Hothead

By Ma Jinglei

Chen has a bad temper and to add to it, she’s a bit of a hothead. She works as a manager at a company and always finds these little things to latch on to because before she understands the entirety of what’s going on,she’d start to cuss people out. The few people that work under her are often left at a total loss.

We all know about her temper,and at heart she’s not a bad person, but the thing is, her husband is the county mayor.Nobody dares to mess with her.

Today, Chen was as peaceful as a barrel of gunpowder all day long, without the hint of explosion. She spent the whole morning quietly flipping through the paper. When all of a sudden,we heard a loud scream, “Wah!”and she was left lying face up on the sofa.

A bunch of us working nearby were all shocked. We ran in surrounding her, pinching and poking at her trying to bring her back to consciousness.

Quickly, she came to, opening her eyes and sobbing wildly.

At once, we all asked her what happened.

“My, Wang Changyuan, died on the job, how can I possibly go on?” Chen was crying, pointing at the newspaper, “Look, there was a report of a car accident, the three people in the minibus all died…This morning Wang Changyuan said that the three of them were going to go to the countryside,”she moaned, “the paper says, the identities of the deceased have already been confirmed…”

Li took a look and said, “Chen,this is yesterday’s paper.”

Chen immediately stopped sobbing, “It can’t be, Wang Changyuan was fine this morning.Who’s starting these rumors?”

We picked up the paper and looked at the report: There was an accident on some section of some road where a semi-trailer truck collided with a minibus. The three passengers of the minibus were all killed, and the identities of the deceased have already been confirmed. The county mayor Wang Changyuan….

Chen was pointing right at that spot saying, “Look, isn’t the name written there Wang Changyuan?Who’s putting out this fake news?”

Everyone looked at the paper and burst into laughter. Li said,“Chen, you’ve got to calm down.Look closer, what it really says is:county mayor Wang Changyuan,vice county mayor Liao Xikun and police chief Liu Bingtian gave the matter their top priority acting as first responders to direct and deal with the onsite work.”◆

(FromNew Morning Post,January 4, 2018. Translation:Sam Bowden)

陳姐脾氣火爆，性子又急，在單位當(dāng)個(gè)小領(lǐng)導(dǎo)，逮住個(gè)小事，沒弄明白原委，就開始訓(xùn)人，手下的幾個(gè)人，經(jīng)常被她弄得摸不著頭腦。

大家知道她有這個(gè)脾氣，看她人還不壞，最重要的是，她丈夫是本縣縣長(zhǎng)，就都不和她計(jì)較。

這天，陳姐的火藥桶一直很平靜，沒有任何爆炸的跡象，一上午，她都在安安靜靜地翻著報(bào)紙。突然，只聽她“哇”的大叫一聲，仰頭倒在沙發(fā)上。

周圍的幾個(gè)同事被驚到了，趕緊圍過來掐人中、捏胳膊掐腿。

很快，陳姐緩上一口氣，睜開眼睛，放聲大哭。

大家忙問她這是怎么了。

“我家王長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)殉職了，我可怎么活啊。”陳姐指著報(bào)紙哭道，“你們看吧，上面登了一起車禍，小型客車?yán)锏娜耍克劳觥裉煸缟希蹰L(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)就說，他們?nèi)齻€(gè)要下鄉(xiāng)去，嗚嗚嗚，報(bào)上寫著，死者身份已經(jīng)確認(rèn)……”

小李一看，說：“陳姐，這是昨天的報(bào)紙。”

陳姐立刻停止號(hào)啕：“不對(duì)啊，今天早上，王長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)還好好的，這是誰造謠？”

大家拿起報(bào)紙，只見上面有一則消息：某某國(guó)道某某路段發(fā)生一起交通事故，一輛半掛貨車和一輛小型客車相撞，乘坐小型客車的三人全部身亡，死者身份已經(jīng)確認(rèn)。縣長(zhǎng)王長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)……

陳姐用手指點(diǎn)在那里，說：“你們看，后面的名字不是王長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)嗎？這是誰報(bào)的假新聞？”

大家一看，大笑起來。小李說：“陳姐，你太性急了。你看仔細(xì)嘍，后面寫的是：縣長(zhǎng)王長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)、副縣長(zhǎng)廖錫坤、公安局局長(zhǎng)劉炳田高度重視，第一時(shí)間趕赴現(xiàn)場(chǎng)，指揮處置工作。”◆