Renzhi during the Chinese New Year. Unexpectedly, I, a wandering reporter, also played the role of "Yang Bailao" in real life.Now, this period of unbearable days has long been a special brand in my adolescence.I did this out of desperation and in order to find a new way of living.Perhaps, there is nothing in the world that can be more embarrassing than a big man running away in the dead of night in order to avoid a debt of several hundred yuan!

Half a year later, when I personally returned the 600 yuan to the landlord and paid her an extra 200 yuan as "interest", she shrugged it off for a while, but finally accepted it.When I repeatedly asked her to have a meal with her family to express my apology for evading debts in the past, she refused to go anyway.Before that, when I called and told the landlord: I will not renege on that account, I will definitely pay it back, and of course there will be interest.She hurriedly said: I know, I know, I know that those who have served in the army are the most promising.You are a cultural person, how can you rely on this little money?Look, aren't you a big reporter for the provincial newspaper now?Hahaha... I often see your name in the newspapers?

Hey hey hey!I laughed too. At this time, through my own efforts, I have become a main reporter of the "Southern Metropolis Daily", a dark horse in the newspaper industry in Guangzhou.At this time, I had an income of three or four thousand yuan a month. With the help of Xiao Liu, I stayed at his place that night.At that time, he had moved from Xingang West Road to work as a security guard at a private sawmill located on Jiangnan Avenue in the Pearl District. He earned 600 yuan a month and lived in the factory dormitory, but he took care of his own food.At this time, I really had nothing. Even if I could work as a reporter in a newspaper office, I would not be able to get a salary that month, and my monthly daily expenses would cost at least a few hundred yuan.In the face of the cruel reality, I can only temporarily keep my dream of being a reporter in my heart, just like packing a backpack in the army, packing all my dreams deep in my heart.Only in the dead of night can one let one's dreams fly quietly in the hazy night, like a pigeon whistle, accompanied by poetic and picturesque sentiments.