Moving Out

Chen Ju stood at the foot of the apartment building with the card in his hand for several minutes. Then he tucked it into his pocket and headed toward his rented room.

The place was a mess. The blankets were still rumpled, and the steamed buns he’d bought that morning were still on the table, hard as rocks and no longer fit to eat.

After wiping down the table, Chen Ju set the bag of gloves on it. He couldn’t bring himself to throw away the hard bun. When he got back in the morning, he could soak it in hot water and eat it.

After tidying up the room, he set an alarm and went to bed.

“All right, that’s it for today. You can all head home and rest. You can take today off in lieu.” At Jiang Zhou’s words, everyone let out a sigh of relief. Who could have guessed that the project, which had been nearly finished, would run into trouble at the last minute? They’d all worked through the night and had only managed to finish it that morning.

The exhausted employees said their goodbyes one by one and left the conference room in small groups. Secretary Liu was the last to go. As he gathered the documents from the table, Jiang Zhou called out to him.

“Did he go back last night?” Jiang Zhou leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, resting. After working through the night, a layer of dark stubble had appeared on his chin.

“Yes. I dropped Mr. Chen off downstairs and gave him the access card.” Secretary Liu knew at once who Jiang Zhou meant.

“Mm. You should go home and rest too. Just leave me the car keys,” Jiang Zhou said.

Secretary Liu put the keys on the table and went over a few other things with him before leaving, leaving Jiang Zhou alone in the empty conference room...