"Is that true? How did this driver die this time?" Mu Rufeng asked hastily upon hearing the news.
"My wife told me at noon, it was a car accident," Old Wang whispered.
Old Wang's wife works as a Receiving Staff in the Alcohol Warehouse.
"Could it be that the Feng Shui here is bad?" Mu Rufeng muttered to himself.
"Exactly, and you know what else? I heard that when those two drivers died, there seemed to be an umbrella near each of them," Old Wang said in a hushed tone.
"An umbrella?" Uncle Liu and Mu Rufeng, upon hearing this, were somewhat puzzled.
"Yes, an umbrella, very ominous, my wife..."
"Hey, hey, hey, what are you three doing? Hurry up and unload the goods, there's another truck waiting to be unloaded."
Just then, a man wearing a red vest came over from inside the warehouse.
Upon hearing this, the three of them turned their heads and saw it was the warehouse supervisor. They muttered to themselves, put down their water and drinks, and went towards the trailer.
Mu Rufeng went to the front of the goods, moved a package, and started stacking the goods.
The cargo on this truck was 1.5-liter bottles of Nongfu Spring, with 12 bottles per package, weighing a total of 18 kilograms just for the water alone.
Because of the hot weather, he had not worn gloves, and after unloading only half of the truck, Mu Rufeng's hands were starting to feel swollen and painful.
"Old Liu, Old Wang, and Xiao Mu, don't chitchat when there's nothing to do, got it?" the supervisor Ma Jun said as he approached them.
"Mhm," Old Liu responded.
"Got it, Brother Jun," Mu Rufeng nodded.
"Hey, Brother Jun, about that umbrella thing, is it really that abnormal?" Old Wang, who was unafraid of heaven and earth, still whispered the question.
"Don't ask about that, don't pry into it, and definitely don't spread rumors. The higher-ups have given strict orders," Ma Jun warned them.
"Hurry up and finish unloading this truck, there's another one with Yibao water that needs to be unloaded," Ma Jun instructed, then left.
After Ma Jun left, the three didn't bring up the topic again.
The young Mu Rufeng, however, couldn't contain his curiosity and once again turned to Uncle Wang to ask.
Uncle Liu didn't speak, but he was equally nosy.
After all, loading and unloading were monotonous and tiring, so having a topic to talk about could help alleviate some fatigue.
"My wife heard about it, and just told me last night, I'm telling you, but don't spread it around, or Ma Jun will nag," Uncle Wang said.
"Don't worry, I've always been tight-lipped," Mu Rufeng patted his chest and said.
Soon, Uncle Wang began to share the story.
The two deceased drivers both worked as delivery drivers for the Alcohol Warehouse.
The first driver died on Monday morning this week.
His roommate who was a driver went back to change his clothes and found the body.
It was a gruesome death, with irregular gaps all over the body; it looked as though he had been gnawed on by a wild animal.
Mu Rufeng hadn't seen this photo; though it was shared in the group chat, it was deleted in less than an hour.
The subsequent investigation hadn't yielded any results yet.
When the company leaders came to deal with the matter, they found an umbrella in the room.
The leaders didn't pay much attention, thinking it belonged to someone in the dorm.
The second driver died last night.
He was crushed to death under a platform by a reversing truck.
Rumors have it that the driver was already dead before he was hit.
That same leader came to deal with the incident again.
And here's where the abnormality arose: next to this deceased driver, there was also a black long-handle umbrella.
The leader asked others to pick up the umbrella, but the people around him claimed they saw no umbrella.
The leader seemed to know something, and immediately issued a gag order so the incident would not be spread.
However, although a gag order was issued, everyone was bored and gossiped about it, and the story ended up spreading far and wide.
"Alright, enough already, hearing this gives me the creeps. Let's hurry up and unload the goods." Uncle Liu took a deep drag on his cigarette before throwing the butt away and continuing to unload the goods.
"Right, let's unload." Mu Rufeng nodded and also started working.
He actually didn't feel much about it, as a successor of socialism, how could he believe in such things?
By the time Mu Rufeng and the other two had finished unloading the truck of Yibao water, it was already seven in the evening.
The sun had set, but it was still quite bright outside, or rather, it had not yet gotten dark.
"Let's go eat first, and then we have another truck of Wanglaoji to unload after," Uncle Liu said.
"Yeah, I'm so hungry I can barely stand," Mu Rufeng admitted, feeling like he could eat an entire cow.
"You guys go ahead, my wife brought me food," Uncle Wang said, waving his hand.
Mu Rufeng and Uncle Liu headed toward the canteen.
The canteen was not close to the Alcohol Warehouse, a good three hundred meters away.
Their local community bulk-buying platform in Hunan had rented out the entire Logistics Park as their storage and transfer warehouse.
Not to mention anything else, just their Alcohol Warehouse alone covered ten thousand square meters.
The entire Logistics Park housed the Alcohol Warehouse, grain and oil warehouse, appliances, daily necessities, fruits and vegetables... boutique, returns, and many others.
Regrettably, due to the pressure from Ugly Group Preferred, their traffic was stolen, and the business declined significantly.
"Hm?" Suddenly, Mu Rufeng noticed an umbrella lying quietly on the cement ground ahead.
This umbrella was black and it also had a long handle, placed on the cement ground a few meters away.
Mu Rufeng was certain that he had not seen the umbrella just a moment ago; it seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Mu Rufeng's steps faltered.
"What's wrong?" Uncle Liu stopped and asked.
"Uncle Liu, there's an umbrella over there," Mu Rufeng pointed at the umbrella.
However, Uncle Liu's next words made Mu Rufeng's heart skip a beat.
"An umbrella? Where is there an umbrella?" Uncle Liu glanced over, saying with a puzzled face.
"Uncle Liu, there's clearly an umbrella there," Mu Rufeng swallowed, staring fixedly at the umbrella.
"Xiao Mu, are you trying to spook your Uncle Liu? There's no umbrella, come on, let's go. If we're late, there'll be no food left," Uncle Liu waved his hand, thinking that Mu Rufeng was joking with him, and strode forward.
Even worse, Mu Rufeng saw Uncle Liu step right on top of the umbrella.
A very strange scene unfolded—Uncle Liu's foot seemed to pass through the umbrella and step on the ground as if the umbrella didn't exist at all.
And Uncle Liu did not notice anything amiss.
Mu Rufeng had to admit, he was somewhat panicked.
Especially when he recalled what Uncle Wang had mentioned earlier.
A black, long-handled umbrella, invisible to others, only visible to one person.
Mu Rufeng took a deep breath, calming his emotions.
As a successor of socialism, he walked around the umbrella and quickly caught up with Uncle Liu.
He decided to pretend he hadn't seen the black umbrella.
He was just an ordinary person, and the best course of action when encountering something he couldn't comprehend was to ignore it.