First Love First Love, Part Three

The next morning, Ah Ren continued wandering through the city. In this early spring season, the weather was neither cold nor scorching; occasionally, a warm breeze blew gently, carrying a few cherry blossom petals that fluttered like the delicate fingers of a city maiden brushing against his face.

At that moment, Ah Ren couldn’t help but think of Xiao Wen, the cashier at the convenience store beneath his cousin’s building. Her fingers were as tender as young scallions—a detail Ah Ren had noticed the very first time he went there to buy cigarettes. As he paid, Xiao Wen’s slender fingers danced nimbly over the cash register keys, the crisp tapping sounding like butterflies fluttering in a delicate dance.

Ah Ren was completely mesmerized, his eyes fixed intently on those fingers. The gentle tapping felt like electric pulses striking his heart repeatedly. He longed to grasp those hands—hands that seemed capable of commanding the soul—and kneel before her like a devoted believer.

From then on, whether it was for himself or his cousin needing cigarettes, Ah Ren would eagerly go downstairs to that convenience store. Even when he could buy everything in one go, he deliberately split his purchases into several trips. Sometimes he went seven or eight times a day, never paying by WeChat or Alipay, always using whole bills, just to watch Xiao Wen’s fingers dance and listen to the crisp tapping sounds.

Sometimes, late at night, Ah Ren would touch himself while secretly holding the cover of a Japanese adult video tape his cousin had thrown into the trash, his mind endlessly imagining those hands.

Such an obsession was hard to fathom in a man in his thirties.

At this very moment, basking in the pleasant weather, thoughts of Xiao Wen’s hands lifted Ah Ren’s spirits unexpectedly high. Lost in reverie, he suddenly recalled the steel mill where his cousin once worked—a place where Ah Ren himself had almost secured a job. Now, thinking of the sudden epidemic that had struck, he felt an overwhelming sense of regret.

"I was so close to getting a city hukou! Oh, well..."

Gradually, Ah Ren found himself walking toward the steel mill.

The mill stood at the boundary between the urban area of G City and its suburbs. It was old and was slated to be relocated farther from the city. However, the mayor had issued a “blackout order,” halting all matters related to the relocation and stopping production. The hope of the factory resuming work had become very slim.

Spitting with frustration, Ah Ren didn’t know whom to vent his bad luck on. His thoughts drifted back to the hukou issue, and unconsciously, his pace quickened until he arrived at the factory grounds.

Unlike his first visit with his cousin, the factory was now eerily quiet—gone was the roar of machines, replaced instead by the chirping of numerous birds. As he crossed the factory grounds, Ah Ren faintly heard fragmented voices and the sound of bustling footsteps. Following the noise, he saw dozens of people gathered outside the staff canteen.

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