“What has she been doing these past few days?”
At the top floor of the Xingchen Tower, inside the spacious executive office, the impeccably dressed man sat leisurely on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other. As he flipped through the stack of photographs his assistant had delivered, every single one featured Xue Yanxin.
“Miss Xue has only been going out to attend job interviews,” the assistant reported. “I’ve investigated every company she applied to. They’re all small, obscure businesses with no connection to the Fang family.”
Looking for a job?
Didn’t the money she showed me that day already give her enough to live comfortably for the rest of her life?
Could she really be planning to support me?
How overconfident.
The corners of Huo Zhiyuan’s lips curved into a faint smile as he shook his head, finding the idea almost ridiculous.
Seeing that slight smile, Assistant Li Fei instinctively shivered.
Boss… asking questions is one thing, but could you please not smile?
Within the company, Huo Zhiyuan was famous for his icy demeanor. He rarely smiled, always carrying an air of noble aloofness that kept strangers at a distance. His presence alone commanded authority, and he never allowed emotions unrelated to work to show during office hours.
Among the employees, there was an unspoken rule.
If the boss smiled, one of two things was happening.
Either he was secretly plotting something, or someone was about to have a very bad day.
No one had ever seen a third possibility.
“She went job hunting?” Qi Junlin stared in disbelief. “She actually went looking for a job? At companies like these?”
His face was filled with question marks.
“Hasn’t she always thought she was too good for everyone else? Bro, there’s definitely something fishy going on. We need to stay on guard.”
His reaction wasn’t unreasonable.
Anyone who had witnessed Xue Yanxin’s arrogant behavior after marrying into the family, acting high and mighty simply because she could rely on Huo Zhiyuan’s status, would never believe she would willingly apply to tiny companies offering salaries of less than three thousand a month.
Even Huo Zhiyuan found it difficult to believe.
He knew the old Xue Yanxin well.
She was ambitious but lacked the ability to match her ambitions. When he had invested money into her business years ago, her attitude alone had made it obvious that someone like her would never even glance at these insignificant companies.
Then why was she submitting résumés to them?
Was it just a smokescreen?
Was her real objective somewhere else?
“Besides job hunting, where else has she gone? Who has she been in contact with?” Huo Zhiyuan asked.
“Nowhere else,” Li Fei answered. “The only people she’s spoken to are a few neighbors in the community. We investigated them before you moved there. They’re all ordinary people with clean backgrounds.”
“They may have been clean before. That doesn’t mean they still are.”
Qi Junlin suddenly leaned forward.
“Who does she talk to the most?”
“Yang Cuihua, your neighbor across the hall,” Li Fei replied. “I’ve looked into her. She’s just a retired factory worker. Her son works in construction. She’ll be moving in with him soon for retirement, so she and Miss Xue probably won’t have any further contact.”
The office fell silent.
Huo Zhiyuan wondered whether he had been overthinking everything.
Perhaps…
He had never truly understood Xue Yanxin at all.
Meanwhile, Qi Junlin reached the exact opposite conclusion.
She’s definitely hiding something.
This woman is anything but simple.
…
“Achoo!”
Who on earth is talking about me?
Xue Yanxin sneezed just as she helped Grandma Yang carry several heavy bags of groceries upstairs.
She couldn’t help wondering whether those unscrupulous interviewers from earlier were cursing her behind her back.
Her standards for finding a job weren’t high.
She didn’t need an impressive salary.
She simply wanted something close to home, with a light workload, and, most importantly, a company willing to pay her social insurance and housing fund contributions.
After searching around the neighborhood, however, she was left utterly disappointed.
Every company seemed determined to dance right on the edge of labor law violations.
Tiny businesses with endless responsibilities.
Some didn’t even offer weekends off.
Others practically wanted employees to work for free during probation.
Interview after interview ended in rejection.
Or perhaps it was more accurate to say she rejected them.
Either way, she returned home empty-handed.
On her way upstairs, she ran into Grandma Yang struggling with several large bags of groceries.
Without hesitation, Xue Yanxin took a few bags from her.
“Xiaoyan, are you catching a cold?” Grandma Yang asked worriedly. “The flu’s been spreading lately. You should try not to go out so often.”
“I’d love to stay home,” Xue Yanxin laughed, “but I need to find a job.”
“Your health is more important than money.”
“That’s true,” she replied with a smile. “But Grandma Yang, don’t you go out every day selling lunch boxes?”
“Oh, I won’t be doing that much longer.” Grandma Yang beamed. “Once my daughter-in-law leaves the postpartum care center, my son is coming to pick me up so I can enjoy retirement.”
“Really? Congratulations! You’re already a grandmother, and you still look so young.”
“Oh, stop flattering me.” Grandma Yang chuckled. “I’m already well into my sixties.”
Ever since learning that Grandma Yang planned to stop selling boxed lunches, Xue Yanxin couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Grandma Yang prepared several hundred lunch boxes every day.
She left around ten in the morning and usually sold out before two in the afternoon.
Her daily revenue reached several thousand yuan.
That was more than many office workers earned.
Maybe…
I could do this too.
Once the idea took root, Xue Yanxin immediately acted on it.
Using the excuse that she didn’t want to learn for free, she helped Grandma Yang carry lunch boxes every day and accompanied her to the construction site, gradually becoming a familiar face among the regular customers.
When Grandma Yang heard that Xue Yanxin wanted to learn the business, she couldn’t have been happier.
She had always worried about one thing.
After she retired, where would the construction workers find inexpensive, clean meals?
Her lunch boxes contained two meat dishes and one vegetable, all for just fifteen yuan.
Nearby restaurants charged at least twenty-five yuan, and extra rice cost additional money.
Her own son had once worked construction, doing physically demanding labor.
She knew workers needed hearty meals.
Most of them were reluctant to spend money at nicer restaurants.
Covered in dust from the worksite, they were afraid of dirtying the furniture or being looked down upon.
Now that Xiaoyan was willing to take over…
She could finally leave with peace of mind.
Every time a regular customer came by, Grandma Yang introduced Xue Yanxin proudly.
“This is my apprentice.”
“When I stop selling, she’ll take over.”
After several days, Xue Yanxin had mastered the routine of operating the stall.
She had also become familiar with most of the regular customers.
The only thing left to learn was Grandma Yang’s cooking.
“You mean the dishes?” Grandma Yang laughed. “You need to ask Xiaofang about that.”
It turned out Grandma Yang wasn’t the one cooking at all.
Her son had hired a housekeeper because he worried she was getting too old to cook every day.
But when Grandma Yang found out the housekeeper’s monthly salary exceeded ten thousand yuan, she nearly had a heart attack.
Determined to earn that money back, she came up with an idea.
Since the housekeeper was already cooking anyway, why not prepare huge batches in oversized woks?
The food was packed into lunch boxes and sold at the construction site.
To everyone’s surprise, business flourished.
Eventually, the housekeeper focused entirely on cooking, while Grandma Yang handled the cleaning and preparation every morning before the housekeeper arrived.
Not only did she earn back the housekeeper’s wages, she still made a net profit of over ten thousand yuan every month.
It was even more than her pension.
Xue Yanxin spent several days learning cooking techniques from Auntie Xiaofang.
After Grandma Yang officially retired, she finally opened the stall on her own.
Since she had no idea whether the business would succeed without Grandma Yang by her side, she chose not to tell Huo Zhiyuan.
If everything went well, great.
But if she failed…
Combined with the original Xue Yanxin’s long history of disastrous business ventures, her image as a hopeless failure would become even more firmly planted in Huo Zhiyuan’s mind.
At that point, forget supporting him.
He’d probably worry that she’d lose the little savings she still had trying to start another business.
Every morning, she waited until Huo Zhiyuan finished breakfast and left for work before she began cooking.
Because of that, she always arrived at the construction site about an hour later than Grandma Yang used to.
Fortunately, it didn’t affect business.
Everything she used had been left to her by Grandma Yang.
After arriving near the construction site, she quickly set up the stall.
Yet…
Not a single worker came over.
Looking into the distance, she noticed a large crowd gathered around someone.
The workers stood with their backs toward her, surrounding a tall man wearing a red safety helmet. He stood at least half a head taller than everyone else.
He seemed to say a few words.
The workers nodded in agreement before gradually dispersing.
Then they all started walking toward her lunch stall.
The man removed his helmet.
As he turned slightly, his familiar profile came into view.
Xue Yanxin froze.
…Huo Zhiyuan?