21. Championing Waste Sorting

Three young girls stood arranged in a triangular formation, draped in bed sheets and holding brooms, singing loudly: “You’re broke, ha ha, Harry Potter rides his broomstick flying high, sorry, sorry. But my broomstick can only clean up trash heaps. You’re broke!”

One girl played music on her phone to accompany them.

The room was in utter chaos.

Qingtang Huamian shook her head helplessly.

“Apricot, you’re back!” From the upper bunk near the door, a pale white foot wobbled, waving like a hand to greet Qingtang Huamian.

The foot was almost brushing her face.

“You little brat, looking for a beating?” she said, reaching out to tickle the sole of the foot.

“Ha ha, ha ha ha, stop, I can’t take it!”

The two immediately erupted into a playful tussle.

This dormitory was for undergraduates, housing six people in total. On each side of the room were three bunk beds, with wardrobes and desks beneath.

The freshmen had only been here less than a month.

Yet the girls had already become very close.

The three girls dancing were: the tall and graceful Ma Xiaoxiao, the petite Huang Qiong, and the oval-faced Li Shasha.

The one lying on the bed, swinging her feet, was Lin Miao.

The girl playing the music was Chen Feifei.

Qingtang Huamian’s real name was Sun Xing.

“Enough fooling around. I saw a job posting on the campus network. They’re hiring part-time workers, and the workplace is right in the campus cafeteria.”

“No way, Apricot. You’re taking cafeteria work too? We’re students, not cooks,” Lin Miao exclaimed.

“I’m not going to be a cook, no way,” Chen Feifei rolled on the bed in firm protest.

“Alright, stop it. It’s not cooking, it’s representing waste sorting,” Sun Xing explained.

“Representing? That sounds so grand,” Huang Qiong called out. “I like it, let’s do this one.”

“You airhead, it’s representing garbage, got it? Representing garbage,” Ma Xiaoxiao tugged at her ear.

“The hours are flexible, mostly during lunch and dinner times. You guide students to sort leftover food into different bins. You can choose to work one day on weekends. They pay by the hour, 100 yuan per hour.”

“Wow, that’s pretty good. Environmentally friendly too, that’s meaningful,” Li Shasha purred.

Sun Xing gave her a slap on the rear. “The pay’s good, right?”

“I calculated it: two hundred a day on weekdays, four hundred for half a day on weekends, eight hundred for a full day. Not bad at all.”

“Not just not bad, the hourly wage for chicken farming is peanuts. This is a fair price. Work a few months and you can buy a bag,” Ma Xiaoxiao said.

“What do you all think? Since it’s on campus, safety is the first priority for girls. That’s good. Also, it won’t affect our studies or other activities—just eating. We might have to eat earlier or later,” Sun Xing said.

Li Shasha urged, “Sisters, what are you waiting for? Let’s get moving.”

“What’s the company’s name?”

“It’s a company called Xinghe Waste Management Technology Co., Ltd. The interview is this afternoon in Classroom Five.”

That afternoon, the six beautiful girls sat opposite Yang Fan and were surprised to find that the boss seemed even younger than themselves.

Soon, a striking new scene appeared in Yanda’s cafeteria.

At meal times, more than ninety percent of the little junior sisters wore cosplay uniforms and sashes reading “I represent waste sorting.”

The cafeteria’s trash bins were more finely categorized, with exquisitely designed bins labeled rice, noodles, vegetables, meat, and soup.

The boys, as if injected with adrenaline, would pick through every grain of rice and leftover vegetable after eating, carefully sorting vegetables into the vegetable bin, rice into the rice bin, and even picking out meat strips for the meat bin.

The goddess’s big, watery eyes were watching you—how could you dare throw garbage carelessly? Does your conscience not ache?

The matter quickly spread. Many students from other schools deliberately came to Yanda’s cafeteria to eat and take photos with the eco-friendly juniors.

These six girls even became internet celebrities later, amassing millions of followers on social media.

Yang Fan secured the cafeteria’s waste disposal contract, rented a house, hired employees, and basically set up the waste management company’s framework.

He called his lifelong friends from home—Monkey, Erlang, and Swindler—to join him. Back home, tourism only lasted three months a year, and the rest of the time, there was little to do. Better to have them help here.

He trusted these three childhood companions implicitly. Once the company was stable, he could hand it over to them entirely and just focus on hauling the garbage.

While Yang Fan busied himself with the waste management company, in another realm, the situation was changing rapidly.

At dawn, a strong steed carried a weary rider rushing into Chaoyang Gate, racing straight to the east gate of the imperial city—Dong’an Gate.

Two soldiers, carrying white lanterns, staggered along the early morning street, exhausted from a sleepless night.

The lanterns bore the words “Northern Military Command.” As the horse thundered past the night patrol, the two soldiers nearly collided with it. One, Yang Er, angrily stamped his foot and cursed, “Riding a horse inside the city—you’ll break your neck, you bastard!”

“You have a banner ahead, chase after it, early in the… ugh,” his words were abruptly muffled by his companion.

“Shut up! Are you trying to get yourself killed? That’s the Eastern Depot’s mounted cavalry. If you want to die, don’t take me with you,” the other soldier, Wang Yu, hissed sharply.

The words “Eastern Depot” struck like lightning, instantly silencing Yang Er. His limbs tingled as if an electric current ran through his body.

“Something big’s happened, something big,” Wang Yu muttered, watching the rider vanish in a cloud of dust toward Dong’an Gate.

The rider reached Dong’an Gate, showed his badge, and charged straight through, galloping until just outside Donghua Gate near the Forbidden City, where he halted at a government office.

The gate was an imposing three-bay archway, with a large plaque inscribed “Eastern Investigation Office.”

The rider dismounted swiftly, half-kneeling before the gate, holding up a sealed document and shouting, “Urgent military intelligence of the Jizhen undercover agents. Ten-thousand fires emergency. Request audience with the Qianhu Lord.”

A man in a qilin robe hurried over, took the document pouch, and said, “Go rest and eat something. The Qianhu Lord may want to see you soon.” He glanced at the three red marks on the pouch and hurried inside.

Soon, the urgent report reached the Forbidden City’s early court session, spreading rapidly: Duoyan tribes had allied with the Jurchens. The imperial capital faced the Jurchen cavalry directly to its north. More alarming, Lindan Khan had abandoned his followers and his capital—Baicheng—and fled to Qinghai.

Inside the Qianqing Palace, the newly enthroned Emperor Chongzhen sat on the throne, pale-faced and muttering, “Why did he run? Why did he run?”

He still could not believe someone could be so resolute. The vast empire was discarded like a used tissue.

“I only wanted to pressure him. Instead, he flipped the table and quit. Bastard.”

To the young emperor, this was the greatest insult.

He recalled Lindan Khan’s cryptic reply through secret channels: “I lost. None of you can win.”

At first, Chongzhen had smiled it off. The world was ruled by strength; what use was stubborn talk?

But it turned out not only was he stubborn, but his heart was even harder.

“How can I carry on? How can I carry on?” The emperor pressed his hand to his forehead.

Looking around the hall, the ministers’ faces flushed red and pale in turn. This was his most important external policy since ascending the throne.

Unfortunately, it was completely botched.

Facing an empty treasury that could only catch mice, he overruled opposition and canceled the annual tributes to the Chahar tribe, even rejecting the starving nomads’ petition for imperial relief after severe drought.

The Chahar immediately turned their attention to the Qing dynasty. Emperor Hong Taiji seized this rare opportunity to completely dismantle the Southern Mongols.

“Your Majesty’s foundation is not yet stable, your prestige not yet established. You cannot afford failure. I fear others will see your weaknesses. You must not make any major decisions; failure would be regrettable forever.”

“Alas,” the young emperor sighed deeply as the urgent report slipped helplessly from his hand.