Day 一

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I got there at 5.04AM.

At the gates of the factory, there were already so many people I thought they must be lining up for food — but they were all there for jobs, like me.

Some stood silently with folded arms. Others sat on their bags.

A few were asleep on flattened cardboard.

I stood behind a boy with short hair and soft shoulders. Neither of us said a word.

When the gates opened, the crowd moved like steam through a crack.

It was a silent crush.

We were processed in single file, like cattle.

After the gate, everything changed.
There were guards in dark uniforms, silent but watchful — like statues with earpieces.

We were told where to stand over loudspeakers, when to move, where to look — but no one spoke to us directly.

They didn’t yell. They didn’t have to.

The line moved by instinct.

By the time I reached the front, I had already stopped being a girl with a name.

I was a height (1.71m), a weight (59kg), blood type (O+) and pressure (115/67) and soon just an ID number. Digits inside just five boxes.At each checkpoint, there was a beep.

The wrong beep meant rejection — you’d be sent back out through the same gates you came in empty handed. It was a machine game show, we were human marbles dropping into slots and holes of someone else’s design. A small white card emerged from a printing machine as I passed through the final scan.

Behind the window, the guard looked down and read it aloud:

“Li Ling Mei. Q3306444. 這是你的工作ID號。”

“This is your work ID.”

That would be one of the last times I heard a superior use my name.