Chapter 12: Honestly, are you secretly working as a gigolo?

Beibei was a large-sized four-eyed dog, three and a half years old, who weighed a solid 40 pounds due to his insatiable appetite despite being a mixed breed.

During these days in the foster home, Beibei, a Chinese rural dog, shared space with several pedigreed dogs. One of them, a seven-month-old Samoyed, had been suffering from diarrhea due to the stress of a new environment. Beibei, being overly friendly, loved to snuggle with anything that breathed, inevitably getting his paws and fur smeared with black-green fecal residue.

Unaware of how foul-smelling he was, Beibei became ecstatic upon seeing Cheng Simin. He spun in circles, whimpering and pawing at the cement ground, creating sparks. His tail wagged like a propeller, spreading the odor even further. Without a bath, the smell was unbearable.

Fortunately, the pet shop downstairs in Huanghe Garden was still open. Cheng Simin added another 35 yuan to her daily spending.

The groomer applied a color-enhancing conditioner to Beibei’s fur, and under the blow dryer, he transformed. Now leashed and walking beside Cheng Simin, his glossy black coat fluttered in the breeze, with two round, milk-coffee-colored spots above his eyes standing out prominently. Seemingly aware of his owner’s affection, Beibei held his head high, resembling a spirited pony ready for competition.

The streets were quiet, and Cheng Simin kept talking to Beibei. She reassured him not to be afraid, explaining that they were “going home.” She promised that from now on, she wouldn’t leave him alone at home so often because of overtime work.

Their new home had a large grassy area where she vowed to take him out to play twice a day, morning and evening.

Cheng Simin wasn’t the type to enjoy solitude. In her solitary life, she often felt lonely, so she frequently talked to her dog. She believed that if she spoke enough, Beibei, though unable to reply, would surely understand her meaning.

She rambled on, but Beibei only picked up on the phrase “going out to play,” mistaking the journey into the neighborhood and onto the elevator as part of the adventure. Excitedly, he nudged Cheng Simin’s legs with his nose and bolted toward the elevator, heading straight for the stinky jar of pickles.

Beibei sniffed around the pickle jar with great delight, circling it left and right.

Cheng Simin stumbled behind, completely unaware of when this object had appeared in the hallway. She hadn’t noticed the jar when she left earlier.

In her mind, she silently retracted her previous judgment of apartment 1201. What kind of good neighbor leaves a jar of pickles in the hallway during hot weather? The smell must be overwhelming! The hallway was a public space, not just for one household.

In her mind, Cheng Simin was extremely cautious, fearing that her dog might knock over the jar. She immediately tightened the leash, trying to pull Beibei toward her apartment door.

But pulling the leash and calling him back had little effect. Beibei’s front legs were lifted off the ground by the chest harness, yet he stubbornly pressed his nose against the pickle jar, using all his strength to resist her.

The black surface of the jar was left with a series of damp marks. Cheng Simin couldn’t overpower him; instead, she nearly slipped and fell.

Frustrated, she squatted down and hoisted the mischievous dog by its belly.

“What’s so interesting? You can’t even eat pickles! Let’s go home!”

Cheng Simin panted as she spoke these words. A fine strand of dog hair seized the opportunity to sneak into her nostril, triggering an unexpected itch. She covered her nose and mouth and let out a thunderous sneeze that could have echoed through the entire floor.

With a creak, the door of apartment 1201 suddenly opened. Cheng Simin raised her head and focused on the face inside, instantly breaking into a wide grin. Her voice involuntarily escaped from beneath her tongue.

She looked absolutely delighted, cheerfully addressing her neighbor by name.

“Hey! Shi Ying!”

Fortunately, the person inside was polite. Seeing her smile, he nodded in acknowledgment and even obligingly responded: “Yes, it’s me.”

But his politeness lasted less than a second. Shi Ying’s complexion quickly turned pale. Was he having some kind of episode? Why was he smiling at a married woman? Moreover, he was in the middle of an interview, and the noise outside was disruptive. Shouldn’t he be clearing the area?

Forcing himself to suppress his overwhelming curiosity, Shi Ying put on a poker face like a statue and said sternly, lips pressed together: “Sorry, could you please keep it quiet outside? It’s inconvenient for me inside.”

“Oh. Okay, okay. You go ahead and focus.” Like her dog, Cheng Simin wore her emotions on her sleeve. Her earlier smile stemmed from a sense of schadenfreude at seeing someone from a wealthy background fall on hard times. But now, seeing Shi Ying dressed formally in a suit and styled hair on top but wearing shorts and holey slippers below, and hearing him say that his rented place was inconvenient, her mind wandered to inappropriate scenarios.

Ms. Zhou had mentioned that apartment 1201 was always busy, coming and going at odd hours. Now, seeing how exhausted and pale Shi Ying looked, she couldn’t help but wonder if her old classmate had secretly resorted to becoming a gigolo.

After all, unlike ordinary people who maintained an average appearance throughout their lives, Shi Ying’s face was a gift from heaven.

Ten years could ruin many child stars, but he had grown even more striking since he was sixteen! What a magnificent face—if he entered the modeling world, male models everywhere would lose their jobs.

Cheng Simin’s face was too transparent. At this moment, her cheeks flushed slightly, her pupils trembled, and her lips were pursed unnaturally to one side. If she wasn’t thinking about that, she might as well have been suffering from a youthful stroke.

Shi Ying saw right through her lewd expression. He had already begun closing the door with force but, just before shutting it completely, couldn’t resist opening it another twenty centimeters to say, “I’m in an online interview, alright? What are you fantasizing about?”

“No, ah... um... I mean...” Caught off guard, Cheng Simin didn’t understand how Shi Ying seemingly read her mind. She instinctively waved her hands frantically at him.

The dog leash slipped from her grasp, and no one noticed Beibei’s movements. Since Shi Ying opened the door, Beibei had lost interest in the pickle jar and instead tilted his head, sniffing toward Shi Ying. In an instant, he stuck his snout into the slightly ajar door, shaking off Shi Ying’s hand and squeezing his chubby body inside.

“Hey!”

“Beibei!”

A minute ago, the interviewer had frowned due to the noise, unable to hear Shi Ying speak. Shi Ying had to apologize and ask the interviewer to wait for two minutes while he muted the call and stepped out of the video frame.

A thousand miles away, the interviewer sat in his hotel room, bored out of his mind, trying to use his tongue to remove a chili seed stuck between his teeth. Soon, he noticed a shadow flash across the camera and immediately stopped what he was doing, sitting up straight.

“Hello, are we good now? Let’s continue. Earlier, you asked about salary—it all depends on task completion.”

“I see you studied in the UK for a long time. What do your parents do? Where is your family home?”

Before the interviewer finished speaking, the shadow disappeared, and the camera was pulled back slightly. Growing impatient, he clicked his tongue, suspecting poor signal quality. Squinting at the screen, he called out, “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Hello! Speak!”

“Is anyone there? Hello?”

Under his persistent calls, the camera soon moved again. This time, it was dragged to the edge of the table, and the shadow reappeared—but it wasn’t Shi Ying in a suit and tie. Instead, it was a naked mutt.

The interviewer and Beibei stared at each other. Beibei immediately growled low at the stranger. When there was no reaction, he raised his paw and started pressing random keys on the keyboard. The mute function was turned off, and the interviewer heard barking along with a man’s and a woman’s voices on the other side.

The man’s voice likely belonged to Shi Ying, who had been interviewing with him earlier.

He shouted, “Cheng Simin!” His breathing was ragged, his tone accusatory. “Are you doing this on purpose? Call your dog off! Stop messing with my computer!”

The woman’s voice must have been Cheng Simin, who sounded equally anxious and flustered, shouting back defensively, “I’m calling him! But he won’t listen to me! What should I do?!”

“Beibei! Get down! This isn’t our house! Come here! Ah, hey! Don’t chew on the wires!”

“You come here right now!”

As for Beibei—no need to guess—it was the big black dog with two spots above his eyebrows. As soon as Cheng Simin lunged forward to grab his leash, he darted off the chair like lightning, playing hide-and-seek with his owner. The laptop’s charging cable got tangled as he dragged it around, causing the camera’s view to spin wildly. Soon, the interviewer’s lips twitched slightly as Shi Ying came into frame, revealing his cartoon-patterned pajama pants.

Half an hour later, a breathless Cheng Simin finally cornered her dog in Shi Ying’s bathroom. As expected, Shi Ying’s interview ended in failure.

After the interviewer ended the video call, HR quickly called Shi Ying to inform him—without much regret—that he did not meet their hiring requirements.

After hanging up, Shi Ying tossed his suit jacket back into the suitcase. Cheng Simin guessed the outcome of the interview and quietly tiptoed out of the bathroom with her dog, passing by the living room where Shi Ying had his back to her. She stood at attention like a scolded schoolchild, shifting uneasily.

“Shi Ying.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cheng Simin clutched the dog leash tightly, overwhelmed with guilt. “He’s usually very well-behaved; this has never happened before.” Realizing how self-serving that sounded, she quickly corrected herself, focusing on finding a solution: “No matter what, it was my carelessness. It’s my fault for not holding the leash properly, and I delayed your interview. Was the interviewer very upset? Should I call them to explain?”

“It was truly an accident. It’s not your fault.”