Yan Shuyu was at work when she received the call from Manager Chen. She did not make any special effort to avoid being overheard, so by the time she finished her call, all her new colleagues knew that she was going to go and pick up her previous month’s paycheck from her old workplace. Everybody was both envious and happy for her, “Yanyan, your old supervisor was so nice! She probably fought hard for you!”

“But tomorrow is the weekend, Yuanbao doesn’t have school, are you going to be okay?”

It had only been a few days at work, and Yan Shuyu had already became close buddies with her new colleagues, which was much better than how it was at Hotel Dorsett. She didn’t think that she had suddenly became so much more popular, she meshed with her new colleagues better mainly because the new environment was much simpler than her last one; almost no upward mobility, so there was no need for any manipulation or backstabbing. Plus, almost everyone here were girls in their twenties. They were close in age and had the same interests, so she became quick buddies with them right away.

Compared to her, her instant son was the real charm. Yan Shuyu followed Manager Yang’s suggestion and has been happily taking her instant son to the restaurant after kindergarten every day. They always stayed and had dinner here, rain or shine. After dinner, if Yan Shuyu has to work night shift, she’d go back to work, leaving her instant son to play with himself in Manager Yang’s office. If she wasn’t working night shift, they’d head home after dinner.

Most of Yan Shuyu’s colleagues, including Manager Yang, were basically single; only a few of them were dating. She was the only young mother, which was why ever since the first day she brought her instant son to the shop, the little kiddo had immediately rose to the status of the restaurant mascot. The little kiddo has delicate features, nice and white skin, and was very well-raised. He was always smiling and addressing everyone as ge ge and jie jie sweetly. All Yan Shuyu’s male colleagues were charmed and female ones were conquered. Everyday, they’d look forward to the arrival of the cute mascot after school.

(T/N: ge ge – older brother. Jie jie – older sister)

Now that someone brought up the plans for the little cute kid for tomorrow, everybody else started chiming in, “You can drop Yuanbao off at the restaurant first. We are not busy in the morning, we will look after him for you.”

“Then you might as well drop him off the dormitory. The dormitory isn’t that far from the restaurant. Plus, I work the night shift tomorrow, I have the entire morning off to take care of Yuanbao~~”

“I am off tomorrow; I can play with Yuanbao all day long!”

Seeing that her little colleagues were about to start fighting over the “right to play with the mascot for a day”, Yan Shuyu smiled and said, “Thank you so much, you all, but I plan to take Yuanbao with me tomorrow. All I had to do is to sign some paperwork, I will be fine.”

When Yan Shuyu first transmigrated over, she wasn’t very used to referring to her son by his nickname. Now that she was influenced by her buddies at work, it was getting easier and easier to call him Yuanbao.

The passionate colleagues, “……”

Blind spot.

***

Somewhat busy and interlaced by chattering with her buddies, another day went by quickly and carefreely. Before she left for the day, she consulted with Manager Yan to switch to night shift the next day.

She had thought about just taking the day off, but considering that she had just started this new job, she didn’t want to leave a bad impression with her supervisor. Plus, this was her first job after school. Perhaps, it was the novelty, she didn’t feel that it was too difficult being a server; in fact, it was kind of fun, so she didn’t mind too much being an aspiring, hard working youth.

As the very understanding supervisor in Yan Shuyu’s mind, naturally Yang Zifeng approved her request with alacrity and further followed up with, “By the way, you mentioned wanting to take an examination for your certification last time, have you looked into it some more?”

Lo’ and behold, Yan Shuyu actually did look it up. Seemingly well-prepared, she replied, “Yes, I looked into it after I got home and plan to take my examination at the musical institution. They were more authoritative and their certifications are generally well accepted. But, all of these institutions only hold their examinations during summer and winter, it’s still a few months away.”

Yang Zifeng nodded and asked again, “Have you put in your application yet?”

“No, not yet,” Yan Shuyu was openly broke, she made a fist and said, “I will as soon as I get paid.”

Yang Zifeng didn’t believe that she was so broke she couldn’t afford the application fees, so he just assumed that she was kidding. He busted out laughing and said to her, “My niece’s piano teacher also graduated from a musical institution. She should have more information on that. I’ll find out more from her on the preparation for the piano examination or any reference books etc.”

Yan Shuyu accepted his kind offer, “Thank you so much, Manager Yang! I will take you to lunch when I get my pay!”

She was just being polite, but Manager Yang nodded seriously, “Okay, I am looking forward to that.”

Yan Shuyu paused for a second, then quickly relaxed. That’s alright, she would have money soon; she could afford to take him out.

As pleasantly surprised from money falling from the sky, Yan Shuyu happily left for home while holding her son’s hand in hers. She didn’t even sleep in the next morning, but woke up early in the morning to shower and put on her makeup. Donning the new dress that she bought, she headed ebulliently to the hotel with her son in toll.

Yan Shuyu only decided to bring her son with her because her colleagues were fighting over him; she didn’t think too much about it. When the long-waiting Manager Chen saw that, she was dumbfounded, “Xiao Yan, you… your brought your son with you?”

“It’s the weekend, and there’s no kindergarten today! I didn’t want to leave him home by himself, so I thought I’d just bring him with me.” All Yan Shuyu could think of was her paycheck so she hadn’t noticed the look on Manager Chen’s face. She did, however, looked at her hands and noticed that they were empty.

It almost looked like Manager Chen was waiting for her at the lobby. Instead of feeling honored, Yan Shuyu was more concerned about where she had left the paperwork. Anxiously, she asked, “Manager, am I signing the paperwork now?”

Manager Chen gave her a complex look. With a little hesitation, she decided to follow her original plan. Smiling, she said, “I didn’t know you will get here so fast. I left your paperwork upstairs.”

Oh, so she wasn’t here waiting for her specifically. Yan Shuyu wasn’t disappointed, quite the contrary, she was very understanding, “No problem, we can head upstairs with you.”

Zhang Yuanjia had never been to Hotel Dorsett before and it was also the very first time he has been to a fancy hotel. He couldn’t help but to look around in the lobby, curiosity filled his big eyes. Once they stepped into the elevator, he further couldn’t help himself but reached out his little hand and touched the bright and smooth interior walls.

Chen Jing was originally stunned by Yan Shuyu’s move of bringing her son with her, but now that she saw the cute and well-behaved little boy, she couldn’t help but grew fond of him and praised, “Your son is so pretty. Even if he looks half like you, that’s pretty cute already. Cuter than any kids I have seen before.”

Yan Shuyu didn’t even need to say anything, the little boy looked up by himself, blinked his large eyes and gave Chen Jing the sweetest smile, “Thank you, aunty.”

Chen Jing couldn’t help but rubbed him on his head and said gently, “You are welcome. Aunty meant what she said.”

The four-year old might have been very polite, but Yan Shuyu was not so much. Shamelessly she smiled, “If he looks more like me, he will really be the cutest kid in the world.”

Chen Jing chuckled a little politely, she wasn’t sure how to respond to that. On the other hand, the little kiddo got curious, turned his head and asked, “How come Yuanbao doesn’t look more like mom?”

“I dunno,” replied Yan Shuyu casually. “Perhaps you look more like your dad.”

Hearing that Zhang Yuanjai’s eye lit up suddenly, his little face brimming with anticipation as he looked up at his mother.

In his less than 5 years of life, “dad” was an unfamiliar term. Perhaps he had a dad when he was younger, but for as long as he could remember, it had just been him and his mom.

All the others kids have dads, but not him. Even at his young age, Zhang Yuanjia was sad, but he always felt that his mom was sadder than him, so he had always refrained himself from asking about his dad.

Now that he has heard the word “dad” from his mom, Zhang Yuanjia was pleasantly surprised. He wanted to ask mom to tell him more about dad but remembering that there’s a strange aunty around right now, Zhang Yuanjia blushed and looked down, embarrassed.

He has so many questions he wanted to ask his mom when the strange aunty wasn’t around anymore.

A few casual words from Yan Shuyu had not only brought up so much for the little boy, but even Chen Jing was thinking about it. She wasn’t sure if that was deliberate or not.

Not that it matters one way or another to Chen Jing, she just has to follow her orders from Managing Director Han and have the ex-employee came back to show how much the company cared, then take her to treasury to sign the documents and pick up her check and then her job was done.

Once Chen Jing had made up her mind, she took Yan Shuyu and her son into her office, but as soon as she sat down and before she could even dig out the documents, her phone rang.

There seemed to have been some urgent issues that need to tend to. Hanging up the phone, she gave Yan Shuyu an apologetic look.

As much as Yan Shuyu wanted to get her pay, she knew better than to hold someone back from doing their job so she had to smile and said, “It’s alright, Manager Chen. You go take care of that first.”

“They have told me about this earlier, it’d probably take a little over half an hour….”

“That’s quite alright, I am free the entire morning.”

“Alright, let me go take care of that first,” Chen Jing felt better now. As she collected her stuff, she said, “Don’t just sit here and wait, that’d be boring. You are familiar with this place, go show your son around. You won’t need me for that.”

As she was talking, she shoved an access badge into the Yan Shuyu’s hand and took off quickly, leaving Yan Shuyu standing there scratching her head.

She knew that Hotel Dorsett was a fancy hotel with impeccable security, even guests needed to swipe their room keys to use the elevator. Employees, of course, needed to have their work badge to go from places to places, why did she feel that Manager Chen had other intentions?

So would she really be able to get her pay today? Just when Yan Shuyu was worrying about getting her pay, Zhang Yuanjia’s interest was piqued by Chen Jing’s words. Little boy had always been curious, he might be able to hold back and be well-behaved when there were others around; now that it was just him and his mother, little kiddo couldn’t help himself anymore. Tugging at his mother’s hand, he said in a cute voice, “Mom, are we going to play?”

“Wow, when did you learn to be so coquettish?” It had been a few days since Yan Shuyu had transmigrated, but this was the first time the kiddo called her mommy. All of a sudden, she forgot all her troubles. Lifting up his cute, little face happily, she gave him a loud kiss on his cheek, “MMMUUA, okay. Mommy will take you to play.”

A red lip print appeared on his white, clean face; the little kiddo, not knowing any better, followed his unconscientious mother out of the office.