She slaved over the father and son and provided them with the best service possible, not to mention keeping the son occupied for such a long time, and he didn’t even leave her anything for tips? This time, Yan Shuyu was truly a little hurt. She made up her mind. Next time the boss came, she most certainly would not serve them again. She would be smart this time and stay as far away from him as possible. Whoever felt like serving him, they could be her guest!

Her determination was solid, and she would definitely carry out her plans perfect. The problem came when the boss stopped visiting before she could do anything. She didn’t seen him in the next 8 to 9 days and, welp, that was kind of awkward.

Yan Shuyu couldn’t explain why she suddenly felt somewhat at a loss and could do nothing but to comfort herself that it was a good thing that the boss stopped coming. No troubles, everybody was happy!

Yes, the weekends without the boss, and perhaps combining with the fact that the novelty of working had worn off, Yan Shuyu felt more and more bored as the days go by.

That was when Yang Zifeng delivered her good news, “Yanyan, it’s two more months to the winter break. It’s not too far away from now, but not too close either. Did you say you have started preparing for the certification examination at the musical institute? I made a point of getting her Wechat info. She was quite enthusiastic and said she’d swing by our shop this weekend or next weekend, so you can ask her everything you want to know then.”

“Oh, that’s great,” nodded Yan Shuyu sluggishly. “I’ll pick her brain when she comes.”

She had always been a girl of high spirits, always shining like a little sun, so when she suddenly became dispirited, it was quite noticeable. Even a man like Yang Zifeng noticed it. He asked caringly, “What is going on with you lately? You seemed a little blue.”

Yan Shuyu was embarrassed to say that it was because the boss had stopped coming, so she wasn’t able to do to him everything that she had so nicely planned out in her head and she was blue from her disappointment. She had no choice but to tell him the second reason, “Working is so tiring!”

Yang Zifeng had been messing around with them for too long that Yan Shuyu had so little respect for him as a boss that she would complain about work directly to his face. And that didn’t bother Yang Zifeng a bit either. He even chuckled and said, “Yes, business has been quite well lately…. That’s right, you have been here for almost a month, right?”

“I started on the 4th, so 6 more days to a full month.”

“Then you will become a perm next month.” Manager Yang thought about it for a bit and said in a very considerate way, “Why don’t we do this? You take tomorrow and the day after off and come back on the 1st. Starting next month, you can have one day off a week like any other formal employee.”

Yan Shuyu’s spirit returned immediately when she heard the “day off” part. A big smile on her face, she said, “Then I am really not coming in tomorrow!”

Yang Zifeng smiled and said, “I meant what I said, but tomorrow and the day after are not the weekend. Aren’t you going to be bored being home by yourself?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about me. Do I look like the type who doesn’t know what to do with myself when my son is not around?” said Yan Shuyu pridefully. “Without the kid, I can go shopping, gaming, or even go to a movie. There are lots I could to do!”

“Yan-jie, you are going shopping tomorrow?” That came from her coworker Zhang Mingming. “I want to go shopping too. I haven’t added anything to my closet for a long time!”

Yan Shuyu hadn’t bought herself any new clothes since the first couple of days that she had transmigrated. Mainly because she was poor, and partly also that she was wearing a uniform at work every day, which severely dampened her passion to shop. She was quite tempted and did the math in her head. She has about $8,000 on her debit card and hadn’t been spending too much lately. And, she will be paid in another 2 weeks or so, so she will have more money going in.

After her calculation, she nodded without hesitation, “Alight, let’s do it! I want to buy some new clothes too!”

“Okay, let’s go together. We will do lunch together too?”

Yan Shuyu didn’t notice that her colleague only mentioned lunch but not dinner before she happily agreed, “Okay! I’ve been eating at the shop everyday, and I’m starting to get tired of it.”

Another diss to Yang Zifeng, but not only did he not mind at all, he smiled and interjected, “Where are you planning on going tomorrow? I can make some recommendations on restaurants.”

Yan Shuyu had only transmigrated about a month ago; naturally, someone like Zhang Mingming, who had moved to the area 2-3 years ago would know better about where to go shopping, etc.

Without hesitation, Zhang Mingming said, “Around the college town. That area is very lively and has lots of shops and restaurants. Most importantly, everything is very affordable!”

Sunshine House was located in what would be considered the financial district of a city, so things were expensive here. Yan Shuyu had just graduated college a month ago. Even though she was in a different world now, the mention of a college town still gave her kindred feeling so she agreed right away, “That sounds great. We will go there then. Is it far?”

“Not too far if we take the subway.”

Yan Shuyu felt relieved now.

Now that she has time off and had plans to go shopping with her little buddy, she was much happier than she was before. Her back didn’t hurt any more, and her feet wasn’t sore anymore. She had a smile on her face for the rest of the night; a few long-time customers even teased her and asked if she had found money on the ground.

After work and when she was walking home while holding her son’s hand, she couldn’t wait to share the great news with him. Upon hearing that, little kiddo Zhang Yuanbao looked both excited anticipation and a bit troubled, “But mom, I still have school tomorrow. How am I going to go?”

“Then you go to school,” said Yan Shuyu with a smile. “I have already made plans to go with Mingming-jie jie.”

Zhang Yuanbao, “……”

“But doesn’t mommy want to go shopping with Yuanbao?” Kids tend to be influenced a lot by their parents. When Yan Shuyu first transmigrated over, Zhang Yuanjia was an obedient and mature child. After a whole month of being with the goofy “new mom”, even though he wasn’t as goofy as she was, he had certainly changed a lot, especially when it came to using web slang in his speech.

The little acting king Yuanbao blinked his big, round eyes, pouted, sniffled slightly and immediately looked like he was about to start crying right away.

As much as Yan Shuyu wanted a break from her instant son and have some fun like back in her single days, looking at the pitiful face of Zhang Yuanjia did have an effect on her.

Furthermore, thinking that it’d also be important for her to monitor the mental health of her instant son at all times, Yan Shuyu tried to placate him by saying, “Of course mommy loves going shopping with Yuanbao but the timing was bad this time. Next time, when you don’t have school and mommy has a day off, we will go shopping for an entire day, okay?”

“Mommy and Yuanbao?”

“Yes, just the two of us. Nobody else, okay?”

Zhang Yuanjia nodded. He had always been a reasonable child, but looking at his mother who had been getting progressively goofier, he had no choice but to become wittier himself. He reached out his little hand and said, “Okay, pinky swear?”

Yan Shuyu wasn’t distressed at all at how little faith her son had in her. She reached her hand out to him and said, “Okay, pinky swear.”

After the ceremonial pinky swearing had concluded, the kiddo felt much better. He held his mother’s hand all over again, and the two returned home happily.

Sunshine House was a restaurant. And even though it was more of a high-end one, it still closed around the same time as their peers. After all, the nightlife is bustling in a tier 1 big city. The shop opened until 11:30 PM on the weekend, and an hour earlier on weekdays, still pretty late.

Yang Zifeng was nice to Yan Shuyu since she was a single mother. During her interview, he had already told her that she could take off at 8 PM when she worked the night shift. The regular performance hours in the shop was from 7 PM to 8 PM, so she could take off after her performance. This way, her kiddo wouldn’t have to stay up too late to wait for her. On the flip side, when Yan Shuyu worked the early shift, she would also have to work till 8 PM because of her performance, whereas her peers left between 5 – 6 PM, to make up the hours.

Part of the reasons that Yan Shuyu decided to take this job was because of the hours. Early shift started at 9 AM, allowing her plenty of time to drop off her instant son before heading in to work. Night shift was even better, she could even go home and take a nap before she went in to work.

The nights were still a bit rough. She’d get home at 8 PM, remove her makeup, take a shower, do their laundry, and hang them up. Then, it was supposed to be her happy hours as she surfed on her cellphone, but noooo, her fresh-out-of-the-shower son would be dead tired but still refuse to go to sleep. With a much-treasured fairy tale book in hand, he’d rub his eyes and wait for her and call out to her excitedly with his red eyes and said, “Mom, can you read me the story now?”

Yan Shuyu, “…..”

Airight, she was his mother after all. Giving into reality, she’d crawl into bed, flip to the page where the bookmark was from the previous day, and begin her nightly reading.

A kid had limited energy after all. A little bit after 9 PM and, with his mother reading him a story next to him, he’d fall asleep in less than 10 minutes. Yan Shuyu, well-experienced now, would read on for an extra 10 minutes to make sure he was deep in his sleep, then she would have all the time she wanted to surf as much as she wanted.

Twenty minutes of story before bedtime, anyhow, would also make Yan Shuyu sleepy. So sleepy that she wouldn’t be able to stay up to surf even if she had wanted to. So, finally, the book was closed, the light was turned off, and she’d turn in as well.

At the beginning of a new day, Zhang Yuanjia continued to get up all on his own when the time came. Then he’d brush his teeth, wash his face, change, all by himself.

Unfortunately, he was too small and his legs were too short. As competent as he was, he still couldn’t go to school all on his own. A trafficker wouldn’t even need to use candies; they could just pick him up and run away with him, so Yan Shuyu would have to take him to school even when she didn’t have to go in to work.

Yan Shuyu made plans to meet up with her little buddy at the subway entrance at 10:30 AM, so they would arrive at the college town around 11-ish. They could grab lunch then shop to their hearts’ content. It was still a while before the time of meeting so she didn’t want to put on her make up too early. As she didn’t get to play on her cellphone the night before, she felt that she missed out on something. So her plan was to drop off her son at school first, then roll back into the bed and surf for an hour on her phone. She could better feel the rush as though she was staying up late at night without makeup on~

She then got out of bed, washed her face, and with the I-am-such-a-beauty confidence, she left the house holding her instant son’s hand.

Little kiddo Zhang Yuanbao also started his rainbow fart time. He looked up at his mother and exclaimed, “Mom is still the prettiest mom today!”

(T/N: rainbow fart – kissing up / brown nosing)

That made Yan Shuyu even happier. She bounced her way to the breakfast place on their way to kindergarten before handing her son over to the teacher at school. Everything went perfectly~

The activities in the afternoon went perfectly too. The restaurant suggested by Manager Yang, a local, was quite unique and the two girls enjoyed their meals. After they had their sumptuous meal, they started their happy shopping spree.

The malls over in the college town were at least half the prices of those around where Yan Shuyu lived. The brands and price points were very different, yet she still couldn’t afford them or, better yet, she didn’t dare to buy them. Yang Mingming’s, whose income was even lower than that of Yan Shuyu, also belonged to the clan of No-Money-Left-Over. The two of them wandered around in the malls for about half an hour and had their fill of window shopping before little jie jie took Yan Shuyu another 10-minute bus ride away and arrived at the woman’s street where only students and locals would visit. The street was known for their cheap prices.

Yan Shuyu was just a student in her past life. Sure, she had a few hundred dollars more in spending power than her peers, but it really only meant she could buy two more items of clothing a month. She was far from being a WRP, so when it came to clothing, she looked more at style than quality.

Having arrived at this famous woman’s street, Yan Shuyu couldn’t tell whether their quality was good, but their styles certainly meshed with hers.

A first-tier city certainly always led the trend! As soon as Yan Shuyu and her little buddy arrived here, they were back to where they belonged, they shopped like fish in water. With her current looks and body, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that each and everyone of the item of clothing fitted her perfectly, almost as though they were custom made for her. Yan Shuyu couldn’t take any of them off, and that’s when her little buddy stepped up to help her out.

Yang Mingming was petite and cute and usually a quieter one, but her skills to barter had a FWS (Foolish, White, and Sweet) like Yan Shuyu amazed. Finally, she ended up with a sweater, a dress, a jacket and a pair of jeans, all for less than 1,000 yuan!

Even though Yang Mingming did pretty good herself and had bags upon bags of loot in her own hands, but that didn’t affect how appreciative Yan Shuyu was toward her little buddy, so when she had spent enough money shopping, she couldn’t hide her excitement when she told her little buddy, “It’s not even 4 o’clock yet, what say we find a place to take a break first before we go to dinner? My treat!”

Her little buddy asked nicely, “Yan-jie, don’t you need to pick Yuanbao up from school today?”

Zhang Yuanbao’s school let out at 4:30 PM. Even though the school was very nice and usually they would extend childcare for another two hours for parents that couldn’t make it there on time and only need to pick them up before dark, Yan Shuyu had never done that since she had transmigrated nor did she plan on starting that trend today.

Yan Shuyu reassured Yang Mingming, “That’s not a problem. Manager said he’d pick up Yuanbao for me and take him home to meet a new buddy, his niece and told me that I could enjoy myself today.”

“I figured he had been wanting to kidnap my son and bring him to his place for a while now.”

“Yan-jie, every one of us at the shop wanted to kidnap Yuanbao.” Smiled Zhang Mingming and then added, “But I have heard that kindergartens nowadays are very careful. Will they let Yuanbao go home with Manager?”

“Oh, I have already let his teacher know this morning. Plus, Manager drove me to pick up Yuanbao a couple of times before; his teachers might have already seen him once or twice.” Long story short, nobody could deter her plans of staying out all day today.

If the mother wasn’t worried, normally there was nothing else that someone else needed to worry about, but Yang Mingming pursed her lips and said with some shyness, “I am sorry, Yan-jie. I assumed you’d need to hurry back to pick up Yuanbao so I told my boyfriend ahead of time that I was going to swing by to visit him. He lives right here in college town.”

Yan Shuyu, “……”

So when her little buddy only mentioned having lunch but not dinner yesterday, that was not an oversight, but that she has a date tonight. The single Yan Shuyu felt a pang of pain.

Perhaps, her sadness was too obvious, her little buddy immediately added, “But I can go get a drink with you first. My boyfriend isn’t too far from here, I can go over there a little later.”

Yan Shuyu might be single right now, but she had dated before. She knew full well how lovers always wanted to spend every possible minute together, so she kindly talked her little buddy into taking off before she looked for a boba place to take a break.

She would continue to hang out all by herself! That’s how stubborn she was!

While she was drinking alone at the boba shop, Yan Shuyu wanted to play some mobile game for fun. But, all her buddies were her colleagues at Sunshine House and all of them were at work. The only one available would be the strong man, Yang Zifeng. Alright, so Manager Yang was a noob, but helping her manager gain experience points would be good for future promotions and raises, so Yan Shuyu somehow happily pinged Manager Yang on WeChat.

Manager Yang, on the other hand, didn’t seem particularly interested in gaming today. Instead, he asked Yan Shuyu how she has time to play mobile games when she was in the middle of shopping. Looking dispirited, Yan Shuyu gave him the whole down low and immediately Manager Yang giggled nonstop.

“You are both girls. She goes on a date with her boyfriend on her day off, and you asked a male friend to play RPG. Doesn’t that sound kind of sad…?”

Yan Shuyu, “……”

She couldn’t help but diss him back, “Oh yeah? Other TRHs were surrounded by nice cars and beautiful women, and you stayed home and scratched your feet. Isn’t that even worse?”

“Must we hurt each other like this?” Yang Zifeng quickly threw in the towel.

Manager Yang felt quite helpless for having such an employee who has no respect for him as her boss. It might seem like she wasn’t a very hard worker, but every quarter when he looked at the financial report, the revenue of the shop had grown visibly since Yan Shuyu had started. This was a world where a pretty face was everything; he couldn’t afford to piss off his money-maker, so he must woo her, “I am just about to pick up Yuanbao. If you are bored, would you like to come over to my place too? I can swing by the college town to pick you up too. It’s not rush hour yet.”

“No!” Yan Shuyu was still “annoyed” about his earlier comment and was determined to re-establish her esteem as a single woman. “I am very busy today. I plan to go to a movie and a buffet in a bit.”

“Alright, alright.” Yang Zifeng didn’t mind that a bit, “You have fun then. I’ll drop Yuanbao off tonight.”

Yan Shuyu wasn’t worried at all, “Yuanbao has the house key in his bag. You can just drop him off. But send me a text after you’ve picked him up, okay?”

This was also the first time Yang Zifeng had run into a mom that was so chill, “Wow, you are quite carefree. Okay, you go have fun. I will have him video chat with you after I pick him up!”

Yan Shuyu wrapped up her conversation worry-free. She had rested just about enough so she pick up all the bags she had with her and walked out. Her plan was to waved down a taxi and went back to the mall she was at earlier to catch a movie and have dinner. Yup, such was the care-free life of a single woman~

Never underestimate the attraction of a beautiful woman. Yan Shuyu had barely stood there on the side of the road for two minutes, and before she could wave down a taxi, a very luxurious-looking car pulled over in front of her.