Ma Weiguo walked out of the exit of Beijing Railway Station, and the square in front of the station was crowded with people, and the traffic on the wide road was rolling. He stood on the side of the road, staring blankly at the speeding cars and the surrounding buildings, not knowing how he could cross the other side of the road or where to go when he got there. He lifted the backpack on his shoulders and walked aimlessly down the road, looking for a place to stay. The cigarette in his mouth had burned out, and Ma Weiguo habitually spit the cigarette butt on the ground. An aunt wearing a red hoop came out of nowhere, stood in front of Ma Weiguo, and tore down a ticket and handed it to Ma Weiguo. Ma Weiguo looked at the routine and expressionless face, opened his mouth, and finally paid the money without saying a word, snorted his nose vigorously with the ticket, and was about to throw it on the ground, when he found that Aunt Honghoop was standing next to him and looking at him, ready to pull the second ticket, he reluctantly walked to the trash can not far away and threw the paper ball into it.

Ma Weiguo was about to turn around and leave, but Aunt Honghoop called him from behind again, "Young man, wait a minute!" ”

Ma Weiguo turned around impatiently, "What's the matter?" Didn't I throw it in the trash! ”

The aunt didn't care about his attitude, and said, "Young man, I think you are quite honest, you just came to Beijing, do you have any acquaintances?" ”

Ma Weiguo shook his head. The aunt kindly reminded Ma Weiguo: "Then you have to find a place to stay, there are many places to pit and kill people now!" You see that there is no alley in front, turn in, walk fifty meters, there is a guest house, ten yuan a day, you can also take a hot shower, watch TV, very safe. For the time being, let's just take a moment and find a place to live. There is a restaurant opposite the guest house, four yuan and a bowl of knife-cut noodles to ensure that you are full. It's not easy to go out, be careful in everything, and save money. ”

Ma Weiguo smiled gratefully at the aunt, thanked him, and walked towards the alley. He settled down in the guest house, lay down on the bed and rested for a while, and in the evening he walked out of the guest house, went to the restaurant opposite to eat a bowl of knife-cut noodles, and then walked around in the light and shadow cast by the setting sun. This is a courtyard house area, relatively quiet, it looks like the streets and alleys of my hometown, with a sense of familiarity and security. Ma Weiguo's panicked mood gradually settled down when he had just set foot on the land of Beijing, thinking about what to do next. When passing by a newsstand, Ma Weiguo saw a newspaper with a dense list of tofu-block job postings, and bought it for a dollar.

The next day, Ma Weiguo began to go out to look for a job, according to the phone number and address provided in the newspaper, all the way to the past, and it took a full morning to find the office of an employer, but it only took three minutes for the other party to send him out. Ma Weiguo was not discouraged, ate a bowl of noodles in a small shop on the street, and went on to look for the next job, and by the time he came out of his second company, it was almost evening, and the result also disappointed him. Without any skills, he hardly had any chances. Ma Weiguo stood on the street in some despair, and the huge city seemed to have no place for him.

The tired Ma Weiguo walked to a bus stop and sat down in the bus shelter, next to two fashionably dressed young girls were waiting for the bus. Their eyes stung Ma Weiguo, and they stared at them like a mischief, and the two girls were furious by him, and they didn't care about waiting for the car, so they walked away in a panic. Ma Weiguo felt a sense of revenge in his heart, took out the newspaper from his bag, and studied the recruitment information on it.

A job posting caught Ma Weiguo's attention, and a large line of eye-catching words was printed in the box of the newspaper - recruiting salesmen, with good pay and accommodation. This is undoubtedly a huge attraction for Ma Weiguo, who doesn't even have a place to live. He found a phone booth and dialed the other party's number. The other party was very enthusiastic, "No work experience, it doesn't matter, we will give you training, the key is to have courage, perseverance, be able to endure hardships, and dare to challenge yourself...... Yes, the company provides accommodation, nominally at a cost of payment...... Our salesmen here make two or three thousand a month. It's too late today, so come over for an interview tomorrow! Listening to you, I feel that you are very eager to work and believe that the chances of being hired are greater. ”

Putting down the phone, Ma Weiguo's heart ignited a flame of hope again. The owner of the phone booth looked at him with strange eyes and shook his head regretfully.

Early the next morning, Ma Weiguo got up early and arrived at the company's office before eight o'clock. It was a small two-story building in an urban village, and when he arrived, the salesmen in the company were rushing out to their respective battlefields, each carrying a large bag full of them, looking heavy. Ma Weiguo looked at these people strangely, everyone had a serious face, a heavy face, a tired face, and seemed to be preoccupied. Ma Weiguo had a bad premonition that he might think of this job too easily, but he decided to give it a try with the attitude of being at ease.

A rich middle-aged man with a red face interviewed Ma Weiguo. He gushed about the bright prospects of this job to Ma Weiguo - training people, high income, room for development, etc., but avoided talking about some key issues. Ma Weiguo couldn't help but ask, "What is the salary?" ”

The middle-aged man stopped his propaganda and agitation, and looked at Ma Weiguo with strange eyes, as if this was a layman's question, and there was no problem at all. "Why do you still want to get paid to death? Now is not the era of the planned economy, it is a market economy, and we must rely on our own ability to speak and make money by our own performance. All salesmen have no basic salary, and they all rely on business commissions......" The middle-aged man took up a plastic bucket from under the table and said, "You see, this is the product we are making now, a new type of detergent, powerful, no matter what it is, no matter how dirty it is, squeeze out a drop, wash it, and clean it." Because we are direct selling, do you understand direct selling? Without waiting for Ma Weiguo to shake his head, the middle-aged man told him: "It is to face the end customer directly, eliminating all the intermediate links, and also saving the circulation cost, so such a big bucket only costs 29.8 yuan, cheap, there is a huge price advantage, how can customers not like it?" Sell a barrel, and your commission is 6 yuan, which is 20%. Think about it, if you sell 10 barrels a day, you can earn 60 yuan, which is nearly 2,000 yuan a month. This is still the result of a medium salesman. Our best salesman here can sell thirty or forty barrels a day, do you calculate, how much does a month earn? ”

While Ma Weiguo was thinking in his heart, the middle-aged man continued to gush: "The company provides accommodation, and a bunk costs only fifty yuan a month. Every night the company has a dinner, one person pays five yuan, six dishes and one soup, and the food is delicious! Where can I find such a good thing? The conditions he finally threw out were the most tempting for people like Ma Weiguo, who had just arrived and had no eyes, and what they most urgently needed to solve was the problem of food and accommodation.

Ma Weiguo decided to give it a try, and the middle-aged man showed a satisfied smile and called a beautiful little girl next door and asked her to take Ma Weiguo to see where she lived. It was a row of simple houses erected in the courtyard, so thin that a gust of wind could sweep away the roof and blow the house apart. The girl opened a door, and a complex smell of smelly socks and instant noodles hit her. Ma Weiguo frowned involuntarily, the girl also covered her mouth and nose, pointed to an upper bunk near the door and said, "You are very lucky, there is another bunk here, and the other rooms are full." ”

There were four bunk beds in the room, the beds were piled with dirty clothes, spread bedding, the only table was littered with bags of instant noodles and mustard, disposable chopsticks, crumpled toilet paper, shoes and miscellaneous items on the floor, and suitcases and woven bags stuffed under the bed. Such an environment made Ma Weiguo's heart cool down again. But he had no choice. In the afternoon of the same day, Ma Weiguo moved here from the guest house and joined the company's army of salesmen.

This company employs dozens of salesmen, and there is no base salary anyway, and the more the merrier, and one more person means more profit. The next morning, Ma Weiguo saw dozens of salesmen exchanging yesterday's sales experience in the conference room early in the morning, shouting slogans to boost morale under the leadership of the supervisor, like a group of fanatics who want to dedicate themselves to God, and like a death squad about to go to the battlefield. This is a unique way of brainwashing for the company.

Under the leadership of an old salesman, Ma Weiguo received the so-called training, which was actually to follow the old salesman to see how to do business. At the end of the day, Ma Weiguo finally understood the hardships of this job and why the company did not refuse. Every time they knocked on a door, they were faced with an indifferent face, some people did not hesitate to close the door again, some people scolded, some threatened to call the police, and some even dragged them to the neighborhood committee. This old salesman is experienced, eloquent, and very good at figuring out people's psychology, as if looking at the other party's face to know what the other party is thinking, no matter how big the setback is, he is still smiling and energetic, so he sells out more than a dozen barrels of detergent a day, and the performance is not bad, so that Ma Weiguo sees a glimmer of hope.

On the way back to the company, Ma Weiguo felt that his legs were sore, the soles of his feet ached, and he was about to lose his feet, which was the result of walking non-stop all day, going upstairs and downstairs. Every time they enter a community, they have to carefully bypass the security guards at the door and the aunts who have retired and have nothing to do, and walk around wearing red armbands. After passing through the first pass and entering the building, they didn't dare to take the elevator, and the aunt who was in charge of driving the elevator could recognize at a glance that they were not residents of the building, and the big bags they couldn't hide on their bodies revealed their identities, "Let's engage in sales, go out, otherwise call the security guard!" "They were unceremoniously thrown out of the elevator and lost customers in the building. In order to avoid this from happening, the only way to climb is to climb a building, and it takes steel-like perseverance to climb a twenty-story building in one go. Then start from the top floor and sell door-to-door. The advantage of this is that when the customer of the upper layer pushes them away, they can go to the lower layer without arousing the suspicion of the other party. On the other hand, the danger from the bottom up is that once you are kicked out by the lower customers, the upper customers will not have the opportunity to sell.

Dinner was eaten in a restaurant booked by the company, each person paid five yuan, and there were about a dozen people sitting at a table. Ma Weiguo, who was not accustomed to this charging way of eating, held chopsticks in his hand, and watched others snatch up a few plates of dishes, so he had to take over the plates, pour the bottom of the dishes into the rice, and eat a plate of pickles given by the restaurant owner. The others simply ignored Ma Weiguo, who had not eaten enough, and left separately after eating. In such an environment, people become like wolves.

Three days later, Ma Weiguo began to sell on his own. When standing at the door of the first customer, Ma Weiguo was a little excited and a little scared, hesitated for a long time or knocked on the door, the door opened, and a middle-aged woman in her forties stood looking at him indifferently, Ma Weiguo took out the detergent, and said a little clumsily and urgently: "Hello, eldest sister, this is the latest ...... developed by our company" Before the words were finished, there was a "snap", and the door was slammed shut. The smile on his face froze, this kind of situation has been seen many times in the training process, and he has enough psychological preparation, but when it is his turn to face it independently, he is still very uncomfortable.

After hesitating in the corridor for a while, the residents who went out looked at him with vigilant eyes, Ma Weiguo turned his body out of the window, took a deep breath, and walked to the next door.

"Hello, miss, this is the latest development of our company's ......"

"You're the miss, ......"

"Hello, Auntie, this is the latest cleaner developed by our company......"

"Hey, hey!"

"Hello ......"

"Smack!"

A ten-story tower, Ma Weiguo ran from the top floor to the bottom floor, and a bucket of detergent was not sold. When he walked out of the building, he was stopped by a middle-aged woman in the duty room, who had to detain his belongings or send him to the neighborhood committee. Ma Weiguo said that it was soft and hard to soak, but in the end it didn't work, the other party obviously took a fancy to the detergent in his bag and wanted to scrape some oil and water, but after the thing was detained, the account would be recorded on Ma Weiguo's head, and it would be deducted from his commission, and the company would not bear this loss. In the end, it was a kind old lady who said something for him, and Ma Weiguo was able to get out. At the end of the day, Ma Weiguo only sold three barrels of detergent, and after deducting the expenses for breakfast, lunch and taking the bus, only the money for dinner remained. But his competitive spirit has been stimulated, why can others sell more than a dozen barrels, but he can't do it himself, he decided to persevere, temper his mind, and become a salesman.

In the past month, most of Beijing has left Ma Weiguo's scattered footprints, and he has been to remote corners, residential areas of different grades, shopping malls, and office buildings. Although his performance has improved and he can earn dozens of dollars a day, he is physically and mentally exhausted. Due to physical exhaustion, it is a kind of torture to get up every morning, and if he can be allowed to sleep a little longer, it will be the happiest thing in the world for Ma Weiguo. However, the pressure of the company's system and life whipped him like a whip, forcing him to get up from bed, attend morning meetings, receive products, and go out to do business.

Every time he walked into the building, ready to knock on the door of the occupant, it was nothing less than an ordeal. Although he gradually understood the feelings of those unbearable residents, the stinking scolding still made it difficult for him to accept. There are two experiences that I remember very deeply, once when he was chased by a fierce old man with a stick, and once because he was in a bad mood, he contradicted the people of the neighborhood committee and was sent to the police station. In the small dark room of the police station, several people who were arrested for theft also dragged him to exchange criminal experiences, which made Ma Weiguo cry and laugh. He also began to eat more, and every time he ate, he devoured a sea of noodles with knives and knives, and then paid for it, and walked out triumphantly under the surprised eyes of the waiters and other customers.

The huge mental pressure made Ma Weiguo have a strange psychology, other salesmen were afraid that they would be caught by the people of the neighborhood committee, but Ma Weiguo was not afraid at all. At least for a moment of dealing with the people in the neighborhood committee, he had a valid reason not to knock on someone's door anymore, not to wait in fear for the face distorted by anger. Therefore, at the moment when he was caught by the security guards or the people of the neighborhood committee, Ma Weiguo felt very relaxed and calmly dealt with them, and his calmness and composure allowed him to retreat every time. It's a wonderful feeling.

It was in this kind of devilish training that he learned to endure, to persevere, to understand the cruelty of society and the hardships of life. Luckily, he had enough income to cover his living expenses and save a few hundred dollars a month.

The first half of the day's business was over, and Ma Weiguo walked out of a residential building in disappointment, in which he only made a single business. At the entrance of the building, an old grandmother cart sells soap bubble guns, and there are a bunch of children around. The old lady shouted: "Two yuan a piece, two yuan a piece!" The children watched with fascination at the colorful bubbles blown out by the soap bubble gun.

Ma Weiguo found a knife noodle restaurant, sat on the table and prepared a bowl of noodles, felt the money in his pocket and thought about it, and got up and left again. The waiter who came out behind him muttered - "Sick! ”

Ma Weiguo dragged his tired body onto an overpass. Lying on the railing of the overpass, Ma Weiguo looked at the rolling traffic, thinking about when he would be able to have a home in the city, a wife to take care of him, and cook meals every day and wait for him at home. Although it is a fantasy that seems almost impossible, whenever Ma Weiguo has this thought, his heart feels very warm, and the warmth is mixed with bitterness.

He took out the soap bubble gun and kept blowing bubbles one after another, the soap bubbles floated in the air, changing colors in the sun, beautiful like Ma Weiguo's dream, colorful, and bursting when touched! Despite this, Ma Weiguo was still happy like a child, playing with soap bubbles with relish.

Ma Weiguo has no contact with the four modernizations, out of self-esteem as the eldest of the three, he hopes to walk out of a new world on his own. It's just that the road in front of me looks very long, bumpy and bumpy, and I don't know where the end is.