Chapter 1

“Qi Baizi, Room 307! Someone’s here to see you downstairs!”

Just after lunchtime, a tremendous roar echoed into the dormitory. Even with her headphones on, Qi Baizi couldn’t block out the piercing voice of the dormitory auntie shouting from the first floor.

Her two roommates, who were eating across the table, naturally heard it too. They exchanged a look, then silently pulled out their phones to start an online chat.

Qi Baizi ignored their meaningful silence, took off her headphones, and went downstairs.

The visitor was a middle-aged man with dark skin and graying hair, looking to be in his forties. Since he couldn’t enter the women’s dormitory, he had no choice but to shelter from the blazing sun at the base of the building.

As Qi Baizi stepped out of the building, she turned her head and saw the man pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She walked over and snatched the cigarettes from his hand with a dark expression. “Uncle, smoking is forbidden on campus.”

The man was taken aback and rubbed his head in embarrassment. “I forgot, I forgot.”

Qi Baizi looked at the pale white cigarette pack in her hand and pressed her lips together. She didn’t smoke, but she had worked part-time at a convenience store the year after her college entrance exams and recognized this brand. It couldn’t have cost more than six yuan.

“Didn’t you quit?” Qi Baizi handed the cigarettes back to her uncle, feigning a relaxed tone as she crossed her arms. “Have you forgotten the time Aunt caught you buying cigarettes and made you kneel on the washboard?”

“A coworker gave them to me.” The man looked a bit ashamed and quickly pocketed the cigarettes. “Little Bai, you can’t tell your aunt. She’s only just started getting a little better. We can’t have her getting angry again.”

“Aunt is doing better? I’ll go see her after I’m done with this busy period…”

“No, no need!”

After his string of refusals, they both fell silent. Seeing Qi Baizi’s uneasy expression, the man rubbed his face and sighed. “I came here this time to apologize to you.”

“Your aunt was right. Your mother just passed away, and you’re a student who hasn’t even entered the workforce yet. You’re all alone. I shouldn’t have pressured you to pay back the money…”

“Uncle,” Qi Baizi called out.

The man looked up at her. “Your aunt and I have talked it over. We’re not going to treat this illness anymore. We can’t end up like your mother, where the money was spent, and the person still…”

“You want my cousin to hate me for the rest of her life!” Qi Baizi interrupted loudly.

After a moment of silence, Qi Baizi spoke, “You two should get the treatment. As for the cost… we’ll stick to what we discussed last time. Ten thousand a month, paid off in two years.”

The man was silent. After a long while, he pulled two chocolates from his right pocket and handed them to his niece. “Don’t skip meals just to save money… Just pay back what you can.”

Clutching the two softened chocolates, Qi Baizi felt her whole body flush as she walked upstairs, unsure if it was from being outside in the heat for too long.

Before the tears could fall, she ran into the washroom and splashed her face with water. Gradually, the bitter, emotional feeling evaporated along with the moisture.

Qi Baizi looked up at the mirror. The corners of her eyes were still a little red, but thankfully, the bangs at her temples could hide it somewhat, so no one would be able to tell at a glance that she had been crying.

There weren’t many people in the washroom at noon. After finishing their meals, everyone was either napping, heading to the library to prepare for grad school exams, or already in their dorms changing and getting ready for the afternoon’s campus job fair.

This was the final round of recruitment. Held in the last week before the Labor Day holiday, the spring recruitment season was about to end. With her mother’s passing and her aunt’s brain tumor diagnosis, Qi Baizi had missed several campus recruitment opportunities over the past two months.

Fortunately, her university was quite good, ranking among the top in the country. The department was also very concerned about student employment and had specially arranged an extra round of recruitment for students like Qi Baizi who had taken leave for personal reasons.

Back in the dormitory, her two roommates, Li Yi and Zheng Xiaoxiao, had already changed into formal attire. There were originally six people in the dorm, all from the same major. With no classes before the graduation defense, those who had found jobs were at work, and those who hadn’t went home. Besides Qi Baizi, only these two remained.

They hadn’t missed the job fairs; rather, they had started their internships early. Unfortunately, they had run into a fraudulent company. Not only had they worked for nearly half a year for free, but one morning, on their way to the office together, they received a message that the company had been dissolved. They almost didn’t even get their internship certificates.

So, they had “accompanied” Qi Baizi, sticking it out until now.

Qi Baizi’s relationship with these two was average. Over the past four years, they had barely spoken beyond necessary exchanges. One reason was that she seemed aloof, always wearing over-ear headphones, lost in her own world. Another reason was likely more complex and involved a misunderstanding.

Like her other three roommates, Qi Baizi was a local. Although her family’s financial situation was average, she had lived quite freely for the two years before her mother fell ill, basically going home every holiday and working part-time whenever she had a chance.

Qi Baizi never joined when the dorm organized group meals. However, the two roommates from out of town had clearly seen her eating with the other three local roommates. As a result, a rumor that “Qi Baizi is cliquey” began to quietly spread in the dorm.

Of course, that wasn’t true. It was just that she happened to have part-time jobs during those meals.

The local roommates naturally didn’t care much about this and continued to hang out and joke around with Qi Baizi, but it was inevitable that some people would overthink it.

Now that the other three were gone, Qi Baizi could go a whole day in the dorm without saying a single word.

There was no full-length mirror in the dormitory; the largest one was in the washroom. The two roommates touched up their makeup and went together to check their appearance in the mirror.

When they returned, they found a piece of chocolate on each of their desks.

They looked at each other, and finally, their gazes settled on the top bunk in the corner.

Li Yi took a step forward and knocked on the bed rail through the curtain. “Little Bai, did you give us the chocolate?”

Qi Baizi had just finished changing into a simple casual outfit for the job fair.

She pulled open the curtain and said to the two of them, “My uncle brought them for me. You get some too.”

Li Yi glanced at Zheng Xiaoxiao, who said nothing. Li Yi cleared her throat and asked, “Are you going to the job fair later?”

Qi Baizi replied, “Yes.”

“Then… then let’s go together,” Zheng Xiaoxiao finally chimed in, her expression a little unnatural. After speaking, she quickly unwrapped the chocolate, popped it into her mouth, and then smiled at Qi Baizi.

The next second, Qi Baizi was pulled down from her bed and pressed into a chair by the two of them. Li Yi, with a familiarity that came out of nowhere, undid her casually tied, finger-length hair and took out a curling iron.

“A job fair is all about looking sharp and professional. You need to dress up to look mature and competent, or else those people won’t even take your resume.”

“That’s right.” Zheng Xiaoxiao didn’t stay idle either, taking out a newly opened nude pink lipstick and applying it to Qi Baizi’s lips.

Qi Baizi looked resistant, but the budding “friendship” with them made her feel too embarrassed to refuse. After they were done with her, she gave each of them a playful knock on the head, half-annoyed and half-amused. The two feigned hurt expressions. “We help you, and you hit us!”

After the horseplay, Qi Baizi looked in the mirror. With lipstick on, the ends of her eyebrows extended, her bangs slightly curled, and a small bun at the back of her head, she did look much more mature with a little makeup. Zheng Xiaoxiao patted her shoulder with a motherly yet smug look. “That’s more like it. You look like one of the art students from the next department who paints murals. This lipstick is a gift from your big sister.”

“Your birthday is in July. It’s not certain who’s the big sister here,” Qi Baizi retorted with a laugh, accepting the lipstick. “Once I find a good job, I’ll treat you guys to a big meal.”

“You remember her birthday?” Li Yi looked astonished.

Qi Baizi raised an eyebrow. “And yours is in June.”

Without paying any more attention to the two stunned girls, Qi Baizi grabbed her prepared resume and pushed them out the door.

The job fair was held in the Grand Conference Building. From a distance, they could see various recruitment stands on both sides of the main entrance, with people randomly handing out flyers, most of which were for labor dispatch—in other words, outsourcing.

However, no one who took a flyer looked at it closely. For engineering graduates with strong technical skills like them, the industries they could enter seemed almost predetermined. Therefore, within their limited options, a stable job was naturally the best choice.

The three of them wandered around the first-floor hall for a few rounds and submitted several resumes. But the salaries were ridiculously low. It was unclear if the companies were interested in them, but they couldn’t help but mock themselves when they saw salaries starting with a “4”: so this is what it’s like for a beast of burden to enter the novice village.

Li Yi suggested going upstairs. “A few big companies are holding separate information sessions in the conference rooms. It might be better.”

Qi Baizi had heard of those companies before. In fact, she had already submitted her resume through an app and interviewed with a few of them before coming here. The highest salary she was offered was 6,800 yuan, with nine-to-six hours, leaving her enough time for part-time work.

She was only here to see if there was anything better.

At Li Yi’s suggestion, her interest was piqued. The three went upstairs together, but every conference room was already packed. There was no place to sit. They picked a company they had heard of, and Qi Baizi pushed her two friends to stand at the back of the room while she leaned against the doorframe, listening from afar.

The big corporation was indeed different; the recruitment session started with the company’s history.

Qi Baizi started to feel sleepy as she listened. In her boredom, a person suddenly appeared before her, smiling warmly, and quickly stuffed a flyer into her hand.

“Hello, classmate. High-paying job, no major restrictions, also part of the Gu Group. Care to take a look?”

Gu Group? Inside the conference room, they were still talking about the success story of the Gu Group’s Chairman, and the formal recruitment hadn’t even begun. Qi Baizi guessed this person was from an outsourcing company and instinctively wanted to refuse. But her eyes were glued to the “18,000” on the flyer and couldn’t move.

“This is…” Qi Baizi took a closer look. A wealthy family’s maid?

What kind of position was this?

“Ah, that’s just a gimmick. We’re hiring an assistant… No, no, no, the salary is real. It’s a monthly salary, of course.”

“Don’t you worry, it’s absolutely legitimate and reliable. It’s a great position. The boss is a woman, the general manager. You’ve probably seen her on TV, Gu Yuetong, the sole heir of the Gu Group’s Chairman. Gentle, beautiful, and decisive…”

Gu—Yue—tong?

She had indeed seen her, and not just on television.

An image floated into Qi Baizi’s mind—about two years ago, while working as a delivery driver, she had accidentally scratched a luxury car. The driver got out, saw she was unharmed, and didn’t pursue the matter. But Qi Baizi felt guilty and insisted on leaving her contact information. The person seemed to be in a hurry, left a business card, and sped off.

At the time, Qi Baizi had stared at that business card for a long time, confirming her identity—the new CEO of the Gu Group, Gu Yuetong.

Later, she went home and looked up the value of the car. Qi Baizi decided it didn’t matter whether she had the business card or not: she couldn’t afford to pay for it.

Still, she went to a car repair shop to ask about the cost of touching up the paint, planning to pay the other party back once she had saved enough.

But fate had other plans. When she was less than two thousand yuan away from saving up that amount, her mother fell ill.

Her liver function deteriorated, relapsing again and again, developing into liver cancer. In the end, complications took her mother away, leaving her with only a handful of ashes and a mountain of debt.

The business card had been tucked away in the pages of some book, long forgotten.

Seeing that Qi Baizi hadn’t outright refused, the outsourcing recruiter felt he had a chance and decided to strike while the iron was hot. “Little sister, are you short on money?”

“Hmm?”

“I see you’re dressed rather frugally. Do you have a student loan?”

Qi Baizi stared at him. “Just say what you want to say.”

“Alright, I’ll be direct. Although we’re an outsourcing company, we’re a legitimate business. As long as you’re willing to take the job, we’ll pay off your student loan for you.”

Qi Baizi was stunned. Could something this good really exist?

“But there’s one thing. If you can accept it, you can start anytime!”

Qi Baizi’s guard went up instantly. She frowned and asked, “What is it?”

“Are you afraid of getting hit?”

The recruiter said mysteriously, “If you’re not even afraid of getting hit, then you’re perfectly suited for this job!”

When a person is utterly speechless, they really do laugh. Qi Baizi turned to look at the large screen in the conference room with the words “Gu Group” on it and asked, “Are you hiring an assistant or a punching bag? Does Gu Yuetong have sadistic tendencies?”

“That’s not it! She never lays a hand on anyone!” the recruiter quickly whispered. “She’s just… rather cold and aloof. But big bosses are always under a lot of stress, so it’s normal for their personalities to be a bit difficult. You have to understand…”

That made sense. The presidents in TV dramas were even more abnormal. Could real life be more dramatic than a TV show?

Qi Baizi took a deep breath and confirmed one last time, “Eighteen thousand?”

“Eighteen thousand!”