I didn't answer right away.
Mom glanced at me and continued, "Ever since you were transferred to the Demolition Office, one thing after another has happened. You've been hospitalized several times. Your friend, Xiaoguang—or A-Guang... he's been hospitalized several times too, hasn't he? Your father and I have been worried sick... I'm not being superstitious, but this really isn't good. If you have to, take some time off at home and then find another job. Any job will do, even if it pays less."
"Mom, I'm halfway through the job. How can I just quit? I've been the one handling it up until now, and we're currently negotiating the demolition contracts. I know each household's situation better than anyone. There's no one left in the Demolition Office, either. If I leave, what happens to everything I'm in charge of? I can't just abandon it, can I?" I said helplessly.
It wasn't that I was especially devoted to demolition work, or that I wanted to make something of myself in politics.
To be honest, I'd taken the civil service exam because everyone around me was doing it. As graduation approached, people were taking graduate school and civil service exams in droves, just like how everyone used to crowd together to get professional certifications. So I'd gone along and taken the exam too. I passed, and the job was decent, so I'd stayed. When my superiors transferred me to the Demolition Office to oversee Workers and Peasants Sixth Village, I was just a junior civil servant. Of course I'd followed orders.
I didn't know how much of it was fate, how much was Ye Qing's scheming, or how much was sheer coincidence. Before everything happened, I'd thought of it as nothing more than work, a career. As long as I did enough