Journey 1995:Non-Stop

Chapter 35 A drink and a peck

Yan Hui had worked with his second brother before, but usually in smaller locations. Larger places generally had more workers than they needed, so they didn't need to go there. Especially since some construction sites had forklifts and cranes, which made loading and unloading much faster than manual labor.

But the construction site was really short of workers today, so my second brother drove his Daihatsu van and brought four workers to help.

This time it was a large construction site where a large real estate project was to be developed. There were seven or eight tower cranes, as well as various machines such as excavators. Yan Hui had never seen many of them before, so it was an eye-opener.

The van followed the truck into the construction site. The entire construction site was extremely busy. Only the old man guarding the gate was relatively relaxed. He stood next to the car and smoked.

The wooden boards transported this time are mainly used to build scaffolding. They need to be moved from the truck to the downstairs of the construction site. The distance is a bit far and it is impossible to drive the car directly there, after all, the road surface has not been hardened yet.

This greatly increases the difficulty of transportation.

"Unloading is one price, moving it is another price," the second brother found the foreman and was a little unhappy.

Before I came, they said they would come to unload the goods, but when I arrived, I found that it was not that simple. I had to cross a dirt road of more than 100 meters to deliver the wooden boards downstairs, which was completely two different workloads.

"Wait a minute, I'll go ask," the foreman seemed to have no idea about it in advance and ran into a prefabricated steel house.

Soon, a man emerged from the prefabricated steel building. He had a large belly and was wearing a brand new hard hat. "Who is it? Which boss sent this wood? You agreed on a price, but you still want to add transportation fees? Who is it? Let me see!"

The man was holding a bag and walking towards the truck while shouting.

Yan Hui saw this man from afar and was immediately envious. This guy was about... well... 1.7 meters tall, but weighed at least 200 kilograms. How much good food must he have eaten? On the other hand, if this body were given to Yan Hui, he wouldn't have to go hungry for months because of the bad food.

"Who is this?" The second brother looked at the foreman in confusion, with an unhappy expression.

"This is Mr. Wang from our group, who is mainly responsible for on-site construction," the foreman introduced with his head bowed.

"Hello, Mr. Wang," the second brother pointed at the truck. "Before we came, they said they were unloading the goods, and that's what we are here for. But now they want us to transport it over. If it were a flat road, we could use a flatbed truck to tow it over, but this is all dirt roads."

"From here to there, it's only 100 meters?" Mr. Wang held his waist. "If you still think that's far, why did you send me wood?"

This made my second brother very angry.

If two people unload wood from a truck, and if they don't need to move it but just need to unload it under the truck, it will be very fast. Two people can unload the whole truck of wood in an hour.

But if you want to move it 50 meters away, it will take four people two hours to move it, and this is on a flat road.

If they were moving 100 meters of dirt road, it would take two people at least four or five minutes to go back and forth, and two people wouldn't be able to move even one cubic meter of wood in an hour. This truckload of 8 cubic meters of wood would take these four people most of the day.

"Boss Wang," the second brother said, his voice tingling with displeasure, "Do you have a tricycle or something that can get through? We can load the stuff onto the tricycle and then unload it again."

"Tricycle?" Mr. Wang, who was not completely clueless, looked at the foreman and said, "Find them a handcart."

"I understand. Mr. Wang, please go back and have a rest first." The foreman said, and slowly sent Mr. Wang back.

After sending Mr. Wang off, the foreman went to the construction site to find a hand tractor.

"What the hell! If the things and people hadn't come over, I really wanted to curse back at that fat guy." The second brother was holding his breath and couldn't vent it.

"Fortunately, we were able to find a handcart, otherwise it would be terrible. It would be difficult to walk on this broken road." Uncle Wang sighed.

"A hand truck is better than nothing. We can just clamp the wooden planks on the truck bed and lay them horizontally, which will make it easier to unload the truck later." The second brother briefly explained the plan.

"Well, I guess I have to make 10 trips, but it's better than having no car. It would be terrible today without a car." Uncle Wang has been moving wood for several years and understands best how painful it is to not have a car in this situation.

Not long after, the foreman drove over in a hand tractor and handed the tractor to the second brother. "You're lucky. Our boss Wang is in a good mood today. Otherwise, you would have to take the goods back. I guess he wouldn't want them anymore."

"Is this person so powerful?" The second brother still asked about it, but he didn't continue to be angry.

"I told you, it's the boss of the group here who's in charge of construction. Let me put it this way, if he's willing, he can turn all the timber procurement for the entire construction site into your hands with just one word." The foreman was quite easy to talk to, and he didn't put on airs.

"How much lumber does this construction site need in a year?" the second brother asked roughly. If the amount was really huge, he wouldn't even have to bow his head, let alone knock on one.

"We're building a building, and the main structure is made of cement and steel. Wood is used sparingly, but even so, it still costs hundreds of thousands of dollars a year."

"Yeah, that's not bad." The second brother nodded. A lumber demand of several hundred thousand per year wasn't a lot. No wonder there wasn't a fixed place to buy it.

"Yeah, it's not a lot of wood, it's mainly steel and cement, which cost over 100 million!" The foreman pointed to the prefabricated steel house. "It all depends on Mr. Wang's signature."

"That's true." The second brother suddenly stopped being unhappy.

"Okay, you guys get started. Do you know how to drive this car?" The foreman pointed to the hand tractor.

"Yes." The second brother nodded and began to ask everyone to unload the goods.

With a hand tractor, unloading did become much easier. Soon everyone unloaded about one square meter of wood. Then the four of them held on together while my second brother personally drove the hand tractor downstairs.

Yan Hui felt that today's work was pretty good and not tiring. He worked for a while and then rested for a while. Apart from taking some time, there was nothing wrong with it.

When moving the wood there, although it was simply tied with ropes, the porters still had to guard the two sides of the car, and if the wood was about to fall, they had to push it back. But when returning, it was much easier, as they could just sit in the car and follow.

The walking tractor was quite interesting, and Yan Hui was very happy riding on it. Perhaps the adults didn't think riding on it was fun, so Uncle Wang simply didn't get on and walked back slowly. The truck bed was made of iron, and it was autumn, so sitting on it was still very cold. The truck was extremely bumpy and uncomfortable, but Yan Hui didn't care; he just thought it was fun.

After finishing the move, Yan Hui jumped out of the car and suddenly felt his right leg was a little weak. It was a familiar feeling.
Yan Hui had broken his leg before, but it was mostly healed by April or May of this year. Then, in June, while returning to Fengtian, his buttocks was broken again by a wooden sling. Although he recovered quickly, he still suffers from frequent discomfort in the area from his right leg to his buttocks.

Today I sat on the cold steel plate and bumped around for a while, and my right leg started to feel uncomfortable again.

Fortunately, Yan Hui didn't need to get on the truck this time. He just stood on the ground to receive the wooden boards handed down from above, and then put the boards on the truck bed.

What's going on? Yan Hui was extremely puzzled by the discomfort in his legs.
He tried to move around more while receiving the wood, and soon the cart was loaded.

My second brother was driving the car in front, and everyone continued to transport it over there.

As he walked, Yan Hui roughly knew what was wrong with his legs. Generally speaking, he still needed to take care of them and not get exposed to such cold air again. He had to be careful about it, especially this winter. He must not get cold again, so that he would be completely healed next year.

The temporary pain was not serious, it just served as a reminder to Yan Hui, but it was still noticed by Uncle Wang.

Uncle Wang was walking in front of Yan Hui, much closer to his second brother who was in the driver's seat. He took the initiative to remind him, "Old Li, drive a little slower. Xiao Yan seems to have twisted his foot."

"Okay!" The car was a little noisy, but the second brother still controlled the car and slowed it down. Now they were almost at the parking place.

Yan Hui was somewhat grateful, but he didn't refuse. He really needed to take a break. He estimated that he would be fine in half an hour at most.

As a result, my second brother had just slowed down and was about to reach the place where he had just parked when he suddenly heard someone shouting: "Be careful!"

The sound gave people no time to react. A steel pipe fell straight from a high altitude and hit the front of the walk-behind tractor. The second brother lost control of the car and it hit the steel pipe directly. He then braked the car.

"Fuck?" The second brother was so frightened that he jumped out of the car and started running to the side.

When the second brother ran away, Yan Hui and others also quickly ran to the side to stay away from the building under construction.

The five people moved very quickly, running more than ten meters in 5 seconds before they slowed down.

At this time, many people at the construction site gathered around.

This is a thick steel pipe two or three meters long, used to build scaffolding. Of course, the wood needed at this construction site is for scaffolding.

I don’t know who was so careless to drop such a heavy steel pipe from a high place. If my second brother had moved forward one or two meters, something would have happened!
The second brother quickly understood the whole process and pointed at Yan Hui and Lao Wang and said, "Thank goodness you let me slow down. Damn it, if it were me..."

The second brother obviously hadn't recovered from the panic yet. He was very scared and ran to Uncle Wang and grabbed his hand: "Old Wang, thank goodness you!"

"You're lucky, what does it have to do with me?" Uncle Wang pointed at Yan Hui. "I don't know what's wrong with Xiaoyan, his legs are hurting, so I told you to go slower. His legs are hurting for no reason either, maybe he came here specifically to save you!"

"What's wrong with your leg?" The second brother hurried over to Yan Hui to ask what happened.

"It's nothing. I just sat on the truck bed and it hurt a lot." Yan Hui was also a little confused at this moment.

"Old Wang is right. You came here to save me because your legs hurt," the second brother believed in Old Wang's words without a doubt. "I'll treat everyone to dinner and drinks when we get home tonight!"

The second brother's words made everyone happy. At this time, Mr. Wang, the person in charge of the construction site, also came over.

Mr. Wang was holding a file bag in his hand and started beating a construction worker. In the end, he still felt unsatisfied and kicked him, making the man roll on the ground, but he didn't dare to resist at all.

After letting out this sigh, Mr. Wang pointed at the foremen and said, "Hurry up and check! If you don't handle the safety issues well, no one will eat tonight!"

After doing all this, Mr. Wang came over and looked carefully at the second brother and the others. "Mr. Li, I'm really sorry that such a big thing happened today. I'll arrange for a forklift to unload your truckload right now, so you don't have to move it here. I'll pay for the freight and everything. Also, although our construction site doesn't use much wood, we still have some. I'll have the foreman contact you in the future and try to purchase it from us. What do you think?"

Mr. Wang's quick change of heart left the second brother a little confused, but after all, the second brother was knowledgeable and experienced. Since there was nothing wrong, he didn't need to take it seriously. He just waved his hand and said, "Hey, it's okay, Mr. Wang. Let's cooperate more in the future!"

On a large construction site like this, nothing is more important than safe production, let alone something as serious as today's. This was truly good luck; if someone died, it wouldn't just be a headache for Mr. Wang. Remember, this is the city's star project!
Since Mr. Wang said so, there was no need to continue with today's transportation. The second brother asked everyone to get on his Daihatsu. On the way back, the second brother was still a little scared, but he also had to feel that it was a blessing in disguise.

After returning to the store, the second brother gave Lao Wang a big red envelope of 500 yuan, which made everyone very envious. Many people started to spread the story, saying it was a miracle. Not only that, the second brother also paid the other three porters 50 yuan each, so that everyone could rest for the day and have dinner together in the evening, which he would treat.

Being able to rest and earn money at the same time was a rare opportunity, and everyone started talking about it. The porters who hadn't gone with them, as well as the people from the surrounding shops, gathered around, wanting to hear what had happened.

"Yan Hui, come here." The second brother calmed down and called Yan Hui aside. "Come on, follow me to the hospital. I'll take an X-ray of you."

"Ah?" Yan Hui touched his leg. "Why are you filming?"

After he was injured last year, he went to a large hospital and had an X-ray taken. It was said to be quite expensive. He only had it taken once, and after recovering, he didn't go for another one.

"Just follow me if you ask me to. There's no need to worry about that." The second brother pulled Yan Hui into the car and said, "Tell me, what's wrong with your leg?"

"Okay," Yan Hui said, and followed his second brother into the car. He then recounted the injury he'd sustained on his buttocks. He'd been injured when he'd just returned, and he'd been worried about his second brother's work. He'd been surprised by how quickly the injury healed, barely affecting his work. This time, the symptoms had only slightly recurred after being jolted by the cold iron plate for a while.

"Old Wang is not a talkative person. He reminded me today for you. It must be because you have a good relationship. I have seen that you are a good kid. If you didn't have your fourth uncle to help you, I would have wanted to train you to be a foreman." The second brother praised a few words.

Yan Hui's heartbeat quickened a little, but he didn't respond.

(End of this chapter)