This feeling was very difficult for me to describe. I was just holding up a one-hundred-yuan note wanting to give it to her.

But my hand was trembling imperceptibly. I always felt as if I was doing something utterly unforgivable, making me very nervous.

What would her reaction be?

Would she say “This is an insult to me” like in those public service announcements?

Or would she have security escort me out like in TV dramas?

Perhaps these big factories valued ability and education, not these kinds of things.

I remembered that the elementary school textbook once told a story about how someone who picked up a crumpled paper flower from the ground could impress an interviewer, while people like me who tried to take shortcuts and use petty cleverness usually didn’t come to a good end.

But my understanding of this world was still too limited. Everything could only be learned through my own attempts.

I saw her stare at the bill in my hand for a few seconds, then shift her gaze to the office door behind me.

“Ah… what am I supposed to do with you.” She murmured. “Aren’t you giving me trouble…?”

I didn’t know what her words meant. I could only hold the money up in mid-air, not daring to move.

“Young people nowadays… ah…” She kept shaking her head, her gaze occasionally glancing at the money in my hand. “There’s really no choice.”

I wasn’t even sure whether she had agreed or refused. I could only listen to her sporadic complaints.

A few seconds later, she sighed, then reached out and tore my application form in half.

My heart almost died in that moment too.

I should have been more honest, using my ability and sincerity to move the interviewer, rather than this one hundred yuan.

“I’m sorry.” I said, looking at the torn application form on the desk. “I’ve wasted your time.”

*Thunk thunk.*

She knocked on the desk with her hand and said under my puzzled gaze: “What are you apologizing for now? Put it here.”

“Put… here?”

I felt like she was talking about the money in my hand, but I couldn’t be completely certain.

I saw her bend down, pull out a new application form from the drawer, and say: “Fill out a new one. The date is negotiable, but if you even changed your name, that’s a bit unjustifiable.”

Hearing this sentence, I was stunned for two seconds, then hurriedly reached out to place the money on the desk. The interviewer calmly covered it with a stack of documents.

“Rewrite it here.” She said without raising her head. “Anyway, you’ll be an adult in a few months. Don’t change the name, just change the birth date in the ID number first.”

“Okay! Okay! No problem!” I nodded with gratitude and hurriedly took the pen and began writing.

“Remember to go find the General Management Department after you become an adult. Tell them that your ID card was filled in incorrectly and needs to be verified and corrected. Then change it to your own actual ID number. This way it’ll be compliant and won’t affect future awards and evaluations.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” I said while writing rapidly. “I’m so grateful!”

“Let me say this in advance—if your age falsification is discovered during these few months, that’s your own problem. I don’t know anything else.” The interviewer said. “This is all I can help with.”

“I understand! Thank you so much!”

I not only had to thank her, but also Director Fang and his wife.

They had taught me the most valuable lesson in my life.

Just like that, I smoothly entered the electronics factory and was assigned to the assembly line. Although there were no subsidies for hazardous work involving toxic materials, this workshop was really good. They turned on air conditioning in winter and summer, the environment wasn’t uncomfortable, and then they gave us low-temperature and high-temperature subsidies.

Here, I came into contact with something I had never understood before—LED electronic advertising screens.

Red diodes lit up against a black background to display text. They had low power consumption, were durable and stable. In a very short time, they became the advertising signs for various shops in town. Even banks would order display screens for number-calling announcements.

In a short time, trendy shopkeepers started using LED display screens one after another, and our orders kept increasing.

In the first month after joining, I received over five hundred yuan in wages, and all I had to do was assemble the display screen chips onto the diodes.

Having learned my lesson from last time, I began to completely close myself off, trying to communicate as little as possible with others.

After all, there were always invisible walls around me. On the other side of the wall were colleagues from well-off families, friends telling jokes, boys and girls admiring each other. And on this side of the wall was me.

Our camps had already been decided from the moment we entered the electronics factory.

But at least this place made me feel more secure.

After all, everyone treated me as an aloof employee, not some strange leader’s mistress. They rarely held any hostility toward someone like me.

After some time, I discovered that the assembly pass rate of our production line was overall low in the entire workshop, almost affecting the income of workers on the entire line. So I began to gradually investigate the problem.

I have to say, the principles of LED electronic advertising screens were too profound for me. Even though I was the last link in the entire assembly line, I still had no way to see which link ahead had the problem.

So I began purchasing some books to study on my own. For things I really didn’t understand, I would go to veteran workers in the factory and pay them to teach me.

No matter how unapproachable someone seemed, as long as I bought them a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of alcohol, or just gave them some money directly, they would be willing to open up.

Gradually, I went from being an aloof employee to a sensible, studious youngster in the eyes of my seniors.

I began using the knowledge I learned to investigate problems along our entire production line. I quickly discovered that this kind of technological thing was still too difficult for us village boys and girls to understand. Many people made mistakes when assembling the diodes, and some wired the circuits incorrectly when soldering chips.

When these components were delivered to me, I could only assemble substandard display screens.

So in order to increase my wages, I began using various spare time to explain assembly principles to others. Before long, the average wage on our production line gradually rose from over five hundred yuan to seven hundred yuan. The workers along the entire line looked at me with joyful faces.

When employees from other production lines heard about this, they came to consult me one after another. Looking at their smiling faces and goodwill, I vaguely felt that those invisible walls seemed to be starting to crack.

I wanted to go over to their side, and they also wanted to come to my world.

My life seemed to gradually gain color, and the scars I had suffered in the past showed signs of healing.

How long did such days continue?

They continued until my eighteenth birthday, when the electronics factory began comprehensive expansion due to its booming business.

That day, Mantuan and his fiancée came to the workshop.