Chapter 78: Made a Decision
Wang Daguo ran as if a ghost was chasing him, even knocking a cigarette out of his colleague’s hand.
His colleague cursed, "Wang Daguo, are you crazy?!"
"A mutant beast!" Wang Daguo slammed the car door shut and rolled up the window. "I... I ran into a mutant beast!"
The colleague picked up his cigarette, stuck it back in his mouth, and got into the car with him.
"For real? Weren’t you just hauling a corpse?"
"The mutant beast crawled out of the corpse." Wang Daguo showed him his arm. "At first, I thought the corpse had come back to life. It lunged at me and bit me! I smashed its head with an iron plate, and the mutant beast crawled out of its skull."
A deep bite mark was imprinted on his muscular arm, oozing blood and giving off a strange, unsettling aura.
His colleague started the car and drove Wang Daguo back to the collection point, where he explained the situation to the person in charge.
The person in charge was surnamed Wu, and everyone called him Brother Wu.
"All right, I’ve heard you." Brother Wu was smoking a cigarette. Unlike the hand-rolled ones his colleague smoked, his was a commercial brand. "Ah, Little Wang, we corpse collectors are bound to run into some strange things, but what you’re describing is a bit too far-fetched."
"What are mutant beasts? They’re animals that have mutated. How could one possibly crawl out of a human corpse? Since you’re injured, take a few days off. I won’t count it as an absence, so you can still get your perfect attendance bonus."
Someone quietly pointed out, "Brother Wu, Wang Daguo is a temporary worker. He doesn’t get a perfect attendance bonus."
Brother Wu exhaled a puff of smoke and chuckled. "Is that so."
As Wang Daguo was kicked out of the collection point, holding his final pay and medical expenses, his head was still buzzing.
’Wait, how did I get fired?’
His colleague patted him on the shoulder. "Nothing to be done. At the collection point, Brother Wu calls all the shots. If he wants you gone, nobody can say no."
In the collection point’s office, Brother Wu sat on the sofa with his legs crossed, puffing away on his cigarette while one of his underlings served him tea.
"Brother Wu, did Wang Daguo do something to upset you? Why’d you fire him?"
Wang Daguo was the strongest man at the entire collection point and easy to order around. Everyone liked to have him do the odd jobs.
"What the hell do you know!" Brother Wu shot him a glare. "Why would I keep a menace around?"
"But Wang Daguo is pretty honest. He’s widely known as an honest guy."
"Hmph." Brother Wu narrowed his eyes. "He’s honest now, but that might not be the case later."
’Who knows if he’ll get infected after being bitten by a new type of mutant beast?’
As a minor leader at the collection point, he was privy to more information than most.
He actually knew that Wang Daguo had genuinely encountered a new species of mutant beast. But until the officials made an announcement, he would never breathe a word about it to anyone.
"Have someone keep a close eye on Wang Daguo. Report to me immediately if you notice anything unusual."
A small scheme was already forming in Brother Wu’s mind. He didn’t dare keep Wang Daguo at the collection point, afraid he might mutate and cause trouble for him.
But he could capture a mutated Wang Daguo and hand him over to the research institute. That would fetch a reward of one hundred thousand Star Coins.
The underling had no idea what Brother Wu was thinking. But as a henchman, he didn’t need much intelligence. All he had to do was follow his boss’s orders.
Wang Daguo returned home dejectedly. When he pushed the door open, the young and old sitting around the table all looked over at him in unison.
"Daguo is back. Have you eaten? I’ll get you an Insect Cake." Granny Wang rose unsteadily to her feet and went to the cupboard to get an Insect Cake.
Wang Daguo’s two younger sisters rushed over, chattering away. "Brother, you’re back so late today! It’s already dark out. Granny and Mom were so worried about you. They were afraid you wouldn’t come back."
"Brother, you must be tired from work. Let me give you a shoulder rub, okay?"
His two sisters pulled Wang Daguo over to a chair and made him sit down.
Mrs. Wang sensed something was wrong with her son and gently asked if he had run into some trouble.
"It’s nothing, I’m just a little tired." Wang Daguo didn’t want to tell his family he’d been fired and make them worry with him.
"Brother, if you’re tired, you should rest. Xiao Hui and I aren’t little kids anymore. We can go scavenge for scraps to help support the family."
Wang Daguo patted his second sister Wang Xiaoci’s head. "I’ll be fine after some sleep."
Wang Daguo ate his Insect Cake, chatted briefly with his family, and then it was time to rest.
Granny Wang and the other three slept in the inner room, while Wang Daguo made a pallet on the floor in the living room.
The man sat on his pallet with his legs bent, rolling up his long sleeve. By the faint light from the window, he looked at his wound.
To save money, he hadn’t gone to a clinic to treat the bite. It was now a little red and swollen, showing faint signs of inflammation.
’It’s fine,’ he thought. ’I’m healthy. I can tough it out, and it’ll heal on its own.’
Right now, what frustrated him was being fired for no clear reason.
Temporary workers had no job security. If they tell you to leave, you have to leave, and they don’t even need to give you a reason.
Wang Daguo couldn’t help but recall what Shen Lu had said.
"What I told you before still stands. If you’re willing, I’d like to hire you as an employee."
The man ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
It wasn’t that he found it embarrassing to work for a young woman; rather, he felt that besides his brute strength, he had nothing to offer Shen Lu.
He couldn’t cook, let alone chop vegetables. He was a bit clumsy, and with his intimidating appearance, he wasn’t suited to be a waiter either.
And yet, Wang Daguo really wanted to go work for Shen Lu.
’She treated him well even when he was just a part-timer. If he became a full-time employee, wouldn’t the pay and benefits be even better?’
’Then I’ll go.’
Wang Daguo steeled himself and made a decision.
’A man shouldn’t be so indecisive. I might be a bit clumsy, but if I put my heart into it, I probably won’t do too badly.’
Early the next morning, Wang Daguo was up.
He quickly put away his bedding, changed into a clean set of clothes, ate the Insect Cake Mrs. Wang had heated up for him, and went out.
Wang Daguo went straight to the Seventeenth District to find Shen Lu. He happened to run into her just as she was heading out to the No. 3 Landfill with Cai Su.
"Boss Shen, good morning!"
"Brother Wang?" Shen Lu looked surprised. "You have the day off today?"
’Otherwise, why would he be here at this time?’
"No... Um, I’ll just be direct." Wang Daguo cleared his throat. "I want to come work for you. Do you think that would be possible?"
Shen Lu didn’t agree right away. She furtively activated the Good and Evil Judgment Device and took a look. The color of the heart above Wang Daguo’s head was a little deeper than before, but it was still pink.
This meant that Wang Daguo still held goodwill toward her.
’But it’s only been one night. Why did he suddenly make up his mind?’
"If you come work at my shop, you won’t be able to continue your job as a corpse collector. I’m looking for a full-time employee, you know," Shen Lu reminded him.
"I know." Wang Daguo rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Actually, I was fired yesterday."
"Fired? Why? Did you make a mistake?"
"No, no." Wang Daguo waved his hands and briefly explained what had happened the day before. "I don’t get it either. Brother Wu said I was injured and wasn’t fit to continue the job, so he paid me out and fired me."