After hanging up the phone, she turned off the lights.
The darkness allowed the emotions she’d been suppressing while online to finally show their head. Her eyes involuntarily misted over. Cheng Lele turned on her side, and slightly cool liquid continuously slid past her temples and onto the pillow. Long after it naturally stopped and disappeared, Cheng Lele began counting sheep. After counting almost all the sheep in Australia, she got up and turned on her computer. Her email automatically logged in, and a new email notification appeared in the upper right corner of the screen. Subject: Re: Regarding the Matter of Tongda Film and Television Dispatched Personnel Entering Xingchen Cinema
Cheng Lele remembered—that was the email she’d sent to General Manager Chen of Xingchen Cinema over ten days ago. Of course, at the time she hadn’t known that this General Manager Chen was the older brother she’d been thinking about constantly.
Why had he dug it up to reply after so long?
Cheng Lele clicked it open and saw only one line.
Manager Sen, send over your resume before tomorrow morning.
Cheng Lele stared at “Manager Sen” for a long time before understanding that Manager Sen was derived from Cindy. Her older brother was finding roundabout ways to mock her. She broke into a sweat—this wasn’t even her fault. Who told this company, which didn’t have a single foreigner from top to bottom, to insist that everyone adopt an English name? This name was based on an impression she’d gotten years ago from watching “Where Are We Going, Dad?” Otherwise, she would have had to flip through a dictionary to come up with one on the spot.
Fine, Manager Sen it is then. But what did the rest of that sentence mean?
Cheng Lele frowned and read it several times, scrolling down with her mouse before discovering that the original email hadn’t included a resume.
The email had been sent so many days ago, and he hadn’t said anything about supplementing it. Today, after seeing it was her, he wanted it supplemented.
Double standards, differential treatment.
The resume was right there in her computer folder, but Cheng Lele was too embarrassed to send it.
As everyone knows, resumes are half water, and even the tiniest achievements have to be inflated to lofty standards to bluff strangers. That was fine, but letting Chen An see it—no face.
He knew exactly how much she was worth.
She really wanted to reply: I’ve traveled a long way today, can I not send it?
But that was a tone for her older brother, and right now she’d lost the qualification to presume on his favor and act arrogantly.
Now he was General Manager Chen, and she was Manager Sen.
She had no choice but to put on her glasses and start remaking her resume, striving for pragmatism and authenticity. She stumbled through revisions until three-thirty in the morning, checked it three or four times, and finally sent it.
After sending it, drowsiness surged over her. She fell asleep without turning off the computer.
The next morning, while brushing her teeth, she moved the mouse, intending to shut down the computer, and discovered another new email had come in.
Sent at three thirty-five in the morning: Manager Sen, I forgot to tell you, tomorrow morning—to be precise, this morning at eight-thirty—is the monthly routine cinema staff meeting.
Cheng Lele sprayed a mouthful of toothpaste foam onto the screen. She looked at the time—fortunately, it was only seven-thirty. Her biological clock had saved her life.