Sister Chen looked embarrassed upon hearing this, repeatedly apologizing as she hurried over to close the back door and turn on the air conditioning. After a while, the smell finally dissipated.
By this time, Qi Min had finished eating. He paid and left. Though the restaurant’s smell was unpleasant and the hygiene seemed questionable, the braised chicken leg was perfectly seasoned and the bamboo tube rice was fragrant. Good food at a reasonable price—Qi Min planned to come back again.
Having eaten and drunk his fill, he walked contentedly in the sunlight. Compared to the first eighteen years of his life, recent days had been quite comfortable. If only life could always be like this.
The reluctant night shift soon arrived, approaching 10 PM. To be safe, fearing he might miss the last bus and wait in vain, Qi Min still walked to work. While others might console themselves that they were exercising and reducing carbon emissions, Qi Min truly hated all forms of physical activity. If it weren’t just a temporary job, making an electric bike purchase impractical, he would really like to buy one to ride. As it happened, halfway there he saw Bus 201 whizzing past behind him.
Qi Min: “…”
He trudged into the store with a sullen face. The team leader was already there. Qi Min retrieved his wallet from him and returned to the front counter to work. Since it was nighttime, there weren’t many customers coming to shop. Between taking orders, Qi Min could occasionally leave the counter to clear leftover dishes from the tables and take them to the back kitchen. When no one was around, he would mop the floor.
For some reason, he felt the team leader’s gaze on him today was a bit strange. With this nagging thought, Qi Min took the trays to the back. Today’s kitchen supervisor was Zhang Dingwen, and Qi Min found him wearing a sour expression as soon as he entered. Qi Min was quite surprised to see Zhang Dingwen on the night shift.
Zhang Dingwen was a veteran employee of this Kaifeng restaurant, having worked there for over a year. Apart from the management team and Aunt Lu, he had been there the longest and rarely worked night shifts. The schedule had been posted a week ago, and tonight was supposed to be Zhao Xinmiao’s shift. Most likely something came up, and the manager had pulled Zhang Dingwen, who was on his rotation break, to fill in. No wonder he looked so unhappy—he didn’t even acknowledge Qi Min, his former comrade-in-arms, when he came in.
Nearby, Miao Lijun stood at the washing sink, diligently washing dishes and placing the clean ones in the sanitizing tank. The kitchen’s oil cart was leaking a bit and hadn’t been fixed yet, making the floor slippery—Qi Min nearly stumbled.
Though the kitchen supervisor position was the most tiring, everyone agreed the job no one wanted most was dishwashing. Being a fried food restaurant, the pots and pans were always greasy and particularly dirty, especially the oil cart which was difficult to clean. And dishwashing was always done after closing time.
Even though this Kaifeng restaurant was open 24 hours, they still scheduled it for after 10 PM when things were relatively quiet. This meant those responsible for dishwashing could only work night shifts, with their days and nights reversed. And it wasn’t just washing dishes—around 4 AM, delivery trucks would arrive with supplies, and the dishwashers were responsible for moving frozen meat and marinades. Each box weighed dozens of kilos—it was practically manual labor.
When there wasn’t anything else to do, they had to help in the dining area and clean the bathrooms and take out trash. They were like bricks—moved wherever needed. But most employees at the Kaifeng restaurant were like this. The management team looked more presentable than the regular employees, but they actually did more work, not less, and even had to accept unpaid overtime.
This was the restaurant business. Women were used like men, men were used like beasts of burden—if you couldn’t handle the dirt and exhaustion, you couldn’t work in this industry. The Kaifeng restaurant was still a chain with assembly-line operations, slightly better than most—regular restaurants were probably even more exhausting.
After delivering the dishes, Qi Min returned to the front counter to continue taking orders. Around 3 AM, a delivery truck arrived and parked at the front door, and Miao Lijun went out to unload. Watching him carry large boxes back and forth, Qi Min went to help. The team leader, returning from the bathroom, came to help as well. With two extra people, the goods were quickly stored away.
After unloading, Qi Min was covered in sweat. Standing at the entrance feeling the warm night breeze, he watched the delivery truck drive away. Just as the truck was about seventy or eighty meters away and about to turn, Qi Min suddenly noticed the moving headlights illuminate a human figure.
The person wore black clothes and black pants, standing in a spot the streetlights didn’t reach, completely merged with the darkness. If not for the truck’s headlights, Qi Min would never have noticed someone standing there by the curb. The headlights flashed past, turned at the corner and disappeared, leaving only a pitch-black shadow.
Though the moment was brief, Qi Min’s good eyesight allowed him to notice that the person was standing facing this direction. And they were watching him.
While lost in thought, a sudden pat on his shoulder startled him. Team leader Kong Pengfei leaned in: “What are you looking at?”
In the moment Qi Min turned his head and looked back, the black shadow had vanished. Only the shrubs along both sides of the road swayed ghostlike in the dim light.
Qi Min frowned slightly, then said in a light tone: “Nothing, just getting some air… Oh right, Leader Kong, I heard from Huang Xinrui that you’re a local?”
“That’s right! I live nearby… Want a smoke? You don’t mind, right?”
At past 3 AM, with basically no customers coming in, Kong Pengfei had Miao Lijun watch the front counter while he came out to relax for a bit.
“That close? Then you must know about Fumin Apartments?”
“Of course! It’s one of the old apartment buildings in this area, been here for decades!” Kong Pengfei replied. “It was originally built by a company specifically to rent to office workers… but later they ran short on funds and sold most of the building to individual buyers, who also use it for rentals…”
“What a shame my parents didn’t buy a few units back when it was cheap. If they had, I could live off the rental income now, just doing odd jobs occasionally, instead of working so hard…”
“Have you heard any rumors about Fumin Apartments?”
With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, Kong Pengfei was completely relaxed as he exhaled smoke: “Rumors? No rumors really. Though the abandoned building behind it is pretty famous…”
“Back then they hyped it up like crazy—’harmonious living, waterscape gardens, the city’s premier garden-style residence!'”
“Being in the city center, people fought over the pre-sales…”
“But before the building was finished, the developer ran off… Others were okay, but the relocated residents had it worst—they ended up with nowhere to live…”
Sighing, Kong Pengfei came back to the present: “Why are you asking so much about this? Looking to rent?”
“That apartment is quite a good deal… As far as I know, we had an employee who used to rent there before, someone named Feng Xiaoyun. Said the environment was decent.”
While smoking, Kong Pengfei glanced at him sideways. He thought to himself: this kid acted tough last night, but now he’s scared and wants to move. Though moving might be good—all sorts of people rent places, and having strange neighbors can be really troublesome.
“Feng Xiaoyun?” Qi Min narrowed his eyes questioningly.
“Ah, she was the kitchen supervisor before you came. She suddenly quit, that’s why we hired you.”
“She mentioned during chats that she lived in this apartment. Said although it was a bit old, the rent was cheap and the landlord was really nice…”
“She was doing fine at work, don’t know why she quit… Didn’t show up for several days, couldn’t reach her by phone… Tch! We barely had time to find a replacement!”
Qi Min started working at the store on April 16th, so Feng Xiaoyun must have quit before then, and he moved into Fumin Apartments after his summer break on July 15th.
There was a three-month gap.
Judging by the dust in the room, Unit 203 probably hadn’t been occupied for several months before him.
Could it be that the previous tenant of Room 203 was Feng Xiaoyun, the former server at the Kaifeng restaurant?
And the clothes in the wardrobe were hers.
According to the team leader, Feng Xiaoyun quit very suddenly.
It perfectly matched the situation of a previous tenant leaving in a hurry, not even taking their clothes.
So why did Feng Xiaoyun suddenly leave?
The furtive figure in front of Room 209 flashed through Qi Min’s mind.
“Did Feng Xiaoyun live in Room 203 of Fumin Apartments?”
“How would I know that?… I wasn’t that close to her, she wouldn’t tell me such details!”
“…Why are you asking about this?”
Kong Pengfei raised his eyebrows, curiously looking at the thoughtful Qi Min. He had noticed before that this Qi Min focused on very different things than others!
“Well, actually I’m living in Fumin Apartments now, in Room 203… After moving in, I saw lots of clothes left in the wardrobe by the previous tenant, all women’s clothes, and they all look in good condition…”
“It seemed strange—would people normally leave even their clothes behind when moving?”
“Plus what you said about Feng Xiaoyun leaving her job suddenly, the timing matches up… I was wondering if those might be her clothes…”
Kong Pengfei drew in a sharp breath: “That- that is really strange! Feng Xiaoyun was from another province, and people in our line of work tend to move around a lot. We thought when she suddenly stopped coming that she’d gone home!”
“Everyone’s so busy every day, we didn’t think too much about it at the time…”
After pondering for a moment, Kong Pengfei asked: “Are there any work uniforms in those clothes? Feng Xiaoyun left suddenly and we couldn’t contact her, she never returned her uniform…”
“If those are her clothes, there should be a work uniform… She wouldn’t take just the uniform and leave all her other clothes behind!”
Qi Min thought back.
Though he hadn’t looked through each piece, when he glanced at the clothes hanging in the wardrobe, there was indeed a red uniform with a black collar at the end that looked like a work uniform.
Plus there was a pair of leather shoes among the women’s shoes.
Kaifeng restaurant required their service staff to wear leather shoes, so that matched too.
Qi Min was almost certain now, so he nodded: “Yes, there is one. It must be hers.”
Kong Pengfei felt uneasy, his cigarette suddenly losing its appeal: “In that case, leaving her clothes behind… could something have happened to her? …That’s the problem with renting, it’s not safe!”
“…But if something happened to Feng Xiaoyun, it’s been three or four months, wouldn’t her family know?”
“If it were me, forget three months, if I disappeared for three days, my family would have called the police already!”
Qi Min thought to himself, that’s because you live with your family!
This Feng Xiaoyun was from another province working in Linjiang, so she probably didn’t contact her family as frequently.
Or maybe she had cut off contact with her family completely.
The Author has something to say:
Qi Min: Why do we still have to work regular jobs after entering the Hidden World, help…
Shang Jingshui (glancing at his own script): …Director! I want a different script!
