After I returned to Beijing from my hometown, I participated in the centralized training for all new employees organized by Beijing Engineering Company.

After the training, we freshmen officially joined the company and became an ordinary employee of the Beijing company.

The novelty and joy of participating in the work cannot be described in words.

After all, it's the beginning of a new life.

After Dazhi and I participated in the induction training organized by the company, according to the contract, we were assigned to a project by the company as an intern technician.

The project is on the edge of the fourth ring road in the southwest of Beijing, and the project manager of the construction site is our senior brother, who is very polite to our two new junior brothers, and specially held a special orientation meeting for me and Dazhi.

After the meeting, the project department arranged professional teachers to take us.

The teachers are not very old, and they are students who are several years older than us.

It can be seen that after several years of on-site practical experience, the teachers are quite familiar with the things on the construction site.

Dazhi and I were arranged to live in a makeshift simple shed, living with other project managers.

The project is nearing completion, and everyone's work is relatively leisurely.

Not long after we settled in, a familiar manager privately told me and Dazhi that according to past experience, the project was cleared quickly, and the current temporary residence may be demolished at any time, prompting us to prepare for moving in advance.

Dazhi and I initially thought that the new students had just arrived at the project and could do a limited amount of work, and in the completion stage of the project, we should be like everyone else, and the work would be very leisurely.

However, the truth is very different, we have endless things to do every day, measurement, acceptance, data consolidation, material receiving, experiments, and even typing and copying are all contracted by the two of us.

Reality has shown that interns are a tool that can be called upon by all departments on the jobsite.

We are very fulfilling every day, and during the internship period, we have a lot to learn and a lot to gain.

Busy life always makes people forget to pay attention to time, and before you know it, two months have passed, and the weather is gradually getting cooler.

The high-rise building has been built and will be delivered soon.

As our colleague reminded us, the temporary construction should be demolished within a time limit according to the project schedule.

The construction unit has limited us to clear the site within a week.

This means that the simple sheds where we live and work cannot be saved, and the housing of all the managers of the project department immediately becomes a problem.

According to the arrangement of the project department, the management personnel had to move to the basement of the new building, otherwise they would find their own way, but because the plastering and painting on the ground had not yet dried, they could not live in it, so we had to find a way to find temporary accommodation outside the construction site.

The rest of the project was freely combined and went to rent a house outside, and no one wanted to join a group with poor students like Dazhi and me.

Soon, everyone moved out one after another, and only me and Dazhi were left in the shed.

Since the salary has not yet been paid, the wealth of Dazhi and I together does not exceed 1,000 yuan.

On the weekend, Dazhi and I went to rent a house around the construction site.

We came to the door of a real estate agency, looked at the colorful rental advertisements, sifted through the housing information inside, and half a day passed, and found nothing.

There is no house suitable for the two of us at all, and the cheapest room costs more than 2,000 yuan for more than ten square meters, and the minimum requirement is to pay one and pay three.

We touched our wallets, and we didn't even have the courage to walk into the agency and inquire about the listing information in detail.

......

"Renting a house in Beijing, this ..... That's too expensive, right? I was hit by the agent's offer and was a little disappointed.

"Brother, let's change a few more intermediaries, shall we?" , Dazhi didn't give up and looked at me.

"Maybe there's a place to find the right place to stay."

"yes, there's no room for us here." , I muttered, in fact, I think the price of the intermediary is outrageous.

Our internship salary is less than 2,000 per person a month.

If this continues, even if we are paid, we still can't afford to rent a house.

Reality has hit us hard.

I turned to more than a dozen intermediaries, but the result was the same, I walked dozens of kilometers, tired and hungry, but I never found anything.

"It's over, it looks like our brother will be sleeping on the street in a few days." Dazhi was a little depressed.

"The company has always said that the construction site is in charge of food and housing, so I am not embarrassed to ask my family for money, who knows that there is such a thing." , he regretted a little that he didn't bring more money out when he reported for duty.

I know his family conditions, and like me, even if he wants to, he may not have the money to bring it to him.

Dazhi's personality is also very strong, and I estimate that after he goes to work, he will never use a penny from his family again, just like me.

His rhetoric is just a kind of self-irony.

"Don't be discouraged, buddy, there's no end to it. Let's go back and find out. I comforted him.

At the same time, there was a flash of inspiration in my head, "By the way, the company arranged for us to live in the basement, the basement we just completed is too wet to live, can we find the old houses around the project to see if there is a basement that can be rented?" ”

I told Dazhi what I thought, and the sadness on his face was swept away.

"That's right, big country, why didn't you say it earlier?"

"It's not too late, let's adjust our target right away and see if there are any basement rental advertisements?"

We immediately started looking at the relevant information, and it turned out to be really significant.

Not far from the site of our project, there is an old tower with an advertisement for rent at the entrance of the basement!

Dazhi and I trotted over together.

Soon, we discovered a special underground dwelling gathering place, which was the unique underground world of the Beipiao clan.

Walking along the greasy black cement steps, walking through the end of the black underground passage, the eyes lit up, there were two rows of separated corridors,

The hallway is brightly lit, and the corridors are flanked by layered, labyrinthine cubicles filled with noisy, tinkling, and noise.

We walked into the first room of the passageway, where the office was written, and a fat eldest lady sat on a shabby chair with a simple iron bed behind her, and the wall against which the iron bed rested was pasted with masking paper, and the wall was densely covered with hooks, on which hung colorful room keys.

"Sister, do you still have rent?" I asked her.

The fat woman twisted her body and glanced up at me and Dazhi.

"Yes, what kind of house do you want? Single rooms have windows 350, no windows 300, large double rooms have windows 650, no windows 500, long-term and short-term rentals can be, a month to settle the bill, not enough a month by the day settlement. “

She quickly quoted the price.

Dazhi and I glanced at each other, and it seemed that we had found the right place.

"Can I put two beds in a single room?" There are two of us staying, and besides, can you see the room? I subconsciously touched the few hundred yuan in my pocket.

"Yes. What kind of room to look at? The fat sister is very refreshing.

"Let's take a look at the private rooms first, shall we?"

Walking inside, I understood why the basement was lit up even during the day.

Where the light can't shine, it's dark and gloomy, and a damp and cold humidity hits your face, and the further you go inside, the more obvious the feeling becomes.

Moreover, the smell inside has also become varied, all kinds of smells are mixed, and the indescribable smell cannot be described in any language, such as a garbage dump, like a vegetable market, and a bit of a fishy smell.

There was a cacophony in the hallway.

The sound of equipment running, the sound of various people talking, the noise, the clanging of pots and pans....... The noise of different decibels is mixed together, and after a long time, people feel that their hearing gradually becomes numb, and they gradually can't distinguish between distance and proximity, and they can't distinguish each other, and the sources of various sounds converge in one place, turning into a monotonous "buzzing" ear echo.

"Eldest sister, how many floors are we underground?" , I was a little loud by the noise, and asked the boss loudly.

"On the basement floor, you two are students, aren't you? It's better to live on this floor, there is no more money a month, and the conditions of the second basement are a little worse. People are also miscellaneous", the fat boss said very sincerely.

We followed the fat sister around to a room.

She opened the door, and a damp air rushed to her face, and there was a black hole inside, like a dark room.

"It's a windowless room." She introduced.

After touching the door for a long time, I felt the switch of the light, turned it on, and a dazzling incandescent lamp on the roof was wrapped around a pipe that passed horizontally, and the room was empty, about 6 or 7 square meters, and the wall should have just been painted for a long time, and there were obvious water stains.

"Let's see if there's a window, shall we?" , I have the heart to save 50 yuan, but looking at the conditions of this room, I am still a little shaken.

"Okay, follow me." The fat eldest sister snapped and turned off the light, closed the door, turned around and walked out, and the hut behind her fell into darkness again.

Walking a few more rooms, through two corridors, the fat boss opened a side room.

Through the window of the lighting well next to the building, a trace of light came in the house, and there was a faint smell of disinfectant water inside.

The room was about the same size as the windowless single room I had just seen. The house was equally empty.

"Boss, can you get two beds?" I felt that the conditions were a little better, so I asked carefully.

The boss is very good at observing words, listening to me ask, it is estimated that the business is almost done, and a smile appeared on her fat face.

"This room isn't bad, right?" The fat lady said proudly, "This is the best and most representative room we have here." ”

"Mm-hmm, yes." , I quickly responded.

Asked again if she could arrange two beds for the bother.

The fat boss hesitated for a long time, "Forget it, seeing that you two students have just come to Beijing, it's not easy, I have two beds in the warehouse, lend them to you, but remember to return them to me when you check out." ”

Dazhi and I were very happy and hurriedly thanked him.

"By the way, eldest sister, I haven't seen the bathroom and washroom since I came in?" , Dazhi seems to have remembered something.

"Are you sure you want to rent?" The fat boss asked again,

"You have confirmed the rent, paid the rent, and I will arrange for someone to take you to see the bathroom and bathroom. Don't worry, we have a lot of facilities here, you can cook here, there is a kitchen, but they are all shared, you can use it as long as you pay an additional 50 yuan per month. ”

What she said is true, the fat boss does think very comprehensively for the tenants, and there is everything in the underground space, and there is nothing missing.

It's just that the common toilet and bathroom are connected together, and there is a long queue every time you go, and the utilization rate of the kitchen is not high.

I think that people who live here may save money on the rent of the kitchen, or even save on food at all, so that they can save two expenses on living expenses, and get the best of both worlds.

After we toured all the facilities, we paid for the room without hesitation and moved in the same evening.

Gradually, we learned more about the underground world we rented.

Most of the people who live here have precarious jobs and almost no means of living, or they are poor recent graduates like us, with very low incomes and forced to survive.

The tenants are engaged in a variety of industries, all of which are Beijing's Beipiao family.

Although everyone lived together together, and even the partition wall of the bed where they slept at night was less than 10 centimeters thick, and they could hear each other's heartbeats and breathing, there was no communication.

In the morning, the tide gushes out of the basement and disappears into the streets of the city; Every night, everyone rushed back from all corners of the capital to sleep.

Before the break, the entire basement was full of people, noisy and shouting, people coming and going, and it was very lively.

In the middle of the night or on holidays, the whole underground is quiet.

There was no sound at all, and it was as quiet as if there had never been a human track.

Dazhi and I lived in a small room in the basement for more than a year.

That hard life experience taught me to cherish all the good things in life;

Life contains countless opportunities, and there are many possibilities in the future, and it is meaningless to blindly hesitate and lament the unfairness of fate.

Either you are a bystander of the times and are eliminated by the material society, or you have to cheer up.

How important it is to live underground, yearn for the light on the earth, and maintain an optimistic attitude! Who knows how the ideal will become a reality? As Margaret Mitchell said at the end of "Gone with the Wind": "Anyway, tomorrow is a new day!" ”

In the days of living in the underground world, I turned many corners, obtained Ding Ling's contact information through the iron head, and started to maintain good communication with her again, which undoubtedly brought endless light to my dark underground living environment.

Finally, one day, Ding Ling told me on the phone that she was on vacation, and if I had time, I could go to the southwest town to play with her for a few days.

I haven't seen you in a few years, and I don't know what such an invitation means?

But I believe that all uncertain and difficult conjectures should be a good omen.

Just like the time when Dazhi and I lived underground, life was hard and work was hard, but we have always been positive and optimistic, smiling at life.

The day I received the invitation from Ding Ling happened to be the day when my one-year internship expired, and my salary would be doubled.

Double happiness is coming, I don't know how happy I am.

This hard-won invitation is also the first special gift after my internship, right?