My name is Zhou Yan. I used to be a P7 at a major tech company. Now I’m a delivery rider, ID number 9527.
From office towers to urban villages, from a million-yuan annual salary to 6,000 yuan a month.
It took me forty-three days to learn to admit that I “couldn’t do it anymore.”
“You’ve got to know your limits in life.”
Old Wang said that with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
Old Chen’s phone wallpaper is his wife’s dialysis schedule.
A Jie made a whole table of dishes using prepackaged ingredients and said he wanted to open a “Riders’ Kitchen.”
Xiao Li memorized graduate-school exam vocabulary while waiting for orders. He fell at an intersection, got back up, and the first thing he said was, “The food’s okay, right?”
In her essay, my daughter wrote: “My dad delivers delicious food to lots of people. He brings them warmth.”
Sitting in my rented room, I ate a bowl of tomato and egg noodles she’d made, with far too much salt.
It was the best bowl of noodles I’ve ever had.
