Chapter 14

Starting in the morning, Jiang Xichu’s phone had begun to ring continuously; it would ring once and Jiang Xichu would hang up on it once; until the third time it rang, she furrowed her brows as she looked at the phone, and didn’t hang up again, and in fact put her phone on silent mode.

Chen Man didn’t understand. “Who is it, then?”

Jiang Xichu’s mood wasn’t good; it seemed that she was rather fed up with the person calling, and she said, “It’s nobody, just a disturbance. Have you finished eating? If you’ve finished, then let’s go.”

Leaving at eight, dallying a bit, they arrived at the office at eight twenty; other office’s starting hour was nine, but of these two, one was the general manager, and the other was the general manager’s chief secretary; arriving a bit early also set a good example.

Arriving at the office, Jiang Xichu began to bustle about, busy for more than an hour; overall, the most important duties were completed, and she could rest for a bit; as a result, that caller called again. Jiang Xichu frowned and turned over her phone, and after a moment, the phone suddenly vibrated. The vibration indicated there was some notification; Jiang Xichu unhurriedly brought her phone over, dropping her gaze to look at it.

—I’m right at the bottom of your office; if you don’t come out, then I’ll come up.

There were some people, and some matters, which couldn’t be solved by stubbornly ignoring them; she’d already said a lot of words into the phone, but the other party simply didn’t give up, insisting on not giving up until the situation was incomparably embarrassing. Jiang Xichu stared fixedly at the phone screen for a great deal of time, and only afterwards took the phone in her hand, and then stood up, saying to the secretaries behind her, “I’m going out for a bit; if someone asks for me, just tell them that I’ll be back after half an hour.”

Today was the day the regional financial affairs office would submit an expense account and items account; because she wasn’t at ease about the people in the branch office, Chen Man required these items accounts to be once again audited; this works was originally done by Jiang Xichu, but recently, it wasn’t clear what wind she’d been thrashed by, but many different jobs had been, one after the other, delegated. Yet it wasn’t that she wanted to give the duties onto other people; it was just that she wanted to develop the skills of those under her.

Although the duties had increased, and furthermore the matters of the superiors had also increased, Secretary Yand was still rather contented; now, from a pile of varying papers, she raised her head, blinking perplexedly, and then nodded her chin, and said, “I understand.”

Jiang Xichu turned and left; the decorations of the office mainly relied on the four colours of bright yellow, deep blue, light green, and milk white; because the ages of the employees in the office all equally didn’t pass twenty-eight years, everywhere revealed the dynamism of youth. Today, Jiang Xichu wore a light blue chiffon dress, and, unexpectedly, it complemented the office’s decoration quite well.

Coming to the ground floor, when passing the front desk, the young woman at the front desk gave her a smile; Jiang Xichu hurriedly raised the corners of her lips, and then looked forward. On the sofa in the lobby, a fifty or so year old middle-aged woman sat; the clothes she wore were wrinkled, and the style was also very outdated, as if having been worn for many years; Jiang Xichu’s smiling expression rapidly retreated, and she looked at this woman with a frown, walking towards her with quick steps, and dropped a phrase, then walked in the other direction. “Go over there.”

The middle-aged woman stood up, and walked after Jiang Xichu.

Because the entire building was their office’s domain, plus this real estate was the graduation present that Chen Man’s father had given her, it wasn’t used for business; so, there wasn’t a shop at the bottom floor; if they wanted to talk over matters, they could only go somewhere else. Across from the office, there was a commerce square, and the foot traffic wasn’t much, but it could still satisfy the needs of those going to work.

At half past ten in the morning, the milk tea shop didn’t have many people within; Jiang Xichu gazed at the person across from her expressionlessly, and said, “I told you before, I won’t give you all money; you have a job yourself, and your son has already graduated university; since you have the ability to provide for yourself, what are you doing still coming to ask for money from me?”

This middle-aged woman was in fact Jiang Xichu’s step-mother, called Li Shuyun, and had married into her family when Jiang Xichu was twenty years old, and brought along a boy five years younger than Jiang Xichu. When Jiang Xichu was twenty years old, her father had had an accident at his workplace, and had died that way. Jiang Xichu’s father was a construction engineer, and, afraid of the Jiang family bringing a legal appeal, the compensation payment that the firm had given wasn’t small at all, but this money in the end had all fallen into Li Shuyun’s hands. Jiang Xichu had only been in her second year of university when her father had died, and from then on, the money to pay for university had all been that which she herself had earned from holding multiple jobs; each month, Li Shuyun had only given her a pitiful eight hundred for living expenses, and, to others, had talked about how well she herself had treated this stepdaughter.

Li Shuyun had originally wanted to talk properly, but seeing that Jiang Xichu’s attitude was that firm, she immediately said urgently, “How is that alright; I don’t even earn three thousand in a month; your brother only just graduated, so it’s precisely the time money is needed; in the future he’ll want to take a wife as well; if you don’t help at this moment, what will happen to us later on?”

In the past, Li Shuyun had often bewailed poverty like this to her; Jiang Xichu would concede, herself credulous, unable to be as ruthless as those expectations of others. Because Li Shuyun, in the past years, had been neither good nor bad towards her, the association between the two had consistently been unremarkable; when her father had passed, she was afraid that Jiang Xichu would come and contest for their money, and only then exposed her true character.

Jiang Xichu remembered the minute goods that she had given her, as well as the times that her son had called her “jiejie”, so she occasionally would give Li Shuyun a bit of money. For every three times Li Shuyun came, she would only give her it once, afraid that she would become more and more insistent. But no matter how she defended against it, it was useless; a person’s heart was always greedy; from the very start, she shouldn’t have given her a single cent.

About the time after her own death, when Li Shuyun had shifted all the money in her savings out, Jiang Xichu in fact didn’t have any sort of feeling; legally, Li Shuyun was the person who had raised her; she had raised her for six years, so according to the law, the successor to her property. It was just that a bit after she had died, she saw that the matter had become a good bit deeper, and now, she’d already understood that she herself wasn’t indebted to Li Shuyun; she was only indebted to Chen Man.

Her heart and her energy altogether were only this large; giving it all to Chen Man, she couldn’t split off more to give to others; she wanted to single-mindedly focus on Chen Man, so, every inconvenience that she brought on her, and the people who indirectly brought inconvenience to Chen Man, she wanted to all solve as quickly as possible. Right now, Li Shuyun sought her out for money, and if she knew that she and Chen Man were together in the future, she would most certainly also go looking for money from Chen Man; on thinking of that image, Jiang Xichu felt nauseated. Jiang Xichu didn’t want to talk much with her; the tips of her fingers unconsciously tapped on the table, and she said, “That’s your business, and doesn’t have anything to do with me; your son is already an adult, he can provide for himself well enough. And if he can’t provide for himself, then he’s still not my responsibility, but yours.”

Li Shuyun looked at her with disbelief, and said, “How could you say this sort of thing? We’re family; I may not be your mother, but I raised you for that many years, didn’t I? And you’re being this callous towards your relatives?”

Jiang Xichu didn’t speak anymore; her not speaking wasn’t because she didn’t know what to say, but because she didn’t feel like speaking. Li Shuyun saw that she really had set her heart, and slapped the table, bringing out the the imposing mannerisms of an elder to pressure Jiang Xichu, and said, “Jiang Xichu! Don’t assume that with the touching of your two lips, I’ll take you to have no means; if you’re still forgetting favours and violating justice like this, I’ll go and sue you! I’ve looked into the law as well; I’m the person who raised you, you’re meant to give me money!”

On hearing this, Jiang Xichu smiled, and said, “Alright, then, when you’re sixty years old, in accordance with the obligation for support, every month, according to the lowest standards, I’ll give you money, but only four or five hundred, then. Although I’m also poor, don’t worry; I can still manage this amount.”

Li Shuyun’s eyes widened; what was four or five hundred enough for? She wanted to say some more, but Jiang Xichu had already stood up, gazing at her haughtily, and said, “What’s the use of speaking loftily for an entire day; both of us know full well what sort of person we are in each other’s eyes. I still need to go back to work; you can leave, and in the future, don’t come looking for me again; otherwise, if you come again, I’ll just call the police.” Once she finished speaking, Jiang Xichu left the milk tea shop; when she arrived back at the office, the time since she’d left had just passed half an hour.

Secretary Yang said cheerfully, “Secretary Jiang, perfectly punctual.”

Jiang Xichu smiled, and continued to look at the computer, half writing.

Originally, she’d assumed that this matter was completed like this, but Jiang Xichu had underestimated the degree of her stepmother’s lack of face. After not too long, young Secretary Zhou, expression hesitant, came in, and looked at Jiang Xichu. “Secretary Jiang…there’s a woman outside who says she’s your mother, and wants to sort things out with you.”

Jiang Xichu started; before she said anything, Secretary Li stood up first, and said, “What? What sort of joke is that, Secretary Jiang’s parents are all dead; it couldn’t be that it’s a swindler, could it?!”

Young Secretary Zhou felt it wasn’t either, because that person’s appearance was precisely that of a shrew, just going about complaining to employees, and the words in her mouth were foul; this sort of person, how could she be Secretary Jiang’s mother? If she could give birth to this sort of daughter, then Secretary Jiang’s father had to be the sort of person who was a sage.

The three secretaries turned to look at Jiang Xichu one after another; Jiang Xichu’s complexion wasn’t too good, and she frowned, simply explaining, “It’s my stepmother; she came looking for money from me, and I didn’t give it to her.”

With this short phrase, the three secretaries instantly visualised a CCTV-8 prime-time great tragic drama; hearing the noise growing closer and closer, Secretary Yang unhappily stood up, and said, “What sort of job is the security doing that they can’t even stop a single middle-aged woman?” This accusation of Secretary Yang’s was entirely unjust; it wasn’t that they couldn’t stop her, but that they didn’t dare to; if they so much as touched her, Li Shuyun would make a miserable scene; as the proverb went, the scholar who came across the soldier had the right to speak unclearly; although the employees of the office weren’t scholars, and Li Shuyun wasn’t a soldier, the logic was just like that. Secretary Yang’s expression went blank, and with a great degree of aloofness, she left the office; Jiang Xichu and the remaining two glanced at each other, and hurried to follow after; before they even reached the door, they heard Secretary Yang bellow, “What are you quarrelling about! Don’t you know this is private property? If you keep making noise, I’ll send you all to a detention centre!”

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