Alex put down his knife and fork and stood up.
As soon as the group saw that he was dressed in dirty clothes with messy hair like a man from a street stall, they started to whisper.
"That man looks so ragged" whispered a woman.
"What does he do? It's disrespectful to come to this meeting dressed like that", replied a man.
"Shh… maybe people don't like to show off, but they're actually rich. There are lots of rich
people who like to pretend to be poor", nudged another.
Alex calmly said, "Hello, everybody. My name is Alex, and I drive a food truck with a friend
to sell things on the streets of Washington, D.C. One of our most popular items is pancakes.
If you stop by one day, I can make you one for free." He gave a faint smile and sat down.
As soon as he finished speaking, the people who were present were stunned for a moment.
They didn't have any confidence in someone who wasn't working for a company. How
could a pancake seller speak so casually to them?
Everyone had something to say about it.
"He's a pancake seller… is this job even worth mentioning?" said someone under their breath.
"A pancake is only a few dollars. I don't think he could earn even a thousand dollars a
month. After food and rent, he would have no money left over" spoke another.
"I'm surprised this kind of person has the nerve to join this association. The most important person here is a man with a monthly salary of over twenty thousand dollars. What can he do to help us as a pancake seller?" said a woman snootily.
For a while, Alex became the object of discussion for the whole group. Some people
ridiculed him, some satirized him, and some even went so far as to despise him. In their
eyes, he was the person with the lowest status in the room.
Myriam, who was standing in front of him, gave him a look and walked over to his side. She looked at him with affection, turned to face the crowd, and said with a smile, "I seem to recognize him. Not long ago, I met him outside the Eden."
"No… how? How could a pancake seller be at the Eden restaurant? Miss Myriam, you can't
be right", said a young man in disbelief.
The others didn't believe her either and looked at her with puzzled faces.
"Ha, ha, everyone is wrong. I saw him driven away by the security guard outside the
building. You won't believe what he did… he confessed his love to Miss Marvel of the
Tanuco Group and she refused him. He also argued with Darryl Brennan, who had taken
Miss Marvel out to dinner."
"What? He confessed his love to Miss Marvel? This kid is a tough guy. A pancake seller who
wants to climb high and dream big dreams", said the young man with a smirk.
"When I look at that boy's face, I know that he's a greedy man. Greedy for money. The Marvel family is one of the wealthiest families in this city. He's a pancake seller with big
Daydreams", said another man with disgust.
"This boy reminds me of people on the African grassland. A small man who dares to
challenge a lion. He's a loser at the bottom of the line, and he also challenges Darryl
Brennan. Things aren't going to end well for him", said another man laughingly.
Alex sneered. All the people commenting about his job were Texans in Washington. Even if
he was a pancake seller, he didn't look down on himself. He had come to the Ruby Hotel
because he had promised Phillipa. He had not expected that such a negative situation
would develop.
"Why am I still here?" he thought.
Alex stood up and walked to the door. The others saw him trying to leave, and they thought that he was ashamed of himself and too embarrassed to stay.
"Don't go! Alex… stop!" Myriam called while moving towards him.
He heard her voice and felt angry. He was also anxious to see his mother.
When he reached for the door, it swung open and a man in his forties with a big belly
walked into the room. It was Lester Yates, who was the organizer of this meeting.
"Who is this?" Lester looked at Alex's face, but he didn't appear to recognize him. However, his eyes twitched slightly.
"Mr. Yates, this is one of our guests, so don't let him go," Myriam said to him. She had
walked over to Alex and caught him. She winked at Lester and said with a smile, "Mr. Yates,
Alex had a bad time with everyone just now."
"Oh." Lester laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay… everyone is a fellow
Texan. They're all joking, so you shouldn't take anything too seriously. For my sake, how
about you go and sit down?"
Alex found it hard to refuse Lester, so he gave him a look and took his seat again.
"Sorry, don't take their words to heart," Phillipa whispered to Alex, as she felt guilty. This made him feel a little relieved.
**
Inside the Ruby Hotel's most luxurious meeting room, the boss of the Kraxenco company
was standing beside a beautiful middle-aged woman who was Alex's mother, Flora. The
other man at the table in room 888 was Ken Stokes. Flora had come back to the US for business reasons. She had also wanted to take the opportunity to visit her son. After
learning that Alex's poverty training was over, she had begun to prepare for her trip, when she would finally see him.
On the eve of her return, she had heard that her son was being punished by the family
again, and Alex wasn't allowed to use any of the family resources.
"What's the difference between this and another poverty training for my son?" she thought.
So as soon as she had returned to the US, she had secretly made an appointment with Ken,
the person in charge of the East Coast Division. She wanted him to take care of her son.
However, after talking with him for a long time, he did not dare to agree to her request.
She was helpless, but she could understand his position. After all, the sanction for Alex was by order of the family. If Ken dared to bend the law for selfish reasons, he would be
severely punished by the family.
She waited for Alex, and then called in Frank Dreck, the owner of the Ruby Hotel, and said,
"You go to room 304 and see what stage their party is at. Look out for this young man."
She showed him a picture of Alex on her phone's screen that Ken had sent her.
"Yes Ma'am", he agreed respectfully. Although he didn't know this middle-aged beauty, he
recognized Ken, who was the man of the day in Chicago. In the whole East Coast Division,
the officials at all levels understood that they should be polite to this beautiful woman. "How dare he ignore her?" he thought.
Mr. Dreck left and went to room 304.
**
In room 304, Lester and Myriam were chatting, and Lester said some polite words.
"Mr. Yates, why did you get this pancake seller to come back? Do people here want to buy
pancakes from him?" A young man who was sitting nearby had made this remark, causing a burst of laughter, and some people began to taunt Alex.
"Well, it's not good for us to brush people off. After all, we're Texans, and we should be tolerant of others." Lester walked around the room and pointed to Alex. "Alex, please stand up."
Alex respected Lester, so he stood up.
"You may not know Alex, of course. I don't know him either, but I met him by chance today.
I can share with you a little bit to let you know who he is," said Lester.
The other people were puzzled.
Was it possible that the pancake seller had an unknown side?
Alex was stunned.
"Did Lester buy pancakes from me today?" he thought.
He tried to recall the customers he had served that day, but he couldn't remember having seen Mr. Yates.
"Today, I saw an encounter between a tramp and an old lady with a bicycle. Alex took the initiative to help the old lady pick up some things she had dropped on the ground.
Originally, I thought that he was a good guy, but, unexpectedly, he asked the old lady for
money", said Lester.
Lester had recognized Alex when he had first seen him at the door. The previous day,
Myriam had asked him to help her humiliate him, so he had detained Alex to keep him in the room.
The people present again started expressing their opinion.
"What! I thought this man was poor, but I didn't expect that he would have moral problems too!" said a man with disgust.
"I want to send him to the police station. It's disgraceful for us Texans" said another in a bitter voice.
Alex was really disappointed. He had not expected that Lester wanted to retain him. Seeing
that he and Myriam had exchanged glances, Alex laughed bitterly. It turned out that
everything was a setup by Myriam for her own goals.
"Let him go! We won't welcome such a morally corrupt person!" exclaimed a woman with disgust.
"Yes, he's a disgrace. My food won't stay down if he's here" replied a man angrily.
Even if they didn't chase Alex away, he didn't want to stay in the room any longer. He
looked at these ugly people and prepared to go to the door.
"Stop!" shouted Lester.
Lester stopped Alex with a sneer on his face. "You think you're at home here? Do you think you can just come and go as you please? You need to pay for your meal first! If you don't have anything more to eat, you can leave me a hundred dollars."
Phillipa couldn't take it anymore. She stood up and said to him, "Mr. Yates, you said that
today was your treat and that we wouldn't have to pay for it."
Lester sneered, "I did say that, but I invited Texans. I invited honest people. If somebody
else turns up who's poor and dirty like him and with poor moral character, why should I pay for him?"
Phillipa bit her lip, as she thought that she had misled Alex. "But Alex only ate a little bit.
How can you make him pay a hundred dollars?"
"On average, a meal here is a hundred dollars. When he leaves, who's going to eat the rest
of his unfinished meal?" Lester said.
There were three knocks on the door and a man came in. It was Frank Dreck.
Mr. Dreck immediately spotted the young man that the middle-aged beauty had shown him
a picture of and asked him to look out for. He was surprised. He was unaware of the
relationship between the beautiful woman and the youth. When he saw how badly dressed Alex was, he naturally didn't imagine that the woman was this poorly dressed young man's mother.
"Mr. Dreck!" Seeing Dreck, Lester quickly welcomed him into the room. "Have you come to
see us? Everyone… I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Dreck, owner of the Ruby Hotel."
After hearing Lester's introduction, everyone stood up and greeted him.
"Oh, you're holding a meeting here. I wish you all a good time." Dreck acknowledged the
guests and asked Lester, "Mr. Yates, what's wrong with this young man?"
"Oh, Mr. Dreck, don't worry about him. This is what happened—" Lester roughly told him
about what Alex had done and finally said, "I can't let a person with bad qualities like this
have a free meal. So, if he can't pay for the meal today, I'll just let him work for it."
Dreck nodded, added a few polite words, and walked out of the room. He went back to
report to the beautiful woman in room 888.