The Beginning - Chapter 61: The Undeliverable Delivery (XVIII)

As soon as your eyes opened, you got up without delay.

You brush your teeth, wash your face, put on your civilian clothes, stuff your company uniform into a large bag, take all your cash and head out the door.

In yesterday’s time loop, because you lost your package and the company wanted you to pay for it, the cold-faced team leader pulled up the shipping information and the insured amount for you to see, in case you thought the company was blackmailing you.

From yesterday’s delivery information, you know that the delivery was sent the previous evening, to a county-level city in the city, just over two hours’ drive away, not very far, but because the package was only collected at 7pm the previous day, it was not sorted and delivered until noon the next day.

There’s no way to stop it in midstream, but you can try to get it back before it’s delivered.

One way is to return the courier as undeliverable when you get it, but if you think it can’t be delivered after only one day, your master and cold-face team leader, not to mention the sender, won’t be able to pass the test, so you’ll have to carry it around for a few days before it can be delivered.

The second option is to ask the sender to cancel this delivery and send it again next time.

Sometimes the courier will send a mixed up or wrong address and the sender will try to get the courier back. If the courier has not been delivered at that time, you can apply for a return as long as you contact the courier, but of course, the shipping costs will not be refunded.

It’s the second approach you’re playing with.

This package is after all 12,000 worth of footage, if you hear that something is not quite right in the package and the courier takes the initiative to send you back to check, most people will agree, after all, this is going to be a dispute is more than 10,000 things, no one wants to follow up for this kind of thing tug of war.

Before that, you have to drop off all your morning deliveries and contact the sender as fast as you can after receiving the delivery at noon, then take a bus to that lower county and deliver the delivery to the person in person for inspection.

At this time, you can use the reason of undeliverable delivery and ask him in person to withdraw the parcel that is not in question, so that he can discuss with the recipient and then deliver it again to avoid another undeliverable delivery.

Most of the things are not good communication on the phone, but face to face, but will be moved by compassion, you a poor courier wages are not a few money, will be worried about “expensive parcels” delivery can not be delivered or midway problems is normal.

If you can’t, you’ll have to ask someone to withdraw the courier even if you’re soft.

Having made up your mind, you went out early first, settled for an early breakfast for the homeless old man and slipped him a stiff five hundred dollars to keep his mind off things.

Turning the corner, you call the aid station and immediately make your way to the neighbourhood where Mr Xiao Heyun lives.

Before you go out, you turn up an advertising leaflet in your rented house and on the back of it you write a letter detailing the bombing that took place on the 45 bus at 13.45pm.

When you were interviewed yesterday it was late, there were already many true and false rumours on the internet and the news media had learned some details from many sources, you knew from them that the explosive was definitely a pressure cooker, and you surmised from the fact that most of the explosions in so many time cycles were at 13:45 that the explosive in the pressure cooker could have been timed, meaning that if it was removed before this time this hazard, there is a good chance that the explosion would not have occurred.

You were fatherless and alone, and should have tried to end the explosion without fear of life or death when you learned of such a thing, but you swore to your mother before she died that you would live well and not give up your life so easily, no matter what the odds.

What’s more, now that you have a girl to hang on to, you want to try what it’s like to start a family again and you can’t put your life on the line.

You’ve tried calling the police, it’s too late.

You don’t know who the culprit is, you don’t know exactly where the explosives were in the car, and you can’t think of any other way to stop a bombing like this, except to hope for as few casualties as possible.

Since this Xiao Heyun was able to find the explosives in the car and mediate with the robbers after calling the police, he showed that he was bold and also trusted the police, and it was probably better to put his hopes in him than to go on them himself.

You wrapped yourself up tightly, climbed up the unsecured fire escape, sneaked up to Xiao Heyun’s door and shoved a leaflet with a “death prophecy” through the door below.

After confirming that the leaflet is mostly tucked in, you leave the block with a sense of relief.

The next few hours you spent delivering the morning’s deliveries as fast as you could, leaving only a few agreed to be signed for in the afternoon, not a big deal.

Then you went to a barber shop and asked the barber to shave you a round inch.

This is the haircut that you and Qin Rourou tried several times before settling on the one that suits you best. She likes this look the most and once complimented you on the shape of your head, which is perfect for an inch, and how it makes you look and feel so secure.

After all this, you knock on the door of Qin Rourou’s house with great trepidation.

Perhaps because you had changed your hair, this time you weren’t interrogated through the door as she had been last time, and after learning that you had something to discuss with her, she opened the door after only a moment’s hesitation.

You show her your ID and work card and reintroduce yourself again, telling what happened to you.

As in every previous case, Qin Rourou readily takes your word for it, but in this timeline she doesn’t think that delivering all the deliveries is the way to end the time loop.

But she thought that since she was in a daily time loop, this method could be tried.

So you talk to her for a while, mentioning the bombing that always happens at 13.45, the air conditioning worker who will come in the afternoon, the stewardess who was cheated on by her husband, and the child who will fall through the security net.

Qin Rourou wrote it all down very carefully with pen and paper, promising you that he would remember it all and that he would not stay at home this afternoon, but would also go and save the child.

You think about the “evening date” and hesitate for a while before you finally don’t say anything.

If time is still in the time loop, even if you went out with her tonight, even if you established a relationship tonight, what’s the point?

On the second day, you will still have to bring your ID and work permit to “introduce yourself”.

After talking to Qin Rourou about what happened, you discuss what you can do to successfully send Xiao Heyun’s delivery back.

You are awkward and there are things you can’t say, but not Qin Rourou, who helps you come up with ideas, gives you ideas and sets your mind at rest.

When you received a call from the master requesting to go back and load the goods, you and she exchanged mobile phone numbers, said a hasty goodbye and rushed to the company’s courier point with the utmost speed.

Your master was very pleased to see your car delivered so clean and, as on previous occasions, happily tried to fill it with more, which you stopped with a great deal of alarm.

You are relieved to see that the afternoon delivery does not exceed the scope of the task you are supposed to deliver, and you rush to the moving station in this city on your delivery bike.

At this moment, your ticket information pops up on your phone and you learn that you have the package from Xiao Heyun and that Qin Rourou has bought you a ticket for the train to that county city and has arranged for a pick-up.

You ride your delivery bike to the underground car park, find a random place to park and lock it up, pick up your ticket holding the parcel that should be addressed to Xiao Heyun and get on the train to the sender’s city.

It is a weekday and the train is not very crowded. You take your seat, hold the parcel carefully in your arms and take out your mobile phone to call the sender, “Dr Jiang”.

“Hello? Hmm? There’s a problem with the delivery I sent?”

When Dr. Kang heard you say that there was something wrong with the delivery he sent, he immediately became alert, “It’s not like the package was knocked on the road, is it? That’s a lens in there!”

“I saw the valuables written on it, and the price guarantee was for the lens, but the package was particularly light, and I was worried that something had gone wrong with the courier, so I made a phone call to warn.”

You tell us the excuses you have discussed with Qin Rourou.

“Extra light? Could it have been swapped?”

Dr. Kang really went in another direction, “When I sent it out it was a very expensive lens that you took pictures of and kept, so if it turned out to be something else, it must be your problem!”

“Yes yes, but I’m just a courier, in case this is a problem in transit, it would be wrong of me to carry such a responsibility. Now the recipient can’t be contacted again there’s no way to deliver it, look, it’s such an expensive item inside, can I send the courier back to you and you can check it in person?”

You are worried that he does not want to receive, in advance of all his worries are well thought out, “the package or the original seal, you open to see if things are right, then all happy, you things sent back again, courier fees I pay; if things move, it must be the road problems, I give you proof you give me as proof, you can claim from the company. ”

“What a gift or not, you’ve got me all wound up!”

It’s supposed to be lunch break at this time of day, but Dr. Kang still seems to be busy, as evidenced by the frequent interruptions on the other end of the line just as he picks up the phone.

You faintly hear a patient over there blaming the doctor for taking personal calls during consultation hours and wasting their time or something.

“What do you mean by consultation time? My morning specialist’s number was finished long ago, I was sympathetic to the fact that you people came all the way here to see the doctor and queued for so long, so I gave you an extra number! I was supposed to leave work at 12 noon, and I’ve been seeing you all this time.

Dr. Kang was a bit grumpy, perhaps because he hadn’t eaten or drank anything during the First Secondary School lunch and had been working long hours, and he spoke very rudely on the phone.

“If you don’t want to see it, you can register for the other doctor’s specialist number this afternoon, just so I can go and have a meal!”

You listen to Dr Kang’s complaints on the other end and can’t help but feel that every line of work has its own hardships.

Even a humble courier like you can fill your stomach at noon when you are busy, who would have thought that such a respected doctor would still be hungry at noon?

From the tone of voice, it seems that voluntary overtime for such over-numbered visits has become a regular occurrence.

The patient there stopped talking, seemingly acquiescing to Dr. Kang’s continued “personal calls”.

“If you want to send it to me, send it to me, I’m at the First People’s Hospital Orthopaedic Clinic, Room 3. If you can’t find it at the front, look for me at the back of the inpatient unit.”

But after all this bickering, Dr. Kang has no more problems listening to you explain more and just wants to hang up the phone hastily.

“There better be nothing wrong with the courier, if it’s been swapped or mistaken, I will hold you responsible!”

You are so happy to finally have his approval that you don’t worry about threats and promise to get the delivery over as soon as possible.

When you hang up the phone, the older woman beside you looks at you sympathetically.

“Young man the courier has made a mistake and has to go to K City to send it to the sender ah?”

“Hmm.”

You can’t explain it well, smiling helplessly.

“Just joined the workforce, right? Only when you’re new to the job can you be so serious about something like this and chase it down there.”

The local people call the subordinate municipalities “below”.

“Well, yes.”

“Hey, it’s not easy to work these days, young man don’t worry too much, talk to people properly, don’t get into an argument and have a reason that turns into no reason.”

The older lady in your neighbour’s seat is also a person who, probably worried that you are frustrated by such things, starts to enlighten you with examples of mistakes she made when she first joined the workforce and rambles on.

You thank her for her kindness, but your thoughts have drifted further away to the People’s Hospital, deliberating on how you should convince Dr Jiang to agree to withdraw the courier before you see him, and how you can make it back before dark to deliver the rest of the courier on.

So grateful and anxious did you spend the whole journey, almost as soon as the bus arrived, you were eager to get off the bus with your parcel in your arms.

The driver Qin Rourou has found for you is waiting at the door. You get in the car, give the address of the First People’s Hospital, breathe a sigh of relief and lean back to rest.

You get out of the car, ask from the guide on the ground floor of the hospital that the orthopaedic department is on the first floor, and immediately dash up the stairs.

When you arrive at the orthopaedic department, you fight the nurse at the door to take care of you, informing that you have an appointment with Dr. Kang to deliver a courier, and are led by the nurse into the orthopaedic clinic.

There are few people left in the clinic, and a doctor in his forties is looking carefully at a film, probably because his eyes are uncomfortable with the light for a long time, and he takes off his glasses and rubs the area around them before putting them back on, his face full of fatigue.

“This leg needs to be operated on ……”

He pointed to a crack and said, “It’s no ordinary bone fracture ……”

You wait quietly in front of the outpatient room, which is no longer crowded, for Dr. Kang to finish seeing the last few patients and communicate with you about this express.

Just then, you feel yourself being knocked out of the way very hard by something.

You stand firm to find a stout, middle-aged man squeezing hard through the doorway, and as soon as he enters, he goes straight for Dr. Kang, who is looking at the film in front of a light box.

Vaguely, you see the middle-aged man with something with a long handle pinned to his waist.

After years of training in the army you sense a hint that something is wrong, and then you look at the man’s posture as he walks forward with his head held low, and alarm bells go off in your head for a moment.

“Look out-!”

In a flash, you don’t care about any courier or not, you stuff the parcel in your hand into the little nurse’s hand and rush over.

At the same time, the man pulled out something that was pinned to his waist, a cleaver for cutting meat, after all!

“Surnamed Jiang, you cut off one of my son’s legs, I want one of yours today too!!!”

Everyone was stunned by such a turn of events.

You exert all your strength and knock down the bladdered middle-aged man, yet the man is frighteningly calm, and although he falls to the ground, he still raises his hand unrelentingly and tries to slice that Dr. Kang’s ankle with his knife.

“What are you standing around for! Run!”

The situation is so urgent that you don’t have time to think about it. You hold down your opponent’s left arm with one hand and use your other hand to grab the knife.

“Call security to help!”

Dr. Kang then ran away as if from a dream. The other side saw Dr. Kang running away and angrily tangled with you with a knife.

Although you are professionally trained in combat, your opponent is very strong and carries a murder weapon. You are in a very bad situation against him with your bare hands and in the confusion, you get a few cuts on your arms and a cut on your face.

Fearing that he might go out after you and hurt someone, you grit your teeth and drag the man with the murder weapon to death in the outpatient room.

“He’s got a knife, don’t come in until security comes!”

Thinking that even if you were injured you could still time cycle tomorrow, you simply keep sprinting and drinking at the door and wrestle with him alone.

The screams from the wards and corridors are incessant, and in this state of carelessness where you are about to get hurt, you are already highly stressed and distracted by the screams and take a few more stabs.

The good thing is that the opponent also has no rules, just waving around with a knife, and in no time at all, he was subdued together with the security guards who arrived in a hurry with riot forks.

When the other party was subdued and given to the security guards to tie up and take away, Dr. Jiang entered the outpatient room in a heartbeat and hurriedly called for someone to check your injuries together.

“First, don’t panic about watching ……”

With your face covered in blood you sit panting on the stool and grab Dr. Kang’s arm.

“You withdrew the package for me first!”

The author has something to say.

Before you left the house, you found an advertising leaflet in your rented room and wrote a letter on the back of it detailing the 13.45pm bombing on the 45 bus and slipped it into the doorway of Xiao Heyun’s house.

Xiao Heyun, who woke up in the morning without his glasses: There seems to be a piece of waste paper on the floor? I didn’t clean it up yesterday, or is it a small advertisement?

While muttering a complaint against the property owner for letting in the advertisers, he crumpled the leaflet into a ball and threw it into the waste paper basket without looking at it.