Chapter 1950 - A Date at Store Number 43

But the teacher's final words in class left a deep impression on her. He'd said: "Infinity and finitude have an essential difference. Infinity is elusive and contains contradictions. In this domain... it often seems that the more reasonable something appears, the more likely it is to be wrong. One cannot apply the rules of the finite to the infinite as a matter of course."

From this perspective, the Executive Committee was indeed like "infinity."

After class, she requested leave from Feng Nuo.

"If there's nothing scheduled tomorrow afternoon, I'd like to take half a day off."

"Does Fangshaodi have time then?" Feng Nuo didn't look up, continuing to flip through the desk's technical materials, marking with his pencil.

"I've arranged everything. If you agree, I'll submit the schedule adjustment form to Fangshaodi's academic affairs office."

"Then go ahead."

"Then about dinner..."

"I'll take care of dinner myself," Feng Nuo was sketching lines in his notebook. "You'll be back after dinner?"

"Yes."

"Don't forget to register at the guard post."

"Yes."

Feng Shan hesitated momentarily, as if wanting to say something more, or perhaps expecting Feng Nuo to ask something. But Feng Nuo never once looked at her, and in the end she walked away somewhat dejectedly.

The next morning was mathematics class at Fangshaodi, and Feng Shan had to teach four consecutive classes as usual. After class, she ate lunch at the school cafeteria and hurried from the office.

She first went home, changed into her life secretary uniform, and carefully groomed herself. Only then did she proceed to her destination: Store Number 43 of the Cooperative at East Gate Market.

Store Number 43 of the Cooperative was the Executive Committee's special supply store. On its second floor was a small tea room—specifically opened for "personal assistants" like the female servants who came shopping.

Though that was ostensibly the case, quite a few current customers were not actually life secretaries, but classmates from the Liberal Arts Academy or the Female Servant Training Class who had been brought along by friends to "broaden their horizons."

Feng Shan rarely came here—purchasing daily sundries and clothing, the routine work female servants performed, was something she hardly ever touched. All of that was handled by service agency aunties on Feng Nuo's behalf. As for window shopping and recreational outings, she considered those pure wastes of time, and had never felt she possessed the leisure or inclination to sit and chat with people over tea. She simply didn't perceive what joy or meaning such things held.

But today, she had come here.

At the tea room entrance, she hesitated slightly, as if somewhat reluctant to enter. The waitress was observant: the girl before her was exceptionally beautiful, and her "female servant uniform" was new—she'd probably just been selected to serve at a transmigrator's side and was still somewhat unfamiliar with and uneasy about this place. So the waitress immediately approached to greet her in a soft, gentle voice.

"I'm waiting for someone..." Feng Shan was poised and confident in the classroom, but here in this kind of establishment she was quite awkward.

The waitress led her to a window table and inquired what she would like.

"We have Australian desserts that just launched simultaneously with the Nanhai Coffee House," the waitress said, exerting utmost effort to upsell the newly introduced premium pastries for the sake of commissions. "Even transmigrators might not be able to purchase these."

Feng Shan examined the lengthy list of beverage and pastry names on the menu with some unease. She didn't know what most of these items were, and the prices listed afterward made her jump—so expensive!

She possessed absolutely no awareness that money was meaningless to her, since her consumption was, as usual, charged to her transmigrator's spending account.

"I'll just have... tea," Feng Shan said vaguely, unable to choose.

"Green tea? Black tea? Oolong tea..."

"Oolong tea, I suppose." Feng Shan recalled that her transmigrator employed this variety when entertaining guests.

"Oolong tea? Very good, coming right up."

The waitress departed, and only then did Feng Shan breathe a sigh of relief. She surveyed her surroundings—more than half the tea room was occupied. The customers were almost all young women in life secretary uniforms, though some wore Liberal Arts Academy or Fangshaodi uniforms, and a few were dressed as ordinary female staff members. Their ages ranged from young to older, gathered together whispering and chattering, with waves of suppressed laughter from time to time.

Every girl looked beautiful, radiant. Feng Shan sat there alone and just felt uncomfortable all over—this was simply not a place she belonged.

"What happened with that client who wanted the full package last time?"

"What do you think happened? The old moneybags chickened out. Transmigrator Dugu was furious and said he wanted to execute him. Hehe. Good thing Transmigrator Ye held him back."

"Is that so? Our Transmigrator Wu must be pretty unhappy too. That guy was too much trouble—the Tiandihui produced several different proposals, and in the end he still canceled. Really."

"I bet when they calculate taxes next time, they'll give him a hard time."

"By the way, I went to Nanbao yesterday and saw Tongtong. She's gotten so much thinner, but when I told her we were going out today, she was so envious."

"Why did you go to Nanbao?"

"The main store was reconciling the patent medicine sales at that branch—Transmigrator Liu mentioned it last time."

"How is Tongtong doing there?"

"Not bad, apparently a lot of guys are secretly in love with her. They even call her a goddess, haha."

"They're all country bumpkins though, what's the use... isn't she secretly in love with Transmigrator Chen?"

"My younger brother is also going to Nanbao next month. Could you ask her to help look after him a bit, maybe get a discount when buying things?"

"Why don't you write her a letter? She says she's swamped with work now, and reading letters is her rest. Plus that little place has nothing, so letters from Bairren can remind her of how lively it is here."

"I think she's just lazy—like it's hard to come back for a day..."

Feng Shan felt her head starting to throb—she wasn't accustomed to this kind of chattering atmosphere. If not for this meeting, she genuinely wouldn't want to be here.

The girls in the tea room ranged from sixteen or seventeen to their twenties, most of them graduates or current students of the Female Servant School or the Liberal Arts Academy. Generally quite beautiful, tall and slender, fashionably dressed, speaking in the "transmigrator style," with their topics never straying far from "transmigrators."

Besides a portion who had become life secretaries, most had been assigned to various departments for clerical, administrative, and accounting work. These included government agencies like the Agricultural Province, Finance Province, Social Welfare Province, and the Police Bureau, as well as various enterprises and institutions under the Executive Committee. There were also graduates from the health training class who'd been assigned to the Ministry of Health and Bairren General Hospital. However, regardless of which unit they inhabited, Liberal Arts Academy graduates had a high probability of being assigned to positions with direct transmigrator contact.

They had stable jobs, were young and beautiful, possessed the ability to live independently, and had decent education levels. Although some still dreamed of attaching themselves to a transmigrator, most were extremely sought-after women in the naturalized citizen marriage market. But their horizons had already broadened, and they had once been cultivated as the transmigrators' "concubines," so their standards were inevitably elevated—ordinary naturalized citizens had virtually no hope of winning their hearts.

Most of these girls came from mainland refugees or orphans and had no family ties. Under the social environment in Lingao, where women were increasingly entering factories and earning income, sprouts of "gender equality" were also emerging, which was relatively friendly to them. So if they couldn't locate a suitable marriage partner immediately, they would rather live alone for now. Considering women's generally early marriage under current social conditions, these were probably the first generation of "leftover women" in this timeline.

At this moment, they were drinking coffee and chatting casually in a private room at the farm tea house, and the laughter that occasionally emerged made the naturalized citizens in the tea house turn their heads.

"Axia, when's the next batch of Shuanghuanglian oral solution arriving at your store? Save me 30 doses."

"I don't know what's going on lately—product is moving really fast on the mainland. Old Man Lin is also buying in bulk. I'll ask for you—30 doses might be hard to guarantee, but I can definitely save you 10."

"Axia, you're so sweet, thank you! Last time I went to your store and ran into that Tang-something, and when I discussed transferring stock with her, she rolled her eyes and told me to go look in a mirror. I was so mad!"

"Don't mind her. Isn't it just because she has something going on with Transmigrator X at the Ministry of Health? Her tail's up to the sky, but really she's nothing. And the transmigrator is just playing around..."

"That's not necessarily true. Haven't you heard that joke: 'Need someone at home to wash clothes and cook, at the office need someone pretty and hardworking, for entertaining need someone who can talk and drink, for business trips need someone ready for action...'?"

"Xiaochen!"

"'Morning the wheels turn, noon the plates turn, evening the dice turn, night the skirts turn'—that's what goes around in our branch, hehe."

"Fanfan, you stop too!"

"It's fine, it's fine. I even heard Transmigrator Chen and Transmigrator Wu say this one once, haha."

"I heard Transmigrator Ma has two female transmigrators at home? Is that true? Fanfan, have you seen them?"

"Stop, stop! Fanfan, Xiaochen—the transmigrators can say these things, but you'd better not go around saying them. And Sister Ning, don't go asking questions either."

"Huh? It's okay, right... I feel like the transmigrators who come to my place aren't very particular about this. Last time Chairman Wang and Transmigrator Yi came to our construction headquarters and also told a joke: 'Don't know what meeting it is, but know where to sit; don't know who gave gifts, but know who didn't; don't know who's doing good work, but know who to promote; don't know who they're sleeping with, but know what they do in bed'—haha, several transmigrators cracked up, and we almost couldn't hold back either. Director Mei's face went green."

"Sister Ning! Stop teaching them. We're not like you. Just a few days ago our bureau caught someone for slandering the Executive Committee—I heard they ended up sending him to Fu Youdi's for seven years."

"That serious..."

"You all be careful..."

Feng Shan thought to herself that these girls truly had no limits—casually joking around with dirty jokes. Being at Feng Nuo's side for so long, she naturally overheard the transmigrators' various "insider gossip" and such casual talk from time to time. She could often witness the transmigrators' less-than-glorious sides and the various "unreliable" things they did. But among naturalized citizens, this was the first time she'd heard such talk.