The next morning, Cheng Lele went to work at the cinema as usual. As soon as she pushed the door open, Chen An was surprisingly there, sitting openly in the office playing on his phone.
Cheng Lele had a ball of fire stored up in her belly. Now seeing the object of her venting, she heavily slammed her laptop bag on the desk and shouted at him, “What are you doing here?!”
“This is my cinema. Why can’t I come?”
“You still know this is your cinema? I thought you’d forgotten. Being an absentee boss must be comfortable, huh?”
Cheng Lele spoke with sarcastic implications, and Chen An retorted sarcastically in return, “Comfortable. I paid consulting fees and hired someone to work their life away for me—isn’t it precisely to enjoy my leisure and comfort?”
“Then go continue your leisure and comfort. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I thought someone had thrown down their burden and run away.”
“Run away my ass! My home is here, my work is here—what would I run from?!” She paused, then straightened her back and said, “And the work wasn’t given to me by you. The one paying my salary is Tongda. If you want me to leave, you’d have to go through proper channels first.”
Chen An glanced over and said coolly, deflecting with ease, “You really have grown up, grown a brain.”
Cheng Lele was infuriated. She wanted to retort but couldn’t think of the words. Feeling stifled, her face turned completely red, even her back seemed to burn with raging fire. Chen An thought Cheng Lele was like a panda, exuding a kind of silly naivety. Being able to argue and showing aggression was a good thing—far better than how she used to be gloomy and silent before leaving without a word the next day.
The cinema employees quickly sensed that the atmosphere between the boss and the manager was tense today. The last scene of the two embracing inseparably in the rainstorm had been embellished by everyone, spawning many story versions. But then the boss suddenly disappeared, and the story was left hanging at season one, with no one knowing if there would be a sequel to subscribe to. Never would they have imagined that today, as everyone entered the office one by one to clock in, they would be delightfully surprised to discover that season two had suddenly premiered without warning.
Everyone rushed to spread the news. Bold and nosy employees went in and out from time to time, attempting to obtain the latest firsthand plot developments from the office.
However, the office was completely silent. No matter how many times they went in and out, what they saw was the manager coldly typing on the keyboard and the boss coldly playing games. If there had to be some movement, it was the keyboard being pounded almost to pieces and the anguished screams of game characters being hunted down. Even Shen Dafeng, who got along best with the manager, had to speak with his neck shrunk, afraid that with one moment of inattention, the firepower would shift and he’d become a wronged ghost.
Just enduring until noon, a handsome crew-cut guy arrived with a pretty young woman, looking for the manager. After a morning of observation, everyone no longer dared to intrude into that peril-ridden danger zone. Shen Dafeng simply opened the office door and softly tossed out a line, “The manager is inside,” then flew back to his own post to dutifully perform his duties.
Zhong Ming looked strangely at the back that fled leaving an afterimage, then stepped inside. He didn’t notice Chen An in the cubicle, only seeing Cheng Lele typing with full concentration at the long table.
“Hey, I’ve come all this way with great effort—how come you’re not coming out to welcome me?”
Cheng Lele was startled by the suddenly appearing voice. She turned around and saw Zhong Ming, finally showing a smile. “Why did you come? No wait, how did you get in?”
“Probably your employees found me approachable and treated me as one of their own.”
Chen An kept his head down continuing to play his game, thinking these employees really had no sense of discipline—an important office area and they just let people come and go as they pleased. Later he would also have to follow Cheng Lele’s example and fire two employees to make an example.
Just as Zhong Ming finished speaking, he beckoned to someone hiding by the door, “Come in.”
Then a girl with a high ponytail joyfully ran in, “Sister—”
Cheng Lele looked and saw it was Zhong Ming’s cousin Zhong Jin. In the past, whenever she had summer vacation, she would come to Beijing to visit Zhong Ming. Zhong Ming would bring her along, since they were both girls with similar interests.
Cheng Lele had watched her grow from a sixth-grader into a college student. Seeing her, she was also very excited and grabbed her hand to ask, “You’re back in the country?”
Zhong Jin said, “Yes, after isolating for several weeks, I’m finally free. This year has been all online classes, so honestly there’s not much difference between being abroad or at home. Now it’s Christmas break again—I’m almost growing fur from boredom. I came to find my brother to hang out. My brother said he needed to deliver medicine to Uncle, so I tagged along.”
“My dad had a slight fever this morning. I told him to take time off but he refused, saying it’s troublesome to arrange shift swaps on short notice. Sigh, with my dad being so dedicated to work, shouldn’t you all give him more bonuses?” As he spoke, Zhong Ming handed the plastic bag in his hand to Cheng Lele. “I won’t go to the projection room. You can give it to him directly later. Make sure he takes it.”
Cheng Lele said, “Actually Shen Dafeng is here, so Uncle Zhong could go back.”
Zhong Ming said, “He doesn’t listen to me. You need to tell him yourself.”
“Alright, I’ll talk to him later.”
“Oh right, there’s one more thing.” Zhong Ming pushed Zhong Jin forward. “Find some work for my little sister to do.”
Cheng Lele looked at her in surprise. “You’re a student at a prestigious university—how could our little temple afford to hire you?”
Zhong Jin grabbed Cheng Lele’s arm reproachfully. “What prestigious university? I’m only a freshman. No one will take me for internships anywhere. Sister, look—I’m studying film production. Working at a cinema should count as professionally relevant, right?”
“Not really very related. It’s about like studying aviation technology and then selling plane tickets.”
Zhong Ming laughed from the side. “Why don’t you go serve drinks at my bar instead?”
Cheng Lele also laughed and asked Zhong Jin, “Do you really want to intern here? This work has no technical content, the threshold is low, but the workload is heavy. It’s actually very monotonous. Can you persist?”
The Christmas and Spring Festival seasons were approaching, and Cheng Lele indeed had plans to find another part-time worker.
Zhong Jin nodded eagerly. “I can. My brother said I should suffer some hardship.”
Cheng Lele said, “Alright then, come find me tomorrow to report for duty.”
Zhong Jin happily threw her arms around Cheng Lele. “Thank you, sister! I knew sister would take me in.” She even deliberately glared at Zhong Ming.