Chapter 5 Zhang Changsheng
While still dazed, Zhao Lingjun suddenly felt that something was not quite right.
Zhao Lingjun apparently thought that although the rain was falling, it was not pouring directly onto Wu Xiaoye’s umbrella. The silver like rain appeared to flutter around Wu Xiaoye before quietly dripping around her, and not on the umbrella itself. Also her umbrella’s bizarre golden patterns seemed to flow incessantly, leaving behind a myriad of colours.
From afar, Wu Xiaoye dressed in a brown maxi-dress, coupled with her black hair dancing in the wind looked like a spirit wandering in the rain. Zhao Lingjun became entranced after looking at her for a short moment.
“Hey, you’re new here right?” A voice interrupted Zhao Lingjun’s train of thought. “How is it? Little Ye[1] is pretty right?”
Zhao Lingjun was startled by the sudden voice from behind, he turned his head and saw a heavily bearded man standing behind him.
“Uncle, who are you?” Zhao Lingjun embarra.s.sedly scratched his head and said, “Sorry, I’m a new employee and just joined yesterday. May I know which department you’re from?”
“Uncle? You called me uncle?” The bearded man stared incredulously at Zhao Lingjun, until his eyeb.a.l.l.s almost popped out.
As a result, Zhao Lingjun hurriedly took another careful look at this bearded man. The bearded man had a head full of short spiky hair, wore a pair of black framed spectacles, a fully bearded face almost akin to an unsullied lush forest. His faded denim short-sleeved shirt was already worn down to the bare threads. He did not look very tall, but had a well proportioned body. In his hands, was a very old fashioned black cloth umbrella. What caught Zhao Lingjun’s eyes the most were his hands, they were very white, and his fingers were slender but powerful looking. Seeing the pair of hands, Zhao Lingjun unknowingly thought of a piano artist. Zhao Lingjun had the notion that the pair of hands could start dancing like upon a piano at anytime. He did not even know why he had such a feeling.
“He doesn’t look very old. Could it be that calling him Uncle wasn’t enough?” Zhao Lingjun thought to himself before shouting, “Elder…”
*Crash* The bearded man nearly fainted on the spot. After a long moment, he then spoke with a trembling voice, “It can’t be that I look that old right?”
At this moment, Zhao Lingjun knew that he had made an earth shaking mistake.
“Haha, you don’t, you don’t. You look very young! I was only joking with you.” Zhao Lingjun quickly corrected himself while carefully studying the bearded man’s expression. Upon seeing the bearded man’s moody expression lighten, Zhao Lingjun internally said, “You are indeed a smart kid.”
“You graduated at most a year ago right?” Zhao Lingjun asked.
“Haha, my name is Zhang Changsheng.” He extended his hand towards Zhao Lingjun and replied, “I graduated two years ago.”
“Nice to meet you.” Zhao Lingjun also stretched his hand out and shook hands with this guy called Zhang Changsheng. Zhao Lingjun then repeated the question that was left unanswered, “Which department are you from?”
“I’m from the research and development department.” Zhang Changsheng replied.
This time it was Zhao Lingjun’s turn to almost faint on the spot.
“I’m also from the research and development department.” Zhao Lingjun exclaimed, “What a coincidence! I started working yesterday, why didn’t I see you?”
After Zhang Changsheng stared blankly for a moment, he smiled. “I went out to run some errands yesterday. I had heard we were employing someone, but I didn’t expect that it would be you!”
“Haha. It would be this little brother here.” Zhao Lingjun replied.
“I really didn’t expect it.” Zhang Changsheng said.
After a minute, they were very intimate and friendly like they had been friends for many years.
Only after getting acquainted with each other, did Zhang Changsheng push the pair of gigantic presbyopia looking black framed gla.s.ses up his nose bridge, put on a lewd smile, and ask the question from before, “So how is it? Little Ye is very pretty isn’t she.”
“That… I was just looking at whether the rain was heavy, and deciding whether I should turn back to change into a pair of more water resistant shoes.” Zhao Lingjun with a red face stuttered, “ I… I…I wasn’t looking at Wu Xiaoye.”
“Hehe. Just admit it. I saw you staring cross-eyed at her silhouette.” Zhang Changsheng said.
“I…”
“Hehe. If you saw it just say you saw it, it isn’t something to be embarra.s.sed about.” Zhang Chengshen said. “Actually every new employee, upon seeing Wu Xiaoye would be just like you.”
“Really? Then my behaviour would be considered normal?” Zhao Lingjun only then felt that his face was no longer quite as flushed.
“It’s normal.” Zhang Changsheng laughed. He then looked at Wu Xiaoye’s behind in the distance and said, “That year when I first joined, I was the same as you. But…”
“But what?” Zhao Lingjun hurriedly urged.
“You will know what happened in good time.” Zhang Changsheng teased. “Wu Xiaoye is nicknamed “Beautiful Ice Queen” by our company, she is cold and indifferent towards everyone.”
“It can’t be.” Zhao Lingjun said, “I just chatted with her. She doesn’t seem like what you make her out to be.”
“That’s why I find it very weird.” Zhang Changsheng looked at Zhao Lingjun and smiled, “It’s the first time that I’ve seen her chat so happily with a guy. In addition, when I was coming down, I even saw her give you an umbrella. Am I right?”
“Yup, she did.” Zhao Lingjun gripped the umbrella in his left hand, feeling the boundless warmth.
“Hehe.” Zhang Changsheng looked at him once again and smiled. “Looks like in her eyes, you’re a little special. But…”
“But what?” Zhao Lingjun hurriedly urged once again.
“But giving an umbrella isn’t too good. Couples shouldn’t gift umbrellas to each other.” Zhang Changsheng said.
Zhao Lingjun looked at the umbrella in his hands, then looked at the drizzle outside, and was in two minds.
“Walk quickly.” Zhang Changsheng did not pay any attention to Zhao Lingjun’s complex state of mind and said, “If you don’t start walking, you’ll be late.”
“Hai… Everything here is good, other than the distance from the company.” Zhao Lingjun lamented after they both of the walked out into the rain.
“You really feel that this place is good? Zhang Changsheng asked strangely.
“Yup! The neighbourhood’s environment and apartment furnishing are both decent. We can even have our own apartments. Nowadays this kind of dormitory is very hard to get. The only fault would be that the area is a little dull.” Zhao Lingjun replied.
“Dull?” Zhang Changsheng laughed. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t notice it. Other than our single building having more people, the other buildings on a whole don’t have that many people.”
“What? Why?” Zhao Lingjun was stunned. At this moment, the previous afternoon’s events flashed through his mind. When he was on the balcony looking at the sunset, the neighbourhood really did not seem to have many people returning home.
“Heh heh, because this area was initially a messy graveyard.” Zhang Changsheng smiled, and pointed towards a temple-like building in the distance. “Do you see that building? That is a church, around it are the remains excavated from here. This place is rumoured to be a burial ground for those sentenced to death.”
“Wait…” Before Zhang Changsheng could finish, Zhao Lingjun interrupted him. “You said that this was a burial site, then why is such a nice neighbourhood constructed here? Why did our company still buy a building here?”
“Heh heh.” Zhang Changsheng smiled, and said, “When buying the plot of land the developer didn’t know of this. Only when they were excavating, did they realise that they were scammed. Afterwards, the developer used many different means to hide the fact that the area was a graveyard. At the time, our boss bought the building before knowing the full details. We believe that he quickly bought it with the intention to rent out one storey to earn a large sum of money. This was because at the start, the prices was quite a fair bit lower than the surrounding areas. Later on, when the news of it being a graveyard was leaked, the prices crashed. In the end the boss could only look at the investment go down the drain.”
“You mean that this dormitory was the worthless building the boss bought?” Zhao Lingjun smelled a faint scent of conspiracy floating around and questioned, “You said that the developers suppressed the information, then how did it get spread?”
“Heh heh.” Zhang Changsheng looked at Zhao Lingjun, and did not answer his question. But instead asked one of his own, “Are you scared of ghosts?”