After a simple breakfast at the hotel, Cheng Lele went out. The cinema was very close, and she’d still be early if she strolled over, but she wanted to take another look at the area around the cinema in daylight, so she left a bit early.

Under the sunlight, the surrounding decline had nowhere to hide. Many shops along the street had “For Rent” notices posted outside, quite a few with curled paper edges. That building that was the county’s tallest still stood there, though whether it was still the tallest now was hard to say. If new construction broke the record, this second place would become something nobody cared about.

Cheng Lele pulled up the map again to look. Besides this commercial street, there were several office buildings behind the cinema area. She didn’t know what the occupancy rate was like—she’d need to survey the buildings as soon as possible. There were also residential areas a bit further away, which would be one of the main directions for future expansion.

She glanced at the time. It was almost time.

However, when she reached the cinema entrance, the door handle was still wrapped with a thick iron chain.

Cheng Lele checked her phone again. It was already eight-thirty. Was there another employee entrance, or had her older brother given her the wrong time?

Just as she was thinking this, someone arrived. She looked like a high school student, but was dressed quite elaborately. Her face had very natural makeup, seaweed-like hair draped over her shoulders, a ginger-yellow shirt on top, and a black skirt that didn’t reach her knees below, with long white legs exposed. Quite a pretty younger sister.

The girl saw her standing at the door and lazily yawned, saying, “Miss, we don’t open until ten.”

“I’m here for the staff meeting.”

The girl probably hadn’t expected this ghost of a company to still be recruiting new people, and that someone would actually come for an interview. She looked her up and down and asked, “Are you here for the boss too?”

Cheng Lele smiled. From that one sentence, she could roughly deduce Chen An’s market appeal and the other person’s work motivation. Without answering directly, she pointed at the large iron chain wound several times around the door handle and said, “Do you have a key?”

“Oh.” The girl bent down, grabbed the iron chain and wound it round and round, and then the chain fell off.

She pushed hard, and the door opened with a clang. The young girl said as if entering her own home, “Come in, sit anywhere.”

Dumbfounded dot jpg.

The girl was quite enthusiastic and asked, “Have you had breakfast?”

Cheng Lele said, “I’ve eaten. What’s your name?”

The other replied, “I’m Ma Yiting. I go to vocational high school nearby. And you?”

“Vocational high school? So you’re not even eighteen yet, and you’re already working?”

Ma Yiting said, “Before it was to earn some pocket money, now it’s to see the domineering CEO.”

Cheng Lele quite appreciated her directness. “Domineering CEO?”

Ma Yiting shook her head. “I’m just saying that. He doesn’t talk much, doesn’t come often, and I’m not very familiar with him yet. The first working day of every month is staff meeting day, so he has to come, right? I don’t know what his style is like.”

Cheng Lele looked around. “Since the domineering CEO is coming to participate, how is everyone late?”

“Late? No way, it’s only past eight now. We don’t start until nine-thirty. After a half-hour meeting, we’ll open right on time for business.”

Sure enough, her older brother had deliberately given her the wrong time. She knew he would make things difficult for her, but this method was too childish—like something a middle or high school boy would do.

Cheng Lele asked, “Then why did you come so early?”

“Oh, I came here to eat breakfast.”

“Where’s the breakfast?”

Ma Yiting said, “Making it now.”

With that, she went to the concession stand, pressed the hot dog machine’s switch, then took two hot dog sausages and bread from the refrigerator behind. She asked, “Are you full? Want one?”

Nice. A real homey feeling.

After Ma Yiting finished eating her hot dog, a burst of laughing and joking voices came from the entrance. Looking toward the sound, a small group of people filed in one after another, smelling the hot dog aroma and shouting competitively, “Hurry and get me one. And pour me a cup of Coke!”

“I want coffee!”

“Coffee for me too!”

It was like entering a self-service cafeteria.

When those few people saw a stranger in the lobby, they became slightly nervous. They were a bit older than Ma Yiting and knew that the behavior of helping oneself to goods couldn’t be known by outsiders. One young guy with dyed colorful hair asked Ma Yiting, who was reluctantly making drinks, in a low voice, “Who’s that?”

Ma Yiting, who was being ordered around, said irritably, “I don’t know, ask her yourself!”

Cheng Lele said, “Don’t bother asking, just enjoy your breakfast, don’t go hungry.”

Hey, she’s quite on the level. Everyone stopped being polite. One of them even lit a cigarette and puffed away in clouds of smoke.

Fortunately, the next few who came were finally a bit more normal. One came in, saw this situation, and cursed, “Damn, you guys are having a party here. Restrain yourselves, do you want to burn down the cinema?”

Deafening words that made Cheng Lele want to cry.

After a while, a somewhat familiar uncle arrived. Seeing her, he stared for a few seconds, squinting but couldn’t remember.

This was Zhong Ming’s father. She temporarily didn’t acknowledge him.

Uncle Zhong saw those few eating with oil all over their mouths, looked at them like they were thugs and hooligans, turned his head away, his face written all over with disdain for associating with them.

After a while, yesterday’s young man also came. His name was Shen Dafeng. As soon as he entered, he stood next to Uncle Zhong to chat, and she could vaguely hear him calling him “Master.”

The last to make a grand entrance was Chen An. Compared to yesterday’s shirt and dress pants outfit, for today’s formal meeting, he dressed very casually—a dark short-sleeved T-shirt, cotton-linen casual pants, and a pair of half-new sneakers on his feet. His beard was cleanly shaved, but there were two dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a college student who had played video games all night and rushed to attend an early class.

Seeing the hall full of people, he said, “Sorry I’m late.”

Cheng Lele looked at the time—it was only nine-twenty. Ah, so her older brother had also remembered the time wrong.

Her older brother actually had times when he remembered things wrong?!

Chen An hadn’t rested well last night. His mood had already been agitated, plus he’d been paying attention to movements downstairs in the first half of the night and watching for emails in the second half, only falling asleep near dawn. As luck would have it, his alarm clock broke, and he just slept through it.

Ma Yiting fawned, “You’re not late. We don’t start until nine-thirty.”

Chen An suspiciously checked the previous manager’s handover email. It clearly said eight-thirty.

He put away his phone and couldn’t help but glance at Cheng Lele, thinking, she’s probably been cursing me all morning in secret.

Since he’d already looked once, his courage seemed to have accumulated quite a bit, enough to let him gaze at her for a moment.

Last night, relying on his position as superior, he’d extorted a bit from Cheng Lele, demanding she supplement her resume promptly, and viewed this as a test of whether she would continue working here.

After seeing the “read” notification, he waited a long time but didn’t receive an email in time, and he had his answer. Sure enough, she would still avoid him and chose to give up this job.

Compared to seven years ago, that fierce, sharp pain didn’t appear. Instead, it was replaced by a feeling of nerves being pricked by fine needles. At that time, he felt extraordinarily annoyed with himself for still accomplishing nothing and remaining in the same place, and temporarily vowed that the next day he would have Tang Xin post a marriage-seeking advertisement to prove he could move on.

Then around three in the morning, he received the long-overdue email. His previous emotions had plummeted to rock bottom, and seeing the resume at that moment was like gasping in a breath of oxygen while suffocating and near death. This was completely a reaction to being emotionally manipulated. Chen An knew this perfectly well, but the joy in his heart was especially real in the silent night—he couldn’t deny or deceive himself.

He opened that resume with an overly plain language style and sketched out Cheng Lele’s growth trajectory over these years in his mind. He also searched for related materials following the clues and, not disappointingly, found several group photos from when Cheng Lele was assisting with store openings. He saved them, but to sound an alarm for himself, he didn’t immediately add them to the “Good Baby” cloud photo album.

Because he’d taken a reassuring pill, his mental state had now returned to normal. At least he looked like a qualified capital operator with a good mindset for facing risks, not suffering from gains and losses, so he dared to look at Cheng Lele again.

Probably because she was wearing more formal clothing, she looked much more mature. The baby fat on her face had faded, and the mole on the tip of her nose had become obvious. Her eyes were still very bright. But her mouth had definitely become more caustic than before.

That last point was pure speculation. But Chen An believed it firmly.