My Courtyard Shelter

Chapter 40: The Snack Gift Pack

After a bit of commotion in the office, everyone quickly dispersed as Section Chief Li left, with most of them heading to the monitoring room to enjoy the air conditioning. Xu Dong took two packs of cigarettes out of his desk drawer and casually slipped them into his pocket. These cigarettes were originally meant for business entertaining, but the Power Company had a strict no-smoking policy—there wasn’t even a smoking room. Xu Dong didn’t want to get into trouble or tempt others into breaking the rules, so he simply locked all the cigarettes away in his desk drawer. However, from his conversation with Xiao Wang and the others that morning, Xu Dong had discovered that smoking was actually allowed at Beimen—though you had to step outside the main gate to do so, then return after finishing, which was technically skirting the rules. In less than five minutes, Xu Dong was back at the Beimen guardhouse. “Brother Xu, you’re back,” Xiao Wang said, standing up to greet him. “Mm…” Xu Dong pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tossed it to him, saying casually, “Here, take turns going outside the main gate to smoke.” Xiao Wang caught the pack and saw that it was “Fuxing” brand cigarettes—they used to cost over seventy yuan a pack, and now they were impossible to find even if you wanted to buy them. Ever since the panic-buying frenzy, cigarettes had all but vanished from the market. Xiao Wang himself hadn’t touched a cigarette in over half a month, so how could he not be thrilled right now? “Thanks, Brother Xu.” Xu Dong spent most of the afternoon playing mobile games, even dragging three of his subordinates into a dozen or so rounds of “Battle Royale.” Though they didn’t win a single game, time certainly flew by. Before he knew it, it was time to clock out. “Ahem…” Xiao Wang was the quickest to react, hastily putting away his phone, and Xiao Cheng wasn’t far behind. As for Xiao Huang, he was still standing guard at the door. “Uncle Zhang, is it time to clock out?” Xu Dong asked in surprise, seemingly still not fully snapped out of the game. “Ten more minutes,” Captain Zhang told Xu Dong. The two had already met earlier that afternoon, so there was no need for formalities now. “All right, Xiao Cheng is on duty tonight. Be careful—I heard someone might come by to check on us.” Xiao Cheng nodded vigorously: “Got it, Captain.” Captain Zhang then glanced over today’s entry and exit logs one more time. Finding nothing amiss, he set the logbook down and invited Xu Dong with a smile: “Want to head back to the office together?” Xu Dong, thinking about the gift he needed to give Section Chief Li, quickly made up an excuse: “No, thanks. I’d like to use the restroom first.” “Well, I’ll be heading out then. I won’t be coming in tomorrow morning, so keep an eye on things for me.” Xu Dong nodded to indicate he understood. After lingering in the guardhouse for half an hour, Xu Dong finally said goodbye to Xiao Cheng, then walked alone to the underground parking garage. After retrieving the gift, he headed straight for Section Chief Li’s office. “Knock, knock, knock…” “Come in,” Section Chief Li said, a hint of pleasure in his voice. Xu Dong pushed open the door and, smiling, set a large black bag down on the sofa beside him. “Uncle Li, if you don’t mind, I’m going to head home now.” Section Chief Li glanced at his watch and advised, “It’s getting late. Drive carefully on your way home.” “Got it.” Once Xu Dong had walked away, Section Chief Li could no longer contain himself. He took a long stride over to the sofa, inspected its contents, and finally broke into a satisfied smile. This young Xu—no wonder he’s the son of a wealthy family; his generosity is truly extraordinary. By the time he returned to the Siheyuan, it was nearly seven o’clock. The temperature had dropped sharply, and a hint of chill hung in the air. In just over three hours, this chill would turn into a bone-chilling cold. Since the beginning of April, the daily temperature swing in the Yanjing area had remained around fifty degrees; daytime temperatures approached forty degrees, while nighttime temperatures hovered around minus seven or eight degrees. No sooner had he parked the car than the two sisters, Ke Ke and Le Le, rushed over eagerly. Xu Dong quickly spread his arms wide, wrapping one arm around Ke Ke and the other around Le Le. “Take it easy—what if you fall?” Xu’s mom came out too, asking nonstop, “How was work today? Is your boss easy to get along with?” Xu Dong really wanted to roll his eyes—it wasn’t like he was some greenhorn just starting out in the workforce. Was she really that worried? He gave a casual, offhand reply: “Everything went smoothly, and my boss is easy to get along with.” “So did your boss assign you any work?” He knew he had to be careful with this answer, but Xu Dong had already prepared his response in his head. “Yeah, for now I’ve been assigned to the Security Department. I’m the deputy captain, and I’m in charge of several people! You know how competitive positions at the Power Company are—for now, I’ll just stick with this, and we can work on things later…” “Mom gets it!” Xu’s mom interrupted. “It’s just about holding down a spot for now, right? As long as you can become a permanent employee, Mom’s satisfied.” Xu Dong rubbed his nose nervously. His mom was much more open-minded than he’d imagined; it was actually he who was being conservative, looking down on security work—all that worrying for nothing. After dinner, Xu Dong went alone to the underground warehouse and began putting together snack gift bags for his new coworkers. There were over a thousand boxes of various snacks in the warehouse—enough to fill an entire room. Quantity-wise, it was absolutely… absolutely enough. But snacks generally don’t have a very long shelf life; after two or three years, they’re basically no longer edible. It was precisely because of these expiration date restrictions that Xu Dong was being so generous—since his family could never finish them all anyway, he might as well give some away as a gesture of goodwill; it was a small cost for a big benefit. Spiced sunflower seeds: ten bags per person; spicy strips, twenty small bags per person; Potato chips: ten cans per person; Small twisted pretzels: ten bags per person; Cookies, five boxes per person; Fruit-flavored candies, two bags per person; Chocolate, two boxes per person; Pistachios, two bags per person; Dried mangoes, two bags per person; Walnuts, two bags per person; Dried plum candies, two bags per person; Filled seaweed snacks, two cans per person. Xu Dong counted them—there were already twelve varieties. The variety was certainly sufficient, but the portions were a bit light; they felt almost weightless in his hands. After thinking it over, he added two cartons of yogurt to each portion. There was plenty of that in the warehouse, too, so he picked out all the ones with the shortest expiration dates. Since they’d been purchased early, some had only three or four months left before their expiration dates. With that, all the snacks were finally selected. In the end, Xu Dong prepared a total of 16 snack gift packs: 12 for his colleagues in the Security Department, 3 for his three subordinates, and the remaining one for Director Su from the Human Resources Department. The next day, Xu Dong drove to Company with the “freshly prepared” gift packages. Thank goodness his Mercedes-Benz had plenty of room—otherwise, he might not have been able to fit them all in. As he passed the security guard booth at the West Gate, he quickly called out to Xiao Cheng and the other two to come out and pick up their gift packages. Overjoyed, the three of them pledged their loyalty. Upon arriving at the underground parking garage, with more than half an hour to go before the official start of the workday, Xu Dong made over a dozen trips back and forth and finally managed to carry all 13 gift packages into the office. This completely exhausted him, and he sat in his chair, panting heavily. About five minutes later, a male colleague finally arrived for work.