Chapter 10: Stepping Forward

With nothing else planned and a little hungry after his encounter with Wen Yu, Chen Ye agreed. “All right. I’ll take a cab.”

The location Han Qiuya sent was a bar, luxuriously decorated with a fashionable, intimate atmosphere. Soft blues and jazz played while small groups drank, laughed, and talked.

Han Qiuya had chosen a table by the window. She ordered a bottle of whisky and some smoked salmon, salami, and other snacks, and they drank and talked.

“I know starting as a massage therapist may feel beneath you,” she said. “But you’ll be moving in different circles. The people you meet will be wealthy women, people with connections. You want to get ahead, don’t you? Those contacts could help you later.”

“And even if you don’t strike out on your own, you could stay at the group, work your way into senior management, and earn shares. That would be success too. You can choose either path.”

“I understand.” Chen Ye was grateful. “When I get my first month’s pay, I’ll have to thank you properly.”

“Money isn’t easy to earn. Save it for yourself. Knowing you appreciate it is enough for me.” She smiled and raised her glass. “Don’t just talk. Drink!”

“Right.”

He knocked the whisky back in one gulp. It burned so fiercely that he coughed until tears came to his eyes.

Han Qiuya burst out laughing. “Who drinks it like that?” She swirled her glass, closed her eyes, and inhaled the aroma. Then she took a small sip, savored the balance of sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy on her tongue, and swallowed slowly, enjoying the finish.

“You look so elegant when you drink,” Chen Ye said. “Compared with you, I was practically wasting good liquor.”

“You’ll meet more and more sophisticated people. You’ll learn in time.”

“By the way, Qiuya, Bai looks so young. How does she have a son that old?”

Han Qiuya took a sip, her gaze thoughtful. “Bai has quite a story. Just after she turned twenty, she married a wealthy Shanghai businessman. He couldn’t have a child on his own, so they used IVF and found a surrogate in Southeast Asia.”

“What’s IVF? What’s a surrogate?” Chen Ye asked. Coming from his village, he genuinely didn’t know.

“How should I put it? The child is yours, but you don’t have to carry or give birth to it. A lot of celebrities do it to preserve their figures.”

“Oh.” He nodded, only half understanding.

“That’s why Bai still has such a good figure. She never had to go through childbirth.” Han Qiuya raised her glass. “Drink. Don’t just stare!”

He picked up his glass. She took a drink, then grew serious.

“It hasn’t been easy for her. In the second year of their marriage, the businessman got into trouble and went bankrupt. When they divorced, Bai was left with a lot of debt. She raised her child and ran a shop on her own, holding her family together through twenty years of hardship. Now she’s worth more than a hundred million. It’s really admirable.”

“A formidable woman,” Chen Ye said.

“Enough about her. Let’s drink.”

…

That night, Xie Dong and his men waited until one in the morning. Between the five of them, they smoked eight packs of cigarettes, chewed two bags of betel nut, and even ordered barbecue. Chen Ye never came home. Furious and out of options, they finally left.

The next morning, Chen Ye arrived at Shanghai Beauty’s flagship center on time. The business department had assigned a mentor to show him the work and how to serve clients.

Li Bo was a local man in his twenties, fair-skinned and delicate-looking, and one of the center’s top massage therapists. Some locals could be hostile to outsiders, and Li Bo looked down on Chen Ye for coming from the countryside.

“You haven’t put on makeup?” Li Bo asked.

“We have to wear makeup to work?”

“Of course. A little powder, lip balm, some perfume. Those things are necessary, understand?”

“I don’t want to wear makeup.” Chen Ye frowned. Looking at Li Bo’s pale face, glossy lips, and hair held meticulously in place with gel, he felt a little sick. Why would a perfectly good man dress up like that?

“This is a company. You can’t just do whatever you want,” Li Bo ordered loftily. “Go put it on now, or get out.”

“You’re not the one who gets to tell me to leave.” Chen Ye’s temper rose. Couldn’t he speak decently instead of ordering people out the moment they met?

“You…” Li Bo hadn’t expected him to answer back and was momentarily speechless.

Then shouting erupted outside.

“Are your people a bunch of perverts? My wife came for a massage last night, and one of your staff violated her!”

A group stormed in. A man in a suit led them, shouting, with several tough-looking men behind him.

Li Bo hurried forward. “Sir, what’s the matter?”

“Get out of the way!” The man shoved him aside. “Where’s the owner? Get out here!”

Bai Xueyan had just come out of her office. Hearing the commotion at reception, she approached. “I’m the owner. What happened?”

The man angrily accused an employee of touching his wife and penetrating her with his fingers from behind. “How the fuck is that any different from rape?” he demanded.

Bai Xueyan’s expression cooled. “Who did it?”

A young massage therapist came out of the break room, visibly frightened. “She was my client.”

“Did you molest her?” Bai Xueyan asked.

“His wife seduced me first. That’s why I…” He lowered his head.

The client sank to the floor in tears. “Have you no shame? When did I seduce you? You’re slandering me!”

“I’ll kill you today!” her husband shouted, lunging toward the therapist.

“Sir, let’s resolve the problem,” Bai Xueyan said, hurrying to stop him. “Violence isn’t the answer.”

“Then how do you propose to resolve it?” He produced a phone. “My wife was recording last night. She caught everything.”

Bai Xueyan glanced at the video and believed she understood: the group had come to extort money. In her years in business, she’d encountered schemes in which a woman requested a male therapist, flirted discreetly until he touched her, and secretly recorded him to demand compensation. The difficulty was that the woman’s advances could be subtle, while the therapist’s inappropriate touch was clear on video.

“What compensation do you want?” she asked. They wanted money, after all.

“Five million yuan, and we’ll settle privately.”

Bai Xueyan gritted her teeth and took out her phone. “I think we’d better call the police.”

The man grabbed her wrist. “Calling the police won’t help. This is a den of perverts. They’ll shut you down too. Pay me, or I’ll smash the place!”

“Let go!” She struggled angrily.

He tightened his grip. “Pay, and I’ll let go.”

The women on staff went pale at the sight of his menacing face and the thugs behind him. The male therapists didn’t dare speak; Li Bo trembled and hid in the crowd. Even the middle-aged security guard only waved his baton, afraid to approach.

Then a figure rushed forward and kicked the man in the lower abdomen. He flew backward two or three meters as though struck by a car and crashed to the floor.