Life as a Food Delivery Rider in Beijing

(A realistic story about women delivery workers. The couple is a young woman delivery worker and a security guard, a real security guard.)

(This book has been selected for the Beijing Young Writers' Program for Realist Online Literature.)

Xia Haolai, a factory girl, comes to Beijing to deliver food.

She wants to save up money to... go to school. People laugh at this almost absurd dream, but she refuses to give up on it.

Among the delivery workers are white-collar workers laid off in the midst of a midlife crisis, single mothers delivering packages after divorce, college graduates who can't find jobs, and girls from the countryside saving up to repay their bride price. Everyone carries their own hardships.

Along the way, she also meets He Shuolü, a security guard who likes feeding cats and ignores people.

"He Shuolü, if a security guard and a delivery worker fall in love, is that Romeo and Juliet, or a Beijing Love Story?"

"He Shuolü, I used to envy those brilliant graduates who walked into fancy office towers after college. But the things they came up with were all about squeezing every last drop of blood and flesh from us poor people. Is that what studying hard is for?"

"Xia Hao, have you seen Breakfast at Tiffany's? The heroine is like you."

"Oh, I've seen that movie. Audrey Hepburn played her. Are you saying I'm beautiful and elegant like her?"

"I mean you're as conflicted as the heroine."

That autumn in Beijing, beneath streets lined with golden ginkgo trees, a few of them got drunk. They walked over the crunchy fallen leaves on Sanlihe Road, from Ganjiakou to Diaoyutai. Autumn rain filled the potholes in the streets with countless pools, and golden leaves carpeted the ground like a welcome mat.

On a clear night after the rain, beneath the brilliant city lights, they stumbled along, holding each other up and drunkenly shouting, "Labor is glorious!"

My next book, A Guide to Life as a Concubine's Daughter, is underway. Please add it to your favorites! (A classic historical household drama with food and a large ensemble cast, set in the Ming dynasty.)

Gu Yizhao transmigrates into the least-favored concubine's daughter in a wealthy ancient household.

Her father is heartless, her stepmother cold, her legitimate sister proud, her legitimate brother gloomy, her birth mother spoiled and foolish, and the various factions around them are vicious and cunning.

What is a little concubine's daughter to do in a sprawling mansion behind red gates?

Gu Yizhao looks at her seven-year-old body and clenches her fists: Keep your head down and grow quietly. We can win!

When Xiao Zhanchen first sees Gu Yizhao, she's just a little concubine's daughter. But a few years later, she's living an easy life, admiring flowers in a famous garden in spring and enjoying chilled fruit in a waterside pavilion in summer. Xiao Zhanchen realizes this little girl has some real talent.

Reference books: A History of Social Life in the Ming Dynasty; The Structure and Operation of State Power in the Ming Dynasty; Women's Lives in the Ming Dynasty; A History of Factional Strife in China; Ancient Chinese Gold and Silver Jewelry; Research on Ancient Chinese Clothing

Please add the author's profile to your favorites. Completed works, The Song Dynasty Commoner's Household, Bianjing Food Record, and My Cybernetic Farming Journal, are ready to enjoy.

Theme: Telling the stories of workers