Chapter 7 Mask

Du Xiaosheng came to me on his own shortly after the company was established. He wanted to work here. He had no requirements for the position and no salary, but he had to have food and accommodation included. He has no resume, and his education level is only up to high school. In addition to management, most of my work is technical, and the requirements for skills are relatively high. I really hesitated at that time. But when I saw Du Xiaosheng wearing a thin white shirt and shivering in the store with his arms folded, I felt relieved and arranged an assistant position for him.

This job is relatively easy. He is mainly responsible for dealing with customers and supervising work. He has completed almost all of my own work, and I am very relaxed.

After assigning him a job, I discovered that except for his low academic qualifications, his other abilities were excellent. He could do many things that I couldn't handle with ease. I gradually increased his salary a lot.

I nodded to him and sat down at my desk. When I looked up, I saw Du Xiaosheng holding a fox-like mask in his hand. His blood-red eyes looked very strange. Du Xiaosheng is usually calm and steady. When did he start learning to cosplay? However, Du Xiao grew up fair and clean, and when he dressed up, he was probably really pretty and refined.

I noticed Sun Yuan glanced at me furtively. Seeing me staring at him, Sun Yuan smiled coquettishly, shamelessly leaned over, pointed at the mask and Du Xiaosheng and whispered in a low voice.

I shook my head secretly, took out yesterday's documents from the drawer and started analyzing them. I need to roughly calculate the expenses in all aspects, and then charge the total fee based on the cost multiplied by 150%. The profit is only half of the cost. After deducting wages, not much will flow to me. This is not a job, it is completely my own personal work to plan company expenses.

While I was calculating a bunch of big numbers and my mind was buzzing, the laughter of Sun and Du suddenly came from Du Xiaosheng's place. The temporary thinking mode in my mind was interrupted by this laughter, and I couldn't help but Re-energized. A fire suddenly surged in my heart. I slammed the table angrily and yelled at Du Xiaosheng's seat: "What are you making all the fuss about? Go to work quickly!"

Sun Yuan shrank his head and quietly slipped back to his seat. Du Xiaosheng was never afraid of me. Instead, he came to my desk with a mask, put the mask on the table and said, "Mr. Chen, this mask was found at the door of our store this morning, and there was a note next to it. "He put his hand on the concave surface of the mask and dug it out. When he stretched it out, there was a piece of paper the size of a sticky note in his hand.

I suddenly felt bad. I couldn’t tell which kid’s prank this mask was. Du Xiaosheng is usually smart and capable, why did he become so nervous with a toy? However, although I had a bad temper, I never yelled at Du Xiaosheng alone. It was not easy to lose my temper at this time, so I patiently picked up the mask and examined it carefully.

This is a ceramic mask with a sharp protrusion at the mouth. It must be a fox mask. There is not much decoration on the face, only some red rune-like things are painted on the forehead, and dark red eye shadow is painted on the eye sockets. It looks like it is for a woman. It is also a oval face, except that it looks uncomfortable. Except, there is no other attractive place.

I put down my mask, picked up the note and was about to open it, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Sun Yuan lying on the table and snickering. I gave him a dirty look and he shrank back, hiding behind a pile of papers. I opened the note.

"Mr. Chen: The thing you want is in Hongfeng Building. Please go to Room 302 to pick it up at midnight on the day of the oblique moon. - October 3, 2015."

I was puzzled. To be honest, I really don't have what I want.

I haven't given much thought to beautiful women, luxury cars, money and buildings that most people like. Making money is to support the family, falling in love is to marry a wife and have children. From my perspective, working honestly and responsibly for the family is the foundation of human beings. As for the luxurious life of gold nuggets and pearls, it is not only that I have not yet reached the level of enjoyment, but if I can really experience a luxurious life one day, I will not regard it as a treasure.

Hongfenglou is a well-known restaurant in Beijing, not far from our small alley. During the Chinese New Year, I invited some employees who had missed the train or could not return to their hometowns to have New Year’s Eve dinner at that place. Naturally, they were very familiar with it.

I frowned, not sure what the paper meant. The handwriting is very delicate, as if it was written by a woman. Sun Yuan joked: "Mr. Chen, it's not your little lover who is looking for you to fall in love, right?"

"Don't talk nonsense." I replied impatiently. Sun Yuan usually has no good words to say and is a careless person. Although I am nearly 20 years old, I have never even been in love, let alone a lover.

However, thinking of the woman's fox mask, the person who wanted to see me might really be a woman, and my intuition told me that that person was quite beautiful.

I carefully recalled the women I met recently. There were very few women with melon-shaped faces. Even if they were, they were just ordinary customers. We didn’t have much interaction with them, let alone asked me to go to Hongfeng Tower. Maybe it's like Sun Yuan said, some unruly woman is eyeing my company and wants to be my lover. I have no interest in such a woman at all.

I motioned to Du Xiaosheng to throw the mask into the trash can outside, put the matter behind me, and continue working.

I worked an extra night shift that day, and arrived at the store at half past nine the next day. This time, Du Xiaosheng and Sun Yuan both worked obediently at their positions. I'm a little surprised. Du Xiaosheng is the same, but Sun Yuan doesn't seem like a person who can sit quietly on a chair. My intuition tells me that it must be abnormal.

Sure enough, as soon as I returned to my desk, Du Xiaosheng handed me a mask and a piece of paper with a cheerful face. I sighed helplessly and said first, "Didn't I ask you to throw it away yesterday? Why did you get it back again? I'm very busy these days, so don't make fun of me."

"Mr. Chen, I found this at the door this morning. Everything is the same as yesterday." Du Xiaosheng explained, ignoring my temper.

Without raising my head, I said two words coldly: "Throw it away."

I originally thought that the prankster would stop after noticing my lack of movement, but unexpectedly, I found a red ceramic mask and a note at the door of the store for several days. Except for the date, which was updated every day, the other contents were the same. Unable to bear it any longer, I finally decided to go to Hongfeng Tower to explore and see who was behind the scenes. Even if someone wants to harm me, I don't want to be a coward.

I asked Du Xiaosheng to accompany me, and he was quite happy. Du Xiaosheng has very few friends. No one has ever asked him out. He has no other entertainment except work every day. Ordinary people would have been tortured by such a leisurely life.

We changed into casual clothes. It was the beginning of the nightlife, and the alleys were completely silent. The people wandering around were all idle young people who made the bar their home.

The business of Hongfeng Tower lasts until early morning at the earliest. You can feel the hot atmosphere inside from outside the building. Legend has it that there are never any customers here, and there are people dining inside at any time 24 hours a day. I once joked with the employees that those who eat at night are ghosts and that Hongfenglou is in the business of the living dead.

I got out of the car first and waited for Du Xiaosheng at the door. Du Xiaosheng is a smart man. He parked the car in a relatively outer position so that it would be easier for us to escape if something unexpected happened.

It’s not that we are too cautious. Everyone in the company knows that although our company has never actively antagonized people, there are many people who secretly hate us. Some are novice tomb robbers. These people have no background or skills. They rarely find large ancient tombs, but mostly find new tombs of wealthy people.

Our company once took over a job. According to rumors, the deceased was a tomb robber and a trap master. He had a special liking for traps and other things. The tomb he designed for himself was full of "elevators" and hidden crossbows.

His tomb is far away from Beijing, in the deep mountains and old forests of other provinces. It was very troublesome to build, and it took a total of one year to complete. Later, a group of people set their sights on the tomb for some unknown reason. They got in before it was completed and stole the funerary objects that had been placed there. I never saw them with my own eyes, but later when I took the family members of the deceased to inspect the results, I saw the corpses of this group of people. They were already decomposed. Du Xiaosheng even tutted a few times to express regret.

Tomb robbers and those of us who build tombs are natural enemies. In fact, it was the wishful thinking of the tomb robbers, who believed that we had arranged the organization, and they became entangled in tracing the source. I'm worried that this prank is related to the tomb robbers. If this is the case, tonight will be a sleepless night.

The decoration inside Hongfeng Building is also quite tasteful. The tables and chairs are made of mahogany, and the floor is also made of wood. There is no elevator here, just a mahogany staircase. When we got to the third floor, a waitress wearing a cheongsam suddenly stopped us. She smiled softly at us and asked, "Do you two gentlemen have invitation letters?"

I said, "What, do you need an invitation letter to go to the third floor?"

"It's like this. Our Hongfeng Building will hold an internal member auction this month. The private rooms on the third floor will be used by internal members who have received invitations." The cheongsam beauty explained patiently. "I'm really sorry. If you two don't have an invitation letter, please choose a private room on another floor."

The note didn't mention the auction or invitation. Could it be that the person who gave me the note didn't know that the third floor of Hongfeng Tower was closed? I quickly gave up this idea. It had been more than half a month since I first received the note. That person should have been in Hongfeng Building 302 on the first day. This was obviously impossible.

Du Xiaosheng pulled my arm, put his mouth to my ear and whispered: "Mr. Chen, take out those notes and try them."

An idea flashed through my mind. If this wasn't a prank, then these pieces of paper must be "passes." I nodded immediately, took out the note I received for the first time from my wallet, and said to the cheongsam beauty, "Look at this."

The beauty in cheongsam took the note, glanced at it, scratched it with her hand, and raised her left hand to her mouth. In her hand she held a walkie-talkie.

She took a few steps back and moved farther away from us. I saw her lips moving, not knowing what she was saying to the other person.

Soon she came back, handed the paper back to me, and said to me with a smile: "It turns out to be Mr. Chen, please come with me." After that, she turned around and walked inside. Du Xiaosheng and I quickly followed.