Day 11
Early morning and YaoYao's still asleep.
We sneak outside our hostel room to call Ms. Song, our sister's teacher. We tell her everything that's been happening with YaoYao and our family's situation. We ask her to try to get the school to allow our sister to resume re-attending school, seeing she's not been attending school since our mother's fell ill. Ms. Song is surprised by the story and assures us that YaoYao can come back to school. Not only that but the school will help with our situation; YaoYao is qualified for financial aid and won't be charged for dorm or meal fees. She also says she'll try contacting our mother and talk some sense into her. In the meanwhile YaoYao is to reside in the school's dorms.
We thank her and tell her we'll be buying a bus ticket first thing and sending YaoYao back home, the very next day.
Not a second after we hang up YaoYao calls, asking where we are. We tell her we've just got off the phone with Ms. Song. We tell her we think that the best thing for her to do now is to go back home, and resume school.
She says she wants to help us with the debt but we tell her that we'll handle the debt, and more importantly, that we think she shouldn't miss out on having an education. She doesn't seem excited about the decision, but we agree to speak later.
Again, our phone rings just as we end our call; this time it's the Job Broker, with an Inventory Sorter job. This job can earn us an 800 Yuan bonus if we work the job for three consecutive days. We agree we'll look into it and ask her if she can waiver the Broker fee, to which she agrees.
We don't have enough skill points to unlock the Inventory Sorter job, so we need to work the Flyer Boy job today.
We thank the Job Broker and hang up; just as we arrive at the bus stop to purchase YaoYao's ticket back home.
Before heading to work we stop by the hostel and pay for another day in a Dedicated Room so YaoYao can have a room for herself if she decides to spend some time in the hostel.
"It would be great not to be alone in the city and have our sister stay with us but she'd be missing out on her education if she were to stay here and work. We'll manage for sure, and earn the money to pay the debt ourselves."
We're confident but we hope this is not a mistake. After all, if we can't pay the debt in time, YaoYao could again be in reach of the Loan Sharks...even if they've changed their threatening tone.
Could Ms. Song talk some sense into our mother?
Could the school really protect her from all this?
We can't be certain of it all and we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out. YaoYao can always run away again and come find us again. One thing we are certain of is that paying the debt would put all theses worries to rest.
So we get to work, handing out flyers.
"No matter how hard someone works, there's always those who manage to get away minimal effort, somehow or another."
We're in a Terrible Mood at the end of that shift.
Out of frustration, we choose to jump one of the park's fences that have already been closed, to reach the nearest sink and get washed up. Then, to destroy some balloons!
But, as fate, would have it we miss our landing and injure ourselves.
"What next?!"
We're near the sink so we wash up.
"This fucking breeze! A Cold, that's what's next!"
We're Injured and have caught a cold but we managed to shoot some balloons and lift our mood a bit. Still, we need to get to the clinic.
We get our injuries "patched up" and take some medicine.
Feeling numb from the meds and the sting from the fall can't let us bother us; there's day time left and some more money to be made.
So we push on and get to the Buddy Express post office to buy recyclables, then we sell them off to the Recycler and head to the hostel.
Later that evening we have dinner with YaoYao; although feeling unwell, YaoYao'll be leaving in a couple of hours so we go out for a walk after dinner.
She seems to know about how to earn money by peddling goods on the street.
That's a business idea that might earn us some good cash. We think about opening up a Peddler Stall.
Still looking at the Market with new eyes, we get a call from the Loan Sharks. They know our sister has come to the city and are putting some extra pressure on us, threatening us again, if we were to think about running away.
We tell them not to worry; that they'll get their money.
We walk with our sister around the market for a bit longer and then head back to the hostel, and get some sleep.
Day 12
At the bus stop we say goodbye to YaoYao - Ms. Song has talked some sense into our mother and our sister will he going home for the time being. With the occasional visit from her teacher to the house, we hope YaoYao can maintain focused of her studies.
We tell her to call us if anything happens, and not to try to handle things by herself. We remind her that we're always by her side. She tells us to take good care of ourselves while she's away. There's a teary farewell.
We're now more than ever ready for the challenges ahead of us, and after watching the bus leave, we open up the dBay app and purchase a few items online, and open up a Peddler Stall. We're hopeful that it can earn us a lot more than the jobs we've been working so far.
Online orders from dBay take 2 days to arrive at the post office so there's some planning ahead required. Not to mention investing the little money that we have. But it could very well be worth it.
We unlock the Peddler job.
We're feeling good, injuries healed and cold cured, so we get set on handing out flyers for the day .
We unlock the Inventory Sorter job. We'll take advantage of the Job Broker's offer and do the job three days in a row, to earn the 1000 Yuan bonus.
After work, we go around buying recyclables but as we're reaching the Recycler we realize that the Auntie is having a heated discussion with someone. We stay a bit back but learn that this 'someone' is her son; and he sounds worried.
He's trying to convince her to retire and enjoy life without having to work anymore. He's worried that with his father having passed away there's no-one to take care of her, nearby, in case she hurts herself or needs help. He offers her to come live with him.
We try to back away, unnoticed, but accidentally trip over some scrap on the floor, and both their attentions turns towards us. The man sighs out of frustration from the conversation and helps us clear the floor of the scrap - something he looks to be very fluent at doing; obviously he'd helped his mother work at the recycler in the past.
We arrange the mess a bit and decide to leave them to it. There's no way Auntie's gonna purchase any scrap from us today. So we leave, with a heavy backpack, still full of scrap.
We decide to lift our mood a bit and try those Slot Machines near our hostel.
We really shouldn't be gambling our money away, but the temptation of the "big win" got the best of us; we restrained ourselves from spending more than 10 Yuan.
Right after loosing (because..gambling!) we check out the Tools street vender for any tool that might help us with the 3 days we'll be working as Inventory Sorter. We buy a "Lucky Stone".
Less "Small Packages", in the Inventory Sorter job, means an easier job, and therefore more money.
While still at the tools vender Mr. Song, YaoYao's teacher, calls us to let us know that YaoYao has arrived and will be staying in the school's dorms after all, an not at home. It seems neither of them talked sense into our mother.
Ms. Song asks us if YaoYao spoke with us about colleges.
YaoYao had told us that if she were to go to college, that she'd hoped to go to a college near us, in the city. Ms. Song says she actually has a pretty good chance at going to college, having done very well in the school exams. Seeing she still has plenty of time to get excellent admission exams results, she's very likely to be able to enter a college with ease.
We're her de facto guardian now, so Ms. Song is telling us this and not our mother, giving us the heads up and the responsibility to start planning her future.
It's night time and we try to get home as quick as possible, to get a good night sleep. We try to jump the park's gate again but the weight of our still-full backpack landed us a pretty nasty fall, injuring us again.
We're Incumbered by our backpack and unable to run; Injured and can hardly walk in a straight line. And we're not feeling "cool" at all!
The Recycler's auntie is now free from her discussion with her son so we empty our backpack, slowly make our way to the clinic and in pain, call it a night!
Day 13
Early morning and we're feeling rested but in serious need of a mood boost. It's been a tiring couple of days. We make our way to the park for some recreational fun and on the way we stop by a Grocery Store and munch down some Fruits for breakfast. Then some Stinky Tofu to get us through the morning.
Then, to work.
We're starting with the Inventory Sorter job today, working it for three days, which will earn us the Shopping Spree bonus of 1000 Yuan.
Tasks, like the Shopping Spree task have a limited time to complete. Some can be very rewarding. Others aren't worth the job change.
Each job increases one of our four abilities (Deft, in the case of Inventory Sorter).
"A bit more complicated, this job".
This is where "Lucky Stone" we bought from the Tools vender comes into effect, reducing the number of the smallest packages that will arrive in the conveyor belt. The bigger the packages, the quicker we load a forklift, and the quicker we earn a bonus for each forklift loaded. Less "smaller packages" means more potential earnings.
"Slacking around! What an asshole!"
"Fucking job's a hazard!"
At the end of the shift and a visit to the clinic we go down to the park for more recreation. We're up for some dancing with the Aunties but we realize won't be able to keep up; not while recovering from the injury.
Selecting either option won't allow us to do the activity!
Still feeling in a bad mood after the terrible day at work, we find some less strenuous activities to do. We play a bit of chess and manage to win, but luck, it seems, keeps pending to the opposite direction, and we head over to the clinic with another cold.
Already eaten and at the hostel we start to think about YaoYao's college plan; it'll cost money. We don't know how much and we barely know anyone well enough to ask. Except, perhaps Mr.Cao; he's local and a nice person. We think about calling him but decide to message him instead, feeling that that would be less intrusive.
We ask Mr. Cao what he knows about colleges in the city. We tell him it's for our sister and he give us some useful information; information still fresh in his mind from when his daughter went to college.
He send us the information: admission notes and tuition costs. We thank him.
He's has no problem in sharing the the information and goes on to tell us that we're now doing our parents' job. So he asks if we're good with money and life in general. We tell him things are "not bad" and he advises us to start saving up because, aside from the tuition fee there's other costs to going to college, rounding the figure to about 10k Yuan per year.
Those are figures that we can easily make to pay for our sister's college. We thank him for the information.
He continues on the conversation, asking if we have any plans for ourselves. We tell him that we're happy being a nobody, but that our sister is not; and that she's going places.
Out of the blue, Mr. Cao asks us something we find rather off-topic; he asks us if we play "World of Peacecraft". We're stumped as to what that has to do with anything but we tell him that yes, we do. Mr. Cao tell us that he plays it too, and that he once thought that the purpose of the game was to win, but later came to realize that "there is no win", in an online game.
He goes on:
"Everybody plays it differently. Life is the same. Maybe i don't have the most powerful character, but, hey, i've got a good job and a happy family. I'd call it a solid win in my own way of playing. You're young, son. Nothing is too late yet. Play on!"
We're not sure what he means by it, but we thank him again and we hang up.
I mean, if Mr Cao is not talking about Nobody - The Turnaround, then i don't know anything!
Continue reading: Days 14 - 18