To please others? It's better to please yourself.

When Xu Jing'an arrived at work, she still felt uneasy. Based on her past experience reading novels and watching movies, she was always worried that something unexpected would happen.

Taking advantage of the quiet morning, she said, "Sister Su-fen, you hold the fort for a while, I'm going to find Master Zheng." She turned around and went downstairs to the bicycle shed.

Is Master Zheng here?

"Here—here—" Master Zheng heard someone calling him and quickly limped out from inside.

Zheng Liang was once a frontline worker at the steel mill, but he became lame after his heel was accidentally crushed. To take care of Zheng Liang, who was injured on the job, and because he also had the skill of repairing bicycles, the factory put him in charge of the bicycle shed.

Because of this skill, I haven't lost my job watching the carport for so many years.

"Master Zheng, are you free now?"

"Yes, there's no work yet this morning!"

"Then could you please fix my bicycle, Mr. Zheng?"

"Was it the woman's car?"

"right"

"What's wrong with it?"

"I can't say exactly where it's from, but it just feels really uncomfortable to ride. You should take it apart and do a complete overhaul from start to finish."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do." With that, Zheng Liang got to work efficiently. This was a big job, and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to finish it if he was late.

Xu Jing'an witnessed Master Zheng disassemble the bicycle and begin a major overhaul. The results were: the springs on the wheels were loose, the front and rear brakes were not working properly, the chain was loose and prone to falling off, some of the pedals were stuck and wouldn't turn, and a thorn had somehow gotten stuck in the tire.

All this trouble took more than two hours, after all, Zheng Liang's legs were not very mobile. When everything was fixed and she was inflating the bicycle tires, she didn't dare to inflate them too much, otherwise they might burst.

"Master Zheng, how much?"

"Give me 5 cents," Zheng Liang said, wiping the engine oil off his hands.

Xu Jing'an lowered her eyes and thought for a moment, "Here's what we'll do, Master Zheng, I'll give you one yuan. You just need to keep an eye on my bicycle for me today. No one can touch it, let alone borrow it."

Zheng Liang thought this was easy to solve: "Push it into the shed behind my house and lock it up. If I can't see it, I won't worry about it."

Back in the archives, I saw Wu Sufeng coming out of the director's office.

"Jing'an, you've come at the right time. My family is looking for me; my mom was suddenly hospitalized and I have to leave now. I won't be coming for the next couple of days. Here's the key to the cabinet!"

"Okay, don't worry, Sister Su-fen," Xu Jing'an comforted Wu Su-fen.

Watching Wu Sufeng rush out the door, she suddenly remembered to ask, "Sister Sufeng, did you give me the wrong key?"

Upon hearing this, Wu Sufeng looked at the keys dangling in Xu Jing'an's hand and slapped her forehead. "Look at my brain! Those are my family's keys!"

Xu Jing'an smiled, picked up the key again, and unlocked and locked each lock one by one. "This time it's correct. Did you forget anything in your drawer?"

Wu Sufeng opened it again and looked through it. Nothing was missing, but she took out a stack of documents. "This was given to you by Sister He from the union when you went out this morning. She asked you to make 30 copies for her records, and she'll pick them up when she gets off work!" After thinking about it carefully, she realized that she really hadn't forgotten anything this time.

Wu Sufeng was quite embarrassed. "Jing'an, look at me, I'm so flustered that my brain isn't working properly, and I'm forgetting things."

Xu Jing'an: "It's all the same, just drive carefully."

Wu Su-fen said this because Sister He is an exceptionally meticulous and difficult person to deal with.

There are always one or two troublemakers in any workplace. They're always up to no good, always feeling like everyone else has wronged them. They usually tattle on someone or whisper rumors behind their back.

If Xu Jing'an forgets to copy Sister He's information, she can forget about getting off work today. If she accidentally offends Sister He, will she ever be able to live peacefully again?

She took the materials and printed 35 copies in one go. Fearing there might be problems, she printed another 40 copies and put them in her online space.

At lunchtime, Xu Jing'an didn't go to the cafeteria. She ate the food from her own space, which was vegetarian.

"Jing'an, why didn't you go to the cafeteria to eat? There's braised pork today, and they didn't add any vegetables. Everyone's going crazy for it!" Chen Xiangxiu saw Xu Jing'an washing her lunchbox in the washroom and came over to greet her.

"I brought my own lunch today. Sister Su-Fen has some family matters to attend to these past few days, so I'm just staying in the archives room by myself, and I'm not going out," Xu Jing'an replied gently. "Xiangxiu, come see me sometime!"

"Go quickly, Sister Jing'an." Chen Xiangxiu understood that Xu Jing'an could only keep watch by herself now.

In the afternoon, I suddenly received a notice from the factory: "Tomorrow, someone from the province will come to inspect our work. All departments, workshops, and units are requested to complete their respective tasks and prepare the relevant materials."

"Grasp revolution, promote production."

"So many things are urgent; the world turns, time presses on. Ten thousand years is too long, seize the day."

This looks like we'll be working overtime!

That afternoon, it was as if people in the building had pressed a shortcut key; one person after another kept asking her for things or making copies of documents.

Xu Jing'an kept searching, opening the cabinet, closing it again, and then registering the items. It didn't quiet down until almost 4:30.

Without daring to rest, I took the materials Sister He needed to the trade union.

"Is Sister He here? I've brought you some documents." Xu Jing'an called out as soon as she entered the door, not wanting to waste any time.

"Xiao Xu is here, let me take a look." After taking the documents, Sister He flipped through them one by one, and only after confirming that there were no problems did she soften her expression towards Xu Jing'an. "No problem, Xiao Xu is very efficient."

Xu Jing'an's smiling expression remained unchanged from beginning to end. "I have something to attend to, so I'll leave first. You go ahead with your work, Sister He."

On the way back, I asked everyone in each department, from the director to the clerk, to see if anyone needed to find or copy any documents. Surprisingly, there were quite a few.

I just made copies of the necessary documents and had them picked up by their respective departments.

Sun Chuanjun from the Quality Inspection Department came over: "Xiao Xu, I'll have to trouble you this time. Could you please get us a backup of our department's data from five years ago? We don't know where ours went."

The other person's face was red; it was clear they had run all the way here.

Xu Jing'an took the key, opened the cabinet inside, and searched around but couldn't find it. However, Xu Jing'an wasn't flustered and found the backup she had kept in her personal space.

After receiving the package, Sun Chuanjun thanked him and then jogged back to the quality inspection department.

Xu Jing'an glanced at the time—5:30—and turned to go upstairs to the restroom used by the leaders. She had just squatted down when several more people rushed in, and soon all the stalls were full. The line stretched outside.

"Why are there so many people here?" "They say the braised pork they had at lunch wasn't very fresh."

"The toilet downstairs is broken for some reason and can't be used anymore."

"The flush pipe is broken and they're fixing it."

……

Xu Jing'an came out of the restroom and returned to the archives to begin arming herself.

The waistband was tightened, the shoelaces of the liberation shoes were carefully tied, and the hair was combed up and tied tightly.

The dagger was on his right hip, while the hammer, club, kitchen knife, and brick were placed in the storage space.

It was 5:50 when everything was packed up.

"Xiao Xu—, Xiao Xu—" Sister He from the union pushed open the door and came in.

"What's wrong, Sister He?"

"The documents you gave me accidentally fell into the basin. It was full of water and completely soaked." Sister He was angry just thinking about it. What was she thinking putting the basin full of water under the bookshelf?

"Don't worry, Sister He, just wait a few minutes." Xu Jing'an took out the backup copy to make a copy, but the copier malfunctioned—it was powered on but didn't work. Seeing that Sister He was in a hurry to use it, she simply gave her the extra copy.

They close promptly at six o'clock. While I was pushing my bicycle, there were several people lined up at Master Zheng's shop, busy getting their bikes repaired.

"Master Zheng, off you go!" After saying goodbye, he got on his bicycle and pedaled furiously.