Chapter 1: The Beautiful Customer

Chen Ye had never imagined that, after only a month working as a delivery driver in Shanghai, he would end up sleeping with a beautiful customer on his route.

It had all started that morning.

At ten, he arrived at the upscale Xiangxieli residential complex with a package. As he approached apartment 301, he heard a furious argument inside.

“Han Qiuya, are you seeing another man?”

“No!”

“Then why won’t you let me touch you?”

“Go on, then. I’m letting you touch me. Can you even get it up?”

“You kept arguing with me until the medicine wore off!”

“You can’t perform, and somehow that’s my fault? What a loser!”

“You fucking…”

Chen Ye stood outside, deeply embarrassed. But he still had deliveries to make, so he braced himself and rang the bell.

Ding-dong!

“Hello, delivery! Please sign for your package!”

The door flew open with a bang. A middle-aged man in a tank top appeared, scowling.

“Great timing. What package?”

Chen Ye checked the label. “Condoms,” he said awkwardly.

The label also advertised “S-grade virility enhancement” in parentheses. He left that part out.

A woman’s voice came from inside. “Send them back. He has no use for them.”

Her voice was lovely, with the allure of a mature woman. Through the doorway, Chen Ye spotted her sitting on the living-room sofa.

She wore a sheer black nightdress, one strap slipping off her shoulder to reveal her pale collarbone and deep cleavage. Her waist was slender, her curves striking, and her long, straight legs were crossed beneath the dress. A wave of hair fell across her finely sculpted nose. She was beautiful and sexy enough to make his pulse quicken at a glance.

Her words had enraged the man. With nowhere else to vent, he glared at Chen Ye and seized on an excuse.

“Don’t you delivery people care about customer privacy? You just print ‘condoms’ right there on the label for everyone to see? Don’t you have any fucking professional ethics?”

“The seller wrote that, sir. It has nothing to do with the delivery company,” Chen Ye explained calmly.

Being contradicted only made the man angrier. “It’s clearly your company’s fault. What the fuck are you arguing about?”

“I’m not arguing…”

“Still talking back?” the man bellowed. “You’re just a filthy delivery boy, the bottom of society. I make enough in a day to buy your life, and you think you can talk back to me?”

“Sir, please be reasonable…”

Chen Ye met his eyes, neither servile nor aggressive.

“Who are you calling unreasonable? Who?”

The man raised a hand to slap him.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

The woman rushed out and stopped him.

“Little bastard! He’s just a delivery boy, and he thinks he’s entitled to respect? He wants me to be reasonable with him? Is he even worthy? Fuck your mother, you little bastard!” the man continued in the local dialect.

“Shut up!” The woman shoved him aside and turned to Chen Ye with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, handsome. I apologize for my husband. We were in the wrong. Please take this as an apology.”

Chen Ye had already clenched his fists, every muscle taut. Her kindness gradually cooled his anger. He looked at the package in his hand.

“You’re giving this to me?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “We can’t use it anyway. Take it and use it with your girlfriend.”

Chen Ye frowned. “Please sign the delivery slip.”

“All right.” She signed.

He put the slip away, then tossed the condoms back to her.

“I can’t use them either. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

With that, he turned and went downstairs.

The woman stared after him. There was something different about this deliveryman, she thought.

She was right. Chen Ye was different.

He had recently been released from prison and had come to Shanghai a month earlier to join his girlfriend.

He and Wen Yu came from the same village and had grown up together. In their second year of high school, some thugs from outside the school had bullied her. Furious, Chen Ye had taken on all five of them alone and sent them running.

One of the thugs had panicked while fleeing and been struck and killed by a passing car. The incident caused an uproar, and Chen Ye went to prison.

By the time he was released, Wen Yu had graduated from university and moved to Shanghai. They had agreed to meet there.

But after he arrived, she kept making excuses to avoid him. Eventually, she blocked his number.

Heartbroken, Chen Ye had spent some time in a daze. Still, prison had taught him a great deal and hardened his resolve. Once the initial despair passed, he decided to start over.

With a criminal record and little education, he couldn’t find a respectable job at first. He would have to work his way up, starting as a delivery driver, a job with a low barrier to entry.

He finished his deliveries that morning and returned to the branch for lunch. He had just washed his hands when a coworker called from the doorway, “Chen Ye, the supervisor wants you!”

“Coming!”

He put down his boxed lunch and hurried to the supervisor’s office.

“Chen Ye, what’s going on with you?” the supervisor demanded.

“What did I do?”

The supervisor jabbed a finger at his computer screen. “See for yourself!”

Chen Ye leaned closer. A line of bright red text stood out in the complaints section of the company’s system.

“We got a five-A-level complaint this morning. A customer says you insulted and abused him, and he took it all the way to headquarters. Because of you, the manager and I have both had our performance bonuses docked this month!”

“What?”

Chen Ye thought back to Xiangxieli. It had to be the impotent man.

“I’m being falsely accused. I didn’t insult him. He’s lying!”

“Don’t make excuses! Why didn’t he complain about someone else?” the supervisor snapped.

Chen Ye shook his head with a bitter smile. With his prison record, he knew the supervisor was bound to look at him differently.

“I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Next time? There won’t be a next time.” The supervisor sighed. “A serious complaint during your probation means we can’t keep you on. Pack your things. Don’t come back tomorrow.”

Chen Ye felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. He hadn’t expected a single complaint to cost him his job.

The man had insulted him and then complained to get him fired. It was bullying, plain and simple.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He stormed back to apartment 301 at Xiangxieli.

It was noon, and waves of heat rolled through the air. He rang the bell, ready to unload his anger on the man. Instead, the beautiful woman from that morning answered.

“Oh, it’s you again?”

Han Qiuya looked at him through hazy eyes, a bottle of red wine in her hand.

Drinking in the middle of the day?

Their eyes met, and his heart unexpectedly quickened. He lowered his gaze. “Where’s your husband?”

She smiled faintly. “Who knows where he’s gone? What do you want with him?”

“Nothing.”

Her husband was out, and she seemed drunk. Chen Ye didn’t want to say any more. He turned to leave.

“Hey!” she called.

“What is it?”

“Come inside for a moment.”

Han Qiuya tugged at his arm, her eyes soft with drink.