After being rejected once again by Qiao Nan, Zhai Sheng did not rush to veer the conversation back to the original topic. Instead, he turned his focus to Qiao Nan’s lifestyle.
Qiao Nan wanted very much to say no because this felt as though her privacy had been invaded. Even her mom, Ding Jiayi, did not know anything about her accounts on her computer. If her mom knew all about it, there was no way she could have come up with a hundred thousand yuan in such a short period of time after Qiao Zijin was diagnosed with uremia and was hospitalized.
She had claimed that the hundred thousand had been a loan. In reality, however, it was her earnings from her online translation work. It was just that she had not settled her accounts earlier and had simply left the money in her online account. Qiao Nan was no fool. She was neither married nor did she have any children. If she did not save up now, retiring would pose a problem in the future.
If not for Qiao Zijin’s illness and how she might actually die if she did not get a kidney transplant, Qiao Nan wouldn’t have forked out a hundred thousand yuan. Even after withdrawing her money, Qiao Nan played safe by saying that she had taken a loan for this sum of money. But she did not count on her family working and helping her repay this hundred thousand yuan.
At least, Ding Jiayi knew that she had a debt of a hundred thousand yuan and had taken it on only because of Qiao Zijin. That would keep Ding Jiayi at bay for a period of time. This period of time might not be sufficient for her to make up a hundred thousand yuan, but she would be able to get back half of that at the very least.
It was no wonder that Qiao Nan felt uneasy and unwilling to expose a secret that not even Ding Jiayi knew about to Zhai Sheng.
After thinking for a while, Qiao Nan simply opened the site she worked on but did not enter her personal account details. “Look, Bro Zhai. This is where I work. The details and contents of our translation work are a little sensitive. We have to sign confidentiality agreements for them.”
“If they’re really a big company, there’s no reason why they can’t afford such talents within their own company, right?” Since it was confidential, they might as well raise a worker within their own company instead of trusting a virtual person that they could not see on the internet.
“Foreign languages are already so common. Is there still a demand for such work?”
Qiao Nan laughed bitterly. Zhai Sheng had hit it where it hurt. He was right. Big companies had vast amounts of resources and the ability to hire all sorts of gifted students. Someone like her who had never graduated from junior high school did not even have the qualifications to fill in an application form, let alone enter such a large company.
As more international students entered these large companies, their jobs were slowly being taken away. Compared to the situation a few years ago, it was not just a little harder to work in this industry now. But this did not mean that there was entirely no way for her to survive in it.
Thankfully, she had entered the industry rather early and had made a name for herself. Many of those clients who were willing to look for her had already worked with her for several years.
“Take a look.” Zhai Sheng closed the site. “I feel that you still need the job over on my end. Now that the industry’s tightening, you don’t have as many jobs. What’s different is that you’re not being picky about these online jobs, but you’re being picky about mine.”
Zhai Sheng was truly impressive. He had only glanced at the website for a while and had been able to draw such conclusions about the market as a whole. The remunerations for translations of different difficulty levels were different. But even the highest level was not much in Zhai Sheng’s eyes.
Since Qiao Nan had been able to accumulate three days’ worth of work and had even worked for twelve hours a day, she was definitely not being choosy about the jobs she took on. In that case, his instincts had been right. Qiao Nan had been avoiding him.
Now that Zhai Sheng had already made his intentions clear, it was a little hard for Qiao Nan to continue acting as though she did not know anything. “Bro Zhai, think about it. You’re divorced, right? I’m unmarried. At our age, it’s best to keep our distance. More importantly, I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to get married and have children if I were to get used to you.”
Qiao Nan, who had no other choice, chose to flatter Zhai Sheng.
That’s right. If she got used to seeing such an outstanding man like Zhai Sheng, she would never take a liking to any man who was worse-off than Zhai Sheng. “Bro Zhai, I don’t want to talk about my life in the past. I left Ping Cheng and came to Qingshui Town because I wanted to start a new life afresh. If I were to face you day and night, it would be no fresh start for me. It’s like walking into a dead end!”
It was not as if she had not heard it. She had been the one to pick up the phone that day. Had Old Chief Zhai not questioned Zhai Sheng upon hearing a woman’s voice?
In her dream, she had confidently stood by Zhai Sheng’s side all the while. But in reality, it was impossible for her to be with Zhai Sheng!
“You’ve said that you’re unmarried and have no boyfriend. I’m single too. Does it really matter what other people say?” Zhai Sheng’s eyes glimmered for a split second. It was so brief that Qiao Nan did not notice it.
Qiao Nan was dismayed. “Of course. Once those people open their mouths, they won’t have anything nice to say. Bro Zhai, think about your status and position. My situation… That’s right. You don’t know about it yet, do you? I have no boyfriend and I’m unmarried.” Qiao Nan spoke as though she had given up on herself.
She was neither ugly nor disabled, yet at almost forty years of age, she neither had a boyfriend nor a husband. This was not something to be proud of. In fact, she was utterly ashamed of it. As such, Qiao Nan felt especially embarrassed having to put herself down in front of her idol and her husband in her dream.
But now that she had already started, it was easier to spill out all those things that were even more so embarrassing.
“It’s true that we’re both single and no one can say anything about us since we’ve not done anything immoral. But you’re a chief and I’m a woman who’s nearing forty years of age and has never even graduated from junior high school! It might be fine when talking about you once our names are put together. But think about how people will look at me! I’m just an ordinary woman. My heart isn’t that strong. I’ll feel upset and depressed if people look down on me and despise me. Besides, there’s nothing going on between us!”
If that really happened, she would feel better about bearing that responsibility. But what scared her the most was that others might misunderstand and think that she was trying to seduce Zhai Sheng if they were to hear her address Zhai Sheng as ‘Bro Zhai’. Who would dare to speak ill of Zhai Sheng? They would only speak ill of her! But she did not even have such intentions! She would be truly maligned if she had to listen to all that name-calling!
“You care about gossip?” Zhai Sheng asked.
