When she woke up again, Qiao Ruo was in the hospital, clad in the striped patient 'uniform' and lying under a clean blanket and sheets, a phenomenon she had never seen before. She knew clearly that she had no money, and she had to get out as soon as she could!
She still felt the pain of being smashed across the head with a metal pole, although her assailant had not done it with extreme, brutal force. The wound had been closed off by a medical plaster, and the kind nurse offered her some painkillers.
"I need to go," she explained. "I don't have money to pay your hospital bills."
"Mr. Ye has paid them off for you. Rest assured you don't have to worry," the nurse informed her with a smile. She looked to be about twenty, and she was very patient while speaking to Qiao Ruo. "The doctor has also examined you, and announced that your injuries are very mild. But he also said that you have to remain under observation."
"Who is Mr. Ye?" she asked.
"He brought you in."
"I don't know any Mr. Ye," she began, and then her eyes turned to the wallet lying on her bedside cabinet. "How did that get there?"
"It was taken in with you when you were brought to the hospital," the nurse explained. She looked closer at the nurse, and read her name tag which read as "Hongli Wu". Hongli described Mr. Ye's features meticulously, but nothing about him rang a bell in her mind. Perhaps, he was just a benevolent stranger trying to help a person in need, and was just performing a good deed by sending her to hospital. She would find a chance to repay him in future, but for now, she didn't even have enough for her own sustainability. If she remained in the hospital, they could feed her, but she still needed to go and get her scoop to avoid losing her job.
Maybe she hasn't lost the wallet after all, she thought.
Her smartphone beeped, and she read the message from her boss.
"Did you manage to get anything?"
"Cree didn't turn up" she typed back.
"So I heard about right. However, I've overheard Wang Tong from the enemy team claiming Cree Ye was seen with a drunken woman just outside the bar. Unfortunately, the pictures she captured were too dark and could not identify the woman or Cree Ye."
No way! she thought.
"Hey, if you still need your job, I'll need you to go to the VIP gym that Cree Ye frequents. I'll send you the details. I have information from my source that Cree Ye goes there every Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"I'll be on it at once."
It was Tuesday afternoon, so she had less than a day to get everything done. She persuaded the doctor to allow her to be discharged that night, and since she wasn't in danger, he permitted it as long as she continued to have follow up appointments at her neighbourhood clinics.
She peered into her wallet to realize that her money, supposedly only left with fifty dollars that month, had increased by four hundred!
Mr. Ye had been too kind.
After some roaming around the department store, she settled on a decent designer brand of sportswear known as Sports Armour. Excitedly she shuffled between the sections of the department store with a full basket of sports clothes, zooming into the fitting room to try on her choices of outfits for presenting the best first impression to Cree. She had to do absolutely the best of the best, and intrigue him deeply so that her chances of getting into his good books for the interview were maximised!
She looked at her reflection in the full body mirror located in the fitting room and cleared her throat, repeating in the most innocuous voice ever, "Sir, I need your help. I don't know how to use these machines, they are completely different from the ones in the previous gym I went to!"
How should she catch his attention?
Over all, how should she keep her act up?
It dawned on her that could probably pretend she was a socialite whose parents had became rich recently, and hence she was unsure how to act like one, because she wasn't used to it yet!
But what kind of woman would he like?
According to the internet, most rich and successful men preferred young and innocent women! There had been stories conducted on wealthy millionaires, and from her understanding, these men preferred weaker and more vulnerable women, who they found easier to control and provide for with whatever their wealth allowed for!
She confirmed her decision that she would put on a pretense that she was the naive and innocent child of a fictional couple she created, called Mr and Mrs Frank Lan, and she was Ruo Lan, their only daughter!
In the past, she had been commended for her acting skills, and she had even almost took on a job as a girlfriend for hire! She would do all she could to convince him, and interest him all she could in order to get into his good books! Even if it meant pretensiously being someone she wasn't, and faking an innocent character!
In fact, she was the complete opposite of the woman she feigned to be, bold, audacious and possessing such initiative! If not that Wang Tong had lackeys that were bigger and stronger than her, she would have not allowed Wang Tong a single day of peace! Plus, she had her job to be concerned about, and Wang Tong was just an annoying thorn in the flesh. One day, her true nature would surface, and she would not let off all those who had hurt her, starting from Wang Tong!
However, she had to take everything lying down for now, and be patient so she could eventually fulfill her long awaited dream of becoming a reporter... so that she could provide to her family and not be used by her aunt any more, and to get back all what she had lost from Wang Tong! It was a long road, but she had to persevere and not give up easily!
Because she was born poor, it didn't mean she had to end up poor!
