“Okay, I got it. You can leave now.” Ling Jiang waved her hand.
I turned around. After taking two steps, I was called by her again, “Wait…”
I had to stop, wondering if she had seen through all my tricks. Was she going to expose me?
Luckily, she didn’t. She just looked at me and said, “You’d better keep some distance from Xiaodong Su.”
I didn’t understand what she meant by that, but she definitely expressed some sort of dissatisfaction with Xiaodong. She didn’t want me to help Xiaodong too much.
“Xiaodong asked me to be his assistant, which I had to follow. He also said that it was the chairman’s will. Xiaodong and I have been having some problems working together, so I’m not really suitable to be his assistant.” I also tried to express my dissatisfaction, showing that it wasn’t my own wish to work with him.
“I’ll discuss this with the chairman later. In short, don’t do whatever Xiaodong asks you to do. If there’s something he doesn’t do right, you should let me know.”
The instruction was much clearer, which meant that I could tell her everything about Xiaodong, including his secrets.
I said yes and walked out of her office.
…
Later, I was called by Ling to her office again. I thought she was going to give me some orders to deal with Xiaodong, but she told me that there was a family gathering in the evening and she wanted me and Wenbei could go home together for dinner.
What a sudden family gathering. It’s also not the weekend. Ling had always treated me not as a family member, so why did she suddenly invite me to a family gathering?
“He is in Hai City. Should I call him back?” I asked Ling.
“Of course, Wenbei is a great contributor to the group’s development, as well as to Su family. If he doesn’t show up, how can we call it a family gathering?” Ling said.
I knew something from her words. Xiaodong was rude to her, which made her start to miss her polite and courteous Wenbei. She began to understand that letting Xiaodong get more power in the group would not be good for her at all. Compared to Xiaodong, Wenbei who focused on the big picture, made her feel more at ease.
I said, “Okay, then I’ll tell him right away. Tell him to hurry up.”
“If he says he’s busy with work and he can’t come or something, tell him that he must come. Otherwise, I’ll send someone to pick him up from Hai City.” Ling told me.
I said, “Okay, I will definitely bring your words to him.”
The result was as Ling had expected. Hearing a family gathering, Wenbei’s first reaction was to refuse, “What gathering? I’m busy here. I won’t go.”
“You have to come. Aunt Jiang said that you can’t say no. If you don’t come, she will send someone to pick you up from Hai City.”
He kept silence for a while, “Why? Did something happen over there?”
“No, it’s just that Aunt Jiang suddenly wanted us to gather together and I’m also a little confused.”
“No, there must be something going on, otherwise she can’t be so kind to me. When have I become so important? And I have to go?”
Of course I can’t tell him that I had damaged the relationship between Xiaodong and Ling. So, I said, “I don’t know what’s going on. Anyway, you just come, otherwise I can’t explain to Aunt Jiang.”
Second brother said, “That’s fine, I’ll arrive later.”
…
When I arrived at Su’ s place at 6 p. m., I found that none of them had arrived yet and I was the first one.
That’s fine. All the owners hadn’t arrived yet, which made it a lot easier for me. There weren’t so many restrictions either, so I could wander around and visit the big house of Su family.
Luckily, the maids all knew me and they called me ‘Miss Ki’ affectionately, distinguishing me from Xi Su, but if they all called ‘Miss’, they wouldn’t tell us apart.
Probably because Ling herself was young and pretty, the maids in Su family were mostly young, probably no more than forty. And they’re all good-looking. It was relatively easy to talk to them.
But the lack of old maids was also a problem. That is, all the maids, who didn’t know anything about the history of Su family, having nothing that I wanted to know.
The oldest one’s name was Hui, around forties, but when I called her Sister Hui, she kept saying in fear, “Don’t call me sister. Just ‘Hui’ is fine.”
She was picking beans in the kitchen and I went to help her, but she didn’t want me to, saying, “You can’t do such menial job.” I said, “I used to do this kind of work a lot. It has been a long time since I did such work. I just want to help. Please don’t mind.”
She couldn’t stop me, so I worked with her. After the initial nervousness, I began to talk to her.
She said she’d been working here for over three years and she was the most senior maid here. Others had retired.
I was curious about the word of ‘retirement’. It’s amazing that the maids also retired.
Hui seemed to see my confusion and explained with a smile, “Su family is very good to their servants. When they reach a certain age, they will be moved to the work elsewhere to avoid the depression that comes with working long hours in this house, which we call ‘retirement’.”
“And these servants, where do they go to work?” I got more curious.
“Some of them went out to find by themselves, but if they couldn’t find one, Mrs. and Mr. would arrange for them. Some of them went to work, others went to the homemaking company. Some of them went back to their hometown to stay with their families. If they had a bad financial situation, Su family would subsidize them all. Many of the old maids, now, still receive a paycheck.”
That sounded like a really warm move, but there was something wrong after thinking for a while.
These servants were not looking for work until they reached ‘retirement’ age, which sounded like great for changing a job and changing a mood, but it might not be! It’s actually hard for someone of a certain age with little education to change jobs.
“So when will you retire?” I asked Hui.
“Soon and I’m going to work in a factory, also arranged by Mrs., a factory that manufactures shoes. I will learn first and then work. Mrs. said that I can also get paid during my studies.” Hui said.
“There are many people in that factory who used to work for Su family, right?” I asked.
“Yes, quite a few.”
I got instantly interested. If I could find the former servant, maybe I could ask something about Nan Su? It’s something that I wanted to know.
“Do you know the name of the factory? What’s the address?” I asked Hui.
“I don’t remember that clearly. I only know it’s a factory that manufactures shoes.” Hui said.
Although she didn’t know, it wasn’t hard to find out. There were only a few shoe factories owned by Nanhe Group. I could just ask someone.
After knowing this, I was actually a bit inexplicably excited.