HCB Chapter 3: The employer is not at home, so why not slack off?
Chapter 3: The employer is not at home, so why not slack off?
Zhao Meiting didn't dare to play cards before getting her salary, and she broke the money in her hand into three pieces to spend.
Fortunately, the Bai couple were very generous. In order to let her take care of Bai Yuan wholeheartedly, they gave her more money for grocery shopping every month, for fear that it would not be enough.
Zhao Meiting barely makes ends meet with this money.
Bai Yuan is not old enough to eat complementary foods, but she is still holding a bottle and chugging prepared milk. The milk powder is a high-end product imported from foreign countries. The cans are not big, but each can costs thousands of dollars. This money does not go through her hands. It is all sent to her by Jiang Zhi's secretary every month.
The extra expenses were used to buy vegetables and fruits when the couple lived here before the New Year. Now the couple are busy with work and don't come back often, but they still give the money and don't take it back. It's like Zhao Meiting provides food and accommodation.
Zhao Meiting dared not touch the money, and thus she spent the end of the month safely. When the new month's salary was paid, Zhao Meiting finally felt relieved when she saw that neither of the couple cared about where the money went.
At the same time, it can also be seen that the Bai couple are not fussy and petty employers. The salary is high, the work is little, and the workload is light. Such a good job is hard to find even with a lantern.
After receiving her salary, Zhao Meiting no longer dared to spend lavishly. Life without money is hard, but life with money is addictive.
After April, the weather gradually became warmer, and there were more people coming and going in the community. The card room also moved its location and moved a few tables. A group of old men and women sat in the courtyard of the community playing cards.
Zhao Meiting could see it every time she passed by. She could bear it the first or second time, but after so many times, she would dream at night of having a good hand of cards and winning a clean suit. After a few days, she would sit at the card table again.
"Aunt Zhao, you've been lucky lately. You must have won nearly a thousand this afternoon, right?" Boss Lady Xu took Zhao Meiting's hand and walked her to the gate of the community with a smile on her face.
The Bai couple bought a house in a high-end residential complex. They couldn't afford to rent a shop for their small card room, so they opened it in an undeveloped community across the street. The street lights in the community were sometimes good and sometimes bad. Zhao Meiting's legs and feet were numb from sitting there for an entire afternoon, and she was always helped out by the proprietress.
"I haven't played for half a month. I'm not used to it, so I'm not going to be able to draw cards smoothly. But after a few days, when I get the feeling, I may not be able to play anymore." Zhao Meiting touched the thick stack of five and ten yuan coins in her pocket and smiled.
Before coming here today, she was thinking that if she lost consecutively like last month, she would stop playing. She didn't notice it while playing, but later when she had some time to calculate, she found that she was losing at least three or four thousand dollars a day, both big and small. She was also frightened.
But today, when she sat at the card table, she felt that everything went smoothly for her. Each card she drew was better than the last. Although she lost some cards, she won more than she lost and saw her money back.
As a result, she became eager to try her luck and began to wonder if she could win back the money she lost at the poker table.
"Aunt, you are a blessed person. You are lucky and your fortune is good. This month you are prosperous. I am asking for your help to bring you good luck. Please don't be angry."
"Look at what you said, little girl. Auntie is blessed and doesn't hide it. I'll give it all to you, all to you."
Chatting and laughing, they escorted the person to the downstairs of Baijia Community. Mrs. Xu waved before leaving, "Auntie, I'll take you here. Please be careful. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
After turning around, Xu Xiuli's expression turned cold, and the smile she had just had disappeared in an instant.
The street lights stretched her shadow, extending it into the darkness beyond.
After making an appointment with Boss Lady Xu to meet again tomorrow, Zhao Meiting took the elevator back to the Bai family's house. She unlocked the door with her fingerprint and the room was quiet and dark.
Perhaps she heard some noise, and before she could change her slippers, she heard a baby crying in the room.
Zhao Meiting hurried into the room and changed Bai Yuan's wet diaper.
Before she went out, she fed her child a full bottle of milk, thinking that she would be back in an hour or two, but she was in good luck and forgot about time when she started playing.
Seven or eight hours had passed by now, and the soup in the child's stomach had long been digested.
She held the child and coaxed him for a while. When the crying subsided, she returned to the kitchen to prepare milk powder for Bai Yuan.
Before going to bed, Zhao Meiting reminded herself that she could not spend the whole afternoon in the card room tomorrow. If her employer heard about it, she would definitely lose her job.
Playing cards was a time-consuming and exhausting activity for her, and she was also burdened with worries. She slept very soundly that night and did not even hear Bai Yuan crying in the middle of the night.
The next day, at noon, Bai Yuan was tired from crying and was sleeping with her eyes closed. Zhao Meiting supported her lower back and slowly stood up. After all, her lumbar spine was not in good condition due to her old age. She stood in place and twisted a few times until she felt recovered before starting today's work.
After spending the whole morning cleaning the house and taking care of Bai Yuan, Zhao Meiting went to a nearby supermarket with her shopping cart at noon. When she came back, she saw a group of people gathered in the card room to watch the fun.
An acquaintance saw her and called out, "Tingzi, want some?"
"Don't come, don't come!" Zhao Meiting pointed at the fully loaded cart and yelled, "You guys play first, wait for me to deliver the things upstairs, in the afternoon! In the afternoon for sure!"
"Hurry up, you're taking so long to play cards!" The card players around him started to make fun of him, "If you're late, you won't be able to get a table together!"
Boss Xu also came out after hearing the noise, "Aunt Zhao, don't listen to them, don't worry, there's always a seat for you to play at any time, I'll save it for you!"
When Zhao Meiting heard this, she immediately trotted upstairs, quickly stuffed the fresh fruits and vegetables into the refrigerator, and rushed to the card room.
Zhao Meiting sat there for another afternoon. She rubbed her dry and sore eyes and walked into the room. When she arrived in the kitchen, she was startled.
She mixed the milk powder with hot water at noon and planned to wait until it cooled down before giving it to Bai Yuan. But she forgot about it afterwards and hurried downstairs to play cards without even tightening the cap on the bottle.
No wonder the child was silent when I entered the room just now. It turned out that he was tired and hungry after crying for the whole afternoon, and was now sucking his fingers and dreaming.
Zhao Meiting felt guilty and quickly woke the child up and gave him a hot bottle of milk. The child was very hungry and held on to the bottle with all his strength.
After what happened tonight, Zhao Meiting restrained herself a lot. She went to play cards again on the third day, but she no longer sat there and didn't move. She only played two rounds before rushing home.
Her poker friends held her back and refused to let her leave, insisting on winning back the money they had lost from her.
"I'm babysitting for other people's kids. It's not good if people find out that I'm always here and sit there for the whole afternoon."
"He's not your own grandson, so it's okay for you to worry about him."
It's no secret that Zhao Meiting found a job with plenty of spare money to live in this area. She usually brags about it, and some people are bound to be jealous. Now they take the opportunity to make fun of her.
"Oh, you can't say that." Someone also tried to smooth things over, "You still have to have professional ethics. You have to worry about every penny you earn."
"Come on, brother Dong, I would say that kids nowadays are too pretentious. They are spoiled. They want to eat and drink expensive things. When we were kids, we didn't have such conditions. We could just make a pot of millet porridge with water for the whole family to drink, and we lived to be over 60, didn't we? I didn't see any of them missing any limbs."
"The living standard is different now. When I was a child, my sisters and I were carried on our backs if we couldn't run, and tied to stools if we could run. Every family lived like this. How could we have the spare money to hire a nanny?"
"Haha, you had a miserable childhood."
"I can't compare myself with the kids nowadays."
Everyone started chatting one after another, and the more Zhao Meiting listened, the more she felt that it made sense. Her thoughts were involuntarily led astray, and she began to waver.
People are like this. If they think about it themselves, it's okay. But those who are timid dare not do anything for fear that someone will instigate them.
Once instigated, he became restless and increasingly unsatisfied.
"Mei Ting, you are an honest person, but you don't know the twists and turns of being a nanny for rich people, right?"
"What's the twist?" Zhao Meiting asked hurriedly, her mind moving.
"Sit down, sit down and play two more rounds, and I'll explain it to you in detail." The man smiled mysteriously, "There is a lot of knowledge in this."
With this interruption, Zhao Meiting's desire to go home faded a lot, and she became curious. After being persuaded by everyone, she reluctantly sat back at the card table.
"Then it's settled, two laps, just two laps, let people know I want to eat the melons that fall off."
"Oh, that's right!"
"Don't worry, we are all friends, and we are very tight-lipped. No one will go out and talk nonsense."