Room 5012's restless tossing and turning lasted until the early morning.
The next day, when Liang Wenpei checked out, his dark circles were especially prominent.
Running into Pei Wenliang was only to be expected—she was yawning as she came to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.
When she spotted a familiar figure hovering indecisively in front of the buffet, Pei Wenliang thought she was seeing things.
Pei Wenliang: "Brother? What are you doing here?"
Liang Wenpei averted his gaze guiltily and mumbled a vague reply: "Work."
Pei Wenliang squinted at him. As if she'd believe that. "Really? Not here to look for—"
"Cough, work." Liang Wenpei stuck to his story, grabbed a bit of breakfast, and found a seat.
"Tsk." Pei Wenliang snorted, set down her two plates of breakfast, and sat across from Liang Wenpei. "I can't stand you. Back when Sister was studying in England, I didn't want to go to Europe at all, but you insisted on taking me. Now she's working here, and you come chasing after her. Tsk tsk tsk."
Liang Wenpei had always been the one to care for Pei Wenliang like a parent. She didn't like Liang Guodong, but she wasn't afraid of him either. When it came to Liang Wenpei, though—perhaps because she'd been strictly disciplined as a child—she was inexplicably a little afraid of him.
Her worst fear was her parents saying, "I've already told your brother." That sentence was practically tied for the top spot on her student-era terror list alongside "Pei Wenliang, come to the board and solve this math problem."
Now that she'd finally caught his weakness, she wanted nothing more than to mock him mercilessly three hundred times.
"Since you've gotten so much breakfast, give your mouth a rest and eat quickly." Liang Wenpei couldn't win this argument, so he had to find another way out.
"One of these is for Tang Yan—she's stuck in traffic and will be here in a bit." Pei Wenliang explained, then took the opportunity to mock her brother's evasive subject-changing tactics further. "Finally, I get to make fun of you."
"It seems you've forgotten that you never even took your preliminary exam—registered twice, and both times never even made it into the exam hall because you were shopping at the mall with Tang Yan instead." Liang Wenpei took a sip of coffee, raised his eyes, and gave her a threatening look, then made a show of picking up his phone as if to text their parents.
"I'll help you win her over." Pei Wenliang stretched out her arm and pressed down on Liang Wenpei's hand. "As the saying goes, 'A waterfront pavilion gets the moonlight first.' I'll give you first-hand intel on Sister the moment I get it. Of course, that's only if Sister Huang Ling doesn't like our boss. If they're into each other, then I won't help you."
Liang Wenpei laughed in exasperation. "You sure have your principles."
Pei Wenliang flattered him: "Who raised me since I was little? My wonderful brother. All my fine qualities were learned from my wonderful brother, shaped by my wonderful brother."
"Enough." Liang Wenpei moved his hand away from the phone. "It's the 21st century—slavery has no future. Eat your breakfast."
Pei Wenliang grumbled inwardly but kept up her fawning expression, just like a treacherous minister in a TV drama: "Mom's busy with the new store opening lately. A nobody like me shouldn't bother her with my trivial little matters."
Liang Wenpei had originally planned to take his time with breakfast, thinking he might run into Huang Ling.
But the law firm called, and he had to leave immediately.
That little episode with Liang Wenpei didn't affect Huang Ling's sleep quality after work.
Huang Ling woke up in the on-duty guest room at six-thirty in the morning. When she went to the bathroom, she found that her period—two days late—had arrived. It hadn't stained the sheets or her underwear, and this time she didn't feel the least bit annoyed.
After inserting a tampon, she washed up and returned to the office. Xiao Li had brought her breakfast. After eating, Huang Ling took a painkiller and began working methodically.
She deliberately avoided the fifth floor, but work forced her to pass by Room 5012. Seeing the guest room door open with a linen cart blocking the entrance, she understood that he had already checked out and left. Yet she couldn't quite name what she was feeling.
The next time she heard his name was when Song Mingyue was preparing to check out.
Late July had arrived, and the cicadas were deafeningly loud. After nightfall, guests kept complaining that the insect noise was too loud with the windows open, but it was too stuffy with them closed. Huang Ling had someone spray insecticide along the exterior walls, windowsill edges, the borders of the green belt, and around the flowerpots before nightfall.
Only then did the complaints stop.
Song Mingyue's divorce case had received its first-instance verdict—the judge ruled that the couple's feelings hadn't truly broken down and denied the divorce.
When she called Huang Ling to her room, the guest room was a bit messy. Several suitcases lay open on the floor, and her silk pajamas made her look several degrees more gentle and refined.
She seemed a little embarrassed by the messy room: "I used to be pretty good at cleaning. After I married Old Tang, there were servants at home, so I'm not very good at this sort of thing anymore. Come, sit."
Song Mingyue waved from beside the coffee table, where fruit cake and tea were laid out.
Seeing Huang Ling hesitating in place without stepping forward, Song Mingyue continued, "I've already called and asked—your supervisor said you can accompany me for a bite to eat."
Huang Ling hadn't expected her to have already made the call, so she walked over and sat down on the sofa.
Song Mingyue cut a piece of cake and handed it to Huang Ling. "Keep me company and have a little. Starting tomorrow, I'll have to diet for work."
As she said this, there was no trace of distress about dieting in her voice—her eyes were full of sparkle, looking utterly eager for what was to come.
Huang Ling mentally reviewed Song Mingyue's client profile, but there didn't seem to be any information about her occupation.
Fortunately, Song Mingyue volunteered it herself: "Can you tell that I'm a stage actress?"
"Your temperament is very distinctive—I didn't think in the direction of stage performance, but the moment you said it, it feels perfectly fitting." Huang Ling considered her own response watertight.
"Just be casual with me." Song Mingyue found this amusing. "If I give you tickets in the future, would you come watch?"
"If you don't mind my lack of appreciation for the arts, I would be deeply honored to attend in person." Huang Ling's tact was flawless, and she had even thoughtfully arranged for the concierge to help Song Mingyue with her luggage the next day.
When Song Mingyue left, Huang Ling was already directing the staff to prepare all the rooms on the fourth and fifth floors for the tour group arriving two hours later.
By the time she finished, she felt like her back could no longer straighten.
Luo Shuang was on the mid shift that week, and Huang Ling only clocked out after briefing her on everything.
Huang Ling slept straight through until nearly noon the next day.
Upon waking, she habitually checked her phone first—only one unread message during her sleep.
But before Huang Ling could feel happy for even two seconds, she squinted to read the text and was instantly wide awake.
"Zhao Bing is back."
Huang Ling bolted upright, reading the message over and over three times. She pinched her own arm to confirm she wasn't dreaming, then slumped back onto the bed in defeat.
Though she had known from the start that Zhao Bing would be transferred back, she still wanted to run away now that it had actually happened.
But there was no escaping it.
The next day, Huang Ling ran into Sun Qi as soon as she arrived at the hotel. A flicker of schadenfreude passed through Sun Qi's eyes. Huang Ling ignored her and returned to the Housekeeping Department.
To reach the manager's private office, one had to pass through the open-plan public office. From a distance, Huang Ling could see that her belongings had been moved out of the inner office and placed on the desk outside.
Lu Ming and Qin Rong, who were on the night shift, stole glances at her. Though they hadn't finished their internship yet, the two had keenly sensed the power struggles among the department's leadership.
It was Xiao Li who first greeted her, and only then did the other two follow suit.
"Deputy Manager Huang."
"Deputy Manager Huang, good morning."
Huang Ling nodded at the three who had greeted her. Xiao Li reminded her, "Manager Zhao is in the office."
Huang Ling set her bag down on the desk, turned, and walked into the office she had occupied for nearly three months.
She knocked on the door, waited for a response from inside, and only then opened it and entered.
Zhao Bing stood by the window smoking. Though only in his fifties, his beer belly was bigger than a maternity patient's full-term pregnant belly. The air conditioning was on in the room, yet he was still drenched in sweat from his obesity. Turning to see Huang Ling enter, his gaze swept over her from bottom to top several times.
They had never met face to face. When Huang Ling had arrived, Zhao Bing had just been transferred to a hotel in another district by Lu Yunli on the pretext of "learning," all to give Huang Ling time to establish her footing.
But Zhao Bing recognized her at a glance nonetheless, and a smile immediately squeezed onto his face. "You must be Manager Huang?"
As he grinned, his teeth were yellowed from smoking.
"You're the manager here—just call me Huang Ling." Huang Ling was all pleasantries.
A rank higher crushes a person to death.
Zhao Bing took a drag of his cigarette and shook his head repeatedly. "Don't say that. The moment I came back, I could tell you've been running this hotel impeccably in my absence. I heard about it even at the branch—Young Master Lu has exceptional trust in you and holds you in high regard. At your age, with your looks, your future will surely be brighter than this old man's at fifty."
"It's precisely because you laid such a solid foundation at this hotel before that it could operate smoothly while you were away. When I arrived, Mr. Lu instructed me to learn from you carefully." Huang Ling was lying through her teeth—she felt her acting had reached a level of absolute mastery as she said it.
Only after the flattery had landed did Huang Ling step out.
Zhao Bing didn't drop his smile until the door closed, then let out a light snort. "Sending a little girl like that to fob me off? Lu Yunli, Lu Yunli—I'll teach you a proper lesson."
It had always been Huang Ling who presided over the pre-shift briefing, but now that Zhao Bing was back, she couldn't very well overstep her authority. When the time came, she attended the meeting with just her ears.
After the room assignments were distributed and the housekeeping staff dispersed, Huang Ling went to inspect the floors.
Once the morning's work was done, Zhao Bing spot-checked several rooms, then gathered everyone together again before the lunch break.
Zhao Bing was no longer the affable figure from the morning office meeting—his expression was somewhat stern.
"I spot-checked several rooms and none of them were up to standard. I don't know how you all got so lax while I was away, but now that I'm back, everything needs to meet my standards. This afternoon I'll send out a hotel room inspection deduction standard, and from now on all room inspections will follow it. A room only passes if it scores above 95 points, and from now on Manager Huang and I will be supervising. If anyone has more than two rooms per day that don't reach 95 points, starting from the third room, it's a 20-yuan deduction per room, and each rework costs another 20. If you exceed five rooms, all room commissions for that day are cancelled."
Just after two in the afternoon, the deduction standard came out.
When Huang Ling opened it, she saw the incredibly detailed list of criteria.
Xiao Li sat across from Huang Ling, and the more she read, the lower her jaw dropped: "Even having too strong a smell of cleaning agent is a deduction?"
Huang Ling listened to their complaints without saying a word, simply printing out the deduction standard and tucking it into her notebook.
When she got home from work, Luo Shuang had just woken up, and only then did she see the deduction standard.
"Is Zhao Bing out of his mind? During peak season, if a tour group checks out dozens of rooms in a day, how can this standard even be enforced? Deducting points for dust on the curtain tracks? He's insane. And deducting money too? People would be paying to work." Luo Shuang was a housekeeping supervisor, but sometimes she also had to support the room attendants.
She spoke so loudly that she startled Da Shun, who was gnawing on a chew toy, and he started barking anxiously.
Luo Shuang scooped him up and buried her face in Da Shun's belly, rubbing against it as if that could ease some of her frustration.
Huang Ling poured her a glass of water and sat down with her on the sofa.
Luo Shuang looked at her with a pitiful expression: "Can you cut me some slack?"
Huang Ling sank deep into the sofa and took Da Shun from Luo Shuang's arms. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place too, holding Da Shun and wishing life would go a little smoother: "Zhao Bing is doing this specifically to find fault with me. This standard is completely unreasonable. He's probably testing whether I'll enforce it as given. If I don't follow his instructions, then I'm showing poor execution and paying lip service."
"Then what are you going to do?" Luo Shuang asked worriedly.
Huang Ling thought for a moment: "You all will have to work hard during this period."
That was no exaggeration.
The next day, Huang Ling appeared at the guest room door wearing white gloves, recording on the deduction sheet: "You didn't wipe this peephole? Dust, deduct one point… Fine sand in the window track, deduct one point… The TV clock is two minutes slow, didn't you notice? Deduct one point… The center seam of the duvet is off by one and a half centimeters, deduct two points… There's a dead mosquito inside this lampshade, deduct two points… This room needs to be redone."
By mid-morning, the rework rate had reached an astonishing seventy percent. Fortunately, the vacant rooms weren't needed for check-ins right away.
Everyone was grumbling about the rework deductions, and as lunchtime approached without them finishing, the complaints grew even louder. Huang Ling, shedding her iron-faced demeanor from earlier, softened her tone and told them to hurry up with the rework so they could eat sooner. Someone muttered "putting on an act," but Huang Ling didn't get angry.
As everyone went back to their tasks, Huang Ling paced the hallway, occasionally lending a hand.
When the phone in her pocket rang, Huang Ling had just brought clean linens from the linen room for a room attendant.
After logging the quantity in her notebook, Huang Ling walked to the empty fire escape stairwell and answered the call.
The moment the call connected, Huang Ling could hear through the phone the sound of sea breeze and the cries of low-flying seagulls on the other end.
"Say what you need to say." Huang Ling was already swamped with work, and the culprit was off on vacation, so she couldn't help but sound a bit sharp.
On the other end of the line, Lu Yunli paused, then spoke as if deeply hurt, his voice lazy and languid from just waking up: "Zhao Bing's only been back a few days, and you're already this irritable?"
"He's only been back a few days, but he's already created a mountain of trouble for me. And you—I'm the one being used as your pawn, while you're off enjoying your vacation." Huang Ling scoffed. "You're a pest."
Lu Yunli's low laughter came through the phone, made even more pleasant by the electronic static: "This isn't a vacation. This is me going undercover, learning from the strengths of other hotels."
"Then send me undercover instead, and you come back." Huang Ling wouldn't believe that even if she were three years old.
Hearing the edge in Huang Ling's voice, Lu Yunli realized he'd riled her up and switched to coaxing: "I'll come back once I'm done with things here. Just stay steady for these few days. I've bought you lots of gifts."
Huang Ling negotiated: "Can you just give me the cash instead?"
Lu Yunli laughed: "No."