Her earnings increased exponentially and she now had enough money to move into her own apartment.
Though she could have afforded a decent one bedroom, she instead rented a suitable studio. That way she was able to send more money home to her family, save more for the future, and even give a little to her cousin for the baby.
With the amount she was making, she figured she only needed to work another two to five years. Then she planned to return to her hometown and start her own small business, probably a little shop or restaurant.
She also began to chat on QQ with a cousin of one of her old friends from high school, a boy only a couple years older than her, by the name of Huang Mo Zhe. Mo Zhe was working on his family’s farm, which was turning a respectable profit.
The more they talked, the more she envisioned returning to her village and marrying him, starting a family, and forgetting all about her current life.
***
Ying only worked nights, so most of her days were spent sleeping, watching Thai soap operas, and playing on QQ.
But mostly she went shopping, since for the first in her life she had disposable cash, and she liked to use it to buy all sorts of clothes, shoes, and make-up, especially the Korean style stuff her favorite K-Pop singers wore.
She and Di often met up in the afternoons or early evenings before work and would wander arm in arm around any number of different shopping malls in Guangzhou or Shenzhen, buying whatever they felt like, sitting next to each other in restaurants, playing on their cell phones, and talking about anything other than work.
Sometimes Ying went to the mall by herself, just to walk around and window shop or sit in a café, where she’d sip coffee and surf Weibo or QQ on her cellphone...
When shopping one balmy afternoon, Ying came across a sale for the newest iPhone.
Excitedly, she purchased it, and remembered the long hours she’d spent in that hot and sticky factory and those berating Cantonese shrieks that spewed from her old boss. Ying couldn’t help but wonder if maybe one of her old colleagues had assembled the phone she now held in her freshly manicured hands.
She rushed it back to her apartment, tore open its packaging, powered it on and began to fiddle with its features.
She’d been so ecstatic to see it in the store and to buy it, but as she played around with it and clutched its cool, shiny silver body, she didn’t really feel anything at all.
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
