I stared at the layoff notice on my phone screen, my fingers trembling.
Not out of sadness, out of anger.
"Comrade Su Jinli, in view of the company's business adjustment, your department has been abolished as a whole, and the compensation will be calculated as N+1. Please complete the handover before get off work today..."
I threw the phone on the table. N+1? I have worked in this crappy company for three years. I worked overtime until three in the morning and even suffered from stomach problems. Now what are you doing to me?
Colleagues in the office were packing their things, some were crying, some were scolding, and some had begun to secretly put the company-issued pens into their bags. I wasn't in the mood to fight for these rags from them, so I just picked up my bag and left.
When I walked to the door, I was stopped by the front desk: "Sister Su, there is your express delivery. It has been sent for three days. It is a lawyer's letter."
Lawyer's letter?
I opened the envelope and found a piece of A4 paper with a few lines of large characters: "Ms. Su Jinli, the 'Koi Antique Shop' under the name of your late great-aunt, Ms. Su Huizhen, has been inherited by you. Please go through the property transfer procedures within seven days after receiving this letter. Failure to do so will be deemed to have automatically given up the inheritance rights..."
Great aunt?
I rummaged through my memory and finally found an old lady I had met when I was a child - she was my grandma's biological sister. She married an antique dealer before liberation, and later she opened a shop in the south to do business. The last time I saw her was probably when I was in elementary school, and she stuffed me with a box of sweet-scented osmanthus cake.
Now she's dead and left the store to me.
My first reaction was to sell. How can I run an antique store as a social worker who can barely afford the rent? Once the store is sold, it can just fill the gap of unemployment and still have some money left to breathe.
