Chapter 44: Midlife Crisis
Car wash.
A middle-aged man is holding a damp rag and struggling to wipe the tires of a sports car.
His name is Walter White, and he is a chemistry teacher at a high school who has participated in a project for the Nobel Prize for Contributions to Chemistry, but now he can only teach, and he has a salary that does not match his qualifications at all.
When he was middle-aged, his son had a slight cerebral palsy, but he didn't expect his wife to be pregnant with a second child, which should be said to be a happy thing.
But when the teacher's salary is meager, and the whole family is counting on him alone, for this reason, he has to work a second odd job at the end of the day, and work part-time as a cashier in this car wash, which can be said to be very stressful.
Thinking of this, Walter angrily threw the rag into the bucket, the owner of the car wash is not a good person, in order to save the salary of employees, he refused to hire more people, so he handed over the job of cleaning the car to him, that is, let him take a penny to do two jobs.
In this regard, Walter dared not speak out, and he was forced to swallow his anger and continue to work in this car wash.
However, even if he was so tolerant, life did not smile at him.
When he was working the day before yesterday, he washed the car as usual according to the boss's request, but he didn't expect that it was the student's car that was washed, or the student who made trouble in class before.
The student humiliated him for a while, and at that moment, Walter felt that his body was completely gone, and the teacher's dignity was gone, and he wanted to find a crack in the ground to get into.
Until now, he could still feel the humiliation, like a mountain pressing down on him, making it difficult for him to breathe and breathless.
"Whew~"
When he finally finished washing the car, he stood up and let out a sigh of relief, and it was at this moment that a black sports car drove into the car wash, and a beautiful woman in a long skirt got out of the driver's seat.
In his spare time, Walter couldn't help but look twice, but suddenly, he felt a tightness in his chest, and then his eyes went black, and he lost consciousness.
When he woke up, he found that he had arrived at the hospital, and after the examination, the doctor told him the sad news.
"You have lung cancer, it's still advanced, sorry, we can't operate on you."
Hearing this, Walter felt a thunderbolt in his mind, and his heart almost collapsed, not knowing what to do.
According to the meaning expressed by the doctor, he will not live too long, but what about his family, his son with cerebral palsy is still reluctant to take care of himself, his wife is pregnant and cannot go out to work, and the whole family is counting on him to support him alone.
Wobbly, Walter didn't know how he got out of the hospital, and when he returned home, he didn't tell his family, and continued to live as before.
And when he came to work in the car wash again the next day, but was still asked by the boss to wash the car and do the work that did not belong to him at all, he couldn't bear it, and the volcanic eruption that had been suppressed in his heart immediately broke out and vented, and then resigned and left.
Back at home, Walter found that his wife had brought his relatives to prepare a surprise birthday party for him, which made his anger melt away and he began to enjoy the rare happy time of his life.
And it was because of this birthday party that his outlook on life began to slowly change.
On the TV, a familiar figure appeared, it was his brother-in-law Hank, who worked as an anti-narcotics policeman, and was interviewed by a reporter sent by the TV station because of a successful anti-drug operation.
Relatives and friends gathered around Hank, praising his brother-in-law's heroic performance, but Walter's attention was different, he looked at the seized stolen money, his mouth was slightly open, his eyes were straight, and he was envious in his heart, after all, this was the first time in his life that he had seen so much money.
At this time, his brother-in-law Hank drank beer and boasted that he could take him on an anti-drug operation, which gave him a long insight, and Walter, who had a different idea in his heart, agreed, and followed his brother-in-law to a den the next day.
It can be said that the operation went very smoothly, the anti-narcotics police destroyed this small den without much effort, and his brother-in-law Hank took people in to check, and it was at this time that Walter suddenly found a man wearing only underwear and jumped out of the window on the second floor of the house to escape.
Walter knew that the other party must be an accomplice of the flour merchant, and he wanted to raise a warning, but when he saw the other party's appearance clearly, he changed his mind in his heart.
Because he knew this man, yes, this person was one of the students he had taught.
After the student begged him to keep quiet, he fled in a hurry, and Walter agreed with a ghost, and looked at the back of the student leaving, and a bold idea came to him.
Yes, he decided to use his chemical technology to start his own business, anyway, he had lung cancer, whether he did it or not, it was a dead end in the end, since the ending was the same, why not use the last period of his life to leave a sufficient living expenses for his wife and children?
One night, Walter finds Jesse Pinkerman, the student he had met at the den, and tells him that he wants to work with him.
"You know the business, and I'm good at chemistry, so I wonder if we can work together."
However, Jesse listened with disdain and scoffed at Walter's proposal, he couldn't believe and couldn't believe that a Nobel-nominated chemistry teacher would want to work with a flour seller.
"You want to make flour? Just you, a chemistry teacher? ”
Jesse felt that the teacher must be testing his IQ, how could he be fooled by such a simple scam, so he rejected Walter without hesitation.
But Walter is not easy to mess with, the approach of death makes him no longer suppress himself, looks at Jesse with cold eyes, and says a word categorically.
"Jesse Pinkerman, there are only two paths before you right now."
Walter's tone was calm, but powerful, "Either work with me, or I'll denounce you." ”
"Shit!"
Threatened by his former teacher, Jesse wanted to cry without tears, and couldn't help but scold, but there was still no way, and he didn't want to go to prison in the end, so he had no choice but to agree to the teacher's cooperation.
Walter began to prepare for cooking, and he took advantage of his position to get a lot of experimental tools from school, and excitedly introduced to Jesse how to use each tool.
But as far as Jesse's little head is concerned, how could he understand Walter's words, and then the two had a discussion because of the difference in art style.
Fortunately, this was only a small episode, and after a series of preparatory activities, Chef Walter officially took up his post and cooked his first dish.