Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Man Turns the Tide (II)

Yu Manyi was awakened by the cat's meowing.

It was a tabby cat raised by Aunt Ping, who usually stayed on the roof, balcony, or eaves—anywhere but inside the house. Occasionally, it would come to Yu Manyi for some food, and once it got what it wanted, it would leave without a second glance. It was rather heartless, much like the type of man Yu Manyi liked.

The cat kept scratching at Yu Manyi's window until she got up from bed and changed into the clothes she would wear to report to work. When Song Qi left yesterday, he had promised Aunt Ping that he would come for breakfast. However, she didn't see him when she went downstairs.

She finished her meal, grabbed her things, and prepared to move out, but Song Qi still hadn't shown up.

It was an important day, and Yu Manyi couldn't afford to think too much about him. Perhaps something had come up at the company, and neither of their rooms had a phone. She walked to the alley, and the cat leapt over to grab at her skirt, nearly scratching her dress to shreds.

"I'm going to work now," Yu Manyi felt that the cat didn’t want her to leave.

But it suddenly meowed mournfully twice, then jumped up onto the wall. Yu Manyi watched its figure disappear and, for some reason, felt a surge of inexplicable sadness, as though something important had happened in this world, and she didn’t know about it.

But what could possibly be more important than reporting to the Commercial Publishing House?

The tram passed right in front of her. Without giving it much thought, Yu Manyi immediately ran to catch it. This wasn’t a popular route, so even on a workday morning, there were still some empty seats on the tram. She stumbled to the back of the car and sat down. As she did, she remembered the last time she sat in this seat, when Song Qi stood by the window and knocked on her glass.

She turned her head to look out at the empty window and thought, Why didn’t he come to see her off? He rarely ever went back on his word.

The tram started moving, and the street began to pull away. Yu Manyi closed her eyes; she was already a bit tired even before starting work.

Her dormitory and the Commercial Publishing House’s headquarters were both on Baoshan Road. She had heard that most of the trainees lived on Huaxing Road near the North Railway Station, which was also the area she passed through when she first arrived in Shanghai.

But as a girl, only two girls passed the selection for the Art Department this year, and only one had made it last year. So, the three of them were assigned to the second floor of a semi-Western-style building on Baoshan Road, where the editorial office was located. The first floor housed eight male staff members from the editorial office, all university graduates. This was what the teacher in charge of her dormitory told her when she went to apply for the dorm room a few days ago.The tram left Yu Manyi at a quiet street. Perhaps different departments had different starting times, as there was no one on the first floor, but there were some faint sounds coming from the second floor. Yu Manyi stood in front of the door for a moment, and then a man wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt ran over and asked, "Are you Miss Luo from the Art Department?"

"Luo? No, you're talking about another colleague who's reporting today."

"She’s already arrived."

Yu Manyi paused for a moment, then realized, "It must have been a mistake. They used foreign names for the registration, the one pronounced Ro—"

Further explanation was pointless. She smiled wryly and said, "Anyway, it’s not Luo. My surname is Yu, Yu Manyi."

"I see, Miss Yu," the man said, finally understanding. "The second floor is the girls' dormitory, so I can’t go up. The two Art Department rooms are on the second floor, and you’ll be staying in the room on the east side."

"Okay, thank you."

The bedrooms on the inner side of the first floor were all locked. There was a dining area with two tables inside. This dormitory looked very much like a guesthouse, and the person who had come to greet Yu Manyi seemed like the guesthouse's staff. The stairs leading to the second floor were a bit narrow, and Yu Manyi sidestepped as she climbed up. She saw three doors: the two bedrooms on the left and right were half-open, and in the middle, there was a shared bathroom for the second floor.

She walked lightly but still couldn’t avoid the creaky noise from the stairs. Just as Yu Manyi reached the top, the door of the bedroom on the west side was suddenly flung open with a "bang," and a girl stepped out.

They looked at each other for a moment, and the girl asked, "A new member of the Art Department?"

"Yes."

Yu Manyi’s appearance made her approachable, with dark black eyes, and a slightly gentle accent from her hometown in Shaoxing when she spoke. The girl appeared a little older than her. Half of her body was still in the room, and she reached out her hand awkwardly through the door to shake Yu Manyi’s.

Yu Manyi found it somewhat amusing. They all treated her like a foreigner with an East Asian face, especially since her Italian name stood out so much on the list."You and I are from different years, but I am a senior. My name is Yuan Wan."

Fang Qian, Yuan Wan—such a well-matched pair of names, Yu Manyi thought. She was in the east-facing room, where she had a whole room to herself. The west-facing room was where she would share with a roommate from the same batch.

"Go ahead and unpack. The Art Department requires all new recruits to gather in front of the headquarters before 10 AM. I’ll also take you around for a tour," Yuan Wan said.

Yuan Wan had short hair, not as short as Fang Qian's but still a tidy ear-length student cut. After speaking, she hurried off to the bathroom to freshen up. Yu Manyi saw her lock the door and turned to push the door to the south-facing bedroom.

As the tea lady had said, her roommate had already arrived.

This room had much better lighting than Yuan Wan’s. Yu Manyi opened the door and saw two facing beds with a large table in between. Both beds faced the window; hers was empty, while the other bed was occupied by a girl who was sitting with her back to Yu Manyi, arranging her pillow.

As soon as Yu Manyi caught sight of the girl’s slender back, her throat tightened. When the girl heard her footsteps and turned around, Yu Manyi nearly burst into tears.

Despite their completely different facial features—one delicate, the other cold—the girl also had a butterfly-shaped birthmark under her eye.

"Yóu..." Yu Manyi began, then stopped herself.

"Miss Luo?" the girl asked.

"I... don’t have the surname Luo."

"I don’t have the surname Yóu. Did you get the wrong room?" she asked.

Of course, Yu Manyi hadn’t, but she had indeed mistaken the person. The two girls shared a similar build and had red birthmarks in almost the same spot. However, this girl’s birthmark was much smaller than Miss Yóu’s, which drew more attention to her beautiful features rather than the mark, making it just a distinctive feature.

Other than that, the two were not similar at all. Yu Manyi could tell from her accent that she was from Yangzhou, and her expression and demeanor were quite cold, giving no indication of any intent to be friendly or familiar with Yu Manyi.Yu Manyi continued to pack her things while stealing glances at her. She tried to engage in conversation, attempting to introduce herself, mixing up the foreign experiences that Song Qi had fabricated for her with the truth.

However, the other person only said, "My name is You Hong."

"Such a beautiful name," Yu Manyi immediately complimented.

You Hong glanced at her. She had already noticed that Yu Manyi had been looking at her eagerly several times and was saying these superficial things, with no real emotion: "Has anyone ever told you that you're really strange?"

You Hong was prickly, and Yu Manyi, somewhat discouraged, turned her attention back to her luggage. Though their figures and birthmarks were similar, and both of their names had a touch of color, You Hong and You Xiaoqing's personalities were like night and day.

Yu Manyi felt emotionally hurt.

You Hong didn’t wait for her. After making her bed, she headed off to the Commercial Press headquarters. Both the dormitory and the headquarters were on Baoshan Road, and after walking east for a while, they would arrive. When Yu Manyi heard Yuan Wan finishing up, she quickly followed.

Shanghai's streets were often bustling, with sudden quiet alleys branching off from the main roads, and this dormitory was no exception. Not long after turning off the main road, Yu Manyi saw a five-story concrete building with three Roman columns at the entrance—truly a giant beast rising from the ground.

Even in Shanghai, five-story buildings weren’t that common at the time. Yu Manyi stood outside the fence, looking up for a while, when she heard a female voice from behind: "This is the Eastern Library, also an industry under the Commercial Press."

Yu Manyi, looking up, suddenly turned around and almost twisted her neck. She rubbed her neck, which nearly got pulled out of joint, and made eye contact with Yuan Wan, who was walking and eating zongzi, a traditional sticky rice and fried dough treat.

"Do you want some?" Yuan Wan handed her a zongzi made with fried dough inside sticky rice. "I bought too much."

Yu Manyi took it and said, "Thank you," then followed her.

"There are over 400,000 books inside," Yuan Wan said as she led Yu Manyi around a corner toward the actual Commercial Press. "There are many ancient books and local records, richer than even the municipal museum. If we employees want to read, we can register and go in. The university students at the translation office go in and never want to leave."

"Do the people in our Art Department not like to go in?""We in the Art Department belong to a revenue-generating institution," Yuan Wan said. "Everyone focuses more on money. Practical experience is more important than reading books. This is why people in Shanghai's art circle say that the trainees from the Commercial Press turn out to be businessmen rather than artists."

Why do these people in the art world always think they're more sophisticated? Yu Manyi sighed.

Not long after passing by the Eastern Library, the massive Commercial Press headquarters appeared before Yu Manyi's eyes. She looked up again, unable to suppress a "wow."

When she had previously gone to the distribution office for an exam, she had already thought the building was magnificent and delicate. But this headquarters—this was a grandeur and refinement of over eighty acres!

She had assumed that the so-called Commercial Press, being a "press," was just a single building, at most a more luxurious and refined one. But the real Commercial Press was made up of numerous buildings, factories, and even a school and a hospital, a finely-tuned machine running smoothly.

This eighty-acre machine had risen on the precious land of the Shanghai Bund, inhaling and exhaling as countless employees came and went.

"I thought the 'press' was just... printing books," Yu Manyi said, having only understood the words "printing books."

"It originally was just a printing factory," Yuan Wan replied. "They rented three residential houses on Jiangxi Road and started operating. I don't think they ever imagined it would grow into this. Now they’ve even built a film studio."

The view from where they stood was limited, and Yu Manyi could only briefly glance at a few notable buildings. The translation office, at the end of the cement road with lush greenery in front, was especially beautiful, a three-story building with open corridors on each floor, adorned with intricately carved iron railings. A few employees were standing on the corridor, chatting and smoking.

Afterward, Yuan Wan finished her last bite of sticky rice and pulled her into the General Affairs building next to the translation office.

The lobby was already crowded with newcomers. Newcomers always appeared dazed and confused. Yu Manyi saw You Hong standing in the crowd. She wanted to get closer but felt a chill rising on her back.

"So arrogant," Yuan Wan remarked. "I greeted her this morning and was worried about how to get along with someone like her as a neighbor. It's a good thing you're here."

"Is there only the three of us in the Art Department?"

"Yes, no women have ever entered before. I'm the first to pass the exam, and for this batch, it's only the two of you."It seems that Yuan Wan had suffered from the lack of women last year. After all, Yu Manyi saw the male students often introducing each other, going out for tea, smoking, and eating together. But the society was just beginning to modernize, and there weren't many women who had entered the workforce. Even if they did get in, they still faced many constraints in both life and work.

Yu Manyi was grateful that Yuan Wan had come in earlier and explained things so enthusiastically to her. Otherwise, she wouldn't know how lost she would be.

After waiting for a while, the teacher in charge of new employee training finally arrived. Previously, Yuan Wan had only given Yu Manyi a rough introduction, but this teacher took everyone around, visiting each of the buildings one by one.

At first, Yu Manyi thought the Commercial Press was like a finely tuned machine. As they walked around, this machine started running in front of her eyes. Workers in the typesetting department selected characters from manuscripts and set them in place. The entire factory was filled with the "clack" sound of typesetting. Then, the type was sent to the printing department, where every worker smelled of ink, soaked in it over the years. Once everything was ready, the books were bound, stored in the warehouse, and waited for the distribution department to send vehicles to transport them.

Printing was the foundation of the Commercial Press, like the flow of blood in the human body. Later, the factory grew and developed finer details, such as the newly built elementary school behind the translation office, the garden to the west, and even a hospital-like clinic that, unless for serious illness, could replace a real hospital.

The loudest noise came from the generator room at the end of the factory. Yu Manyi was no longer the person who mistook a flashlight for a wooden bucket. She stood outside the generator room, listening to the machine rumbling as it powered the entire operation, fueling the whole Commercial Press, making it hum with life.

After this tour, the thirty new trainees were finally brought back to the General Affairs building.

It seemed that the training at the Commercial Press was well-versed in human nature. Everyone spoke highly of the Commercial Press, but what exactly made it so good? Despite its fame, trainees only earned a 15 yuan monthly salary, just enough for food and accommodation in Shanghai. But after touring the company and seeing all the facilities built specifically for employees, a sense of belonging arose, and they all wished they could stay there until retirement.

Yu Manyi thought to herself, though excited, it was still better to stay calm. In ancient times, palace maids must have been impressed by the grandeur of the palace, but what did that palace have to do with them? Perhaps Jiang Yu had realized this point, which was why she eventually left to establish her own career.

The first-floor lobby was filled with the chatter of the newcomers, but only Yu Manyi and You Hong stood on opposite sides, remaining relatively quiet. The teacher clapped his hands to signal everyone to quiet down and asked, "Are there any more questions?"

Someone immediately spoke up: "Teacher, after our three-year traineeship, how will our work be arranged?"

"It will depend on your performance. You can be assigned to the business department, the magazines under each department, or even the subsidiary advertising studios and film production departments that may also need people."

"Does everyone have a chance to go?""Of course not."

As soon as these words were spoken, the crowd, which had been excited just moments ago, instantly became uproarious.

"You should treat this place like a university. There will be assessments every three months. If, after a year, you're still among the bottom ten, you'll be judged as unqualified. The workers you just saw in the typesetting department, and some of the salespeople in the business department, are all trainees whose performance was subpar in their departments and were reassigned there."

This news was somewhat good — they weren't being kicked out, just expelled from the art department. It was also not so good — no one wanted to work hard to get in, only to end up doing sales or typesetting work.

Hearing this, Yu Manyi immediately stopped thinking about palace maids and the royal palace, and instead began to think about her own result, ranking fourth from the bottom.

"Your batch is so strict? Oh, perhaps it's because we only have ten people in our batch, while you recruited thirty. Maybe this is the downside of expanding the recruitment," Yuan Wan said to Yu Manyi during dinner.

Yu Manyi had been downcast at first, but upon hearing that the recruitment was expanded, she felt a slight sense of relief. If they hadn't recruited thirty people, how could she have gotten in? She was always good at finding a bit of optimism amidst pessimism, and that was how she barely managed to stay happy.

"Then what are the assessments like?"

"Our batch also had assessments, so it should be about the same. English, math, and various art subjects."

"Why do we still have to take math exams in the art department?" Yu Manyi was shocked.

"Because many people, after finishing their studies, will need to go to the business department to meet clients," Yuan Wan explained. "I told you, the art department of the Commercial Press is a revenue-generating department, not an art department."

Yu Manyi felt quite despondent and could only bury her head in her food."However, I see your exam scores were quite balanced, not biased toward any particular subject," Yuan Wan said. "Your roommate, though, has a problem. She’s a top-level case of biased subjects. I checked your scores with the teacher, and her English score is only six, and her math probably isn’t good either. People like her aren’t popular in the press."

"Six?"

"She probably doesn’t know anything, just guessed her answers."

"Did she get in just with her art score?"

Yuan Wan then realized, "That must have been really high, so it wouldn't be surprising if she was admitted through special consideration."

Yu Manyi didn't respond and felt a slight sadness, as though she was being overshadowed by a genius.

This genius, You Hong, was indeed exceptional. Yu Manyi had been living in the translation institute's dormitory for nearly a week, and aside from the day of registration, she hadn’t seen her much. You Hong always left before she woke up and returned only after she had gone to sleep.

Yu Manyi knew nothing about her and found her attempt to treat You Hong as Sister You increasingly difficult. You Hong was You Hong, and aside from that birthmark, she had no connection to You Xiaoqing. Her actions dispelled Yu Manyi's illusions.

As for the press’s rules, with a work schedule of six days on, one day off, by the sixth night, Yu Manyi finally had a moment to relax after being consumed by the pressure of her studies and the fear of becoming a typesetter. It was then that she remembered the appointment she had missed with Song Qi.

He had completely failed to meet her expectations. He didn’t show up to see her off that day, and in the following days, he hadn’t come to explain himself either. Her pride made her reluctant to look for him, but the image of that tabby cat coming to find her early in the morning kept playing in her mind, suggesting that things might not be as they seemed.

So, after dinner at the dorm, she decided to go to Song Qi’s apartment.

This was a new route for her; she hadn’t walked this path to his place before. Yu Manyi was shaken by the tram as it took her to his stop, then she got off and slowly walked towards his apartment.

She hadn’t been to Song Qi’s place recently, and she was sure he wouldn’t have bought flowers for himself. Men rarely buy flowers for themselves. Yu Manyi bought a bouquet of peonies from a vendor at the roadside and, holding them, walked toward the apartment.

Since Uncle Qi wasn’t at the door anymore, Yu Manyi realized that Uncle Qi and the others had likely abandoned their posts. She smiled and, holding the flowers, climbed the stairs, walking lightly and cheerfully.She more or less knew where Song Qi would leave the key, so even if no one was home, she could still get in. However, surprisingly, there was someone at home. The door was half ajar, and when she looked through the gap, it was pitch black inside.

Had Song Qi forgotten to close the door?

Yu Manyi stood at the doorway, stunned, and her steps immediately stopped. She placed her hand on the doorknob, preparing to push it open, but suddenly, a sense of hesitation rose in her heart, like an animal's instinctive reaction when it senses danger.

With extreme sensitivity, she quickly withdrew her hand.

However, just as her hand left the doorknob, a hand suddenly stretched out from the gap, gripping her tightly and forcefully pulling her inside.

Yu Manyi didn’t have time to scream. She only felt her body being engulfed by the darkness in an instant, and her vision was swallowed up. The peonies fell to the ground, and her slender wrist was tightly grasped by a large hand, in the same manner as when she was dragged down the field ridge before.