Don’t Turn from Summer Chapter 2

Mu Han Xia was humming a tune of a popular song, while kneading the sushi and placing it on a saucer.

It was still early in the morning, jewels on the top shelf were glittering through the bright sunlight, since there were not many customers yet, supermarket  seemed very empty and quiet.

Mu Han Xia wore the red colored short sales uniform,  leisurely standing beside the counter, picking out some sushi that seemed most beautiful from the rest. After arranging the sushi in order, she took a snapshot of it.

In case of photograph technology, although her mobile’s camera quality was quite ordinary, the pictures she took were always praised by others.

Shadow cast by the bright sunlight made the background seem a little fuzzy, each and every rice grain seemed sparkling and plump, the green colored seaweeds and the red colored fish, the dish was quite beautiful. She sent the photo to her friend circle, also added some words above: “Salmon sushi with tuna rolls, soak in with fragrance, flavor of the  day – by Mu Han Xia”

Bunch of people started commenting right away.

High school cla.s.smate A: “quite beautiful!”

High school cla.s.smate B: “Really hateful, It’s so early in the morning and I’m still on subway rushing to work, plus I didn’t get to have any breakfast either!”

High school cla.s.smate C: “Another one of Mu Han Xia’s arts, speechless”

Cosmetics sales clerk: “Xia Xia, it must be really good!”

Meat section’s shop a.s.sistant: “Ha ha, Pork is the way of the king!”

Holding the phone, Mu Han Xia leaned against the counter, suddenly He Jing pa.s.sed by carrying two big Durian in both hands. She was the fruit section sales clerk, taking  a deep breath threw the fruits in her hands at the top shelf, moving closer to Mu Han Xia, muttered, “You know, even poor can be happy!”

Mu Han Xia lowered her mobile phone, “Could it be that I can not be happy since I’m poor?”

He Jing sneered, sweeping a glance at those beautifully arranged sushi, she couldn’t help but sigh, “What are you doing ah? always changing sections here”

Mu Han Xia replied firm face, “don’t you know, my professional goal is to grasp all the 72 skills of the supermarket and… “

“Screw you!” He Jing interrupted, holding back the laugh, lowered her voice to say, “You think I don’t know that you want crawl higher, you already got yourself a undergraduate degree right? Plus in Jianchen university. Hmph! You people looking pretty and all, don’t you forget me if you climbed high in the future”

Mu Han Xia felt embarra.s.sed, “But you know, as they say, the wife who shared husbands hardships must never be ignored…”

Han Jing burst away, after giving her a slap on the head.

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The general manager of Jiancheng 2nd street Yue Ya supermarket, was called Meng Gang. 35 years old, single and divorced. He always came to work awfully early, begin supervising daily operations of the supermarket. Also he oftenly works till late in the night, finishing the work together with other employees. Although no one dare to talk with him, but they all know that this supermarket’s income ranked first in central China for many years, under his leadership.

Today, Meng Gang called supervising managers of every section for the weekly regular meeting. Morning sunshine was still bright and warm, everyone sat around the table in the big conference room. Meng Gang sat on the middle seat, tweaking a cigarette between his fingers. Sunlight fell behind him, making his features appear neat and clean and he seemed taller, this made him look uninhibited and imposing.

Originally atmosphere around the conference room was solemn and serene, but when marketing manager made his statement, some started showing faint smiles.

Because marketing manager bought over some news, their rival Yong Zheng supermarket chairman’s daughter, marketing director Chen Wei, had encountered an accident, although not life threatening , yet there was severe injuries.

“Yong Zheng just announced to open a new store, within 5 km to ours, however marketing director who was in charge of the new shop preparations had met with a traffic accident” director had an indifferent expression whilst his speech, “it seems their new shop is going o be postponed”

Purchasing section manager with a fiery temper sneered and said, “Frankly, I got no sympathy for them, since we’re doing well in here, seeing our good performance here Yong Zheng  wants to open up a new shop across to us, plus to steal our business here, serves them right!”

Everyone was gathering around the lively discussion, rejoicing at others misfortune. Meng Gang sat in the middle, although he hadn’t spoken or joined in on the topic, yet he wasn’t someone merciful nor kind. Hearing the conversations before him, occasionally his mouth would curve upwards, forming in to a slight smile.

“Chief Meng” marketing manager seemed to be thinking about something before he said, “I heard that when this accident happened, there was someone together with Chen Wei, also that person seem to be a friend of hers from US, coming back here to help her with their new operations”

“From US?” someone asked.

“He appears to be a friend from University, a young man over 20”

“Oh…” someone laughed, turned to Meng Gang, “Chief Meng, it seeds the young miss brought over a friend from college before stepping in to the battle, Yong Zheng played a bad card on this round”

Everyone laughed in unison at the ridicule, Meng Gang also showed a faint smile before saying, “Everyone, whoever it is we shouldn’t let our guard down this early. Yong Zheng always operated steadily, a shop they just opened recently on the other town showed some good performance. They’re always well prepared when they open up new shops, ah that’s right! That friend of Chen Wei’s, what was his name?”

Marketing manager thought for a bit and answered, “Something like.. Lin Mo Chen?”

_________________________

It was almost noon, after sending off a customer, Mu Han Xia started to doze off behind the counter.

Last night was terrible, her feeling sleepy was completely natural. There was no one near her so taking advantage of the surroundings, she let out a big yawn, closing the eyes full of tears.

After a while her head drooped, jerked down making her suddenly wake up.  She looked around with half opened eyes, wanting to go back to sleep. But glancing over the raw of refrigerators, her eyes caught Meng Gang standing there with his a.s.sistants.

Mu Han Xia sobered up at once, straightened her back sitting upright. Reached out to arrange sushi in the sales counter with a solemn face. It was as if the one who was dozing behind the counter a moment ago, was entirely different person.

She didn’t raise her head, merely felt him on looking at this direction. When she raised her eyes, they were already gone.

Mu Han Xia sighed in relief. Thinking to herself, Meng Gang patrols around the shop everyday, and there’re many attendants on the sales counter maybe he didn’t see her in here.

Not long after that, result came with Meng Gang’s a.s.sistant Xiao Chen’s return. Standing behind the counter with a pleasant smile he said, “Mu Han Xia, chief Meng called you to his office”.

The offices of the executives members were at the upstairs of the supermarket. And Meng Gang’s office was at the end of the forth floor.

This is not the first time Mu Han Xia coming here.

It was 3 years ago, when she was first recruited to this supermarket as a shop a.s.sistant, along with 20 other people, yet Meng Gang only summoned her here. Then till now, Meng Gang’s appearance almost didn’t change at all. Crew cut hair, tall build, short sleeved shirt along with trousers, wearing a good wrist watch. His firm and stiff face as well and fingers pressing a cigarette between them.

Mu Han Xia still remember the brief words he said to her that day, “Little girl, I saw your resume. Although you only got your high school diploma, it was the sixth best in whole city. Work well here! then you’ll have many opportunities in the future”

Meng Gang only graduated from middle school, without any background to support him, made it all the way here through hard work while relying only on himself. From being a supermarket shop a.s.sistant crawled up to a staff member, supervisor, manager… and finally became the director of this supermarket.

In this supermarket, he is the goal many people struggling to achieve.

Same was for Mu Han Xia.

Mu Han Xia gently pushed open the door, raising her eyes to see Meng Gang sitting behind the desk, the water pump of the gold fish tank next to him made a regular sound. He was holding a cup of tea, inside the room had the fragrant smell of the tea mixed with faint smell of cigarettes. Seeing Mu Han Xia knocking the door before coming in, he smiled, “Sit”

Mu Han Xia sat down feeling a little embarra.s.sed, thinking about her snoozing episode, she a.s.sumed that it was unlikely for big boss to summon her upstairs for this kind of small matter. For such a thing, letting her supervisor reprimand her was enough.

Her heart beat  accelerated a little.

Meng Gang finally opened his mouth to ask, “didn’t sleep well last night?”

His voice sounded mild and indifferent, furthermore his face carried a slight smile, without a meaning to reproach. Mu Han Xia’s face turned red, clear distinct sound constantly ran through her ears, lowering her head softly replied, “It’ll not happen again”.

She was wearing the red uniform, she had took off her cap since she had to go to the upstairs to meet Meng Gang, revealing the thick hair bounded up to a pony tail. Maybe because she had walked fast on the way here or maybe because of the uneasy heart, her forehead soaked with a thin layer of sweat. With a little moist on the face and neck, her original pale white skin seemed ivory, highlighting the little shade of red on her face. As she was lowering her head, her usual dark pair of eyes hung low eyelashes appeared dense and long. Similarly the pale white hands falling to one side, grasped lightly in to a fist.

After a while she heard Meng Gang say, “Don’t be nervous, this one time is not to blame, pay attention more next time”

“Thank you chief Meng!” corners of her mouth slyly curved upwards and immediately bent down again, raising her head Mu Han Xia turned her solemn face at him, “Chief Meng called me for…”

Meng Gang fixed his gaze at her, “you got your undergraduate diploma?”

Mu Han Xia embarra.s.sed smiled, “En, finally got it few days ago”

Also smiling Meng Gang slowly raised his tea cup up to his mouth, “So what’re your plans for the future?”

Mu Han Xia looking at his expression replied, “I had applied for Human resources department  before, thought to go for marketing section to work…”

“I have already approved it”

Mu Han Xia stared blankly, then suddenly felt a surge of joy filling her. Never mind a little bit of hard work, to be successful in such a short amount of time, her heart filled with happiness.

“Chief Meng, I…” bowed deeply towards him, “Thank you, thank you”

“Look at your usually upright mouth today, stuttering and all?” looking at her deeply, he too revealed a smiling expression. Meng Gang nodded towards her, “Good job, little girl!”

Mu Han Xia was beaming with joy, yet opened her mouth saying , “Chief Meng, I’m already 22, I’m not a little girl anymore”

He said while laughing, “You’re so young, still saying not a little girl in front of me?”

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One month later…

Since the task at hand requires manufacturing division once again, they have been very busy recently. Therefore Mu Han Xia had to stand in at supermarket again for few days.

It was a sunny and peaceful morning. For the past few days after Mu Han Xia took over pastries sales counter, it had been quite leisurely period, only she was not the one to stay idle.Soon she begun to learn how to make cookies, awfully fast.

There was very few customers at the supermarket at that time. Loudspeaker above her head was playing Eason Chan’s <10 years="">> , Mu Han Xia followed the lyrics with softly humming . Her singing was not very pleasant to the ear, in Han Jing’s words, “It resembles to a child who can not find the right melody”

Gla.s.s in front of the sales counter reflected the falling warm sunlight, dense fragrance of the slightly warmed grills blew in to her nose. Bending over Mu Han Xia picked up the finely baked cookies one by one, placing them on a dish, she started to sing in a low voice, “Ten years ago, I did not know you, you didn’t belong to me”

Just then she noticed a pair of long straight legs standing perfectly still before the counter.

Glancing over, she saw a man wearing a suit with leather shoes standing there, perfectly still.

Mu Han Xia was still arranging the cookies, putting them aside she slowly got up. Cheerfully asked, “Sir, What do you need, these are freshly baked cookies, want to give them a try?”

The cookies she just earned to bake may have looked a little plain and square shaped, still the flavor was pretty good.

“Such ugly biscuits, would it poison me?”

Hearing the man speak, Mu Han Xia stared at him blankly. He raised his head, his eyes meeting a pair of deep black eyes.