Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Some people are still alive, but she is already dead.

A few days later, he showed up at the agreed-upon time.

Seeing how hot it was outside, I kindly suggested he change into something cooler, but he declined. He simply took off his suit jacket and carefully hung it on the rack.

Looking at him in that prim shirt and dress pants, with his tie knotted so perfectly there wasn’t a gap to be found, I nearly laughed.

Was he bundled up that tightly because he was afraid I’d sneak a peek?

With the weather this hot, he inevitably broke into a light sweat. In places, the fabric had grown damp and faintly translucent, revealing broad shoulders, a firm chest, and the strong slope where his trapezius met his collarbone.

I admired the view for a while, then casually started chatting with him. “So, does your company have a lot of male housekeepers?”

“No, ma’am.”

Holding a cleaning rag, he smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

“Our company is rather small. At the moment, it’s just me and the auntie who got scared off that day.”

Me: “?”

What kind of precious little company was this? Two people from top to bottom?

After working for more than two hours, he had cleaned out over a dozen garbage bags. I felt a little guilty, so I poured him a glass of lemonade. “Have some water. Rest a bit before you go.”

“All right. Thank you.”

He was truly too polite, too courteous in the way he dealt with people. It made him genuinely likable-so I couldn’t help booking his next service. “But with only two people in your company, can you keep up with the workload?”

“It’s not too bad.” He lifted the rim of the glass to his lips, every movement rather pleasing to the eye. “Yesterday, the company hired two new employees from outside. We’ll have four people very soon.”

Wow. What a massive corporation.

“…Then congratulations.”

Though in my opinion, a small business owner living hand to mouth like this might see his company go under any day and end up saddled with a mountain of debt. That wasn’t much better than being a regular employee.

Once he got onto a topic that excited him, he finally showed a bit of emotion. A smile appeared at the corners of his lips. “Speaking of which, we had a team-building event together a few days ago. Would you like to see the photos?”

“Sure.”

But when I leaned over to look, I noticed that one of the people had a rather strange expression.

“Huh? Is this person making a face?”

“No. He can only open one eye. He was born that way.”

“Oh.”

I fell silent. It took me a long while to react. “So you hire people with disabilities?”

“Yes.”

“Then their work must be affected. How do you calculate their pay?”

“We use an A/B pay system. The more they do, the more they earn. The less they do, the less they earn.”

“Are they willing to accept that?”

Meeting my surprised gaze, he smiled apologetically. “Compared to having no income, it’s already quite good.”

“Not everyone gets to choose.”

Before leaving, he left behind a raven-black hard plastic business card. Printed on it in bright ink was a lion’s head wearing a crown, the colors so bold and imposing that it looked extremely upscale. Anyone who didn’t know better might think it belonged to some multinational corporation.

Then I looked at the lower right corner, where the same bright ink had printed an eye-catching name-Brand Principal of Yishi Housekeeping, Xie Cheng.