Chapter 6

Three years later

The gates to the S City Women’s Prison opened, and soon a woman walked out of them slowly.

She was ridiculously thin. Although she was wearing the same white dress she wore when she entered the prison three years ago, it now looked like a sack when worn over her shoulders.

She walked very slowly, taking one step at a time as she headed toward the counter more than a hundred meters away. She held a black plastic bag that contained thirty-one bucks and fifty cents, as well as her ID.

It was a scorching hot summer, and there was a visible heat wave above the stone road she walked on. It was at least thirty-three or -four degrees celsius out there that day, but the woman was so dehydrated that she did not produce even a drop of sweat as she walked under the hot sun.

There were black and blue bruises all over her pale skin. There was even a scar about three centimeters long on her face, more precisely her forehead near her hairline. It was extremely irritating to look at.

The bus arrived, and the woman boarded it. She carefully took a dollar coin out of the black plastic bag and put it into the bus’ coin box. There were not that many people on the bus, and the driver barely gave her a glance before pulling back his disgusted gaze… Anyone who boarded the bus here had to be a convict from the prison, and no criminal was any good.

The woman did not seem to notice the driver’s gaze at all. She walked to the seats at the very back of the bus and chose the corner seat, trying to stay as low profile as possible.

The bus went on its way, and as it proceeded, she looked outside the window… A lot had changed in three years.

Her lips curved slightly… Of course, a lot changed in three years. That went for the outside world, but it went even more so for her.

The bus drove to a more developed part of town, and she suddenly gave a jolt… Where was she supposed to go now that she had left the prison?

In her daze, she realized a pressing fact of reality—she had nowhere to go.

She opened the black plastic bag. All she had left was thirty bucks and a half. She carefully counted it three times… What was she supposed to do now?

Not far from the roadside, there was a “hiring” sign that caught her attention.

“Sir, I wanna get down. Please open the door for me.” The three years she spent in jail had washed away all of her pride, and she always sounded timid when she spoke to others.

The driver complained like crazy as he opened the bus door. She thanked him and got off the bus.

She then walked up to the large recruitment sign and looked at it for a while. Her gaze fell upon the word “cleaner” as well as “one meal and boarding provided”.

She did not have a home, a file, or any qualifications, but she did have a prison record… They probably would not hire her even for the position of a cleaner. However… The woman gripped the thirty bucks and a half she had left and clenched her teeth, walking into the nightclub called East Emperor International Entertainment Center. Jane shuddered as soon as she went in; the cool air-conditioning made her shiver with cold.

…

“Name,” the other person said impatiently.

“Jane Dunn,” she said in her hoarse voice slowly. The flashy-looking woman who was recording Jane’s particulars was so shocked to hear her that she shuddered and nearly dropped her pen. The interviewer asked crossly, “Why is your voice so grating?”

The three years she spent in prison had made Jane accustomed to keeping her head down, so although the woman had called her voice unpleasant to her face, she merely replied slowly and gently, as though nothing would ever faze her. “I inhaled too much smoke.”

The flashy woman was slightly surprised, turning her investigative gaze onto Jane’s face. “Was it a fire?”

“Yes, it was.” Jane calmly lowered her eyes at that. ...Rather than a fire, it was more like arson.

The flashy woman noticed that Jane had no intention of explaining further, and that Jane was not a particularly exciting person either. She let the topic slide, but she frowned slightly and clicked her tongue. “This won’t do. East Emperor isn’t your run-of-the-mill entertainment facility, and we have a high-class clientele too.” She swept her gaze over Jane again, making no attempt to hide her disgust. She clearly had a very low regard for Jane, dressed in her sack-like dress. Jane must have been wearing that dress for way too long, too, because the white fabric was even yellowing.

East Emperor was not somewhere your average Joe could afford to go, so even the regular attendants had to have decent features and curvy bodies. How did someone like Jane even have the nerve to come for a job interview.

The flashy woman stood up and waved her hand, rejecting Jane firmly. “No, someone like you won’t do. You can’t even be an attendant.” With that, she turned to leave.