"Thank you, it was very delicious, I never had such delicious rice before." the lady guest seemed surprised herself as she finished the whole plate of egg fried rice.
"Thank you! The boss is gonna be happy when he hears it." the blonde receptionist, whose name the lady guest now knew was Caroline, and who was also her waitress, smiled and asked: "Anything else I can get for you?"
"No, no, that would be all, thank you." the lady guest is much more cheered up compared to before, "How much do I owe you?"
"Boss said it's on the house." Caroline smiled and put another glass of water with a wedged lemon on the table, "What can I say, our boss loves off the book customers. Call it an off the book bonus if you will."
"Oh, thanks." the lady guest chuckled and delightedly turned towards the kitchen, but the man who stood there while she ate up the whole plate of egg fried rice was no longer there, so she just turned back to the waitress: "Please tell him I said thanks."
"He knows, trust me." Caroline winked and gave her a cynical smile .
As the lady guest walked to her room through the corridor on the second floor of the inn, she took a look at her car, which could be quite conspicuous compared to the other cars in the parking lot. But now, maybe it was because there was not much light in the parking lot, the car seemed not quite noticeable.
After a long exhale, the lady guest went into her room shaking her head. Her room was just in front of her right beside the staircase, just like she asked for.
"What's up with the free food? Something special about her? Is it the clothes? The shades?" as she was cleaning up the table, Caroline asked Jianmen in a mildly sarcastic tone, even though he was her boss, and owner of the inn, "The perfume?"
"The trouble." Jianmen answered without turning to face or looking at Caroline, as he was back in the kitchen cleaning up his cookware, "... and the shades."
"What a cliche, former celebrity?" Caroline came over to the kitchen and dropped the dishes in the sink, with a light frown at Jianmen.
"Nah, you didn't pay attention to her eyes did you?" Jianmen shook his head with a small smile as he wiped the wok clean, "Kind of a cliche as well - you know, a black eye, or two?"
"Son of a bitch." Caroline threw the sponge she just picked up to wash the dish into the sink, causing a big splash of soap bubbles and water, "So the trouble - you think he's tracking her down?"
"Yes, and not too far away. Pretty close, actually." Jianmen chuckled.
"Not funny, not, funny!" Caroline hastily took off her gloves and threw them on the side of the sink, then rushed out of the kitchen.
"Remember to wake Jason, he's out of practice!" Jianmen's voice barely followed Caroline out the door, and sounded like he was laughing.
"What? I just got off my shift and it's 3 am!" after a series of loud bangs on the door, a Chinese young man slightly taller than Caroline and with a non-stereotypically chiseled jaw and broad shoulders came out of his personnel room, who was also looking tired and annoyed while wearing a beanie and a T-shirt with graffiti arts on it and a pair of leisure shorts.
"An abuser is tracking one of our guests. Boss said he's pretty close. So I need backup." with one hand on the frame of the door, Caroline said.
"Geez, why me for backup?" Jason gave out an unwilling expression and tried to close the door, but Caroline stopped the door from closing with one firm arm.
"Ok, I apologize. Sorry to have woken you." Caroline adjusted her posture a bit to not look too aggressive, "Consider it one favor returned."
Jason suddenly seemed more awake than a few seconds ago and started smiling, "Why didn't you start with that Ms. Baker, happy to be of service."
"5 minutes, bring your frigging camera." Caroline pointed at Jason with warningly squinting eyes, then headed to the reception's desk.
In almost precisely 5 minutes, Jason arrived at the reception's desk with a portable camera in hand. But when 30 minutes passed, still no sign of other guests or trouble seekers arriving, and it started to make Jason the backup slightly impatient. After all - this wasn't his shift, his shift would start at 7 am today, and he barely got enough sleep.
"So… boss said the abuser was close? Did he mean 'close' as it was in distance or 'close' in finding out where she is?" asked Jason, after the tenth check on his camera inconspicuously placed behind the reception's desk.
"He said he was close, and he reminded me to wake you, so should be both." Caroline started squirming nervously.
"Hmmm...someone's in the parking lot." Jason suddenly pointed at the screen showing feeds from surveillance cameras.
"That must be him. Abusing son of a bitch." Caroline stopped rubbing on her scar on the left side of her forehead, jumped out of her chair and ran into the parking lot. Jason needed to grab the camera so he was not in the parking lot until Caroline was already about to confront the apparent abuser.
But from what Jason could tell, Caroline might be mistaken: it was three people, led by a woman with pink and green hair with a pretty muscular upper body, wearing an expensive looking jacket; the other two were a young women with similar hair color and similar jacket and a man similar to Jason's age, wearing the same kind of jacket.
"... we were looking for this girl, have you seen her?" as Jason caught up to Caroline, he heard the leading woman asking Caroline, with a printed picture in her hand.
"... I am so sorry, but we are not allowed to disclose information about our guests. If you really need to find this persona I would suggest filing a police report. What else can I help you with? Would any of you like a room?" Caroline smiled.
"No! We know she's here! She stole my car and it is here!" the leading woman raised her voice and waved the printed picture in front of Caroline's face, the other hand pointing at a car with shiny gold and red paint.
"Hey hey hey kid, what's with the camera!?" the man of the three person group noticed Jason and saw that he was holding a portable camera.
"This is the lot of Xianshi inn, we work here, if you are threatening our staff or our guests we have a right to document it." Jason answered, deliberately loud and clear so that it will be recorded properly.
"Stop recording, stop recording! Give me those cameras you fuck!" the two followers started to gang up on Jason and tried to take the camera away from him, yet Jason was flexible and agile enough to dodge all of their moves.
After quite a few attempts and yet still could not even take a hold of the edge of his clothes, the two lackeys started getting more aggressive and violent. All the while, they are still being filmed.
"Imbeciles! Take the camera!" the strong woman leading the pack shouted, and attempted to get in on the camera grabbing action.
"Wait." Caroline moved in front of the woman with pink and green hair and blocked her way, "The black eye she had, was that you?"
"So you HAVE seen her." this woman with pink and green hair stared at Caroline, put her focus on Caroline instead: "You tell me where she is, now!" Then she shoved Caroline on her shoulder.
"Like I said, we're not allowed to share information about our guests, especially if they are violent … "
"Shut up you bitch!" this woman with pink and green hair did not hesitate for one minute, and started swinging at Caroline.