The road seems to have no end. More than 30 communities and 60 or 70 businesses are densely packed in almost 28 square kilometers of land. In more than a month as a delivery worker, Zhang Ning shuttled back and forth between these communities and businesses more than 850 times, running 3,190 kilometers. In 31 days in July, she sent out 770 orders, but still did not dare to stop to catch her breath.
If the e-bike doesn’t stop, there is hope for her daughter’s life to continue. In March 2017, Zhang Ning’s eldest daughter, Xuan Xuan, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a disease known as the "king of childhood cancer" that quickly overwhelmed her family. The 32-year-old mother has tried online fundraising and kneeling on the street for help, and now pins almost all her hopes on the road to deliver food.
When her daughter was diagnosed, she often asked the doctor, "Is it possible to cure this disease?" Later, she became more and more silent, asking only "what effect can be achieved." Treatment of neuroblastoma requires radiation, chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation, and the survival rate can be improved from 30% to 60% to 80%. And that all requires money.
In order to treat their children, she and her husband quit their jobs and traveled from their hometown of Xinji, Hebei to Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. The family sold out of donkeys, sheep and almost everything valuable. In just a year and a half, 700,000 yuan was spent, and now they still owe 300,000 yuan in foreign debt.
In May of this year, the child was going to have a second stem cell transplant operation at Tianjin Cancer Hospital, and the family rented a house next to the hospital. Life was very tight, and the rent of 1,600 yuan was almost impossible to come up with. Zhang Ning decided to give the child to the grandmother, and her husband would go to deliver takeout to earn money to support the family and pay off the debt. "Because this job is more flexible, my daughter can rush back at any time when she has the situation."
Zhang Ning turned on the order receiving system at 9 am every day, and she was ready to leave home at any time with the "beep" sound of successful order receiving. Busy from 9 am to 10 pm every day, she can earn at least 5,000-6,000 yuan a month. Sometimes, this is not enough for Xuan Xuan to spend a day in the transplant warehouse.
The asphalt road in summer is steaming hot and can "spread eggs". Zhang Ning is always fully armed, his thin body is covered in a larger rider’s suit, and the two work clothes are rotated every day. The blue helmet is pressed against a short hair that is ear-length. The skin exposed to the clothes is tanned, and the lips are not wet due to long-term sun exposure. Only the pink hello kitty sunshade gloves on the handlebars of the electric bicycle reveal her love of beauty.
As the only daughter in her family, as a child, she used to feel angry that her father favored boys over girls and gave her farm work to her instead of her brother. She secretly vowed not to do manual labor in the future. After graduating from high school, she studied haircutting, jewelry, beading, braiding, and partnered with friends to open a nail salon.
After her daughter was born, she pinned similar hopes on the child. Since the birth of Xuanxuan, Zhang Ning has taken more than 1,000 photos of her, taught her to read, write, draw, roller skate, and braided her waist-length hair. After receiving treatment, Xuanxuan’s body became thinner and thinner, and her hair fell out one by one. Zhang Ning secretly cut the child’s hair short in the middle of the night and braided the rest into strands of small dreadlocks. After the small dreadlocks also fell off, Zhang Ning bought her daughter pink shoes in red, fearing that she would be "recognized as a boy".
But Zhang Ning couldn’t stop herself from becoming less and less like a woman. In the past, she had long black hair and thick bangs, "in order to look young". To accompany her daughter in the transplant warehouse, her hair was getting shorter and shorter. In the past, she wore light makeup on her face, but now she can "manage it for a day" by wearing a layer of sunscreen when she goes out.
After 2 pm, when the order was less, Zhang Ning could temporarily go home to rest, eat some "sesame oil wrapped in rolls", and swallow it with rice porridge or plain water. When she ran outside, she could go without drinking water for two or three hours in a row. Until she was free, she went to buy 1.5 liters of mineral water and poured more than half a bottle in one go.
Sometimes there is a heavy rainstorm, the water on the street reaches her knees, and the car has to be delivered as soon as the order comes. Several colleagues’ batteries have malfunctioned due to soaking in water, and she is glad that her car is relatively new and "holds on". It was just a sudden heavy rain, and she did not have a poncho. She also fell on the side of the road because of a slippery tire, and she could not get up by herself. Fortunately, she was supported by a passing taxi driver.
The wind, the sun, the rain, she took these as interesting news to tell her children. But in the interview, the most she said to the reporter was "I don’t know how I survived it."
She has been cheated of money, desperate, and even thought of death. Last year, her father was diagnosed with cancer, and her mother broke her leg. She went back to her hometown to take care of her parents. Her husband’s bank card was defrauded by a wire fraud of 50,000 yuan, which was the last amount of money for her daughter’s treatment. They went to report the case, but were told by the police that there was little hope of recovery. She cried a lot, and she was about to go out in the middle of the night. Her mother held her hand tightly, so she woke up and decided to "continue to live, live day by day".
Before her child’s illness, she had never been to a big city. After going there, she found that the cancer hospitals and children’s hospitals in these cities were full, and they had to wait for half a month for a bed. She had seen some children who were calling "Auntie" yesterday and disappeared the next day, and she had also seen countless families like her family. In the patient group, they talked less about money, "because each has its own way."
She heard that there was a "city" couple who relied on their "powerful connections" to easily raise hundreds of thousands of yuan; there was also a young father who spent every day on the live broadcast software, interacting with the boss to attract fans and tips, and also made a lot of money.
She thought of various ways to raise money. She tried water drop fundraising, but the people who forwarded donations were all relatives and friends. "The money has been borrowed all over the place", and finally raised more than 100,000 yuan.
Before entering the transplant warehouse for the second time, she had brought Xuan Xuan to kneel on the sidewalk next to the children’s hospital and begged. Some children stopped and were pulled away by adults. The money received was also 1 yuan and 50 cents, and she could only raise 100 or 200 yuan a day.
"As long as I can save my daughter, I can do anything," she told reporters.
When she first started running takeout, she was afraid of being complained because she would be deducted money. She was not good at finding her way, and it was difficult for her to distinguish between "east, west, north and south" when customers told her. From day to night, some street lights were dim, and she was also frightened by people burning paper money on street corners.
But in order to make money, Zhang Ning ran most of the time. Whether it was dozens of bottles of drinks or two large watermelons weighing more than 10 catties, she went upstairs without saying a word. Guests lived on more than ten floors, and she couldn’t wait for the elevator, so she took two steps and made one step, arriving before the elevator.
She joked that these strengths were "developed by holding children." Every time Xuanxuan finished surgery, she had no strength, so she and her husband could only take turns carrying her. After her daughter got sick, she even learned to give injections.
After two stem cell transplants and a course of chemotherapy, 7-year-old Xuan Xuan looked much thinner than her peers. Her slender arms and legs were like bamboo poles, and her hair-shedding head stood out even more. The stem cell reinfusion caused her body to turn black, and the summer skirt could not cover the huge scar on her chest.
With less and less money on hand, after the second transplant operation, although Xuanxuan’s blood pressure was not completely stable, Zhang Ning’s family discussed with the doctor and decided to let the child be discharged early and go to the hospital for examination every day. She heard that there are more advanced immunotherapy, and when she heard that at least 500,000 yuan started, she felt helpless.
Zhang Ning never wrote this worry on her face. When the customer who ordered the food opened the door with a small crack, she would pass the takeaway with a smile on her face and say "I wish you a happy meal"; when she met some familiar customers, she would also take the initiative to greet, "Hello Auntie, I meet you again."
Only when Zhang Ning left, these guests would receive a text message: "Hello, I am the food deliveryman who delivered the takeout to you just now, and I am also the mother of a tumor baby. If it’s ok, please help me click on the very high praise (super praise). Each super praise will give me an additional reward of 30 cents. Thank you for your love and encouragement. There must be something wrong with the delivery. I will try my best to improve and complete each order with all my heart!"
Zhang Shilun, the head of Zhang Ning’s takeaway station, told reporters that he only discovered Zhang Ning’s difficulties later. He remembered that Zhang Ning looked anxious when he came to the interview, but did not disclose his situation, "maybe because he was afraid that I had concerns." He admitted that he did worry, "after all, this is a high-risk job." This is the first female rider he has recruited since running the site.
Zhang Shilun said that in this food delivery station, there are big men from northeast China who have been laid off from oil companies, and college students who have failed to start their own businesses and turned to food delivery. In his opinion, "the Internet saves a group of people."
In the past July, Zhang Ning ran a total of more than 700 orders. In a few days, the number of completed orders also topped their site list, and the number of praise also ranked first.
Zhang Ning could only take his daughter’s food to the cancer hospital during the delivery period. The transplant warehouse only had a window close to the ground for patients’ families to deliver meals, and the daily visiting time was only three times in the morning, middle and evening. A patient in the same hospital remembered that Zhang Ning came and went in a hurry every time, and had to leave in a hurry as soon as he put the lunch box in the window.
Only when collecting the lunch box did Zhang Ning have time to stop, call his daughter through the glass of the visitation window, give her a thumbs up, and sign a victory gesture. Sometimes it was a little wrong, and the entrance to the visitation window was already closed. The daughter could only talk to her on mobile phone video, shouting to her aggrieved "bad mother, don’t come to see me", she apologized to her daughter, but she still couldn’t be on time next time.
Like other 7-year-old children, Xuanxuan’s wish when she grows up is to "be a model", and she also loves to act coquettishly. Sometimes she complains that her mother is always controlling her, not allowing her to eat ice cream, nor letting her watch cartoons on her mobile phone for too long. Zhang Ning sometimes doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, saying to her daughter, "You will cost tens of thousands of yuan to eat an ice cream now." "When you grow up, I will no longer care about you."
Xuanxuan still showed maturity that children of the same age did not have. Although she did not know what disease she had until now, she was able to run to the hospital blood test place with ease, proudly pointing at the test sheet and saying to her mother, "My platelets have increased." Whenever it rained, she would call to tell her mother "don’t go out and run." When she called, as long as she heard the wind, she knew that Zhang Ning was riding an electric bicycle and hung up immediately.
The child’s peers had already entered primary school, and Xuan Xuan could only stay in a 10-square-meter transplant warehouse or rental room. Apart from her relatives, she could only accompany her with cartoons on her mobile phone. She used to love singing children’s songs with her children, but now when she returned home every day, she was so tired that she fell down as soon as she touched the bed, and she didn’t even have the strength to hold the child.
When she felt that she couldn’t hold on, Zhang Ning flipped through the previous photos and videos. At that time, she loved to laugh and take pictures. The family of three went to the park and swimming pool together, and life was not so gray.
Before Xuanxuan’s illness, she was skating. Not long ago, Zhang Ning also posted a small video. Xuanxuan was wearing two balls with red ribbons, a small purple sweater skirt, and a pair of roller skates. She rushed from a distance like a gust of wind, swept past her, blinked at the camera, and slid into the distance. That was the video recorded in February 2017, less than a month after Xuanxuan was diagnosed with neuroblastoma.
In early 2018, 7-year-old Xuan Xuan made a New Year’s wish. Seeing that some children’s parents did not want them because they were sick, she "hoped that everyone would love Xuan Xuan", knowing that "it cost a lot of money to see a doctor, and she hopes to earn it back when she grows up". She also wants to go to school, botanical gardens, and take a ship on the sea. But Zhang Ning only wishes that her daughter will be healthy in the future and have more hope of living.
At present, Xuanxuan’s condition can be said to be "basically clinically cured, as long as it is reviewed on time."
For Zhang Ning, it’s not over yet. "Children bear the pain, but adults have to bear more."
Only when driving on an electric bicycle on the road did she feel a moment of freedom. Although her fingers were calloused by the long-term grip on the rotating handle, and her shoulders were also sore from the long-term tightness. When her daughter first fell ill, she couldn’t sleep all night. Now the psychological burden has finally been converted into physical fatigue, and the long-lost sleep has been exchanged.
She still didn’t dare to relax any day. Many delivery workers like to gallop after nightfall because the roads are clear and the breeze is cool. But Zhang Ning thought about it and said that she still likes noon and evening the most, which is the busiest time. "There are many orders," which also means that she is closer to the future she promised her children.
China Youth Daily · China Youth Online Reporter, Jiangshan, Source: China Youth Daily