The Journey That Is Getting Further and Further Away (Part 12)

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In August, an accident happened at my company.
My friend, who owns a company, was renovating the water supply and drainage pipes at a friend's club.
This club was huge, occupying three floors in a large building. Many of the water supply and drainage pipes were laid inside the ceiling, a tangled mess of electrical and plumbing lines running through walls and ridges. Even plumbers who couldn't read blueprints were completely lost. The subcontractors working for my company were hesitant after seeing the site.
In desperation, I called in one of my apprentices to lead a team for the work.
Tragically, near completion, my apprentice was electrocuted in the ceiling and died.
This apprentice lived very close to me. Every time I went home, he would invite me for a drink. His wife and children would also often come over to sit and chat with my wife.
The passing of my apprentice was a huge blow to me. He was from out of town and worked as a laborer at my previous construction company. He was more than ten years younger than me. When I joined the company, he was already working on the construction team. After I took over and reorganized the company's construction team, I kept him on. He was a simple and clean-cut young man, smart and capable, and I liked that kind of person. One day after get off work, I was drinking with some brothers in the construction site dormitory. He was also there. When we were halfway through our drinks, he suddenly said in front of the others that he wanted to become my apprentice and learn technical skills from me. Although I was now managing projects in the company, I also had my own expertise. I studied electrical automation control and design. He said he wanted to become my apprentice, so I waved my hand and said, "What apprenticeship? What do you want to learn? As long as I know it, I'll teach you." He was emboldened by the alcohol and was no longer as humble as usual. He said, "That's too risky. If I don't become your apprentice, you definitely won't teach me properly. I still have to acknowledge you as my apprentice." As he spoke, he suddenly knelt down before me and said, "If you don't accept me as your apprentice today, I won't get up." My brothers and I exchanged glances, and could only acquiesce. From then on, I kept him close by, passing on as much of my professional and non-professional knowledge as possible to him. During on-site construction, whether it was making power distribution control cabinets and electrical wiring, or installing equipment and laying pipes, I let him do it all on his own. If he made a mistake, I would point it out to him. The young man was naturally smart, and with his hard work, he quickly became capable of handling things independently.
Later, a friend of mine partnered with someone to start an environmental engineering company and asked me to switch jobs to manage the company's projects, promising a higher salary than my current company. I didn't accept my friend's invitation; at the time, the company had two projects underway, and I couldn't just leave. My friend was very unhappy, so I came up with a compromise: I would send my apprentice to my friend's company, and I would provide some human and technical support. After joining my friend's company, the young man did well. After several years of hard work, he bought a house and a car, and his life was much better than before.
However, because of his youth and his growing seniority, he gradually became arrogant, his mind became more cunning, and he stopped being so honest. Until he had a major falling out with the company's two bosses, he had no choice but to leave. Of course, my friend told me all this later.
I asked him to come and help out because I thought he was just sitting at home doing nothing, so I figured he might as well come and work for a while and earn a decent income. Who would have thought that after doing countless projects, he'd capsize in such a small ditch?
After handling my apprentice's funeral arrangements, I felt very depressed, filled with grief and self-blame. I had a sense of regret, like "what goes around comes around." If I hadn't taught him, if he had remained a lowly laborer, would this have happened?

I went back to the company, talked with my friend for a long time, and then went back to the home I shared with Meng.
She wasn't home.
I called her and learned that her parents had come while I was away. Yesterday morning, she had accompanied them to a city 400 kilometers away to visit her mother's niece, her cousin.
I hung up the phone and sighed.
I didn't want to tell my wife about these feelings of bitterness and pain. For the past few years, my wife and I haven't communicated at all. We often find ourselves speechless before we can even finish a few sentences.
When I came home, I was thinking of getting a good night's sleep next to Meng, to ease the sadness in my heart.
But she wasn't there.
I opened my laptop, drank some beer, and started playing a browser game.
Before I knew it, I had downed eight bottles of beer. In my drowsy state, I heard the door open. Meng and her parents had returned.
It was nearly midnight.

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The Journey That Is Getting Further and Further Away (Part 12)

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