Chapter 1

After two years of delivering water to Shenghao, I suddenly received a notice from administration.

“From today on, water delivery workers must use the stairs.”

I laughed in disbelief. Thirty-six floors. Eighty jugs a day. They expected us to carry them all up?

“Our contract explicitly permits the freight lift. What gives you the right to change that now?”

The newly appointed administrative director looked me up and down with undisguised disgust.

“The contract also says company rules take precedence. Clients use the freight lift too. You people are drenched in sweat. It damages our image.”

“Other delivery workers can manage stairs. Why do you have so many complaints?”

When Shenghao first moved here two years ago, the location was remote and their water orders small. No one wanted the job.

Their old administrative supervisor had begged me to supply them first and let them pay later.

As the company grew to nearly five hundred employees, I assigned three vehicles and six workers just to ensure their water arrived before ten every morning.

Now they wanted to kick away the ladder they’d climbed.

I stopped arguing and asked only:

“You won’t change the new rule?”

She folded her arms and sneered.

“If you don’t want to deliver, get lost. We’ve installed a direct-drinking water system anyway. It’ll work tomorrow.”

I nodded, told the men to load all the water back onto the truck, and sent a supply-termination notice under our contract.

She thought Shenghao’s new purification system could go straight into use.

But ten minutes earlier, I had received inside information: its water failed quality standards. Approval would take at least six months.

Every water supplier within ten kilometers was already fully booked too.

Tomorrow, Shenghao would hold an investment conference for a thousand people.

I wanted to see how the new director handled a thirty-six-story office building without a single jug of water.

* * *

I was about to lead the crew away when Lin Tingting stepped in front of my trolley.

“Stop! You haven’t delivered today’s eighty jugs. You think you can just leave?”

I frowned.

“You just said delivery workers must use the stairs.”

“There are thirty-six floors. We’re not delivering. I’ll pay the full contract penalty.”

She sneered.

“You should finish what you start. Don’t you know the rules?”

“You will carry every one of today’s eighty jugs upstairs!”

“Otherwise, I’ll withhold this month’s payment.”

“And I’ll expose your terrible service across every major platform and media outlet.”

“Your water station will never work in this industry again!”

Again, I laughed in anger. The woman was impossible.

Gritting my teeth, I called administrative supervisor Wang Lin.

Two years ago, Shenghao moved to this remote development district. They couldn’t even order takeaway, much less water.

Wang Lin came to my station in the burning heat and bought ice cream for several days to build a relationship.

She humbled herself and begged me to supply their fledgling company.

Seeing how hard she worked, I finally accepted that thankless order. I even let them pay each month’s bill at the end of the next month.

The phone rang for a long time.

“Mr. Chen…”

She sounded exhausted.

Suppressing my anger, I quickly explained Lin Tingting’s rule.

“Who makes decisions at Shenghao now, Supervisor Wang? Are we delivering this water or not?”

Unexpectedly, her voice caught.

“Mr. Chen, I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been transferred to the county branch. I have no say here anymore.”

I paused.

“Why? Weren’t you doing well?”

She sighed and began pouring out her grievances.

“The new woman is the deputy general manager’s cousin.”

“Company royalty. She’s been parachuted in to polish her résumé.”

“She wants results fast. Under the banner of raising revenue and cutting costs, she’s turned the place upside down.”

“Printing must be double-sided. Toilet paper was replaced with the cheapest single-ply rubbish; it tears as soon as you use it.”

“No air conditioning below thirty degrees.”

“Everyone curses her behind her back. But who dares offend the deputy manager’s family?”

My frown deepened.

“And drinking water? She wants to save on that too?”

“Of course. In her first month, those penny-pinching tricks saved tens of thousands of yuan.”

“The deputy manager praised her at a meeting. It went straight to her head.”

“Now she’s targeting bottled water. She thinks buying it every day costs too much.”

“So she brought in a purification system to replace you completely.”

I understood the problem.

“Wang Lin, is she mad?”

“Doesn’t she know what stood under that building?”

“It used to be a chemical plant. The groundwater is severely polluted.”

“Never mind ordinary drinking-water equipment. Even industrial filtration wouldn’t make that water meet drinking standards!”

She laughed bitterly.

“You think I didn’t warn her?”

“I brought the old geological report. Guess what she said?”

“She pointed at my nose and accused me of working for you and taking your commission!”

I drew a deep breath.

An idiot with connections, deaf to anyone else.

**Part 2**

After I hung up, Lin Tingting had lost patience.

“Finished? Whoever you beg, it won’t help!”

“Shenghao will never use your cheap bottled water again.”

“But today, even if you have to crawl, you’re delivering those eighty jugs!”

I looked at her arrogant face and suddenly smiled.

“All right, Director Lin. You insist on today’s delivery?”

“I’ll deliver.”

I turned to the crew.

“Plans have changed. We have to take today’s eighty jugs up the stairs.”

They exploded.

“Are you joking, boss?”

“Thirty-six floors! Eighty jugs!”

“You’ll run our legs off. We’ll drop dead in the stairwell!”

I raised a hand to quiet them.

“I know it’s hard.”

“So I’m calling the station now and bringing everyone we can spare.”

“Every man who joins this delivery relay gets five times his usual day’s pay!”

Their eyes lit up.

Within twenty minutes, the station’s small trucks brought more than a dozen men to the building.

Watching, Lin Tingting snorted.

“What good are numbers? Rules are rules. Water doesn’t go in the lift!”

I ignored her and began arranging the work.

“Listen carefully. Water can’t use the lift. People can.”

“Zhang, take four men up empty-handed and wait at the fifth-floor stairwell.”

“Li, take four to the tenth.”

“Wang, the fifteenth.”

“The ground-floor crew carries water to the fifth and hands it over. The fifth-floor team relays it upward.”

“Today, we’re running a thirty-six-floor relay!”

They understood immediately.

“Yes, boss!”

Everyone moved.

The empty-handed men calmly entered the passenger lifts and pressed their floors.

The ground-floor crew shouldered the jugs and headed up the fire stairs.

Lin Tingting’s face turned livid.

“Mr. Chen, you’re bending my rules?”

I answered bluntly.

“You never said people couldn’t use the lift.”

“Your rule keeps water out. We’re following it. What else is wrong?”

“Don’t worry. Bent rules or not, this is the last delivery Shenghao gets from me.”

**Part 3**

The relay began.

Heavy breathing and footsteps filled the fire stairwell.

Sweat dripped from our chins. Our soaked shirts stuck to our backs.

At lunchtime, Shenghao employees came out to use the toilets or get some air.

Seeing the delivery crew drenched from head to foot in the stairwell, they stared.

“Good God. Why are you all taking the stairs?”

A man I usually got on well with asked in surprise.

I wiped my face and answered flatly.

“Your Director Lin’s new rule. Water delivery workers only deserve the stairs.”

He paused, then swore under his breath.

“That woman is bloody mad.”

“She canceled our toilet paper today. We have to bring our own. Now she’s tormenting you too!”

“She really thinks the company is her private kingdom.”

A female employee joined us, full of resentment.

“Don’t mind her, Mr. Chen. She’s insane.”

“I hear the third-party compliance certificate arrives this afternoon.”

“Tomorrow’s thousand-person investment conference will launch her new drinking-water system.”

“She’s forcing you out so her equipment can take over.”

I was startled.

A pass certificate?

On that contaminated chemical-plant land? Not a chance.

I stepped aside and sent a WeChat message to an old classmate, now a supervisor at a third-party environmental testing center.

“Li, what’s going on with Shenghao’s drinking-water test?”

“I remember you said the groundwater was too contaminated for that system.”

He replied quickly.

“Don’t ask, Chen. It’s disgusting.”