Sensing the thoughts on Chu Junlie’s mind, Grandpa Chang patted the young man’s shoulder and comforted him, “It’s alright. I’m already in my seventies—I’ve been to all kinds of wedding banquets and tasted all sorts of delicacies. You’re a good kid. Just take this little token from me, and after you get married, live a good life together.”
Chu Junlie lowered his head, staring at the red envelope in his hands, lips pressed tightly together.
After bowing his head in thanks, he returned to his rented room, pulled out his phone, and found the number he hadn’t dialed in a long time.
His fingertip hovered for a long while. Clutching the red envelope, he finally pressed the call button firmly.
This was his engagement banquet with Mr. Si—something that only happened once in a lifetime. Since Grandpa Chang had given him gift money, why shouldn’t he invite him?
The dial tone rang in his ear. Chu Junlie instinctively held his breath. Soon, the call connected.
“Hello, is that Junlie?” A woman’s voice came through—gentle and kind, something he had never heard before. It was Madam Yan.
Chu Junlie froze, lips moving soundlessly for a moment before he finally remembered what he wanted to ask.
“Madam Yan, I’d like to have an invitation card for the engagement banquet.”
“You child, what’s with calling me ‘Madam Yan’? Shouldn’t you be calling me Mom?” Her voice carried a note of gentle reproach. “The invitations were all sent out long ago. If you had told us earlier, we could’ve set one aside for you. I’ll make sure you get one.”
Chu Junlie frowned slightly, but before he could respond, another crisp voice chimed in over the phone.
“Mom, if big brother wants another invitation, just give it to him. It’s only adding one more guest—it’s not that big of a deal.”
The instant he heard that voice, Chu Junlie recognized it—it was his younger brother, someone he had only met twice.
And he knew very well that his brother didn’t like him. Back when he was hospitalized, Yan An had only visited once, standing far from the bed as if examining a strange creature, covering his nose with his hand, his eyes filled with undisguised disgust.
When Chu Junlie had first been discharged, he stayed briefly at the Yan household. Yan An always avoided him, but dead frogs and mice would somehow end up on his bed, smeared with dirty blood and soil, leaving him to wash the sheets and covers all night long.
Whenever Yan An’s friends came over, they would look at him with the same disdain as Yan An, and burst out in harsh laughter.
He could vaguely hear his brother’s mocking words:
“He’s so stupid, he can’t do anything right. Even a vacuum cleaner scares him out of his wits. Sometimes he sneaks into the kitchen at night to find leftovers, like we aren’t feeding him enough.”
“There’s always this smell on him—I can’t even describe it. One time he entered the study, and I had to spray half a bottle of perfume to cover the stench he left behind.”
“You don’t even know how disgusting this country bumpkin is. He plays with dead rats all day long. I once saw blood on his bed—absolutely filthy…”
“Ugh!” Yan An’s well-dressed friends all showed the same expression of disgust, just like him.
Chu Junlie had tried to explain. He had secretly bathed several times with fragrant shower gel, but it was useless—the look in their eyes never changed.
Until one dinner, when Chu Junlie picked up the last piece of rib from the plate that no one else wanted. Yan An, who had been playing with the pet dog, suddenly burst into tears. Madam Yan and Mr. Yan rushed to comfort him, throwing Chu Junlie reproachful looks, leaving him frozen in place, not even knowing what he had done wrong.
Not long after that, Madam Yan asked him to leave the house. She gave him 3,000 yuan and a single contact number.
But now… Yan An was actually speaking up for him.
“Brother!”
The voice snapped Chu Junlie back to reality.
“Brother, Mom said the invitation will be prepared for you, but you’ll need to come pick it up yourself,” Yan An said lightly. “Do you have time this afternoon?”
Chu Junlie glanced at the time on his phone and hesitated before answering, “Yes.”
“Then I’ll be waiting for you, brother.” Yan An hung up the call with a smile.
Holding his phone, Chu Junlie instinctively felt uneasy, though he couldn’t tell what was wrong.
He opened WeChat, tapped on the pinned profile picture, but after staring for a while, he didn’t know how to describe his situation to Mr. Si.
Ever since Mr. Si had chosen to marry into his family, everything around him had changed—he now had beautiful, expensive clothes, delicious meals every day, and even training arranged at the restaurant. Once the training ended, he would be earning twenty-five yuan per hour.
Suddenly, his phone vibrated. Startled, he quickly picked it up—only to see a small line of text appear at the bottom of his chat with Mr. Si.
“‘I patted Mr. Si.’”
…Patted?
Chu Junlie froze, blinking in confusion. After a long pause, curiosity got the better of him, and he tapped on Si Yunyi’s profile picture again.
×××
In the bright, spacious studio at Tower D of the International Building in Hong Kong City, Assistant Xu stood beside Si Yunyi, watching as the man flipped through one file after another, each set aside in turn.
“These are the only kinds of projects the studio can get now?”
Si Yunyi opened a file and placed it before him.
Assistant Xu took it and read through the details. A wealthy society lady in Hong Kong suspected her husband of having an affair. She had deliberately hosted a banquet, invited all the women she suspected, photographed them, and now wanted the studio to investigate which one was the seductress.
“This one…” Assistant Xu hesitated, “She’s offering a lot.”
Si Yunyi said nothing, continuing to leaf through the next file.
Watching the man before him, Assistant Xu hesitated before finally speaking up.
“Teacher, the studio has always relied on your personal funds to operate, and most of the projects we’ve taken are public service cases that don’t bring in profit. They’re meaningful, yes, but now that you’ve retired from the Si Corporation, the studio really needs to adjust its business model.”
Si Yunyi’s hand paused on a page. He closed the file, set it back down, then rose from his chair and drew open the blinds of the large side window.
“Come here.”
Almost instinctively stiffening, Assistant Xu stepped forward and stood at his side.
Through the side window stretched a wide office space: desks piled with documents, staff hurrying by, some typing rapidly at their computers, coffee steaming beside them. A few workstations were empty, and under one, a cat lay sound asleep.
“Before the trial, I asked everyone to vote anonymously,” Si Yunyi said calmly.
“The Li family is powerful. If I insisted on going to court, the studio might have been dissolved, and everyone here would’ve lost their jobs.
If I backed down, however, the studio would receive an eighty-million-yuan check. Under our base-salary-plus-bonus system, each person would have taken home over a million at minimum.”
“There were fifty-seven anonymous votes—and only one answer.”
Closing the blinds, Si Yunyi turned slightly, his gaze falling on Assistant Xu.
“They’re ordinary people, but they’re also heroes who stood up for innocent girls. They deserve more money. But you must manage the projects well—you can’t allow their kindness to be tainted.”
Assistant Xu’s eyes lit with sudden realization. “You agree we should adjust our business model?”
“Yes.” Si Yunyi placed the wealthy lady’s commission back before him.
“But if you had done proper background research, you would have found that this woman has already buried three husbands. Her fourth is the younger brother of her first.
I suspect her current husband is secretly working with friends to gather evidence of her crimes.
She’s not looking for a mistress—she’s looking for whoever is helping her husband.”
He tapped a photo, pointing at a waiter holding a tray of drinks. “If you had started investigating too carelessly, you could have exposed this man. By the time you realized the truth, it would be too late.”
Assistant Xu studied the photos again, noticing for the first time the husband’s body language—guarded, resistant toward his wife—and how the waiter subtly kept his distance from her. His face stiffened.
“I’m sorry, Teacher. I didn’t do a thorough background check on the client.”
“You can’t afford mistakes like this,” Si Yunyi said coldly. “Right now, I’m still here. I can point out your errors. I can shield you when you falter.
But if one day I’m no longer around—how will you protect yourselves?”
Assistant Xu’s brows furrowed. “Teacher… are you planning to leave?”
“Where I go doesn’t matter.” His eyes held steady. “What matters is that you learn to grow stronger, to increase your ability to withstand risks.”
Assistant Xu wanted to press further, but just then, his teacher’s phone buzzed. As long fingers unlocked it, it buzzed again.
Assistant Xu glanced down and saw a green cartoon cabbage-dog, busily “patting” the teacher.
Once wasn’t enough. The dog patted again and again, each time with a little caption attached:
“‘Chu Junlie’ patted me and said: Mr. Si.”
“‘Chu Junlie’ patted me and said: This feature is really fun.”
“‘Chu Junlie’ patted me and said: Mr. Si, Yan An is here.”
“‘Chu Junlie’ patted me and said: Their attitude suddenly turned very friendly.”
Assistant Xu’s face darkened in displeasure.
How dare this silly cabbage-dog!
To pat Teacher like that!
He watched as his teacher paused for a few seconds, then edited the text, and with pale fingertips tapped the little dog’s head twice.
Meanwhile, standing on the bus heading toward the Yan household, Chu Junlie felt his phone vibrate. He hurried to open it and saw that beneath his string of pats, Mr. Si had finally responded:
“‘Mr. Si’ patted me and said: Be careful.”
Chu Junlie couldn’t help but smile at Mr. Si’s reply. He scrolled through the sticker packs he had downloaded for quite a while before finally finding a little white dog doing the splits on the ground, nodding obediently.
“Next stop, Mingguang Road. Passengers, please hold on and stay seated…”
Hearing the bus announcement, Chu Junlie got off, walked a few minutes, and arrived at the gate of the Yan family’s villa.
He pressed the doorbell, and immediately saw a figure dash out of the villa, hurrying to the gate and pressing the button to unlock it.
“Gege!” A boy with short brown hair opened the door with a beaming smile.
“You finally came!”
Unaccustomed to such warmth, Chu Junlie instinctively took two steps back, but the next moment, Yan An hooked his arm and pulled him into the villa.
“Gege, your clothes look really nice.” Yan An’s smile grew even brighter. “Did Brother Yunyi buy them for you?”
Unable to believe this was the same younger brother who used to pinch his nose and avoid him, Chu Junlie uneasily nodded, only to feel Yan An cling even tighter to his arm.
[mfn] If you enjoy my translations, you can show your support by leaving a comment or donating to my Ko-fi. It will be much appreciated. Thank you! [/mfn]
