Chapter Ten: Losing the Fire

  A shout by my ear, one after another, unwillingly and inevitably looked towards the direction of the sound, it was Anan. He stood behind a blue-gray screen, only exposing his head, shouting at me.

  I turned my head back in a daze and looked at Yang Xiaofei, who was also startled. Yang Xiaofei's chest was still heaving obviously, but his eyes were filled with confusion after being startled.

  He looked at Anan again, and Anan's body was still blocked by the screen. His round head was on the same horizontal line as the words on the screen. The blue-gray screen had the words "Today no work, tomorrow work to find work" written in bold black font. Anan's head happened to be right behind the two characters for "work", as if he had drawn a big circle at the end of the sentence.

  I suddenly felt like laughing. The overcast sky seemed to have a ray of light shining through it all of a sudden. I looked at the big period and asked, "What's up? What do you want from me?"

  "The boss told you to hurry back, he's very angry." Anan said with exaggerated expression, her eyes wide open, frowning and mouth agape.

  "Oh." My heart suddenly tightened, but I still stood there in a daze for a while before turning my body around. And just as I was about to leave, I even forgot to say goodbye to Yang Xiaofei. By the time I reacted, I was too lazy to turn back.

  I walked to the company in a daze, slowly and sluggishly.

  "I'm telling you, you'd better be mentally prepared. Just now, you left the boss hanging there, he's going to eat your heart out." Anan whispered in my ear.

  I recalled the boss's furious and terrifying look, I finally came back to my senses, with two eyes in a state of panic, not knowing where to put them.

  "What can I do? My dad came looking for me, and I couldn't even come out to see him?" I asked Anan without any confidence, completely losing the calmness I had earlier.

  "Who do you think your dad is, the chairman of the board or the mayor? How can you just go out and see him without getting permission from the boss?" Anan kindly scolded me.

  My anxiety grew even more. I wanted to tell him that although my dad wasn't a mayor or a chairman, he had divorced my mom, shouldn't people sympathize with him a bit? Shouldn't they sympathize with me a bit? Even if not, couldn't I have some time to nurse my wounds in solitude, hiding in a corner and licking my wounds?

  But it seems there's really no reason for me to indulge in sorrow, and it seems there's no one paying my salary to let me focus on feeling pain. Life is really so realistic, so ruthless.

  If I could, I really want to go back to sleep immediately, maybe sleep can let me temporarily escape reality. But thinking of that terrible ugly woman in my dream who is scratching my palm with her sharp fingernails, the eerie atmosphere, the piercing pain and the impending doom of being punished, I dare not go back to sleep again.

  In reality, what awaits me is a storm of furious anger and torrential rain, while in my dreams, it's the suffering of flesh and deep-seated terror. I feel like I'm really at a dead end. It's really hard to be alive, as neither reality nor dreams offer a way out.

  "Bang", just as I was steeling myself to head to the company, a loud explosion pierced my eardrums, followed by the smell of burnt skin.

  I stared at Anan, and she stared back at me, our eyes filled with fear and shock.

  "It's on fire! It's on fire!" A terrified scream suddenly spread throughout the company.

  I rushed to the company with Anan, and when we arrived at the entrance, we found that everything was in disarray inside. Liu Shanshan and Zhang Xinhua were pale and flustered, rushing out in a panic, while Feng Ke and Old Wang were also frantically gathered together.

  A raging fire was rapidly consuming everything around my desk, the wastebasket ignited, the partition ignited, and the frantic flames forced the boss to retreat step by step. He shouted in terror, his buttocks landing on the floor of the corridor, as the screams of colleagues filled the air.

  The flames were getting more and more intense, the situation was becoming increasingly urgent. At this time, Anan took a swift step forward, picked up the fire extinguisher placed in the corridor, strode with a bow-like gait, and aimed at the raging fire tongue on the dusty floor. With one pull and one press, white mist sprayed out of the fire extinguisher, putting out the flames. Although gray smoke still lingered in the air, my charred table and chair shed their fiery outer garments, revealing themselves clearly before us with wisps of black smoke.

  "What...what's going on?" The boss struggled to get up from the ground, his face covered with grayish-black stains, his two hands clutching his buttocks, and asked in a state of shock.

  Colleagues all wore gloomy faces and looked at each other in dismay.

  Liu Shanshan glanced over at me, swaying her hips like a willow in the wind as she approached the boss. Her long false eyelashes fluttered as she opened her bright red lips and placed her hands on top of each other over her heaving, trembling chest. In a soft voice, she said: "Oh my goodness, Manager! Are you okay? You scared me to death! It was so dangerous just now, the flames almost reached your body! Oh my goodness, Manager, you say it's never happened before, how could this be?"

  The boss stared at Liu Shanshan with a look of horror in his eyes, furrowing his brow.

  "Ah, manager, I know! I know what the reason is! It's because of the electrical connection. Just now Su Xiaomei got the power socket wet! ........." Liu Shanshan shook her hands and thrust out her chest, which trembled in front of the boss, with a look of sudden realization.

  My heart skipped a beat as if it had stopped.

  I looked at the boss in a fluster, with a guilty conscience, and saw that his eyes were fixed on Liu Shanshan's full chest, but he immediately turned his head around, his face was cold and terrifying, his small and cunning eyes were spewing out flames of anger, like an enemy of a thousand years.

  "Su Xiaomei!" He stood with his two dry hands on his thin waist, his two weak legs jumping up and down, his gaunt face turning purple as he roared at me: "All the losses will be doubled and compensated by you! You good-for-nothing! If this continues, get out of my sight! Don't let me see you again!"