This time, Liu Chen didn't need to explain. "Enthusiasts" quickly appeared in the comment section, explaining things for him.
Liu Chen vaguely recognized one of the "enthusiasts'" Weibo accounts; it was the same one he had seen in the office.
"Is this considered overtime?"
Since someone else was handling it, Liu Chen stopped paying attention. He glanced at his phone; an hour had passed, and time truly flew by.
He turned off the desk lamp, took a deep breath, and felt his way to bed by the moonlight sliced into countless strips by the blinds. He pulled the covers up to his chest, closed his eyes, and whispered, "Goodnight."
***
Meanwhile, in a residential building in City C built in the early 2000s, Xu Bai leaped out of bed upon seeing the Weibo message on his phone. He carelessly stuffed his bare feet into his slippers, the loose footwear slapping the floor as he hurried into the living room.
A plate of Meimei brand pork jerky sat on the coffee table. The whole family had a good appetite, and with his parents' decent salaries, Xu Bai's family had a generous snack budget for the Lunar New Year. However, they usually bought the most Dove chocolates.
This year, the Dove chocolates were replaced by Meimei pork jerky.
Hearing the "slap-slap-slap" of slippers in the living room, Xu Bai's mother, who was rinsing her face in the bathroom, emerged while massaging cream into her skin. "It's late, and you're running around so noisily in slippers. Old Mr. Li downstairs will hear you and won't be able to sleep. What are you doing?"
Xu Bai rummaged through the drawers under the coffee table, retorting a little indignantly, "Old Mr. Li is old; he already sleeps late!" After searching several drawers for the prize scratch cards that came with the pork jerky, Xu Bai looked up at his mother, who was rubbing the residual cream from her hands onto her arms.
"Mom, where did you put the scratch cards that came with the pork jerky?"
"Where did I put them? You said you had good luck and would scratch them, so I put them all in your desk drawer. I told you this morning to scratch them quickly, in case you win!"
"Ah, look at this! Luckily, we haven't scratched them yet. If we collect six lucky cards, we can win a thousand yuan!"
Xu Bai pointed to the Weibo post on his phone screen, then handed the phone to his mother. He then shuffled back into his bedroom, his slipper heels dragging.
He opened the drawer to find a pile of Meimei pork jerky scratch-offs. Xu Bai reached out to grab them, then quickly withdrew his hand. He went to the bathroom to wash his hands thoroughly before returning to his desk.
"Phew~ May the goddess of luck bless me!"
One card, two cards, three cards...
Xu Bai scratched off all the cards in the drawer. There were five!
"Five cards, Mom, just one more..."
Xu Bai looked at the five lucky cards on the table, his back slightly hunched, and couldn't help but sigh.
"Ai... Ouch!"
Xu Bai rubbed the top of his head, which had just been sharply slapped. He looked up at his mother.
"Mom, your slap was quite hard... Ahhhh!!! Mom, where did you find the scratch card!! Let me do it! Let me!"
Xu Bai took the scratch card from his mother and began to diligently scratch off the coating with a coin.
"Lucky card! Mom! Lucky card! Can I have five hundred of the thousand yuan we won this time?"
Xu Bai held the total of six lucky cards on the table, grinning from ear to ear.
"They're your cards that you collected, so they're all yours. Didn't the Weibo post say to upload photos? Hurry up and upload them, or it'll be too late and people will be asleep."
"Heh heh, I'll find a good angle to make my lucky cards look nice!"
***
In a residential building near the Meimei factory, Qiu Lin sat on a wooden sofa left by the landlord, a Meimei sausage in his mouth. After reading Liu Chen's Weibo post, he sat for a few minutes before getting up and retrieving a cardboard box from beside the sofa. He then poured out all the prize scratch cards he had accumulated over the past few days onto the coffee table.
The scratch cards piled up on the coffee table like a small mountain, overlapping and intertwined. Seeing this, Qiu Lin picked up the camera from the sofa and began to take pictures.
He took pictures and scratched them off simultaneously. By the time Qiu Lin finished taking photos, his was the only window in the neighborhood still lit.
However, Qiu Lin seemed unaffected by the late hour. He slowly transferred the photos from the memory card to his Apple notebook and began editing them.
At half-past six in the morning, the sky in City C began to lighten. Qiu Lin rotated his neck, hearing a crisp "crack" sound. He then uploaded the nine meticulously selected and edited photos to Weibo after several hours of work. He didn't write anything, just @ed Liu Chen. He then leaned back and fell asleep directly on the wooden sofa. Of course, as he slept, Qiu Lin remembered to cover himself with a blanket.
After all, he now had a purpose in life. The Meimei brand needed him.
***
Liu Chen opened his eyes after fourteen consecutive hours of one-on-one tutoring. He heard the chirping of small sparrows outside.
As usual, Liu Chen got up and sat at his desk for a while, quickly organizing what he had learned the previous night and jotting down some notes. Then, he got up to wash up and go downstairs for breakfast.
Since the cook, Auntie Qiong, had returned from her holiday, the aroma of beef and mushroom buns wafted from the kitchen, along with the smell of soy milk they had made that morning.
Taking advantage of the quiet, Liu Chen stood in the kitchen with a pair of chopsticks and ate six beef and mushroom buns in one go, finally feeling his hunger subside.
Hearing footsteps downstairs, Liu Chen quickly placed three beef and mushroom buns on a plate with his chopsticks and poured a glass of warm soy milk. He carefully carried them to the dining room.
Sister Qiong, who had just gone out to take out the trash, saw Liu Chen coming out of the kitchen with the buns and smiled.
"Eat more, Chenchen. Everyone has had a good appetite these past few days. The boss didn't get to eat breakfast a few days ago, so I specifically steamed thirty buns this morning. Eat as much as you want; there are definitely enough."
Liu Chen heard this and, thinking of the buns he had just eaten in the kitchen, knew there were still more than a dozen left in the pot. He could only nod and smile.
"There should be enough."
Sister Qiong walked confidently into the kitchen and lifted the lid of the steamer.
The first layer was empty.
"Someone must have eaten some buns earlier."
She removed the perforated tray from the first layer and placed it in the sink. Then, Sister Qiong saw the second layer.
Only one mushroom bun lay forlornly in the center of the perforated tray, as if silently lamenting its loneliness.
Sister Qiong sat in the kitchen, waiting for everyone to come down for breakfast. She figured whoever didn't eat those buns would be revealed.
So, Sister Qiong then saw Chen Long and Liu Fang, Ren Yu, Xia Tian and Dong Tian, and finally the old man.
Watching Elder Chen cheerfully take the last two mushroom buns and eat them with relish, Sister Qiong sat in the kitchen, completely perplexed.
"Who ate those missing buns?"