Nothing happened overnight. Early the next morning, Wang Ying and Xu Shuang got up, hurriedly washed up, and ate breakfast.
On the first day of work, they absolutely couldn’t be late.
Both of them brought their documents—the introduction letter issued by the production brigade, their job assignment certificates, and various other papers. Xu Shuang hung a military-green canteen over Wang Ying’s shoulder and stuffed a handful of candies into her bag.
“This will do for today. If you find you’re missing anything, we’ll bring it tomorrow.”
On his first day reporting in, Xu Shuang wasn’t worried. He was going in as a head chef, and with Chen Dong—an invisible top authority—there to support him, he would adapt quickly. Anyone at the restaurant would have to be out of their mind to make things difficult for him.
But Wang Ying was different. She was going to the sugar factory—a completely unfamiliar workplace and environment. Xu Shuang genuinely worried someone might bully his wife.
Chen Dong was waiting nearby to head to work together with Xu Shuang. Seeing Xu Shuang fussing like an old housewife, Chen Dong was speechless.
In what way does your wife look easy to bully?!
As if he didn’t know—when he came back yesterday, he had heard the commotion in the front courtyard. The Ma family’s brats cried until he got off work in the evening. After listening for a couple of sentences, he understood—Old Madam Ma must have tried to take advantage of the young couple and got firmly rebuffed.
She dealt with the Ma family on her first day. If anything, you should worry about her coworkers!
But Xu Shuang didn’t see it that way. Even Wang Ying felt that Xu Shuang viewed her through a filter. Every time she verbally sparred with someone, Xu Shuang wore an expression that clearly said, “My wife is amazing.”
Wang Ying said, “Alright, I’ll be fine. Let’s go—you should get to work.”
Xu Shuang adjusted the scarf around her neck. “Have lunch in the cafeteria first. If you don’t get used to it, tell me. I’ll prepare a lunchbox for you tomorrow. After work in the evening, come straight to the restaurant. Eat there before coming home.”
Chen Dong looked utterly incredulous.
Wang Ying rolled her eyes slightly. “No. Don’t make it sound like I’m delicate. I’ll just make do in the cafeteria at noon. Besides, the food there might not even be bad.”
The sugar factory was the largest state-owned factory around here. Surely the kitchen wouldn’t be outrageously terrible.
Even if it were, Wang Ying planned to endure it. Making special arrangements on her first day wouldn’t help her integrate into the new environment.
Xu Shuang was about to say more when Chen Dong cut him off.
“That’s enough! Is it really necessary? Let’s go!”
Just look at how troublesome marriage is! That’s why he refused to live with someone!
The three of them walked out together. Xu Shuang pushed his bicycle, and after only a couple of steps, they ran into Old Madam Xu at the gate.
Her eyes flickered. “Heading to work?”
Wang Ying responded with a simple “Mm.”
Old Madam Xu said, “Little Xu is so blessed. Your wife even sees you off to work. You two are so affectionate.”
The underlying meaning in her tone made Wang Ying unwilling to engage. She gave a vague response and headed out.
Once the three of them had walked far away, Old Madam Xu sighed repeatedly behind them.
The new young wife wasn’t easy to control. Her own daughter-in-law had offended her first by going over, and last night’s misunderstanding had only worsened things. It truly wasn’t a good start.
Still, she had to build the relationship. Their family didn’t get along well with others in the courtyard, and sometimes daily life became inconvenient. Borrowing sugar, oil, soy sauce, flour—they had to go to the neighboring courtyard. It was too troublesome.
Though the newly arrived couple came from the countryside, she had seen on moving day that they still had a widowed mother back home. Having rural relatives was quite convenient these days—vegetables and such were easier to obtain.
Hm. When the young wife returned later, she’d go and mend relations.
A young woman newly in charge of her household, without elders by her side—no matter how cautious she was, she’d still be easy to coax.
As she pondered, Old Madam Xu pretended to sweep the ground.
A tiny patch of floor—she swept it for nearly an hour.
From inside her house, Ma Dalian saw Old Madam Xu’s behavior through the window and spat. “Always looking to take advantage—sees a country bumpkin and rushes right up!”
Ma Dalian grumbled as she worked, while her two daughters-in-law looked especially impatient.
The three older children had gone to school, leaving the three youngest at home—all between one and three years old, at their most troublesome ages. The daughters-in-law half-heartedly watched the children while lazily doing their chores.
Before long, the eldest daughter-in-law said casually, “Mother, Gou Dan cried so much last night that his throat’s hoarse. How about making him some sesame oil steamed egg at noon?”
As soon as she said that, the second daughter-in-law objected. “Mother, Mao Dan’s hoarse too, and Miao Miao had a fever a few days ago. How about making steamed egg custard for all the kids?”
Trying to leave us out and eat alone? Not a chance!
Ma Dalian felt her head pound from their chatter. “Eat, eat, eat—you only know how to eat! Do we have that many eggs for you to waste? A hoarse throat means eggs? How many eggs would it take to feed them all?”
Her cloudy eyes swept over her daughters-in-law. “Don’t look to me—I don’t have that many eggs to feed you. If you want eggs, earn money yourselves. The neighborhood office has work folding matchboxes. You two talk about it, but why hasn’t either of you gone?”
The younger daughter-in-law put on a guilty expression. “Mother, aren’t my children still nursing? And I’m tied down with these two little ones—I can’t free up my hands. If only I were like Sister-in-law, with her two older ones already in school and only one little one at her side. She has much more time.”
The meaning behind those words was crystal clear. The eldest daughter-in-law took a deep breath. “Mother, it’s not that I won’t go. Didn’t Gou Dan just get sick recently? He hasn’t fully recovered yet. I can’t just leave the child and go work, can I? If anything happens to Gou Dan, wouldn’t Yongjun start a fight with me?”
Bah! She wasn’t going to be the only one working!
Lately, Ma Dalian had been favoring the younger daughter-in-law. As soon as the eldest spoke, Ma Dalian reacted like she’d been shot, firing off words nonstop.
“You think I’m blind? How many days has it been since Gou Dan was sick? A child having a fever is that big a deal? You’ve slacked off long enough. Go! Go to the neighborhood office right now and get the materials! Start pasting paper boxes for me today!”
The eldest daughter-in-law glared at her sister-in-law like an enemy. The younger one just smiled without saying a word.
Ma Dalian thought she had successfully suppressed the eldest and went out proudly to buy vegetables for lunch.
Old Madam Xu let out a sarcastic chuckle. Heh, that old fool—she looked like she controlled everything inside and outside the house, but in reality most of the household work was done by her daughters-in-law.
She herself was different. On the surface it looked like everything inside and outside the house was up to her daughter-in-law, but wasn’t it Zhang Yun who both earned money and did the work?
Aunt Liu shook her head and said to her daughter-in-law, “After lunch, shall we go to the courtyard next door to paste matchboxes?”
As for their own courtyard—forget it. Just looking at those two families was upsetting. If she brought materials back here, those two old women would definitely come over shamelessly to work together. By then, the little bit of money earned wouldn’t even be worth the frustration.
Tang, the eldest daughter-in-law, agreed. “Sure.”
Their two children were sent off—one to school, one to daycare. After finishing the morning’s chores, they would be free.
But once free, her mother-in-law didn’t like staying in the courtyard anyway; she always took her next door to socialize.
Meanwhile, on Wang Ying’s side, she first went to the factory office to complete her procedures. Originally, she had wondered whether she could move to the city but keep her rural household registration. Later she learned that was nothing but wishful thinking.
Urban and rural household registrations were completely separate systems. Since she now had a job in the city, her household registration had to be transferred.
Without transferring it, the city wouldn’t issue her grain and oil ration book.
Without the ration book, her monthly wages couldn’t buy much—because she wouldn’t receive grain coupons or other ration tickets, and even if she did, she couldn’t use them.
After thinking it over, Wang Ying accepted it. She signed documents with the production brigade clarifying ownership of her rural homestead and house.
She didn’t want to move to the city for a few years only to have her house and land back in the countryside occupied by someone else.
That house had cost her quite a bit of savings.
Once her job placement was settled, the factory office summoned the head of the infirmary.
“Doctor Yang, this is Comrade Wang Ying, newly assigned to your infirmary. Comrade Wang was previously a barefoot doctor at the commune clinic. She’s coming this time to be trained as a physician.”
Doctor Yang looked to be in her forties or fifties, her hair slicked neatly into a bun at the back of her head. She appeared to be the serious, unsmiling type.
Wang Ying greeted her and introduced herself.
Doctor Yang didn’t say much, simply taking her back to the infirmary.
No wonder everyone wanted to move to the city and become workers in those days—the benefits at state-owned factories were indeed good. The factory grounds were spacious, with several cafeterias. As the largest state-owned factory in Nanshao County, employing several thousand people, the sugar factory had everything.
Security department, infirmary, cafeterias, supply store…
Basically, it covered workers’ daily lives from birth to death.
Wang Ying followed Doctor Yang along the way. Though Doctor Yang wasn’t very talkative, when she pointed out various places they passed, there was unmistakable pride in her voice.
“This is our factory’s security department. It may just be security, but most issues in the factory are handled by them.”
Wang Ying nodded. In her previous life, she had heard older people talk about it—at large state-owned factories, the security department sometimes functioned like a local police station. Workers’ first reaction to problems was to go to the factory, not call the police.
Although in later years people often looked down on factory security guards, at this time working in a state-owned factory’s security department was quite prestigious.
After taking Wang Ying around the factory to familiarize her with most of it, Doctor Yang finally brought her back to the infirmary.
The sugar factory’s infirmary was located in a two-story building near the factory office. The second floor housed the propaganda department; the first floor was the infirmary.
It was about two hundred square meters, partitioned into several wards. There were two consultation rooms, and the rest was a large office.
Doctor Yang led Wang Ying into the office, where eight people were seated.
Doctor Yang introduced them one by one. “Our factory has three doctors—now four including you. Two men and two women. We female comrades, and Doctors Zhao and Sun are the two male comrades. Over here are the nurses, Xiao Zhang and Xiao Yang. This is our cashier, Xiao Fei; our procurement and administrative staff, Xiao Zhou; and this is our intern doctor, Xiao Jiang.”
Wang Ying calculated silently. She might not remember all the surnames right away, but she could at least remember faces.
The two male doctors were both older, about the same age as Doctor Yang. Nothing particularly distinctive—just ordinary-looking men.
The two nurses were young, probably not even twenty. The nurse named Xiao Yang looked somewhat similar to Doctor Yang—perhaps they were related.
The two non-technical young men were also quite young. One had a face full of acne; the other, though fairly delicate-looking, was quite short—around five feet three inches tall.
Finally, the intern doctor, Xiao Jiang, left a particularly deep impression on Wang Ying. The reason was simple: the moment she saw her, she lifted her chin high, as if the words “I look down on you” were written across her face.
Wang Ying also quickly noticed that Doctor Xiao Jiang likely came from a fairly well-off family.
On her wrist was a watch that clearly looked expensive, and beneath her white coat, a glimpse of bright red wool fabric could be seen.
In these times, even obtaining wool fabric was rare. Even cadres’ families might not receive ration coupons for good wool, let alone in such a vivid red color.
Wang Ying’s mind went through countless twists in an instant, and she immediately understood the situation.
In a sugar factory infirmary like this, the technical doctor positions weren’t easy to manipulate. Treating patients wasn’t like other work—if someone incompetent were placed in such a role and couldn’t treat people properly, wouldn’t they just be waiting for the worker comrades to report them?
But the nurse and logistics positions below were filled uniformly with young people. It was obvious their families had pulled strings to get them in.
Compared to exhausting labor in the workshops, it was perfectly normal for families with some means to try to secure an easy office job for their children.
Wang Ying smiled as she greeted everyone. Aside from Doctor Xiao Jiang, everyone responded to her kindly.
Wang Ying had entered as a permanent employee. And what did that mean?
It meant that, barring any accidents, she would likely work at this factory until retirement.
Since that was the case, there was no need to be confrontational from the start. There was no direct conflict of interest—better to get along well. After all, they would be seeing each other for decades.
The two nurses were clearly happy. Previously, the only women in the infirmary were Doctor Yang and Doctor Xiao Jiang—plus the two of them. Doctor Yang was older, and Doctor Xiao Jiang always looked down on them. Now that a doctor around their age had arrived, they had someone to keep them company.
“Doctor Xiao Wang, sit here!”
Nurse Xiao Zhang, with her round, pleasant face—the kind elders adored—cleared a seat for Wang Ying by the window.
Wang Ying thanked her, took off her bag, and changed into the white coat she had just been issued.
Once dressed, she casually took a handful of candy from her pocket and gave some to Xiao Zhang. Then she pulled out a piece of white paper and poured two more handfuls of candy from her pocket onto it.
“I’ve just arrived and will need everyone’s help in the future. Please take some candy to sweeten your mouths.”
She placed the candy in the middle of the table. Xiao Zhang happily unwrapped one and popped it into her mouth. “Doctor Xiao Wang, you even bought milk candy! It’s so good!”
She stuffed two into Nurse Xiao Yang’s hand as well. With the two of them taking the lead, the others cheerfully came over and took some.
Doctor Yang glanced at Wang Ying and also took two pieces.
The candy Wang Ying brought was good quality—milk candy. Though not the famous White Rabbit brand, it was still hard to come by.
In no time, the candy was gone. The senior doctors’ expressions toward Wang Ying also softened.
There was only one sour note.
“Bootlicker!”
Intern Doctor Xiao Jiang rolled her eyes, tossed out the remark, and stormed off.
Nurse Xiao Zhang didn’t dare breathe, her cheek bulging with candy like a little squirrel. Nurse Xiao Yang’s eyes flashed with a hint of schadenfreude, but she remained silent.
Doctor Yang had just opened her mouth to smooth things over when Wang Ying spoke first.
“Who was Doctor Xiao Jiang talking about? Why did she suddenly curse and walk out? Did she go settle accounts with some bootlicker?”
Doctor Yang: …
I don’t believe you couldn’t tell she was talking about you.
Wang Ying looked innocent. “I just got here. Is Doctor Xiao Jiang always like this?”
She adjusted her wording. “Always… full of fighting spirit?”
Doctor Yang: …
Great. Another one of those.
![The NPC in the Abusive Novel is Slacking Off [Quick Transmigration]](https://novels.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-NPC-of-the-abused-article-is-passive-and-lazy-Quick-Transmigration.jpg "The NPC in the Abusive Novel is Slacking Off [Quick Transmigration]")
