In the phone video, the boy was caught cheating by the girl. The boy simply came clean, admitting he had fallen for someone else and wanted to break up with the girl. The girl tried every means to hold on to him and win him back. Those means included crying, screaming, pleading, cursing, and suicidal threats in desperation.
Xiao Mi Yu watched sympathetically as the girl became hysterical. She empathized with the girl, and her own heart ached along with the girl’s.
She thought she had become numb to pain. But now she realized she had only suppressed her hurt and pain deep down in her heart.
After crying and screaming for a while, the girl gave the boy an ultimatum: Come to the Sui Hotel to see me right now, or I’ll commit suicide by burning charcoal for you to see! I want you to live your whole life in the shadow of me dying for you. I want you to feel that no matter which woman you mess around with for the rest of your life, you’ll feel my resentful spirit hanging over your bed watching you!
The girl hung up the video call. Xiao Mi Yu broke out in goosebumps.
The girl fiddled with her phone for a bit more, then sat motionless on the sofa as if waiting for the boy to come.
By now Xiao Mi Yu had completely forgotten the humiliation and distress from half an hour ago. Her mind was fully occupied with how to keep an eye on the girl and prevent any mishaps.
She picked up the intercom, about to summon someone to come help persuade the girl, when the girl spoke first.
“Sister, don’t call anyone over. Even if someone comes, whatever they say will just be sanctimonious crap. No one in this world can empathize with you.”
Xiao Mi Yu was briefly stunned by the girl’s words. Although young and emotional, the girl had uttered philosophically meaningful words.
She set down the intercom, went to the girl’s side, pulled over a chair to sit, and stared fixedly at the girl without looking away.
Then she advised the girl with as much comforting power as she could muster.
– Yes, there is no one in this world who can empathize with you. Unless they have gone through the exact same experience.
The girl remained silent, just listening, or seeming not to listen at all, spaced out and numb.
They talked for quite a while, but the boy still didn’t come.
It was already the end of her shift, Xiao Mi Yu could change out of her uniform and go back to the dorm. But she didn’t dare leave, afraid the girl would impulsively try to commit suicide again.
Suddenly the doorbell rang.
Xiao Mi Yu’s spirit shook: “He’s come looking for you!”
But the girl sneered: “It’s not him.”
The girl went barefoot to open the door.
Xiao Mi Yu saw it was a server from the hospitality department, carrying takeout food.
So after hanging up just now, the girl had fiddled with her phone for a bit to order takeout?
Xiao Mi Yu was a little confused.
She watched as the girl came back carrying takeout, smiling radiantly and saying: “I ordered crawfish and beer. Sister, let’s eat and drink together, united in mutual suffering!”
Xiao Mi Yu looked at her bright smile, completely unlike the person who had been crying and threatening suicide earlier.
Xiao Mi Yu was thoroughly confused.
In any case, it was already the end of her shift, so Xiao Mi Yu stayed anyway.
The girl popped open a can of beer for Xiao Mi Yu and handed it to her, then started peeling crawfish while smiling and saying: “Sister, I scared you just now right? Don’t worry, I won’t die. While you were persuading me earlier, I was also sorting through my own emotions and thoughts. I actually just wanted to see today whether this guy still cared about me even a little bit. Now I have my answer, and I can completely give up hope.”
She put the peeled crawfish in her mouth, speaking indistinctly with oily lips: “Sister, don’t you think, if I really died for a scumbag like him, would it be worth it? Forget dying for him, even living miserably for him, becoming a zombie for him, it’s all not worth it! I have to live better than him, better than the mistress, that’s what’s worth it!”
Listening to the girl’s words, Xiao Mi Yu couldn’t help but pause in astonishment.
The girl clinked beer cans with her and took a big gulp.
Xiao Mi Yu also drank a mouthful.
The malty flavor mixed with alcohol rushed down her throat, making her feel clearer, and also more confused.
The girl set down her beer and suddenly asked her: “Sister, who do you think people live for? For others? Then you might as well just die. People live for themselves.”
Xiao Mi Yu felt the girl’s words suddenly became resonant. Her mind shook upon hearing them, and something previously muddled seemed to be shattered open by the girl’s words.
“You’re right, I seemed to never have figured out before what I was living for. Turns out people live for themselves.” Xiao Mi Yu murmured.
The girl suddenly spoke again: “Sister, to be frank, although you look calm and I seem hysterical, actually you’re much more world-weary than me. I feel like you seem to have no interest in anything, even almost half alive.” Looking at Xiao Mi Yu’s face, she asked: “Sister, you’ve been hurt before too, right?”
Xiao Mi Yu smiled, her smile tinged with fatigue.
She told the girl: “My hurt? Actually pretty similar to yours. But I have it a bit worse than you, you were betrayed before marriage; me, I was cheated on during marriage by my ex-husband with someone I considered a friend.”
The girl’s eyes and mouth opened wide, extremely surprised.
“Then you really have it much worse than me!” After a pause, she said, “So Sister, that’s why you’re so…mm, half dead? You’re in pain right? Have you ever thought of dying?”
Xiao Mi Yu was rendered speechless by the question.
Die? It seemed she had never considered this possibility before. Although she lived like a zombie, in the deepest corner of her heart, she still somehow always felt that staying alive was better.
It was like that subconscious had always been telling her, only by staying alive could she wait for things she wanted to happen.
In this moment, Xiao Mi Yu suddenly realized, it turned out deep down she still had things she hoped would happen.
Turns out deep down she still had hopes.
So why keep living like a zombie?
The girl’s blunt words sounded again beside her ear: “Sister, forgive my frankness, but in your almost lifeless state, if I were you, I’d just die and end it all. Since you’re alive, you have to live properly! Especially compared to the cheating man and mistress!”
Xiao Mi Yu listened to the girl’s words.
Flashing through her mind were Lu Zhen Zhen splashing water on her then gloating; her own humiliation crouching on the floor, wet hair in her eyes unable to see; the haggard sallow reflection of herself in the bathroom mirror.
She thought, the girl was absolutely right.
Living like this almost lifeless, she might as well just die.
Since she wanted to live, then live properly, make something of herself, live well enough to slap the faces of those who wanted to see her suffer!
She had to live well, better and better. This would be the greatest punishment to the cheating ex-husband and mistress.
After finishing a can of beer with the girl, Xiao Mi Yu bid her goodbye. She discreetly left the money for the beer beside the empty can.
She thanked the girl for waking her up from her perpetual haze and confusion – she hadn’t expected that she originally came to comfort and encourage the girl, but the one who ended up truly encouraged and awakened was herself.
She examined herself. Before drinking this can of beer with the girl, she had been muddling along, aimless.
But it was different now. She had plans for herself now.
She had to liven up, she had to make herself live well, live better than the ex-husband and mistress.
Returning to the dorm at night, while Luo Qing Ping and Ke Wen Xue weren’t paying attention, Yin Xiang signaled Xiao Mi Yu to come out to the hallway.
Yin Xiang softly told Xiao Mi Yu: “Sister Mi Yu, Li Kun Lan came to the service department today talking about you and your husband’s goss- business, and Zhang Cai Lu happened to be there too. So the room you were assigned to clean in the afternoon was deliberately arranged by Zhang Cai Lu. I’m amazed at how shameless your husband and that woman are, to openly bully someone like this! And Sister Mi Yu, you have to be tougher, how can you let your husband and his mistress bully you like this! Oh yes, I heard from other colleagues that later Zhang Cai Lu even went to that room to specifically console the woman inside. Though she called it consoling, it was deliberately riling her up, guiding her to give you a bad review when checking out. Sister Mi Yu, Zhang Cai Lu is eager for that bad review, so you’ll have your three bad reviews and can be fired. So before that woman checks out, hurry and think of countermeasures!”
Yin Xiang was afraid of being discovered speaking privately with Xiao Mi Yu, so she spoke extremely quickly. Too quick for Xiao Mi Yu to interject an explanation that Nie Yu Cheng was already her ex-husband. After Yin Xiang finished speaking in one breath without giving Xiao Mi Yu a chance to explain, she immediately fled like a thief.
Xiao Mi Yu stood alone by the hallway window for a while.
Outside the window was the somewhat chaotic city nightscape. The moon’s face was obscured by clouds, and a breeze had picked up.
Xiao Mi Yu thought, looks like no matter how careful she was, it was useless. As long as Zhang Cai Lu wanted her gone, she would keep falling into Zhang Cai Lu’s traps.
No matter how good a person was at defending themselves, they still couldn’t hold out against the ill intentions of bad people in the end.
She really did need some countermeasures. She had just decided to live well, she couldn’t just be driven away like this. However downtrodden and wretched she had looked in front of her ex-husband and Lu Zhen Zhen today, when she saw them again here in future she had to be completely revived and spirited.
Looking at the moon obscured by clouds, she wondered, so what should the countermeasures be?
The night breeze gently blew, carrying the clouds slowly forward. Bit by bit, the moon was unveiled.
A cool, clear strand of moonlight broke through the clouds and night breeze, spilling over the ground.
Xiao Mi Yu suddenly realized she had thought of countermeasures. She was overjoyed to find she wasn’t actually stupid, just too long out of contact with society.
– Since Zhang Cai Lu wanted her gone, why not get Zhang Cai Lu to leave first instead?
Getting rid of the person who wanted her gone, this defensive yet aggressive course of action, if placed in the past, was something Xiao Mi Yu would never have considered or done.
The life motto engraved in her bones before was the word “defer”. Now she wanted to change that. And change would start from this time.
She wanted to try this time, whether the supervisor would get rid of her first, or whether she could get rid of the supervisor first.
Some things she had never done or considered before were very out of character for her usual self. But since she wanted change, she would have to try doing these things from now on.
Xiao Mi Yu carefully considered where the breakthrough point was to overthrow Zhang Cai Lu.
She thought and thought, two points were indispensable.
First, Zhang Cai Lu had to be in the wrong. If she was blameless but Xiao Mi Yu still tried to get rid of her, Xiao Mi Yu felt that ethically she would be no different than Zhang Cai Lu.
Second, she needed someone with a bit of power. Their power had to be enough to support a personnel change once, and she needed to be able to talk to this person and ask them to help exercise this personnel transfer power.
The second point was not actually that difficult. Xiao Mi Yu thought the breakthrough for this point should be with her big sister Xiao Mi Zi.
Since big sister had found someone to arrange her into this hotel job in the first place, then could she now make use of that connection to help herself and find an opportunity to overthrow Zhang Cai Lu?
But for now, what needed to be locked down swiftly was the first point – she had to find a way to obtain dirt on Zhang Cai Lu. Only after finding wrongdoing could she then ask a VIP contact for help, and leverage the wrongdoing to maneuver personnel changes.
She refused to believe that with Zhang Cai Lu’s way of doing things, she didn’t leave mistakes during work. As long as there were mistakes, there was a possibility for her to be asked to leave.
Going to work the next day, Xiao Mi Yu was particularly vigilant.
Previously she had muddled through life, turning a blind eye to anything put before her. But now she started extending her feelers, keeping an eye out for any clues. She suddenly discovered that actually, with intention, many things had traces that could be followed.
Like Zhang Cai Lu’s mistakes at work.
Finding them was actually easier than earning a bad review.
It originated from when she was cleaning an “occupied” room, and overheard a conversation between the husband and wife guests.
The wife said to her husband: “How strange, is there a problem with the water here or did the hotel switch shampoo brands? My scalp itches a bit after washing my hair.”
The husband replied: “Your scalp itches too? I thought it was just me, my scalp also itched a little after I washed my hair last night.”
“The other things here don’t feel as nice to use either, compared to before,” the wife added, then asked her husband, “Should we ask the hotel staff about it?”
The husband replied, “Let’s not bother, it’s only one more night then we’re leaving.”
Xu Mizi made a mental note of this married couple’s conversation as she gathered up the empty bottles of shampoo and other toiletries that had been used.
The amenities at the Sway Hotel were all procured from luxury brands – this was one of Sway’s selling points. Things people might not even be able to buy by spending money at high-end boutique counters in malls could be used freely at Sway Hotel.
And Sway used these items that ordinary hotels couldn’t afford in a very extravagant manner. Things like shampoo, perfume, lotion, hand cream etc. that guests had used were all treated as garbage by Sway. Every day after the room attendants finished cleaning the rooms, they would gather up any remaining toiletries and hand them over to an outside contractor to be hauled away as waste.
Today, Xu Mizi had specifically requested to be the one to gather and consolidate her floor’s remaining shampoo and other toiletries. Then when it was time for the pickup, she specifically compared the shampoo and other toiletries from her floor to those from other floors.
After comparing, she discovered the products from the other floors were more viscous, while the various products on her floor were more watery and pale upon close inspection.
Looking at these items, Xu Mizi realized it was obvious – the products on her floor must be counterfeit.
The next morning after collecting her room assignment list, when she went to get the room amenities from the supply room, Xu Mizi paid particular attention. The products in the supply room were indeed thicker and more dense. Which meant the real products were being taken from the supply room.
Xu Mizi thought, so the real products from the supply room become fake by the time they reach each room. Who could be making this switch?
Thinking it over, the only person who had a chance to linger in every room was Zhang Cailu – she would inspect each room one by one after all the attendants had cleaned them.
So it must be during this process that the real products were being switched out with fakes.
Xu Mizi further pondered, where were those replaced genuine luxury brand products going? She quickly guessed those items were probably being taken to online resale platforms to sell.
Thinking this, she immediately opened her phone to verify her conjecture.
Sure enough, she surprisingly managed to find a seller on a used goods app specializing in small luxury samples.
And the samples in the photos for sale were exactly the same as the amenities Sway Hotel used.
Looking at the quantity sold, it was quite substantial.
In the app, Xu Mizi opened the chat and asked the seller: Are the goods guaranteed authentic? What is the source? What if they turn out to be fake?
The seller replied: Dear, rest assured, they are absolutely guaranteed genuine. These are specialty designated products from Sway Hotel, obtained through special channels here, so you don’t need to worry at all about real or fake. Besides, if I were selling fakes, there wouldn’t be so many sales and returning customers right?
Xu Mizi considered briefly, then placed an order using the address of a collection point near her former home.
After the seller shipped, she looked at the mobile number in the contact info. She brought up her own phone contacts and compared it against Zhang Cailu’s number.
Unfortunately, the numbers did not match.
Xu Mizi was instantly a little discouraged. Could it be this business of substituting fakes wasn’t done by Zhang Cailu after all?
The next day she took the bus to pick up the package from the collection point. Opening it after getting back to her dorm, she confirmed they were indeed Sway Hotel’s specialty designated versions.
She studied the samples pensively, when suddenly inspiration struck. She hurriedly copied the shipping mobile number and pasted it into her payment app. A corresponding account under the name “*Qin” immediately popped up.
Xu Mizi thought, if Zhang Cailu were reselling the hotel’s amenities, she’d naturally be careful not to use the account tied to her own mobile number. But when it came to money, she also wouldn’t use a completely unrelated person’s. So could this “*Qin” be her mother?
The next day at work, Xu Mizi sounded out Yin Xiang: “Do you know what Zhang Cailu’s mother’s name is?”
Yin Xiang shook her head, saying she wasn’t too clear. She also asked Xu Mizi why she wanted to know this.
Xu Mizi said, “Oh just randomly thought of it, asking on a whim.”
Xu Mizi also discreetly tried to find out from other sources, but no one else knew what Zhang Cailu’s mother’s name was either.
Xu Mizi couldn’t help feeling discouraged again. It seemed she had hit a dead end here with her investigation.
That night after dinner, lying listlessly in bed, she absently opened WeChat Moments. As usual she found Zhang Cailu’s avatar and clicked in to scroll through her feed one post by one.
Zhang Cailu’s Moments showed off quite a lot of good food. She seemed to frequently dine at places that weren’t cheap, the kind of spots white-collars would feel the pinch if they went too often.
Scrolling on, Xu Mizi came across a photo Zhang Cailu had posted on Mother’s Day. It was a cake with the words “Happy Mother’s Day to Ms. Wu Qin!”
While screenshotting it, Xu Mizi’s heart beat faster.
She felt she could now confirm Zhang Cailu was the one taking the real hotel amenities and selling them for money.
She had found where Zhang Cailu slipped up.
Having confirmed that ousting Zhang Cailu would not be unjust, Xu Mizi began preparations for another course of action. Next she would need to ask her elder sister Xu Mizi to help.
Truthfully, it would be clearer if she could explain this matter to Sister Mi in person. But going from the hotel to elder sister’s house and back to her dorm, the taxi fares would add up. The round trip commute by subway would also be very time consuming, plus she had to get up early for work the next day.
Things like this had never been an issue for the previous Xu Mizi. Whether going out, she either drove or took a taxi. She had long forgotten how much a subway ride even cost.
But now, it seemed she begrudged even the subway fare for a round trip.
In the end, Xu Mizi chose the most economical method – she called her elder sister Xu Mizi.
She concisely described the sequence of events and presented her request.
After hearing the gist, Sister Mi first grumbled a bunch of petty complaints: “You, you’re not proactively helping our younger brother repay his mortgage, but you can think up ways to help yourself, quite the brain huh. Fine, I’ll go ask the person who helped arrange your job for you, see if he can pin down this Cailu or whatever her name is on her wrongdoings now, and get rid of her.”
Xu Mizi asked over the phone: “How likely is this to succeed?”
Sister Mi reassured her: “Very likely of course! I found this guy through the deputy manager of your housekeeping department after all. Getting him to transfer a floor supervisor shouldn’t be difficult at all.”
Hearing this, Xu Mizi instantly felt heartened.
She urged her elder sister to handle this matter as quickly as possible, otherwise she might be gotten rid of first before Zhang Cailu left.
Sister Mi’s tone lifted as she scolded her a string of reprimands first: “How silly can you be, not telling me about this earlier? You come telling me only now, well no wonder when I asked the deputy manager today, he said he already resigned from Sway Hotel a couple days ago. Damn you’re slower than shit waits for a stick! On this matter now, I can’t help you. Good luck to you.”
Xu Mizi’s hopes were instantly dashed. Her heart instantly plunged into an abyss.
She thought it over, still unwilling to give up, and asked Sister Mi: “Sis, even if he’s resigned, his prior connections are still around. Couldn’t he still…” Exercise some remaining influence?
Before she could finish speaking, Sister Mi cut her off: “What else could he do? Let me tell you this – when I called him today, his attitude toward me was already very cold. Know why? Our travel agency has business dealings with your hotel, but that’s not enough for me to be on speaking terms with him. He was polite to me previously because he knew I was the sister of Nie Yucheng’s wife, and Nie Yucheng had helped him out before! When I asked him to help get you the job, he still didn’t know Nie Yucheng had gotten divorced, and you were the ex-wife. It was out of consideration for me as Nie Yucheng’s sister-in-law that he arranged for you to join the hotel. But now he knows Nie Yucheng has remarried, so I as the ex sister-in-law have zero face left. Don’t keep making me lose face before others begging on your behalf! Little Sis, I have to say, you had a good life but ruined it yourself, and now you even want to drag me down to go beg and get ignored!”
Xu Mizi absorbed this tirade as she listened. More than the disappointment of her hopes being utterly dashed, what she felt even more strongly now was a sense of irony and amusement.
So it turned out this person had helped the sister of Nie Yucheng’s wife, Nie Yucheng’s wife herself, get a job at the hotel – all out of consideration for Sister Mi’s relation to Nie Yucheng as his sister-in-law.
Having finally unraveled these twists and turns, Xu Mizi thought, was there anything more ironic than this situation right now?
In a flash she reconsidered – perhaps there was, such as where Sister Mi got the nerve to complain Xu Mizi had caused her to lose face. Wasn’t that tiny bit of face she once had entirely gained through Xu Mizi in the first place?
This bit of borrowed glory that was never hers to own, now that it was lost one day, she still had the gall to stamp her feet and blame others.
Xu Mizi almost felt like Sister Mi’s self-righteousness was justified.
“Sis,” she thought about it and couldn’t help saying, “In the past I let you borrow glory without asking for your thanks; now that I can’t get you glory, it’s not my fault either, so you have no grounds to resent or blame me.”
Xu Mizi’s tone instantly rose sharply: “Xu Mizi, have you lost your mind? How dare you talk to me like this? Don’t tell me I never lent you any glory, don’t tell me your current job wasn’t found by me for you? Mom and younger brother are right about you, you’re really an ungrateful wretch!…”
Xu Mizi moved the phone away from her ear and carried on as she had been, letting Sister Mi spout her nonsense to her heart’s content. She was too lazy to bother with her.
She thought contemptuously to herself, this was really too much, there was now a second Jiao Xiumei in the Xu family.
The next day at work, Xu Mizi felt a bit dejected and couldn’t motivate herself.
With Sister Mi’s route hitting a dead end, she couldn’t think of any other method for the time being.
She had considered, what would happen if she reported Zhang Cailu for swapping out the amenities?
“Useless,” Yin Xiang gave Xu Mizi the answer. “It’s not like no one has suspected Zhang Cailu of replacing the shampoo and such before. But she’s sly in dealing with people, generously giving the leaders clarity while also skimming a little for herself on the side, so the leaders all take her side. Unless you can directly find our hotel’s top leaders, but for us room attendants that’s impossible. The top brass would never meet or hear out our problems! They would just push the issue back down to the department heads, which means it would still come down to whatever Zhang Cailu’s backers decide!”
Xu Mizi was quite surprised to realize the problem she had discovered wasn’t actually a new secret at all. It turned out Zhang Cailu was doing this with some audacity. She was starting to feel that workplace politics and social realities were actually much more fascinating than the TV shows she used to watch, and also far more convoluted and intricate.
With the reporting route also blocked, Xu Mizi felt she really had no way out left.
It seemed in the near future, she would ultimately accumulate three unsatisfactory ratings from Zhang Cailu and be dismissed from the hotel.
That afternoon, Xu Mizi remained dejected and unmotivated.
Fortunately there weren’t many rooms in the afternoon. After finishing up all her assigned rooms, she returned to the housekeeping office to rest.
A few others who had also completed their rooms were there chatting idly.
Xu Mizi listened absently here and there.
Suddenly one colleague remarked: “How come they haven’t been borrowing people from downstairs recently up top?”
Another colleague replied: “I heard the butler for the penthouse suites was previously humiliated by a service attendant from a lower floor, which greatly dissatisfied the VIP guests upstairs. Losing face like that, the butler doesn’t want to borrow staffers from downstairs anymore.”
The first colleague added: “Was it another case of someone trying to seduce the big boss VIPs upstairs? Just like that other person who resigned from our department before.”
The other responded: “Who knows, likely so. But I heard the VIP guests staying on the top floor are all close associates of our hotel owner Wei Siyuan. Each one can influence Boss Wei. If any one of them is unhappy with a hotel staff member, they can get Boss Wei to fire them unconditionally. So if the butler upstairs offended the VIPs…that really wouldn’t be a trivial matter.”
…
The two continued chatting.
Xu Mizi’s mind kept replaying a sentence they had said: The penthouse VIPs could get the owner to unconditionally fire any hotel staff member they were unhappy with.
Xu Mizi sprang up from her seat and headed out.
She knew what she had to do next!
Xu Mizi had a plan in mind. She wanted to fight for herself once more.
First she went to find Yin Xiang and told her she needed to step out for a bit. With probably no more tasks for the rest of the day, she asked Yin Xiang to cover for her if anything else came up.
Then she went to change her clothes, and freshened up in the bathroom – carefully washing her face, redoing her hair in a twist, and leaving some wispy strands loose on her forehead and temples. She knew this styling made her look much better.
After some thought, she took the elevator downstairs, passed through the staff hallway out of the hotel, crossed the street, and entered a cosmetics counter on the first floor of the building opposite.
There she swiftly gave herself light, tasteful makeup – though not without pangs of conscience. It was rare for her to take such initiative to make a move, so this makeup was deserved. It showed respect for the other party, and also emboldened herself.
After finishing, gazing in the mirror, she was still too thin, but looked much more spirited now compared to before, no longer so haggard and aged. Her apparent age seemed to have shaved off several years from the previous vague thirties.
Before leaving, she silently vowed that once finances allowed in the future, she would definitely return here and buy lots of makeup products. She would not take today’s advantage for nothing.
She then walked back to Sway Hotel across the way, circling around to the elevator area in the first floor lobby. She found an inconspicuous corner to stand in and prepared herself for a long wait.
Finally she got to experience the saying that effort pays off – after standing so long her heels felt numb, she finally saw Ji Feng’s assistant approach, the one she remembered was called Xue Rui.
Xue Rui had just entered from outside and was headed toward the elevators.
The instant his finger pressed the call button for the VIP elevators, Xu Mizi timely made her appearance, heedless of Xue Rui’s surprise. Cutting right to the chase, she appealed: “Mr. Xue, please hold on and hear me out, I have an extremely urgent matter I wish to inform your boss!” Seeing Xue Rui’s brows knit slightly, seemingly judging if her words held enough weight, she quickly added: “It concerns your boss’s interests, truly!”
Xue Rui looked her over, pondering silently for a moment as he evaluated her words for their implications and importance. Then he replied: “I’ll need to check with my boss first.”
Saying so, he promptly took out his phone and called, repeating Xu Mizi’s request verbatim.
The crisp response of “Nope.” sounded from the phone.
Xue Rui apologized to Xu Mizi, then tapped his card to open the doors and entered. As the doors slid close, he exchanged gazes with Xu Mizi still standing outside the elevator.
Just as the doors were closing down to a narrow sliver, barely wide enough for a very slender person to slip through, Xu Mizi nimbly squeezed in.
The very next second after she entered the elevator, the doors shut completely and the elevator began ascending.
Xue Rui watched Xu Mizi in surprised bemusement, never having seen someone slip into an elevator so swiftly and neatly.
Xu Miyu looked at Xue Rui, trying to smile at him, but her smile seemed a bit awkward.
Xue Rui spoke up, “Miss Xu, this will make it difficult for me.” He reached out to swipe the card, intending to casually dismiss Xu Miyu to some intermediate floor.
With hands clasped together, Xu Miyu assured, “Believe me, it’s something important for your boss. I need to tell him!”
Xue Rui hesitated for a moment, retracting his arm. The elevator continued to speed upward.
Unnoticed, he discreetly observed the woman in front of him. She looked different today, as if she had taken extra care of herself. Still slender, but somehow more pleasing to the eye. With her determined effort to tidy up, her resolve to reach the top floor and meet the boss must be strong. Strong enough that even if he stopped her now, there would be times he couldn’t stop her later.
So be it.
“Then go ahead and say that you barged in on your own. I won’t stop you.”
In the moment before the elevator door opened, Xue Rui instructed Xu Miyu this way.
Xu Miyu nodded solemnly, and followed Xue Rui out of the elevator.
Xue Rui asked her to wait at the entrance of the suite, while he pushed open the door and entered.
Ji Fengzheng was sitting on the sofa in the living room, examining documents. Upon hearing the sound, he looked up, first seeing Xue Rui, and then noticing Xu Miyu waiting by the door.
He squinted slightly, casting a cold glance at Xue Rui.
In that moment, Xue Rui felt a chill down his spine, as if he might lose his job.
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