Chapter 75
Chapter 75
“Those money-laundering methods Xiao Si suggested are excellent. Whether we use domestic or overseas channels, we can completely evade police detection. Who would’ve thought that after running our money through the process once, every cent would come out clean? Hahaha…”
Brother Dao was delighted. As he spoke, he even put down his chopsticks and clapped Si Wuming twice on the shoulder.
Si Wuming silently continued eating. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Yun Jianyue waiting in line for food. He ignored Brother Dao and turned to look at her, only to find that she was staring right back at him.
He knew that look well. She was clearly asking: Why did he get to eat at the round table?
When Si Wuming turned his head, Brother Dao and the others followed his gaze and saw Yun Jianyue grinding her teeth.
Seeing everyone staring at her, Yun Jianyue dropped the act and walked straight over. “When will I get to eat at this table?”
Her question silenced everyone at the table.
They were all key members of the organization who had spent years working their way up before earning a seat here. This girl had only just arrived, and she already wanted to join them at the table?
Brother Dao froze for a moment before bursting into laughter. “Looks like our Xiao Yun has plenty of ambition and guts. Work hard, and one day, you’ll be sitting at this table just like Sister Hong.”
Yun Jianyue pointed at Si Wuming. “Then why does he get to eat here? Didn’t we arrive together?”
Sister Hong was speechless. Wasn’t this girl a little too reckless? She actually dared to question Brother Dao to his face?
Still, this completely dispelled the suspicions that Sister Hong and Brother Dao had harbored. There was no way a girl this brainless could be an undercover agent.
“Xiao Yun, know your place.” Brother Dao’s expression instantly darkened. The girl might not look like an undercover agent, but was her emotional intelligence really this abysmal? If she kept acting out, he wouldn’t mind teaching her a lesson so she understood the rules around here.
Si Wuming swiftly piled a large amount of food into his bowl, then stood up and dumped it all into Yun Jianyue’s bowl. “Is that enough?”
Brother Dao stared at him in disbelief.
Was Si Tiezhu pretending he didn’t exist?!
Yun Jianyue shook her head. “No. Get me some more.”
So Si Wuming took her bowl to the table and began filling it with food. He cleared out half the dishes on the table, and only when Yun Jianyue’s bowl was heaped so high that it couldn’t hold another bite did he finally hand it back to her.
Satisfied at last, Yun Jianyue gave her slender waist a sultry sway and shot Si Wuming a flirtatious wink. “Thank you, Brother Si. Mwah!”
A blush instantly spread across Si Wuming’s cheeks. He spun around as if fleeing and hurried back to his seat, then looked at everyone who had stopped eating. “Aren’t you going to keep eating?”
Brother Dao was grinding his back teeth so hard they were nearly polished smooth. Once Si Tiezhu had outlived his usefulness, Brother Dao would have him beaten and thrown into an underground brothel to service perverted clients!
“Oh my, Xiao Si is blushing,” Sister Hong teased, taking the opportunity to ease the tension at the table.
She had no doubt that Brother Dao currently wanted to drag both Yun Cuihua and Si Tiezhu outside and give them a vicious beating.
Only then did Brother Dao notice that Si Wuming was blushing. He was so angry his head was practically smoking.
Where had this naive fool come from? One flirtatious wink from a pretty girl, and he was already this embarrassed? Could this guy really be in his twenties and still a virgin?
Having a virgin at their table was downright humiliating.
Si Wuming answered honestly, “She’s pretty.”
Sister Hong choked, then burst out laughing. “Well, you’re not wrong.”
It was almost eleven at night when Sister Hong escorted Yun Jianyue and Lu Changxue to the dormitory.
It was called a dormitory, but in reality, it was just one large communal sleeping room.
The twenty-square-meter room was crammed with eight bunk beds. Sixteen people were packed inside, with less than a meter between the beds. Each narrow sleeping space felt like a tiny cage, trapping everyone in the room.
“There are two empty beds inside. Your suitcases have already been brought in. Report for work at six sharp tomorrow morning. You’ll be punished if you’re late. Understood?”
After giving them these instructions from the doorway, Sister Hong turned and left.
Yun Jianyue and Lu Changxue entered the dormitory and found only half its occupants there. The other half were probably working the night shift.
The bunk bed in the middle was still unoccupied, and their suitcases had been placed beside it.
The human and ghost walked over and discovered that their suitcases had been opened.
After checking inside, they found that only their toiletries and clothes remained. Everything else had been confiscated.
A head suddenly poked down from the upper bunk beside theirs. “New here? Were you tricked into coming, or did you come willingly? You’re with Sister Hong? Looks like you’re getting pretty good treatment.”
Yun Jianyue looked up and saw an ordinary-looking young woman. Perhaps it was the dim lighting, but the woman looked sallow and painfully thin.
“You could say we were tricked. But after I got here, I realized this place has excellent prospects, so I’ve decided to work hard and build a career here. What about you?” Yun Jianyue lied through her teeth in an extremely affected, cutesy voice.
The young woman clearly hadn’t expected Yun Jianyue to be so practiced at putting on that voice. After a moment of stunned silence, she said, “You’re certainly optimistic. What are your names?”
“I’m Yun Cuihua, and she’s Lu Erfang. What about you?” Yun Jianyue asked.
“Bai Jie.”
Yun Jianyue fell silent.
She knew it was rude, but the name made her feel as though she had been transported into an erotic webnovel.
One look at Yun Jianyue’s expression told Bai Jie exactly what she was thinking. She rolled her eyes. “My parents gave me that name before the Bai Jie meme existed!”
“Were you tricked into coming here?” Yun Jianyue changed the subject.
“Most people here were. Some trusted people they met online. Some were deceived by relatives. Some had only just left their remote mountain villages when shady employment agents conned them. Others were told that their company’s team-building trip would be overseas and were tricked into coming here.” Bai Jie did not answer directly, but the answer was obvious.
Yun Jianyue asked, “So does everyone want to stay here like I do?”
Bai Jie snorted disdainfully. “Do you honestly think you can make money here? Even if the money reaches your hands, will you get the chance to spend it? Do you think you can leave this place alive with the money?”
“So all of you want to go home, right?” Yun Jianyue asked.
Her words seemed to strike a nerve with one of the other women in the room. The woman shouted, “If you’re not going to sleep, at least let the rest of us sleep! If you want to go home, go tell Brother Dao and Brother Wolf yourselves! See if they don’t beat you to death!”
Yun Jianyue looked toward the voice and saw that the woman had wrapped herself entirely in her blanket, leaving only half the back of her head exposed.
Bai Jie clicked her tongue in annoyance and lowered her voice. “Zhang Ni was the golden phoenix who flew out of an impoverished mountain village after scoring over six hundred on the college entrance exam. But she was tricked into coming to Dongwu almost as soon as she got out. I heard she never even reported to her school. To this day, she still doesn’t know what the campus looks like.
“She had a fierce temper when she first arrived. But after more than a year of being beaten into submission, she no longer dares to make a fuss about going back to school.”
Zhang Ni was the woman who had just yelled at Yun Jianyue.