Chapter 22: An incident of romantic rivalry
Within a few days, the process of hiring shop assistants officially began. After the recruitment notice went up, several applicants came in over the next few days. Some, however, were either completely illiterate or housewives looking for something to do in their spare time. They had their own daily obligations and could not manage sorting the shop's goods into categories either, so his mother suggested hiring two younger people.
One of the applicants they finally settled on was Li Yulian, a woman in her thirties who had been laid off from a state-owned enterprise. She and his mother had things in common to talk about, and his mother's sympathy helped her settle on Li Yulian. Besides, Li Yulian had once handled statistics at a textile mill, so picking up all the little details involved in stationery supplies would not be difficult for her.
The other was a poised, outgoing twenty-year-old girl named Wang Yue. Surprisingly, her family was not from the nearby countryside. His mother grew curious and asked why she had come out to work instead of continuing her studies at her age, with a hint of reproach for her family's irresponsibility. Wang Yue remained cheerful, merely mentioning in passing that her grades had not been good. After graduating from high school, she had originally hoped to get into a second-tier university, but her score had fallen short. Her family had put her under considerable pressure, so she had simply stopped studying, wanting to prove that she could still find a way forward without an education.
Seeing her determination, Zeng Ke kept her on, though she still made a point of reminding her that education was the way to get ahead. Wang Yue agreed readily enough, but after meeting Zeng Ke's eyes,