First Encounter

The next day when Xu Anyi woke up, it was almost noontime already. She must have been very tired, as she used to wake up early in the morning every day while in prison.

The room was silent and she slowly sat up on the bed, looking down at the clothes she wore out of the prison. Although the clothes were too large for her, you could still tell how skinny and scrawny she was underneath the wrinkled fabric.

She couldn't even recognize herself.

Five years ago, she was still the confident and sexy Xu Anyi, with a skinny but perfectly curvy body. It wasn't clothes that made her look good, she made clothes look good.

The old Xu Anyi was a fashion icon in the upper class society, and even many luxury brands wanted her to model for them, although she rejected most offers because Lu Yuzhe did not want her to model.

Now. . . Xu Anyi placed one hand over her stomach. The years she spent in jail eating the prison food made her look like just skin and bones, a living skeleton.

She wore the same grey shirt and grey pants she came from jail, something she would have never worn before. She was nothing like the old Xu Anyi. . .

She took a deep breath and shook her head, opening the curtains as she climbed out of bed. She was surprised to see that Lan Yu was the only one in the room, reading a book at the table.

When she heard the noise, she turned around and smiled at her, saying, "Good morning."

Xu Anyi climbed down from the bed and glanced at her, "Good morning."

Then, she entered the restroom and took a quick cold shower, and then she left the room.

Outside, Xu Anyi walked past Yihua and began walking down the streets, looking around. After what had happened at Yihua yesterday, she knew that she could not stay there for long.

Not only would she meet too many familiar people, she also did not want to stay as a dishwasher forever. Perhaps there were other possible jobs where she wouldn't meet as many familiar upper class people.

She did not have any money, so she could only walk in the chilly February weather, looking around the busy city. After five years, it seemed like the city had changed greatly, but at the same time, nothing seemed to have changed.

She walked around for at least an hour, occasionally entering some shops and buildings, but nowhere was hiring, or at least no one wanted to hire her.

Xu Anyi began walking back as her head started to hurt, probably from hunger, and she sighed as she reached Yihua again. She would probably have to stay here for the time being.

Before long, it was nighttime already, and Xu Anyi quickly changed into her worker's clothes again as she entered the kitchen in the back.

The other workers glanced over at her as she walked in, and many of them began muttering amongst themselves as they looked at her unpleasantly.

Somehow, news of what happened yesterday night had spread already, and many workers knew how she had offended the customers in a VIP room last night. Along with Xin Tong and Lin Xiaoxiao's dramatic stories on how she was trying to seduce upper-class men, everyone seemed to despise her now.

However, she did not care as she did her job and washed the plates quietly in the corner of the room.

Lan Yu was not with her tonight, and time seemed to pass by very slowly as she worked alone. Before long, it was midnight already and she removed her gloves after finishing a pile of dishes, looking at the clock to see that there were still ten minutes before her shift was over.

She looked around, wondering if she could leave early, when one of the leaders for the Back walked over and looked at her, "Are you done with the dishes?"

She nodded.

"Good. Go to floor 16 to change the bedsheets in all of the empty rooms. The cart with clean bedsheets is outside and there is a list of all the rooms on there."

Xu Anyi glanced at the clock again, "But my shift is over in ten minutes."

The middle-aged woman raised one eyebrow at her, "So?! Everyone works overtime! If you can't do your job properly, then leave."

Xu Anyi looked at the woman, and after a tense moment of silence, she nodded and walked out of the kitchen. Outside, there was a large housekeeping cart filled with clean bedsheets and blankets, and a sheet of paper on top listed all of the rooms that needed to have their bedsheets changed.

Although the Yihua Club was a bar, it was only on the first seven floors, with the seventh floor being exclusively VIP rooms. However, the Club also had 20 more floors, and floors 8 to 27 were all hotel rooms, to make it more convenient for guests who got drunk at the bar or needed to open a hotel room after partying.

Xu Anyi pushed the cart up to the 16th floor, and began going through each room to change the bedsheets.

It took her over an hour before she finally finished, and she was beginning to feel light-headed as she stumbled back down to the first floor with barely enough energy to continue pushing the cart.

When she stepped out of the elevator, she paused for a moment as the world seemed to spin for a second. She shook her head and took a deep breath, turning a corner to push the cart back to the storage room in the back.

After returning the cart, she left the storage room to return to her dorm, half asleep, but just as she turned a corner, she almost bumped into a man, which immediately woke her up.

"I'm sorry," she said immediately as she glanced up at the man, who was a head taller than her.

The man was wearing a completely black suit that accentuated his broad shoulders and long legs, and he had one hand casually placed in his pant pocket. He did not look at her as he turned the corner and walked to a locked elevator that had the words VIP Only written on top of it.

Behind him, another man that wore a dark blue suit and glasses followed closely behind him, glancing at Xu Anyi before he also turned the corner and entered the elevator, which opened after the man entered a long password into the keypad.

Xu Anyi watched them enter the elevator and then she turned around to leave, but before she could even take one step forward, she suddenly froze as a thought flashed in her mind and several images seemed to run through her brain at once.

That man. . .

The elevator doors slowly slid close, and there was only an inch left between the two doors when suddenly, a thin hand reached into the door and stopped the doors from shutting.

The man in the dark blue suit frowned as he watched the doors slowly open again, and the female worker who had almost bumped into his boss a second ago appeared in the doorway.

Xu Anyi's heartbeat sped up as she pushed the doors open again, and she looked straight into the elevator, her eyes landing on the man standing right in the middle.

She felt her heart skip a beat.

"Si Mu!"

--- Author's Note:

Ooh I wonder who that could be ^o^

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