Wandering in the vast darkness

Chapter 79 I'll Ask

Yu Wenhao's words left Bianbian speechless, feeling like she couldn't keep up.

Bianbian and Jianjian started a live stream, saying they were going to accompany Yu Wenhao to interview him. However, Yu Wenhao felt that when they weren't facing the camera, the two girls spoke vividly and interestingly, but when they were in front of the camera, it was as if they entered a different role, their language became dry and impoverished, and even their brains seemed to be not quite up to par.

The way they spoke was to imitate the tone of a TV announcer, with a constant stream of clichés and platitudes, such as "Midnight in Hangzhou." In real life, who would say "midnight" instead of "You're still out in the middle of the night," blah blah blah.

Yu Wenhao couldn't help but shake his head.

Flat-faced racked her brains, seemingly thinking of some interesting or suitable question. The silence that filled the carriage was like an awkward silence in a theater. This made her a little flustered, and she quickly tried to make conversation:

"Master Yu, could you please introduce yourself?"

"Oh, you just said you got married and had a daughter, you..."

Yu Wenhao knew what she was about to say, so she quickly glared at Bianbian. Bianbian realized this as well and immediately swallowed her words. This made her even more flustered and speechless.

Yu Wenhao quickly stepped in to salvage the situation, taking the initiative to control the conversation. He thought to himself, for now, these two girls had more stories to tell than he did. He had a regular job, drove a ride-hailing car part-time, and had to pay his mortgage every month—all too ordinary, nothing special to talk about. Conversely, these two girls, struggling to even pay their rent in this city, seemed to have a much more complicated life.

"Did your factory hire anyone this year?" Bianbian asked.

Yu asked, "Everyone says that you livestreamers are internet celebrities who make money very quickly, is that true? How much do you earn in a month?"

Yu Wenhao shook his head: "I don't think I've heard of any hiring this year."

Yu Wen smiled and said, "We're technically a company, but we're actually a factory."

Jianjian said, "Some people say it's a sausage, one yuan a piece, and others say it's Want Want Little Buns, one yuan a small pack..."

"It's just awful, really awful. I'm almost embarrassed to say it, but since we're all family, I'll go all out today," Bianbian said. "Do you know how much the cheapest bag of snacks costs at the supermarket?"

"Find a job? Tell me, what's the difference between having a diploma and not having one when we, so-called college students, are like this? With a diploma like this, which company would hire me?"

"What will you do if you don't do it anymore?" Bianbian asked.

As Jianjian spoke, Bianbian kept shaking her head.

Bianbian laughed and said, "Don't worry, don't worry, you can ask me anything."

Bianbian said that was right, "Spicy strips that cost 50 cents a pack, like Weilong spicy strips, and broad beans and Jinlian beans, also cost 50 cents a pack. When we were craving snacks, we only dared to buy these 50-cent packs at the small supermarket. One yuan would exceed the limit, and even if we bought them, we didn't dare to eat more. Oh, I mean we couldn't bear to eat more. We could only eat one or two packs a day."

"When I apply for a cashier or stock clerk position at a supermarket, they prefer to hire older women with families, saying they are more stable and they look down on people like us."

Bianbian seemed to have been holding back her feelings for too long, and had so much to say. Yu Wenhao's question touched a nerve, and she started talking non-stop.

"To be honest, it's not like I haven't tried. I went for a job interview at a factory, but they simply don't want people like us. Why? The recruiter looked at my resume, then at me, and said, 'You don't look like someone who can do any work.' That's all they said to dismiss me."

"Where can you find a quick way to make money?" Bianbian said with a sneer. "That's all a lie. There are at least tens of thousands of people doing live streaming in Hangzhou, but only a few thousand can actually make money. And even fewer can make big money, maybe just a few dozen people. The rest are probably about the same as us."

Yu Wenhao said, "How about I interview you instead? So many fans are coming to your live stream; they must be very interested in you and want to know how you live in this city."

"Don't think that factories have no barriers to entry. They do, but their needs and requirements are different. If I were a high school student, they might not have said those things and would have thought I was suitable for an assembly line job. But I'm a college student, so people say, 'You don't look like someone who can do manual labor at all.'"

"It's not just your factory; factories everywhere are not short of workers, they're just short of orders and money. Don't think of yourself as something special, thinking that if you can't go to the company, you can always work as a factory worker, as if you look down on working in a factory."

"So pitiful?" Bianbian said, which surprised even Yu Wenhao. He asked, "Since doing live streaming is so difficult, why do you still do it? Why don't you just stop?"

She shrieked, "Haha, does anyone know that spicy strips are 50 cents a pack?"

"Not only do factories not want people like us, but even KFC, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and some hotels and restaurants prefer to hire students for hourly jobs rather than people like us who have graduated for several years and have been working in society. Why? Because they think we are difficult to manage and will always cause them trouble."

"These days, where you're hiring, there's a huge crowd of applicants. Even graduates from top universities like 985 and 211, and overseas returnees, are no longer a novelty. For someone like me, if I hand in my resume, they probably won't even give it a second glance. By the way, Mr. Yu, I heard you're a manager at your company. Would your company hire a graduate from a lousy school like mine?"

"It's like what I told you before, our wallets are empty, our stomachs are empty, we've eaten our fill today, but we don't know where we'll eat tomorrow, and right now we don't even know how we'll pay next month's rent."

"Most of the hundreds of thousands of people in Hangzhou who do live streaming live very hard lives. Don't assume that they are doing live streaming because they want to do it, are lazy, and just want to make money easily. In reality, they can't relax at all. They become live streamers because they have no other way out. After all, the threshold for doing live streaming is low and doesn't require much investment."

"Similar to you, what's it like?" Yu asked.

"Can I ask you anything?" Yu Wenhao said, "Of course, we've only just met today, and I'm a complete stranger to you. I just have a voyeuristic streak and want to see your privacy, but I don't know how. You can rest assured about that."

Yu asked, "Is it that bad?"

"You could go find a job."

Bianbian paused for a moment, then said, "Sure, sure, you can interview me, Master Yu."

Yu Wenhao shook her head: "I really don't know, Jianjian, do you see anyone in the live stream who knows?"