All my Love

It was seven o'clock on a midsummer morning. Olivia Ying was having a bad start to the day. After several efforts, she finally managed to get on to the bus, which was overflowing with people. It was so crowded, she couldn't move an inch. She thanked her lucky stars that she had decided to wear a pair of canvas shoes this morning. Otherwise, she wouldn't have ever caught the bus and missed her long-awaited job interview.

She breathed a sigh of relief and began going over some of the questions that the interviewer might ask her. Two years after graduation, she had landed a job as an assistant to the manager of the planning department in a branch office in W City. This time, because of family pressure, she had to move back to her hometown. She might have had a chance to get a promotion after working there for six months, but now that opportunity was completely ruined. It took her a long time to convince the manager to allow her to work at the headquarters. She would have to start from the position of a clerk and work her way up.

A sudden brake squished Olivia Ying against the glass door. The people behind her were trying to squeeze their way past her. Someone shouted, "Sir, open the front door. We can't get through the crowd."

"Ah!" As Olivia Ying yelled, the door opened without warning and she fell out, almost spraining her ankle. For the second time that morning, she felt lucky that she wasn't wearing her high-heeled shoes and opted to carry them in her bag to change later instead.

A wave of people emerged from the bus, creating a tiny bit of space on the bus. The driver was about to close the door when Olivia Ying quickly jumped back in. Holding on to the handle for dear life, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. When she lowered her head, she realized that her white dress was stained with some inexplicable black stuff. She was aghast as she didn't have spare clothes right now.

Half an hour later, she arrived at the destination and quickly hopped off, unable to salvage her stained dress. Standing across the road, she saw the eye-catching building of the headquarters. She took a deep breath and gave herself a pep talk, "Olivia, you can do it. You are not a rookie anymore."

She checked in at the reception counter and habitually glanced at the elevators. As expected, it was packed!

It was a common complaint among many white-collar workers that they were in bad shape because of being cooped up in the office all day long with no time to exercise. To combat this, Olivia Ying would always take the stairs to keep her tummy flat and weight in check. In fact, taking the bus was another excuse for her to get some exercise in the day.

Most importantly, the human resources department was on the eighth floor. She could climb the stairs with little effort.

She jogged up to the sixth floor with ease and finally leaned against the railing for a brief rest. Suddenly, some strange sounds reached her ears.

Driven by curiosity, Olivia Ying peeked up and immediately retracted her head. A man and a woman were discussing something.

Suddenly, a phone rang, which made Olivia Ying jump, thinking it was her phone. But when the people upstairs started talking, she relaxed.

"Tina, please help me deal with it. I'll go down soon," begged the woman to the person on the other side of the line.

Olivia Ying twirled a long, curly black lock of hair absent-mindedly, trying to block out conversation. It seemed that they were talking about a private matter.

'I'll just wait a moment,' she told herself, looking at her watch. Fortunately, she still had five minutes left.

"What do you mean by saying if we continue our relationship, your life will be ruined? You can't face anyone just because you are with me? In that case, let's file for divorce. Marriage is a burden to you anyway," the man said firmly.

Olivia Ying was flabbergasted. They were husband and wife?

"Why are you yelling at me? I'm just asking for time. I said those because Tina urged me. And now it's really important. How can I leave the building?" the woman whispered coquettishly, pulling the man's sleeve and playing the victim.

The man snorted, "It's very simple. Take my arm and get out of here. From now on, we don't need to hide anything anymore."