How Did The Young Lady Go Bankrupt? - Chapter 14

Chapter 14: The Obedient Her

The result of not getting proper sleep in the middle of the night was being completely unable to wake up the next morning.

Even Lu Zhiyao found it difficult to get out of bed. When she woke up and checked her watch, as expected, her sleep score had plummeted to an all-time low. Duan Zishu had become a deaf person; she didn’t respond no matter how many times she was called.

“If you don’t want to get up, just take the day off,” Lu Zhiyao said, sitting by the sofa.

Upon hearing this, Duan Zishu, who had been keeping her eyes closed and playing dead, opened them and looked over in disbelief. People are like this, they complain all day long, acting like they’re dying, wanting to quit their jobs, but the moment you tell them to actually stop working, they’re unwilling. The result is just dragging themselves through years of miserable, back-breaking labor.

“What?” Lu Zhiyao looked truly indifferent. “The boss didn’t give me any company shares; what does it matter to me if her employee takes a day off?”

“…” Duan Zishu didn’t say anything, but rolled off the sofa in one motion.

“Whatever,” Lu Zhiyao said, ignoring her. She tied her frog-shaped hairband around her head and went into the bathroom to wash up. “I won’t be calling you next time.”

Duan Zishu, who had no choice but to go to work, looked like she had aged ten years. She didn’t seem enthusiastic about anything, and finally spoke up when they looked at the little electric scooter outside. “Is this job… absolutely necessary?”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Of course, Lu Zhiyao didn’t want Duan Zishu shaking bubble tea for the rest of her life. She just wanted her to be self-sufficient while maintaining a normal routine. Once someone starts hibernating at home, it ruins their mental state.

Just like that, she temporarily arranged for Duan Zishu to work at the front desk.

Front-desk work wasn’t as easy as one might imagine, because many customers had poor articulation or limited ability to express themselves, and you couldn’t afford to lose your temper with them. It could be quite taxing during busy hours. However, it was also a relatively simple, repetitive task that didn’t require much learning.

After a few days at the front desk, Duan Zishu moved to the back kitchen. Peeling grapes, boiling tea, and making ice cubes—a monkey could learn it.

Little Zhang suggested stealing a few monkeys from the rainforest to outsource these repetitive tasks so they could have an easier time.

“Forget it. What if your position gets replaced by a monkey?”

“How could that be?” Little Zhang argued fervently. “I know how to mix bubble tea according to the recipe; how could I be replaced?”

“Do you think that’s some kind of work a monkey can’t do?” Lu Zhiyao muttered while wiping a glass.

They all laughed, except for Duan Zishu, who remained quiet. Being together for these few days had made everyone more familiar with her; they no longer treated her like she was invisible when things got busy. Yet, Duan Zishu didn’t speak much and almost never initiated small talk, so everyone assumed she just wasn’t very easy to approach.

Lu Zhiyao nudged Duan Zishu with her elbow. “Try chatting with everyone.”

“Why?”

“It’s good for your physical and mental health,” Lu Zhiyao smiled. “Isn’t that what you told me when you were asking for a hug?”

“That’s different,” Duan Zishu whispered.

Lu Zhiyao didn’t say more, watching the others talk as usual, interjecting a sentence every now and then. Duan Zishu glanced at her, then looked at the chatting staff members. They had already arrived at a great conclusion: let the monkeys replace the boss. That way, the business wouldn’t be affected, and they wouldn’t be optimized out of their jobs by the monkeys.

“Actually…” Duan Zishu spoke up.

Everyone looked over. Duan Zishu never initiated small talk, so they thought it might be work-related.

“Monkeys aren’t capable of long-term repetitive work. At most, they’d go on strike after two hours,” Duan Zishu said. “So, you… ahem, so we don’t have to worry about being replaced by monkeys.”

Everyone fell silent.

“Even if I raised their wages, no monkey would want to keep working?” Little Zhang asked first.

Duan Zishu pursed her lips, seemingly thinking seriously. “No,” she said. “Besides, there are no scabs among monkeys.”

Seeing the look on Little Zhang’s face, Lu Zhiyao burst out laughing.

“It seems we aren’t as free as monkeys,” Little Zhang said, cutting a lemon and looking silently toward the horizon.

The group went back to their laughing and joking. If someone initiated a conversation with Duan Zishu, she could keep up. Her deadpan expression combined with her startlingly out-of-place content counted as a form of humor. Although she still didn’t talk much in general, she was slowly being accepted. No one thought she was hard to get along with anymore; a stranger who doesn’t talk is “pretentious,” but a familiar face who doesn’t talk is just “having a personality.”

Duan Zishu was like that back in the day, too. It wasn’t that she was especially quiet; she just wasn’t keen on currying favor with others. Back then, she had money, so even if she held herself in high regard, nobody said a word. It was the same now; although people didn’t fawn over Duan Zishu for her money anymore, she wasn’t some social pariah who didn’t understand how to communicate. They had been working together for many days now; as long as you chatted for a few minutes, you’d become more familiar. Plus, Duan Zishu’s appearance aligned with mainstream beauty standards—who wouldn’t want to chat with her for a while?

Even though she didn’t talk much, people were still willing to associate with her.

Watching Duan Zishu work among her colleagues, occasionally chiming in, Lu Zhiyao felt like she was seeing the past again. Back then, Duan Zishu was a member of the high school student council. She was the same during meetings—few words, rarely expressing opinions—but anyone could tell she was the central figure.

The images of the past and present gradually overlapped, but then again, these colleagues were not the student council members of her youth. They weren’t following Duan Zishu; they were just having a chat with her. Even so, the slightly similar scene made Lu Zhiyao smile.

Her smile didn’t last long. Soon, she cleared a pile of trash from the kitchen and prepared to take it to the dumpster in the back alley. As she opened the back door, just as she was about to close it, a hand braced against the door, and Duan Zishu stepped out. Not a single sound—Lu Zhiyao thought she was perfectly suited to work in a haunted house.

“How was it?”

“Hmm?”

“How did I do?”

How did you do what? Lu Zhiyao thought it over. Duan Zishu hadn’t learned any new tasks that morning; she’d stayed at the front desk and hadn’t dealt with anything special, so why would she need an evaluation? Suddenly, she realized that Duan Zishu might be talking about chatting with the staff.

She hadn’t forced her, yet she took it as a task and finished it?

Lu Zhiyao realized that Duan Zishu’s past interactions with student council members were because they had to communicate as fellow members. Her interactions with the classmates surrounding her were because the adults of the previous generation had business ties. The bubble tea shop colleagues were likely filed away in the “no need to communicate” category. If Lu Zhiyao hadn’t spoken up, Duan Zishu probably wouldn’t have initiated a conversation.

That makes sense. Even Lu Zhiyao didn’t think Duan Zishu would work here forever, and Duan Zishu certainly didn’t think so either. Chatting with colleagues wouldn’t lead to a raise, and she might quit any day, so there was really no need for interpersonal formalities.

It was because of her own offhand comment. Lu Zhiyao hadn’t really thought much about it at the time. Duan Zishu was more obedient than she’d imagined; she’d always thought the “young miss” hated being told what to do.

Look at the way her eyebrows were arched high—she probably thought she’d done a great job, right?

Actually, she had done a great job, but unexpectedly, she didn’t feel very happy about it. She was no different from any other employee at the bubble tea shop. If they hadn’t met in high school, probably—no, definitely—she would have been in that “no need to communicate” group as well.

Lu Zhiyao felt it was strange to think that way, but she was thinking it—the other person acted according to her wishes, yet she wasn’t happy about it.

She remembered her mother. When she was little, her grades weren’t good, and although her mother spent all day drinking, she would express dissatisfaction. But later, when her grades skyrocketed and she was invited to a private school with a scholarship, her mother hadn’t been particularly happy either. She had excitedly told her mother that this could save a huge sum of money, but her mother just looked at the admission letter with a complex expression.

That look might have been the same as the one she was wearing now.

Lu Zhiyao actually respected her mother quite a bit, despite the resentment she felt toward the mother who neglected her childhood because of her own unfulfilled frustrations. But her mother had once been brilliant; it was only after being pushed aside and struck by misfortune that she had become the way she was now. As a child, she could understand that.

But respect is one thing. When Lu Zhiyao realized her mindset was somewhat similar to her mother’s, her first reaction was disgust.

“You did a good job,” Lu Zhiyao said, casting those messy thoughts to the back of her mind. “Let’s buy fried chicken for dinner.”

Duan Zishu’s eyebrows dipped.

Lu Zhiyao laughed twice: “As a side dish, of course; we’ll have other things too.”

Having said that, she tossed the trash into the bin, clapped her hands, and prepared to head back.

The reason she felt this way was because “chatting with colleagues” was only a trivial matter, she’d done it while she was at it, and maybe she could even ask for a reward; it couldn’t be taken as proof of how obedient the other person was. Lu Zhiyao quickly gave herself a reasonable explanation.

She still didn’t know why her mother looked at her admission letter with that complex expression, so how could she say her state of mind was similar to her mother’s?

She returned to the inside of the bubble tea shop—the place where she had worked for so long. Once inside, her body seemed to be automatically taken over, returning to her station. Do more work, think less.

Duan Zishu had just followed her to the back alley under the guise of going to the restroom. The front desk was empty, and Little Zhang had taken over taking orders.

“Jasmine Milk Green Tea, 30% sugar.”

A short-haired girl walked over to order. She had several piercings in her ears and a lot of accessories. She looked quite young, likely a student from the nearby university.

“Alright, one moment,” Little Zhang said, taking the order as usual.

Upon hearing Little Zhang’s voice, the girl, who had been looking down at her phone, looked up. She paused, and a flash of light crossed her eyes. She glanced at Little Zhang’s nametag and suddenly said, “Hello, Big Sister, can I add you on social media?”

“Huh?” Little Zhang was bewildered. She said hesitantly, “Customer, are you participating in the store’s social media repost-for-coupon event?”

The girl shook her head.

“I’m too abrupt.” She smiled, revealing a row of white teeth. “If you can’t have private contacts during work hours, I can wait for you after your shift. If you feel it’s too offensive, I’ll leave right now.”

Little Zhang was even more bewildered.

The several other employees, including Lu Zhiyao, saw the hold-up at the front desk and thought there was some sort of dispute. When they came over to figure out what was going on, they all revealed knowing smiles.

Little Zhang had just been struck by a bolt of romantic luck.