Chapter 21: A Pocketful of Sweets

I entered Ji Feiyang’s office with a face like thunder.
The moment Team Leader Chen saw me, she burst into tears.
“Sir, I can’t train her. You’ll have to find someone else.”
“You can go for now,” he said reassuringly. “I’ll deal with this.”
As soon as the door closed, he rounded on me.
“Tang Yijun, look what you’ve done!”
“It wasn’t on purpose,” I protested, feeling wronged.
“When is it ever on purpose? Did you cause that car accident on purpose?”
The last question cut deep.
“She was the one who…”
Even to my own ears, the excuse sounded feeble. Halfway through, the words failed me.
“You said you wanted to change. Then show us.”
“I just can’t help it. I get angry, and…”
“Can’t you try to control yourself?”
“I want to,” I murmured, looking down.
Tears spilled over.
“I know it’s my fault. If I hadn’t acted on impulse, my sister wouldn’t…”
After crying for a little while, I wiped my eyes.
Ji Feiyang rose from his black leather office chair. He watched me for a moment, looking troubled, then went over to the coffee table, took a handful of sweets and pressed them into my hand.
“I’m not three years old,” I snapped.
With a small smile, he took one back, unwrapped it and popped it into his mouth.
“Not bad. Nice and sweet.”
I was miserable, and he could still smile.
“Whenever you feel like losing your temper, have a sweet. Remind yourself not to act on impulse. Keep the wrapper in your pocket. Before you go to bed, take the wrappers out and think about what happened. Ask yourself whether those things were really worth getting angry over.”
He nodded towards my hand.
“Go on. Try one.”
Following his advice, I wiped away my tears and sniffed. Most of the sweets went into my pocket. I kept one white milk sweet and put it in my mouth, letting its gentle sweetness spread over my tongue.
“Now go and apologise to Team Leader Chen.”
“No. She grabbed me first.”
“Tang Yijun!”
His voice rose sharply.
I glared at him, but in the end, there was nothing to do but obey.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled another sweet from my pocket, tore off the wrapper and shoved it into my mouth. Then I turned and hurried out.
My fists stayed clenched the whole way.
Why should I apologise? Every part of me rebelled against it. Anger burned inside me, and keeping it down took all the effort I had.
After leaving the lift, I spotted Team Leader Chen at the entrance, smiling and greeting a guest.
“Welcome!”
My feet seemed nailed to the floor.
For a long time, I stood there, wrestling with whether to approach her and what to say. By the time the sweet had dissolved, I’d finally gathered enough courage to walk over.
She turned her face away as I approached.
I bit my lip.
Control yourself.
“I’m sorry.”
Only after a long pause did she look at me.
“Are you speaking to me?”
“Who else?”
“I wouldn’t presume.”
Another sweet went into my mouth.
“Is your arm all right?”
She moved it a little.
“Luckily, yes.”
Good. She wasn’t hurt, and I’d apologised. That should be the end of it.
I returned to my place.
When the next guest arrived, everyone bowed. With my head lowered, I managed a slight bend at the waist. If the others bowed at ninety degrees, mine was probably closer to ten.
There wasn’t a trace of expression on my face.
Team Leader Chen shook her head in despair while the others hid their smiles.
“You can at least smile, can’t you? You’ll be at the front desk this afternoon.”
For most of the afternoon, I stood motionless and expressionless. Beside me, the other girls answered calls, wrote things down and responded to guests’ questions. Their sweet voices filled my ears.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to smile. I smiled at my family, at Jiajia, even at Ji Feiyang.
I simply wasn’t used to smiling on demand.
Before bed, I emptied the sweet wrappers from my pocket.
Thinking back over the day still made me angry, so another sweet went into my mouth.
Then I remembered something Team Leader Chen had said.
“With a face that grim, you’ll frighten the guests away.”
Rolling over, I picked up a mirror and examined myself. A smile came without any effort.
How could someone as cute as me frighten guests away? She was far more likely to do that.
Suddenly, I regretted coming here.
Working at Feifan Group had been so much better. Everyone had been welcoming.
And this was supposed to be a five-star hotel. Its staff didn’t even know how to treat people politely.
My routine was roughly four hours at the entrance in the morning and four at the front desk in the afternoon. Apart from the ache in my feet after standing for so long, the work was fairly easy.
At reception, I got to know a girl called Weiwei. She was tall and slender, with a delicate oval face and a captivating smile. Lively and talkative, she could chatter endlessly about anything.
She told me she was twenty.
That made me take another look.
Her figure was shapely, and there was something distinctly womanly about the way she moved. Yet she was only twenty—younger than me.
Reading my name badge, she said, “Tang Yijun? What an unusual name. It has character.”
Yes. That was the flattering way to put it.
After a few days, I realised that several of the girls around me were younger than I was, yet they were much more capable at work.
Weiwei said she’d started working at sixteen.
Sixteen?
What had I been doing at that age?
I’d still been a little girl, cherished by Dad and spoiled by Mum, ruling the house as though it belonged to me. If I didn’t want to go to school, I threw a tantrum. If I didn’t feel like doing homework, I tossed my exercise book aside.
Of course I knew that plenty of people started working young. But in the world I’d grown up in, nobody went to work before finishing university. Even those who weren’t good at studying stuck it out for the degree.
Take Jiajia. She was merely passing time at university, enjoying a colourful life: a trip today, shopping tomorrow, a film the day after.
A week into the job, I began settling into the routine.
Perhaps watching everyone else day after day was having an effect. Things that had felt strange were gradually becoming familiar.
Now, whenever someone entered and the chorus of “Welcome!” rang out, I bowed almost automatically.
My greatest achievement so far was learning to bend at the waist. I could even manage a reluctant smile.
Saying “Welcome!” aloud was still beyond me. It felt too embarrassing.
This particular bow was my best yet.
When I straightened, several fashionably dressed women were sweeping past, surrounded by an air of luxury and a cloud of perfume.
Jiajia, bringing up the rear, glanced back and spotted me.
With a startled cry, she grabbed one of the girls ahead of her.
“Yijun’s here!”
They all turned.
The cries of surprise came one after another. Columbus discovering a new continent probably hadn’t caused this much excitement.
Jiajia, Zhuang Qian, Huang Yiyi, Li Yan—and Sun Wenyuan, whom I’d fought twice.
The first four crowded around me.
“Yijun! What are you doing here?”
“Is that really you?”
“I thought Jiajia was joking. You really are here!”
“I can’t believe it. Yijun, is that actually you?”
“It really is Yijun!”
They stared until they were finally satisfied that I was indeed Tang Yijun, then inspected my clothes as though I were an exhibit.
Seeing me dressed like this was a novelty, a once-in-a-century spectacle they couldn’t get enough of.
Sun Wenyuan kept her distance. She appeared to be looking elsewhere, but every sidelong glance was directed at us.
“I’m working. Could you keep it down?” I snapped.
At last, the flock of chattering sparrows quietened a little.
The temper I’d worked so hard to contain had returned the moment they appeared.
On the surface, these girls were my friends. They treated me politely and smiled prettily. But none of them meant well. They’d come to enjoy the spectacle of me working here.
“We came especially to see you.”
“That’s right!”
“Let’s go inside and talk.”
They began trying to usher me further into the hotel.
I wasn’t about to let them push me around.
“Can’t you see I’m working?”
“Oh, please. Working?”
“How much can you possibly earn?”
“Jiajia, we’ll have a word with Feiyang in a minute.”
“What’s wrong with taking a little break?”
“We’ll back you up. We’ll explain it to him.”
“Or we could ask Jingyi to call him.”
Huang Yiyi turned towards Sun Wenyuan.
“Why don’t you get your cousin to call Feiyang?”
“Are you finished yet?” Sun Wenyuan retorted. “Are we going in or not?”
Jingyi? Sun Wenyuan’s cousin?
Who was she, and what did she have to do with Ji Feiyang?
My colleagues were watching me strangely.
Where had I found this crowd of wealthy young women?
Perhaps the rumours were true, and I was a rich girl too. But what was a rich girl doing in a job like this?
She must have something wrong with her.