The vegetable delivery man increased his birthday. Zhongqingbao Zhongqingwang reporter Yan Xueqing/photo
Ma Zengchen has lived in his van delivering vegetables for 14 days.
After the city was closed, the delivery man took Dai Yue as the star to deliver food to the residents. He only slept for four or five hours every day and often ate only one meal a day.
He obviously lost weight. On March 2, he weighed himself, 18 Jin less than a month ago.
Ma Zengchen, 38, is a vegetable delivery man at Wuhan Station, an online fresh-keeping platform. Under the COVID-19 epidemic, the city of Wuhan was closed on January 23rd, and closed management of all residential quarters began on February 11th. The enterprise he serves is one of the online shopping platforms recommended by the Municipal Bureau of Commerce to residents. He suddenly became one of the "people’s livelihood security workers" in this city.
On average, Ma Zengchen sends fresh vegetables and meat to 60-80 families every day. The service scope of the vegetable delivery staff is wide, and the working radius can reach twenty or thirty kilometers. Today, the number of orders sent is about three times that of usual, and it is normal to be busy until 10 pm.
Ma Zengchen is a foreigner and rented in Miaoshan Community, Jiangxia District, Wuhan. There is an iron gate to the north of the main entrance of the community, which was closed during the epidemic. When he comes back at night, he usually stops here, and the object Wang Jiangyan will wait for the "joint" on the other side of the fence.
Through the fence, she handed him hot rice and talked for a while. In order to save the car battery, Wang Jiangyan has to take his mobile phone home to charge it. Sometimes, Ma Zengchen doesn’t even want to eat, but just wants to sleep.
They originally planned to go back to their hometown to register for marriage in the Spring Festival of 2020. The tickets were all bought and Wuhan was closed.
The hospital is overcrowded and there are few people in the street. They are a little scared, too. Wang Jiangyan remembers that she once advised Ma Zengchen: "Why don’t we quit? Who do you think is so desperate on the street?"
Ma Zengchen didn’t answer the phone. They have children to support and debts to pay. In December last year, they opened a "Happy Lemon" tea shop in Miaoshan community. "When this happens (referring to COVID-19), ‘ Turn off ’ The ". Wang Jiangyan sliced the lemon in the "Happy Lemon" stock, and in the evening, prepared a bucket of hot water floating with lemon slices for Ma Zengchen.
In the first few days after the community was closed, Ma Zengchen was able to enter and leave the community with proof.
There are three electronic certificates in his mobile phone. Two copies are certificates from Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce, which prove that Ma Zengchen’s company is an "important livelihood security enterprise" and its employees are "livelihood security workers", who undertake the supply tasks of "daily necessities and protective articles" and need to give priority to the procurement of materials, road traffic and commuting.
The other is the "Certificate of New Type Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention Vehicle", which has Ma Zengchen’s ID number and license plate number, and is stamped with the official seal of Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Commerce and his company.
In other different communities, Ma Zengchen’s colleagues have been able to pass the temperature test every day with these certificates. On March 3, one of them confirmed this to the reporter.
But on February 18th, these certificates failed at the gate of Miaoshan Community. Ma Zengchen said that after he returned from delivering vegetables, the staff of the community "seal control management post" asked him for a paper version of the certificate. When he ran back to the company to print it, the other party also said that "the printed one is a black stamp, and it needs a red stamp".
Later, the company specially issued him an "employee certificate" to prove that Ma Zengchen participated in the "people’s livelihood and medical material distribution work".
Wang Jiangyan remembers that a community worker later said that Ma Zengchen had left the community for more than 24 hours at this time. If he went home, he needed to be isolated at home for 14 days.
A staff member of the Miaoshan Development Zone Management Committee Office confirmed this statement to the reporter: Ma Zengchen had two choices at that time — — Either go home and isolate, or don’t go into the community. The staff member did not explain the basis of this move.
"Isolation for 14 days, that how line? We still have to earn money to support our families. " Wang Jiangyan said. They have calculated that the elderly, children, store rent, car loans, mortgages, even if they don’t eat or drink, the monthly expenses will be more than 10,000 yuan.
From February 18th, Ma Zengchen took the car as his home.
The company requires the food delivery man to arrive at the warehouse at 3 am every day, and he will arrive one and a half hours in advance — — It’s too late to pick up the goods until other colleagues run out of scanning guns. At about 6 o’clock in the morning, he began to deliver vegetables to downtown Wuhan.
Ma Zengchen said that novices usually send "one line" a day. He started this job in July 2019 and will send two or three lines every day. Sometimes, in order to earn more money, I will apply for an extra line. There are about 20 customers on each line, which takes half a day.
For him, the ideal situation is that all customers can be in a community, but this is "too difficult to meet." There are four or five households in a community, which will save a lot of time. He is "very grateful".
He came home later and later. The dinner prepared by Wang Jiangyan is Ma Zengchen’s only dinner in a day. A big bowl can’t be stuffed in the gap of the iron fence in the community, so it can only be handed from the bottom, and he eats it in the cold wind. Occasionally, he will soak a bucket of instant noodles in the company. On the way, he couldn’t find hot water to eat instant noodles.
He is seriously short of sleep. On the evening of February 29th, when the reporter from China Youth Daily and China Youth Network met Ma Zengchen, he had just finished 20.5 hours’ work. When the reporter talked to Wang Jiangyan, he put the driver’s seat down and lay on the back of the chair, and soon there was a snoring.
He takes the time to catch up on sleep, sleeping in the car with clothes and a blanket every day.
There is only one blanket. "I am very embarrassed to say it. There is only a thin quilt at home." Wang Jiangyan said that she used to go back to her hometown in winter, and she didn’t prepare thick quilts in Wuhan. Now she wants to buy them and there is nowhere to buy them.
The latest lowest temperature at night in Wuhan is 5℃. Ma Zengchen sometimes wakes up with cold. He will start the car, have a meeting with the air conditioner for heating, and then turn it off. "It will be dangerous to turn on the air conditioner for a long time."
Fortunately, he has been doing manual work and has a strong body. He has never caught a cold.
Every three or four days, when there are few people in the company after work at night, Ma Zengchen will pick up some hot water in the bathroom with a face to scrub his body. He tries to go to the toilet in the company, and sometimes he is really in a hurry at night, so he goes to the nearby Woods to solve it — — A helpless move in an extraordinary period.
Ma Zengchen said that this bitterness is nothing, and the most troublesome thing is to video chat with parents.
Parents miss them very much and video chat with them almost every morning before 9: 00, telling them not to go out.
In order to avoid letting parents find themselves out delivering vegetables, Ma Zengchen sometimes finds a corner and sometimes talks to the old man in the toilet. Once, when his father saw that he was in the car, he had to explain that "the car didn’t move for a long time and came out for a walk."
Ma Zengchen came to Wuhan when he was 17 years old. Before he became a vegetable delivery man, he made a living by distributing fruits on a tricycle. He had a fruit business with his friends and lost money. In 2018, he gritted his teeth and bought this Jinbei van.
The car payment is more than 63,000 yuan. Wang Jiangyan overdrawn more than ten credit cards and paid a down payment for the "flower garden" line, and she has to pay back a car loan of 1,430 yuan every month.
Ma Zengchen especially cherishes this car. Usually, as long as nothing happens, he will wash the car body with a hose. "What can I say about a car? If you cherish it, it will work hard for you."
Now, this car has become his temporary shelter.
Sun Yong, secretary of Miaoshan New Village Branch, told reporters that Ma Zengchen had stayed outside for such a long time, and he didn’t know the specific reasons and had never encountered a similar situation. He also said that there is no rule that residents should be isolated at home for 14 days after leaving the community for 24 hours. He thought that Ma Zengchen was selling vegetables outside every day.
On the evening of March 2, a staff member of the village Committee proposed two solutions: if Ma Zengchen needs to return to his place of residence, he needs a physical examination, excludes COVID-19, and then stays at home for 14 days; If the isolation for 14 days affects his work, the village will send him two quilts.
Ma Zengchen said that it is normal to enter the warehouse through two doors and take temperature twice every day, and there is a registration record. "How can I send food to the public if it is abnormal?"
After the whole city of Wuhan pressed the pause button, Ma Zengchen met most volunteers, courier brothers, take-away riders and vegetable delivery people like him.
He felt that during the special period, the business volume increased sharply, and there were fewer demanding customers. Occasionally, there are cases of inconsistent orders and omissions in sorting, and no one has ever embarrassed him. Almost all customers have shown extraordinary generosity, "at this time, everyone can understand."
Because of the "non-contact" delivery of vegetables, Ma Zengchen will hear many "thank you" on the phone after sending the vegetables to the designated place. He has been working in Wuhan for 21 years, and he has never felt so "needed and respected" like this month, which makes him "very energetic" in his work.
Only at night, lying in the car outside the iron fence, will he feel like a stranger.