Waking up this early after falling asleep at night was a rare occurrence. Shan Yu reached for his phone and glanced at the time; it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet.
Whether he had slept enough or not, once he was awake, it was hard to fall back asleep. If he were at Dayin, he would get up now, look out the window at the staff tidying up the garden, the employees sweeping the small path outside, and the tourists who were out for an early morning stroll.
But now he was at home. When he opened his eyes, it took him several seconds to find the familiar in the unfamiliar room.
As expected, Chen Jian, who woke up around seven every day, had not contacted him yet. Shan Yu smiled.
That’s just how he was. Even though he had told him to call when he woke up, he would still wait until around Shan Yu’s usual waking time, afraid of waking him up too early and causing him to lose sleep.
After washing up and changing his clothes, Shan Yu smelled the aroma of breakfast as he walked out of the bedroom towards the dining room.
His parents were already sitting at the table, looking as if they had finished their breakfast.
“Good morning, CEO Shan,” his mom said, looking up at him and greeting him. “Did you sleep well?”
“It was okay,” Shan Yu smiled. “I fell asleep.”
“You’re up?” his dad turned his head, staring at his face as if to confirm whether what he said was true. “Have some breakfast. Are you accompanying your mom to the hospital today?”
“Yeah,” Shan Yu nodded and glanced at the kitchen. “Did you make breakfast yourselves?”
“How could we? We don’t have the skills for that,” his dad said. “The cleaning lady came early in the morning to make it. We specifically asked her to make your favorites. We just don’t know if your tastes have changed over the years.”
“I still love them. Tastes don’t change that easily,” Shan Yu said, scooping a bowl of porridge for himself—minced meat porridge with some crushed crispy bits, along with a few small shumai.
And so, an unhealthy breakfast of carbohydrates mixed with sugar and oil, with approximately zero protein, was complete.
“What time is the check-up scheduled for?” Shan Yu asked his mom.
“Between 8:30 and 9:00,” his mom said.
Shan Yu sat down, took a bite of a shumai, and glanced at his phone, realizing it was already 8:10. He immediately stood up again.
“No rush,” his mom said. “Go on and eat.”
Shan Yu didn’t move. He stood there and swallowed the bite of shumai before saying, “If we go after I finish eating, won’t we have to reschedule your hospital appointment?”
“It’s no big deal,” his mom said. “We can just wait in the ward. Eat your food.”
Shan Yu hesitated for a moment before sitting back down and taking a sip of porridge.
“You’re not leaving yet?” his mom glanced at his dad. “Didn’t you say you have a seminar this morning?”
“I’ll leave after he finishes eating,” his dad said, looking at Shan Yu. “In case he wants something else to eat, I’ll go buy it.”
“Why don’t you just stand next to him,” his mom said. “Hand him a towel to wipe his hands or something. And then have him give you a ten-yuan tip.”
His dad laughed.
Shan Yu smiled and took a sip of water. “If you have something to do, just go. This is enough for me.”
“Alright then, I’ll just go and show my face,” his dad stood up. “Eat slowly.”
Although his mom told him not to rush, Shan Yu still finished his breakfast quickly. The last shumai was swallowed as he stepped into the elevator.
He was just wondering if he still knew the way if he were to drive, but when he got to the garage, he found that the assistant, Xiao Ye, was already standing at the garage door.
“Is Xiao Ye driving?” Shan Yu asked.
His mom used to drive herself. She had quite the entourage now.
“Yeah,” his mom nodded, then leaned in and whispered in his ear, “My presbyopia has gotten a bit worse these past two years. I already had astigmatism, so it’s a bit hard to see clearly, especially when driving at night.”
“Then it’s safer to have someone drive,” Shan Yu nodded.
He suddenly felt a pang of sadness. All his memories of his mother were stuck five or six years in the past. The mother from back then was a superwoman who seemed like she would never grow old—decisive, fearless, and full of vigor.
Now, she was starting to get sick, starting to be afraid, starting to have presbyopia.
As the car drove out of the garage, Shan Yu sat in the back with his mom. He took out his phone from his inner pocket and checked it. Chen Jian hadn’t called him or sent a message yet.
The nerve of him!
Just as he was about to send a message to scold him, his phone rang.
It was from Chen Jian.
Shan Yu waited for two seconds before answering the call. “Hello?”
“Are you up?” Chen Jian asked from the other end.
“I’m already out the door,” Shan Yu said.
“So early?” Chen Jian was stunned. “Are you going to the hospital with your mom?”
“Yes, she has a check-up this morning,” Shan Yu said, glancing at his mom.
“Are you in the car?” Chen Jian’s voice suddenly became softer.
Shan Yu smiled. “Yeah.”
“Are you driving?” Chen Jian asked.
“No,” Shan Yu said.
“You’re letting your mom drive?” Chen Jian was very surprised, but his voice was still very soft, afraid that CEO Liu would hear him.
“Her assistant is driving,” Shan Yu said.
“Oh,” Chen Jian paused. “Then you still can’t compare to CEO Liu. Your assistant just scheduled his third driving test.”
Shan Yu couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s fine, he should be able to get his license before the end of the year.”
“Quiet down,” Chen Jian said. “Call me back when you’re free at the hospital. I have something to tell you.”
“Go ahead,” Shan Yu said. “It’s still half an hour to the hospital.”
“It’s rush hour, it’ll be more than forty minutes,” Xiao Ye said softly.
“Oh, it’ll be more than forty minutes,” Shan Yu said.
“Two things. I’ll start with the short one,” Chen Jian said. “Just now, there was an argument at Liangye. A waiter got into a fight with Da Li and almost stabbed him with a modified screwdriver.”
“You guys stopped them, right?” Shan Yu asked.
“Yeah,” Chen Jian replied. “How did you know?”
“Their staff are all young girls. If you guys hadn’t gone over to stop them, who could Da Li fight with his physique?” Shan Yu said. “He would have been stabbed into a showerhead by now.”
His mom laughed beside him.
“That waiter refuses to stay at Liangye and wants to come to our place to rest,” Chen Jian continued in a low voice. “I was afraid of making too much of a scene, so I let him come over. How do we handle this now?”
“Why were they fighting?” Shan Yu asked.
“He hasn’t had a day off in two months, and he was apparently caught resting in the storage room. Now he wants to ask for leave, but Da Li won’t approve it, so he exploded,” Chen Jian said. “From the way he’s acting… what if he says he wants to stay at our place?”
“What do you think?” Shan Yu asked back.
“Although we should help if we can…” Chen Jian said, “we don’t have any positions to pull him into right now. Lao Si and Lao Wu were supposed to go for apprenticeships before the end of the year, but now they haven’t left…”
“Even if we had a position, we can’t keep him,” Shan Yu said. “This person is too unpredictable, and we don’t know his background like we do with Chen Erhu and the others. Keeping him could cause trouble in the future.”
“Yeah,” Chen Jian replied. “I understand now.”
“Be tactful about it. If he wants to leave, have Chen Erhu drive him to town,” Shan Yu said. “Don’t let him hold a grudge… Do I need to teach you how to say it?”
“Tactfully? You’re going to teach me?” Chen Jian said. “If you teach me, I’m afraid he’ll want to poke me with the screwdriver after I’m done talking.”
Shan Yu laughed out loud.
“There’s another thing, and this one is very troublesome,” Chen Jian’s voice was suddenly full of sorrow. You could hear the frown in his voice. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Go on, what is it that can’t be handled?” Shan Yu said.
“Lao Ding just called. He wants us to go to a meeting in the city. It’s some meeting for key tourist attractions held by the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism. Our Dayin has to participate,” Chen Jian said.
“When?” Shan Yu asked.
“Next Monday,” Chen Jian said. “That’s in two days.”
“Well, isn’t that a good thing?” Shan Yu said.
“The matter itself is good, but who’s going?” Chen Jian hissed, keeping his voice down. “It’s a city-level meeting! It’s all restaurant representatives, B&B representatives, tourism project managers…”
“Besides us, who else from the town is going?” Shan Yu asked.
“So many people. The biggest events I’ve ever attended in my life were opening and closing ceremonies for school,” Chen Jian didn’t hear what he said at all. “And Lao Ding said, I might have to speak, possibly give a speech! Boss! What if I have to give a speech? I almost had a breakdown just from our staff meetings…”
Chen Jian was so engrossed in his nervousness that he forgot to control his volume. The voice coming from the earpiece grew louder and louder. CEO Liu, sitting next to him, heard everything clearly and finally turned her head away to laugh.
“Hey,” Shan Yu laughed, interrupting Chen Jian. “I’m asking you, who else is going?”
“Oh,” Chen Jian came back to his senses. “Besides Dayin, there’s Banshan Restaurant and the people from the rafting place, plus Lao Ding.”
“Then Dayin is getting a lot of attention this time,” Shan Yu thought for a moment. “Don’t be nervous. Four representatives from Red Leaf Town are going. Even if it’s only for key tourist attractions, there won’t be too few people. Even if they ask you to speak, it’ll only be two or three sentences. What are you afraid of?”
“…So I’m really the one going?” Chen Jian was stunned.
“You know more about the B&B and the town than Lao Ding and the others. Of all the businesses going, none of them are truly born-and-raised locals,” Shan Yu said unhurriedly. “You have the most confidence.”
Chen Jian didn’t speak, seeming to be thinking.
“Take a look at the document I sent to Lu Yun on my computer,” Shan Yu said. “If you really have to give a speech, just find a few sentences from it to summarize and say.”
“Who is Lu Yun?” Chen Jian asked.
“Director Lu. The character has a ‘tian’ (田) radical and a ‘yun’ (匀) on the side,” Shan Yu said.
“Is that a real character?” Chen Jian probably tried to write it out in his mind.
“Yes, it means flat and even,” Shan Yu said.
“As expected of the boss, you even know this,” Chen Jian said.
“I looked it up,” Shan Yu said.
Chen Jian paused, then laughed a few seconds later. “Damn.”
“You still have a few days, you’ll be fine if you prepare,” Shan Yu said. “If you really made me go, I’d go to the bathroom during the speech segment.”
“You…” Chen Jian paused, then sighed. “You wouldn’t. But I also know you probably can’t go. It’s not good to come back home for just two days and then run off again.”
“Chen Jian,” Shan Yu called his name.
“Don’t call me by my name,” Chen Jian said anxiously in a low voice. “Your mother will hear and know it’s me.”
“…She can’t know?” Shan Yu asked.
“I don’t know, it’s just a bit embarrassing. I keep thinking about the last time I answered her call. It was too awkward,” Chen Jian said.
Shan Yu smiled without saying anything.
After a while, Chen Jian seemed to have remembered something and asked in a whisper, almost breathing the words, “Does she know?”
“What?” Shan Yu’s lips curved into a smile.
“It’s just…” Chen Jian started, then stopped. “Why don’t you activate that superpower of yours?”
“Yeah, she does,” Shan Yu smiled. “She knows.”
“I… damn,” Chen Jian’s exclamation sounded like he had a stomach ache. “Then let’s leave it at that for now. You go be with your mom.”
“Go look at that document and prepare,” Shan Yu said. “Also, take note of the key points from the meeting. You have to report back to me.”
“Got it, got it, boss,” Chen Jian said in a rapid, low voice.
“Go get busy,” Shan Yu said.
“Yeah,” Chen Jian replied. “I’m hanging up now.”
“Yeah,” Shan Yu replied, but didn’t hang up.
On the other end, Chen Jian didn’t hang up either. After a few seconds, he asked, “Are you waiting for me to hang up first?”
“No,” Shan Yu said.
“I miss you a lot,” Chen Jian said in a whisper. “Especially when I think about having to go to the meeting by myself on Monday. It makes me miss you even more.”
“Yeah,” Shan Yu smiled. “Hang up.”
“Aren’t you going to that meeting?” his mom asked after Chen Jian had hung up.
“No, I just got back,” Shan Yu said. “He gets nervous, but when it comes to serious business, he can always get it done.”
“You should still go if you have time. From the sound of it, he’s so scared his hair is about to stand on end,” his mom said. “He’s still young, after all, about the same age as Liu Wu.”
“Well, he’s much more reliable than Liu Wu,” Shan Yu said.
“Oh,” his mom said. “Liu Wu probably shouldn’t hear that.”
“As long as you don’t snitch,” Shan Yu said.
“Can’t say for sure,” his mom said.
Shan Yu smiled and turned to look at her.
“Even if I told him, it wouldn’t affect him,” his mom smiled. “Back then, your aunt went to so much trouble to stop him from following you around all the time. It was completely useless.”
“Back then, I…” Shan Yu sighed softly.
“There was nothing wrong with you back then. Sometimes I didn’t want you to always take him with you because I was a bit annoyed,” his mom said. “Just to show your aunt, see? You can’t even chase him away.”
“Are you childish or what?” Shan Yu smiled.
“Can’t be helped,” his mom shrugged. “Being too mature makes you age faster.”
Xiao Ye was very familiar with the roads. She took a few shortcuts that Shan Yu didn’t even recognize. By the time they arrived at the hospital, it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet, so they could make it for his mom’s check-up.
Shan Yu accompanying his mom was really just accompanying her. He wasn’t familiar with this hospital. It was mostly Xiao Ye who was busy. His job was to be his mother’s mascot.
While his mom was inside for her check-up, Shan Yu waited in the corridor with Xiao Ye.
“Were you not in the country before?” Xiao Ye asked him.
“Well… not exactly,” if it were someone else, he would have directly said he was in prison. But this was someone from his mom’s company, so he didn’t dare to be so brazen. “But it’s true that I haven’t been home in a few years.”
“CEO Liu is in a particularly good mood today,” Xiao Ye said. “You can feel it. You should come back to see her more often when you have time.”
“…Yeah,” Shan Yu nodded. “How long have you been her assistant?”
“Two years,” Xiao Ye smiled. “But I joined the company right after graduating from university. I was an office secretary for the two years before that.”
“That’s impressive,” Shan Yu said.
“CEO Liu mentored me. I used to make mistakes all the time,” Xiao Ye said. “She taught me step by step.”
The use of the word “also” was probably because Xiao Ye had heard his phone call with Chen Jian in the car.
“You and your mom are very similar,” Xiao Ye said.
Shan Yu smiled. “She is my biological mother, after all.”
Xiao Ye was very busy. Even while sitting on a chair in the corridor, she was holding a folder and making calls constantly.
Shan Yu walked to the window and also made a call.
Although he wanted Chen Jian to go to that meeting, he still needed to understand some things first.
“Hello,” Yao Yi’s voice came through.
“Busy?” Shan Yu said.
“Not busy,” Yao Yi said. “Are you back?”
“Arrived yesterday afternoon,” Shan Yu said. “Want to take your husband out for a meal tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Yao Yi smiled. “What do you need me for?”
“So perceptive,” Shan Yu said.
“When have you ever asked me out for a meal?” Yao Yi said.
“Are you familiar with the people from the culture and tourism bureau over there?” Shan Yu asked.
“So-so. We sometimes meet at provincial meetings,” Yao Yi said. “It depends on who it is.”
“Lu Yun, do you know him?” Shan Yu asked.
“Not very familiar, but I know of him. A workaholic type with a boundless future,” Yao Yi said. “He’s the deputy director of the resource development department there. What’s up?”
“He visited Dayin a while ago,” Shan Yu said.
“Then your town has a chance,” Yao Yi said. “He promoted several ancient villages as soon as he came into office this year. It was quite successful.”
“Then the meeting we’re going to next week should also be his…” Shan Yu said. “Then I understand.”
“Do you want me to put in a good word for you?” Yao Yi asked.
“Aren’t you not familiar with him?” Shan Yu said.
“I know people who are familiar with him,” Yao Yi said.
“Save it for later,” Shan Yu said. “I was just asking about the meeting. There’s no need to use such a big connection.”
“Quite invested, aren’t you, Boss Shan,” Yao Yi said with a laugh. “Are you planning to settle down in the small town for the long haul?”
“I’m idle anyway,” Shan Yu said.
When Shan Yu’s computer turned on, Chen Jian was stunned. The desktop background was a photo of the two of them from the barbecue party in the garden. Although it wasn’t just the two of them in the picture—the staff of Dayin were also there—it was still a bit… He didn’t know when Shan Yu had changed it.
But if it were someone else, they might not have been able to see it clearly at first glance.
Because the entire desktop was filled with folders and files. Their faces were covered with them.
Chen Jian didn’t even know where to start looking for that document from that day.
He could only look through the folders one by one.
After looking at a few, he stopped. Besides some of Dayin’s usual work stuff, like salaries and schedules, there were also many things related to B&B management, as well as a lot of stuff related to tourism development, news articles, essays…
Chen Jian leaned back in his chair and sat there in a daze for a while.
Then he took out his phone, took a picture, and sent it to Shan Yu.
[Chen Yu Luo Yan]: Which one is it in?
Shan Yu quickly replied. It was the same photo, but with an arrow drawn on it and the handwritten words “Poke it.”
Chen Jian was reminded of the previous “Chop here” and couldn’t help but sit there laughing to himself for a long time.
