Although it was her first time modeling, this wedding photo shoot wasn’t very difficult.
It didn’t require any intimate interaction; Yang Xueyi only had to stand properly by Ying Yun’s side for the dignified couple shots.
After just half a day, Yang Xueyi earned a thousand yuan, while Ying Yun got six hundred.
Since Ying Yun received much less money than Yang Xueyi, there was no trace of sudden wealth excitement on his face.
Yang Xueyi couldn’t help but frown: “Six hundred is a bit too little.”
Sure enough, after hearing this, Ying Yun looked up, his expression softening, as if Yang Xueyi had finally spoken a fair word.
Yang Xueyi sighed deeply: “You should have at least asked for seven hundred!”
Ying Yun stared at her, raising his voice slightly in disbelief: “Seven hundred? I’m worth seven hundred and two.”
Yes! He could have easily raised the price by a whole one hundred yuan! His surprise was completely understandable.
“Of course you’re worth seven hundred!”
Yang Xueyi said earnestly.
“You just showed your hand too fast. Even if your psychological price was six hundred, you shouldn’t have immediately lowered yourself. The male model wanted eight hundred, so you could have asked for seven hundred fifty. After some back and forth bargaining, you could have at least closed the deal at seven hundred!”
She regretted it deeply: “Because you lacked experience, you lost out on a hundred yuan just like that!”
Ying Yun pressed his lips tightly, clearly unhappy about missing that hundred yuan.
He scowled, as if he couldn’t say another word.
Ah, for a young master to stoop so low over money was already quite rare.
Asking him to haggle and bargain was probably too much to ask.
Yang Xueyi patted Ying Yun’s shoulder.
“Forget it, think positively. When you order takeout next time, just ask for two extra red envelopes—make up that hundred yuan difference.”
“Extra red envelopes?”
Ying Yun was stunned.
“You don’t even know about this?”
Ying Yun pursed his lips and said simply, “I don’t eat takeout.”
That made sense; eating takeout also requires a certain financial foundation.
Ying Yun didn’t have that kind of capability yet!
As long as he wasn’t on duty, he would always go home to eat, which was more punctual than even a dog carrying its bowl at mealtime.
No matter what, Yang Xueyi wasn’t stingy.
After earning a little money, she increased the budget for their meals, upgrading the quality.
Ying Yun seemed quite easy to please—eating Yang Xueyi’s cooking every day was surprisingly manageable.
Even washing the dishes, which had become a routine, was done well and quickly.
Yang Xueyi returned to work.
There was so much to learn in the field of medical translation that she stayed up several nights in a row.
In the mornings, she had no choice but to survive on a cup of instant coffee every day.
Ying Yun saw this and tried making a cup like hers.
He took one sip, immediately frowned, and showed a look of disbelief, clearly shocked by the quality.
But perhaps because he had been poor before and was grounded, Ying Yun didn’t mock the taste anymore. Instead, he just quietly looked at Yang Xueyi with a complicated expression.
Maybe because of all this bad luck, fate gave Ying Yun some small sweet moments to compensate.
A few days later, Ying Yun brought home a coffee machine, saying it was from a bank promotion and that he redeemed it with points on his old bank card.
Yang Xueyi looked up the brand and was instantly surprised.
“What bank? They’re giving away such an expensive coffee machine in a promotion? And you can get it just with points? I want to get a card too!”
Ying Yun hesitated, then awkwardly said, “It’s for old customers.”
He glanced at Yang Xueyi and added, “You know, I used to have a lot of transactions, so a lot of points.”
Tears…
Yang Xueyi felt a little sour inside.
Bank cards really had great deals for big customers.
But none of that mattered as much as the fact that from now on, Yang Xueyi didn’t have to drink instant coffee every morning—she could enjoy freshly made, rich-quality coffee instead.
Of course, this job fell to Ying Yun as well.
And ever since discovering that fermented coffee grounds make excellent fertilizer, Yang Xueyi gave Ying Yun a new task—after cleaning the coffee machine, ferment the coffee grounds and use the resulting compost on the potted roses she kept on the balcony.
Poverty made Ying Yun more hardworking and tolerant.
He accepted Yang Xueyi’s arrangements without complaint and grew more efficient and skilled at his chores.
Meanwhile, Yang Xueyi’s new job was also on track.
After doing miscellaneous tasks and side work for a while, her translation skills and output quality became widely recognized.
Soon, the project manager assigned her a translation task to complete independently.
The client was a medical equipment company, and the translation involved contracts related to medical devices.
The documents contained specialized terms from both pharmaceutical and mechanical-electronic fields, dense with technical knowledge and interdisciplinary complexity.
The difficulty was high, and it was an urgent assignment.
Correspondingly, the payment was substantial.
To meet the deadline, Yang Xueyi worked hard translating during the day and stayed late at night.
Medical translation demands strict professionalism.
Even medical students who switch to translation can’t master all the specialized terms.
For someone like Yang Xueyi, who graduated in English, this was a lifelong learning career.
For this contract, she spent several nights in the nearby library, flipping through dictionaries and studying related journals.
These periodicals provided standards and many parallel texts for reference, especially on medical device translation, which helped her aim for greater accuracy.
Ying Yun had night shifts recently, though it was unclear whether his frequent night shifts were a form of harassment at the hospital due to his poverty.
Fortunately, a few times when the library was closing and Yang Xueyi left, she coincidentally ran into Ying Yun coming off work nearby.
Their homes were within walking distance from the hospital, and driving or parking was inconvenient, but Ying Yun, used to the young master lifestyle, stubbornly insisted on driving to and from work every day.
Now with large temperature differences at night and the chill of evening dew settling in, Yang Xueyi gladly caught a ride.
But tonight she couldn’t catch one—Ying Yun’s night shift had just ended.
Yang Xueyi bit her lip and resumed her battle with the English text before her.
Actually, Ying Yun didn’t have many night shifts recently, but since Yang Xueyi had mentioned there was a stalker in the neighborhood, to prevent any safety issues and avoid alarming Aunt Yang, he hadn’t told her the truth and used night shifts as an excuse to give her rides a few times.
Unfortunately, Yang Xueyi overheard his call with Yu Shi this morning and found out Ying Yun didn’t have a night shift tonight, so he wasn’t willing to drive out again.
No night shift tonight meant Ying Yun could have gone home early, but on the way, Yu Shi stopped him.
“Give me a ride! Take me to the subway station!”
This guy not only freeloaded rides but also had no sense of etiquette.
The moment he got in, he started complaining loudly: “You’re only going a short distance, why bother driving to work? Isn’t parking a pain?”
“All the other doctors who live close to the hospital, except for those picking up girlfriends, don’t drive. You don’t even have a girlfriend, so why drive? Don’t you know about low-carbon travel?”
Thankfully, Ying Yun was serious about driving, so to avoid distraction, he just ignored him.
It was going to be rush hour soon, so once they arrived at the subway station, Ying Yun immediately let Yu Shi get out without a word and drove off.
As soon as he got home, Zhong Tian called.
“The Yang Xueyi you recommended really works well. She’s practical and hardworking, doesn’t cut corners, especially willing to dig deep. She’s a real find.”
It sounded like gratitude, but Zhong Tian’s tone quickly turned plaintive.
“She’s so beautiful, but I didn’t expect her to be a workaholic. She was quite friendly with me before, but suddenly she drew a clear line between us as superior and subordinate. Looks like my chances of finding a girlfriend are hopeless again!”
Zhong Tian sounded dejected.
“Brother, sorry for letting you down! You even helped set me up, and it ended up like this. It’s my own fault! Looks like I can’t share any good news with you anymore!”
Ying Yun pursed his lips, thinking fairly, he wasn’t really eager to hear any good news from Zhong Tian.
Still, he comforted him, “Don’t say that.”
Zhong Tian, probably overly sensitive after being rejected by Yang Xueyi, immediately complained, “Why do you sound like you’re gloating?”
“No.”
Ying Yun relaxed his lips.
“What does it have to do with me? I’m not that petty.”
His voice was calm: “Office romances affect professionalism. Since you’ve already started your own business, there’s no need to rush into love. Not dating now is a good thing. A man should focus on building his career.”
“How come I never realized you were so comforting? Ying Yun, you’re really something!”
Zhong Tian cheered up, dropped the topic, and chatted about other things.
Just as Ying Yun was about to hang up, Zhong Tian murmured softly, “The news just said there was some wild construction in your area that accidentally cut two cables. A big area lost power. Is the hospital okay?”
Ying Yun checked his work chat group and found no mention of a power outage, and his home electricity was normal.
But he suddenly remembered something.
Frowning, he searched a bit, then hung up on Zhong Tian and grabbed his phone to rush out.
According to his schedule, Yang Xueyi had set a daily translation quota for herself.
Just when she was half a page away from finishing today’s task, everything went black—the entire library lost power.
Yang Xueyi instinctively peeked out the window, only to find not just the library, but the office buildings and supermarket outside had all gone dark.
The clouds blocked the moon, and even the moonlight was faint and uncertain.
Inside the library, it was pitch black.
Because of the sudden large-scale blackout, no one knew what had happened.
In the face of unknown darkness, crowds tend to panic easily.
Nearby, people started shouting for help; others rushed to escape.
Noisy cries erupted one after another.
Unease fermented, negative emotions spread naturally, quickly turning into a stampede as everyone scrambled to get out.
Yang Xueyi’s scalp tingled; she just wanted to get to a place with light immediately.
But as she struggled to suppress her fear of the dark, she turned on her phone’s flashlight and tried to run outside.
Just then, she was pushed and squeezed by the crowd and fell.
Her only light source—the phone—was knocked away, and the translation papers in her hand scattered on the floor.
This was the result of nearly a week’s hard translation work!
Yang Xueyi nearly collapsed on the ground, groping around for her scattered pages by the flickering phone lights held by the crowd.
There were ten sheets in total.
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