When I first met Lao Wang, he was no longer a research director . His photo was placed in the corner of the honor wall of the site, a most inconspicuous position. No one can see it unless you pay special attention. There is something ambitious and heroic about him in the picture, but that's a thing of the past.
Today, he always has a slumped face, with an unkempt beard covering his chin, and his graying sideburns make him look a little bit old. People on the site are always a little afraid of him, and if you don't pay attention, he will rush to your seat to see if you are working hard; or yell at you to write some irrelevant reports for him.
"I tell you, you have this site thanks to me, you know?" "To put it bluntly, the site manager used to work for me. What are you guys? Do you want to come here to be rice bugs?"
No one likes Lao Wang, and of course he doesn't care. He's always wandering the site like no one else, and can occasionally be heard roaring deafeningly as he walks into areas he's not authorized to enter. "I don't have permission? Say it again?" His fingers could almost penetrate the eye sockets of the security guard who stopped him. "Tell you, when I used to play hide-and-seek inside, you kid was still breastfeeding, you know?"
He wouldn't get permission to enter in the end, but he was content after cursing the security guard. It seemed like he just wanted to tell others how important he had been on the site.
Many people have asked the site supervisor, what on earth does Lao Wang do, how dare he be so arrogant, even the supervisor is half shorter in front of him. The director always smiled wryly and shook his head, "An old lunatic, what do you care about him? It's just that he won a Foundation star before, and an O5 gave him an award. He said that he protected a An important piece of information. Who knows? Anyway, he was the only one left when the site died, and this old slicker must have found an excuse to hide early. This kind of person can also win awards, and O5 is really…"
When I first joined the company, I was familiar with some basic research work under his hands. He said that he wanted to teach me some precautions, but he always wandered around the site and couldn't find anyone at all. In the end, it was still a few colleagues who couldn't stand it who supported me a lot. The only time he walked up to my desk with a project report I had submitted.
"You wrote this?" He raised his eyebrows, his expression seemed a little gloomy.
"I wrote it, Dr. Wang, what's wrong?" I looked at his black and white eyes with some trepidation.
"Did I teach you to use ACS?" He pointed to the new format in the header of the document, his eyes widening as if they were going to pop out of his skull. "You want to run before you learn how to crawl? Do you know how to use your ACS with your brain? Do everything you can!"
He scolded me head and face, but most of his words were pointing and cursing. What is it that the current foundation is getting more and more gaudy, when he was the research director before, he saw this kind of document that was not in the format, and he was punished to clean the toilet.
In the end, it was the site director who came to intercede with me and persuaded him to go back. The supervisor looked apologetic and promised to change the person in charge for me. Since then, I have rarely been able to see him. It's just that his angry voice can often be heard yelling at an employee who doesn't like him.
It was a long, long time before I heard that Lao Wang had caused trouble. I don't know if it's insane, but he actually went to report directly to the O5 that a hostile group wanted to sneak attack on our site. The result is, of course, a non-existent event. The site director was furious. Not only did he take back his Foundation star for the report above, but he also forbade the office he was assigned.
It was only after he talked about it that he got a freelance job, responsible for cleaning the sanitation of the site's honor wall. I heard that the salary is not high, and there are many authority restrictions, but he is still very grateful to the supervisor who is lenient. A colleague said that this old man almost knelt down to the supervisor, his face was full of tears. In front of a large group of participants, the supervisor really couldn't afford to lose this person.
Although he was still inside the site, I never saw him again because it was not on the way. It was only later that he was going to work outside the site and happened to pass by the wall of honor, only to find him squatting in the corner of the wall in crumpled clothes to work.
"Old Wang." I patted his shoulder.
Seeing me coming, he was a little happy, but he was a little disappointed in the corner of his eyes. He just smiled mischievously, rubbing his hands on his clothes again and again. He stood up, as if he wanted to regain some of his original prestige, but because of the long-term labor, he looked a little comically stooped. He held back for a long time, and finally said: "Doctor, you are here…"
I can see that he has a lot to say, but his confidentiality agreement does not allow him to take the initiative to talk to the personnel in the site. I don’t know if he used to be like this. He bowed his body and greeted many "rice bugs" who he looked down upon before, "Dr., you are here…"
I have always wanted to ask him what he did back then. It's something that makes him so pompous in the site, even the supervisor is half shorter than him. But just as I was about to speak, I only saw a strange face behind him when he stood up, the place that once belonged to him on the wall of honor.
I felt disappointed immediately, so I hurriedly said goodbye and went to work in a hurry. When I came to the corner, I turned around and saw that he had squatted in front of the wall of honor and was cleaning the corner that was obviously cleaner than other places.
Later, I was responsible for the follow-up work on the amnestic status of retired employees on the site. The work is very easy. Compared to doing research in the site or guarding against possible enemy attacks at any time, my job is just to drive a car and follow a fixed route to visit "ordinary people" one by one.
Until one day, I saw that the person I was in charge of was called "Wang Chongming". At first I didn't know who it was, but when I saw the familiar face in the photo, I realized it. He was always called "Lao Wang", but few people remembered his real name.
In the photo, he looked very old, with cloudy and sad eyes, but he rarely trimmed his beard and sideburns neatly, and even put on an ill-fitting researcher's robe from somewhere. Looking at it this way, it really overlaps with the heroic face on the wall of honor in memory.
After he retired, he lived in a nursing home under the jurisdiction of a foundation. According to the nurse who took care of him, he was old and had some dementia, and would occasionally utter two nonsense words that were not controlled by his brain. Other than that, there was no such thing as the failure of amnestics.
I moved a chair and sat in front of him, and he stared at me blankly, wondering if he recognized me, but the corners of his eyes gradually became moist.
"I saved you." He said the first sentence. "I saved all of you."
"I know." I nodded. The site director was later found out to be in collusion with Sarkicism. If it hadn't been for the fact that Lao Wang reported to the O5 and canceled the planned operation, the site at that time would have suffered a lot of casualties. It's just that this matter has nothing to do with an "ordinary person" who has been amnesticized.
"I saved you." He looked at me, but his gaze penetrated my body, and cast it in a far, far direction. "I have saved many people."
He slowly closed his eyes, as if he was tired. But I can still feel that his gaze is fixed on a certain place, on the magnificent landscape that belongs to him deep in his heart. Although the darkness of memory is quietly overwhelming him.
I think, the old king of that foundation, he only forgot to save himself…