After Being Cheating

Brian nodded, and said, "She was, indeed, pretty."

"She's nice, and she's loyal to friends, and radiates with kindness and generosity. She is all that's good and kind in my heart," said Bill.

Of course, beauty lied in the eye of the beholder, and in our case, in the eyes of the lover. Brian nodded and agreed with him, "OK."

But Bill's face suddenly changed, and he asked, "Brian, do you also like Jane?"

"Well, I don't dislike her, " replied Brian. A soldier never lied.

Bill felt disappointed and stared at Brian with even more confusion in his eyes. He then spoke, "I should have never asked you to help me send the letter. How could you fall in love with my girl?" "Anyway, she isn't your girlfriend. How can you say that," said Brian.

Bill was speechless after he heard Brian's words.

'Is 'Jane' her infant name? It quite fits her because her voice and body are as soft and delicate as her name...'

Brian suddenly turned his back and walked away before Bill had finished talking with him.

Bill got even more confused, and wondered what had happened to him. Maybe only Brian knew best about what was going on with him.

At the SL Group

When Daniel returned to the Secretary Department, coming from the meeting room for the third time already, he found that Janet was still not at her desk.

"Spark, please inform Miss Shao that her three days' salary will be deducted from her account if she is absent for one full day."

"Ok. Mr. Si."

Janet, who was sitting by the roadside and staring at the skyscraper buildings, received Spark's call. Spark told Janet all about what Daniel had just said.

"Only the three days' salary... Yeah, whatever!" replied Janet.

She still had no concept of money, and replied with indifference to Spark's warning.

Spark hung up and felt very disappointed. 'She is, indeed, a spoiled princess, and doesn't seem to have a care in the world regarding money problems' thought Spark.

He told Daniel what she had said over the phone and then quickly left his office, as he saw that Daniel didn't utter a single word in reply.

Because she didn't find a suitable shop for her, Janet still had to go to work. However, she was now was very excited and full of grand new expectations, because tomorrow was her pay day. After all, the job at the SL Group was the first she ever had in her life.

And after getting her salary, she was going to buy her father a... A tie? A wallet? A suit?

She also wanted to buy her mother a set of DQ masks and her brother a watch. She wanted to buy her great-grandmother a...

Janet carefully drew a plan in her head, with a pleasurable feeling in mind. She decided to go shopping the moment she got her salary.

But... At lunch, while Janet looked at the text message she received from the bank about her salary, she lost her appetite.

"Dear SL Bank customer, your debit card with the tail number of 6688 has received an SL Group salary. The total amount is 5 dollars. The current available balance is 3, 000, 030 dollars."

'Ah! How could Daniel be so mean?' she thought, 'How dare he cut so much out of my salary!'

Janet was very angry and rushed straight into Daniel's office. Daniel, who was also having lunch, saw the angry expression gleaming in Janet's eyes and immediately understood what was going on. When he put her salary sheet and the pile of reprimands in front of her on the desk, Janet checked them with disbelief.

She felt there seemed to be nothing wrong with her salary, and still tried to calculate her salary with her phone's calculator. It was, indeed, 5 dollars after the amount out of the reprimand notes was deducted... When he saw Janet leaving his office, Daniel somehow felt a little sad.

When Janet discreetly left the company after work that night, she could hear her colleagues, who were walking behind her, laughing at her: "Do you know Janet's salary for the last month? Ha Ha... It's so funny!"

"Of course I do. Everyone in the company knows it! It's the first time I've heard of such a low salary. It's really unbelievable."

"Actually, she could have received a higher salary from the SL Group, but she couldn't obey the company's rules, which led to the deduction of almost all of her salary from all the reprimands she received."

Janet managed to hold back her tears for long enough until she got to her car and started driving slowly on the road.

While she looked at the bustling city in the early evening, Janet reflected on herself and wondered if she was a bit amiss with herself lately.

Janet was lost in thought and drove into an alley. When this had just came to her mind, she saw a woman at the roadside, who was about her age, with a child. The woman, who carried the child on her back, was standing at the roadside, selling... Cookies?

'Are those cookies?' she wondered. Janet couldn't be sure of what the woman was selling.

She pulled over to the curve, and walked up to the woman's stall. "Hi, would you like to buy some cookies?" asked the woman.

The woman looked at her with kind eyes; her child had fallen asleep.

Janet nodded, and asked, "How much for one cookie?"

"Two cookies cost one dollar. How many do you want?"

Janet had never suffered any hardships in her life, so now she was very surprised when she heard the woman's words. She stared at the cookies and still couldn't believe that she could spend only one dollar on two cookies.

She had never eaten cookies so cheap. The cookies she ate were either made by her family members or the house servant.

At the very least, she could buy cookies straight from the hotel. However, in the hotel it cost more than ten dollars to buy just a single cookie.

"Miss?" The woman with her child on her back looked at Janet, who was now in a daze, and greeted her again with the same confusion as she did before.

"Oh! I want five dollars' worth of cookies, please." Janet took out her purse from her bag, but she didn't have any small bills.

She took out a one hundred dollar bill and gave it to the woman. When she saw the bill, which was worth of a lot of money, the woman took off her disposable gloves, and said to Janet, "I need to check first if I have enough change to give you back."

"It doesn't matter. You don't have to give me back the change. I just want the cookies."

"That's not right," protested the woman, "I can't receive that much money from you. Please wait a moment."

After she took out some money from her shoe box, and got several dollars more out from her pockets, the woman finally raised the 95 dollars change for Janet's bill.

Janet carried the cookies packed in a food bag, lost in thought for a while.

The first salary that Janet had ever received in her whole life was worth five dollars. After she pondered this for a while, she finally took the five dollars' worth of cookies to the old house.

Hoping that her family would not be ashamed of her failure, Janet sniffled and tried to smile as usual. When she opened the old house's door, she greeted her family: "Great-grandmother, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, John, I'm back from work!"

"Jane, you're back! Come over here," said her great-grandmother.

"Jane, have you just come back now from work?" asked Samuel. He gently hugged his daughter when he saw her.

With John in her arms, Ella squinted, and then asked, "Jane, are you tired?"

Janet shook her head and then walked up to Melody to hug her.

Vincent and Viola, who were helping prepare dinner in the kitchen, also came out when they heard that Jane came back from work.

"My lovely granddaughter. Come here, let me hug you" said Viola.

Janet quickly put out of her mind the miserable feelings she was having from work; she was now enjoying her family's warmth and love.

However, when Vincent asked about the food bag in her hand, a morose feeling suddenly seized Jane's face.

"Great-grandmother, grandfather, grandmother, father, mother, I am sorry." Jane lowered her head to the ground, which confused her family. They suddenly became silent and looked at each other, not knowing what was really going on.

"I have received my first salary today, but I just got..." She even felt ashamed of spitting out the words.

When he saw that Jane was depressed, Samuel also felt distressed and hugged her and comforting her: "Jane, No matter how much the salary is worth, it is your hard-earned money. You never have to feel sorry about it."

Janet nodded, and said, "Father, I just got five dollars. I used all my salary to buy you these... cookies."☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐