~~~~~ This is a fictional story ~~~~~
One regular weekday morning, Cece has arrived the office earlier than anyone as usual.
In the empty quiet office space, Cece alone, has already changed into her boring company uniform, which is white shirt, grey vest & grey pencil skirt, is wiping everybody’s desk, vacuuming the floor, emptying the trash as usual.
As a junior clerk and receptionist, she is supposed to arrive the office at least an hour before office hour starts, and do all these chores alone. It’s her job.
When she is cleaning the office as usual, she suddenly noticed something strange.
There is some kind of weed, which looks like roots of trees, quite hideous, is growing from a dark corner of the room, perhaps grows from unobvious cracks in the wall? It’s right next to the door of the storeroom, nobody notices it, because basically only Cece would access the storeroom for supplies.
Cece is wondering how to get rid of it —- use chemical? or use a tool? She has neither one, and it will make a mess…
Oh no!! It’s almost 9am!!
At the corner of Cece’s eye, she sees that her boss has already arrived the office, placed his cup of coffee on the desk, and taking off his coat. Cece immediately leaves the spot, and gets on with her busy day. In fact, she is so busy that the mystic root never crosses her mind during the day… until next morning.
When Cece rolls up her sleeves, about to start cleaning the office, she suddenly receives a message on her phone.
“What the heck?” She pulls out the phone from her vest pocket anyway. Then, she sees a bery strange text message, from an unknown number.
“Do you want to know what is this plant used for? Do you want to be rich?”
She puzzles at the message. It totally looks like some junk mail, except how do they know—-is it talking about the root? How do they know her number? Is somebody watching me??
Shit!! Cece suddenly feels scared. She can feel the chicken skin on her arms, due to shock.
She doesn’t know what to do. Tell somebody? Who to tell? Call her mom? And say what?
She continues her daily cleaning, and regular office work half-heartedly. It’s so difficult to concentrate!! But she has to work…
She has decided not to touch and damage the root, until she finds out what it is, and ignores the message, obviously.
At lunch break, Cece finishes the sandwich that she has packed from home as soon as possible, and went out of the building.
She is just a junior clerk. Nobody cares about her. She occasionally has lunch with other clerks, but most of the time she just keeps to herself, so nobody asks her questions.
She tries to go around the building, looks for the wall where the root was found. After 5-10min, she found it!
It’s located in a very narrow alley between two buildings. It looks dark inside, full of weeds and random trashes, maybe only a cat can pass through. If Cece goes inside there, it will definitely make her uniform dirty! So, she gives up the thought, and returns to her office.
On the way home, Cece pays attention at the surrounding, sees if anybody is following her, or anything is unusual, but she finds nothing.
She returns to her tiny flat, where she lives alone.
Under this circumstance, she should have felt scared, but she knows that her neighbour, Paul the programmer, is there. They greet each other and exchange words occasionally. They promise to watch out for each other, since they both live alone. Sometimes Cece takes care of his cat for a few days, when he visits his hometown.
Not sure what to do, Cece starts googling on the internet for similar-looking plant, while eating her cup noodles. But after a while, she gives up and goes to bed.
Next morning, Cece wakes up to find anotger strange text message on her phone.
“I’ll tell you all. 7pm at City Coffee, come alone.”
Cece is shocked! City Coffee is a coffee shop between her office and her home, that she passes by everyday. This person—-whoever he is, obviously knows her well! She cannot escape.
Cece is struggling what to do… but City Coffee is a crowded shop, this person cannot hurt her in the shop. If anything goes wrong, she can just leave the shop or asks for help from the others.
Cece thinks that, as long as she doesn’t follow him to any other places, doesn’t give him any information, doesn’t drink or eat anything in front of him (just in case he may drug her), she should be safe.
Cece is really curious what he has to say, so she goes anyway.
Walking into City Coffee right on time, Cece is expecting to find a mysterious man sitting alone, but she cannot find any single man in there. All the men are sitting and chatting with somebody. Nobody pays attention at her——except one, maybe?
There is a very beautiful woman sitting alone at the corner, reading a book. She is very well-dressed, expensive-looking clothes and sharp high heels. When she sees Cece, she suddenly shows a smile and waves to her, as if they were old friends. Of course, Cece has never met her before.
Cece is surprised to see a woman. She walks up to her and sits at the table anyway.
“Hi, I’m Diana.” The woman shows a warm smile and tries to shake hand with Cece, but Cece is a little bit hesitating, she only sits there quietly.
“Oh… I know how strange it might have looked, but please believe that we mean you no harm.”
“We?” Cece tenses up a little bit.
“Let’s say there is something that we want, and you can help us. In return, we’ll pay you handsomely.”
“What is it, really?”
“You are lucky. This plant that you have found is valuable, but not many people know about it, and we intend to keep it this way. Don’t worry, it is not illegal. We just needs you to take a bit of it whenever we need it, and keep it safe.”
“How do you know me? And how do you know this plant?”
“This, you don’t need to know. In fact, the less you know, the better for you. Please trust me!”
Cece looks at this beautiful woman, not sure what to believe. Is she a spy? or a mafia? Is she in trouble?
“What will I get in return?”
The woman smiles, writes something on the tissue, and pass it to Cece.
Cece can’t help but opens her eyes wider. This is more than her annual salary.
“This is what you’ll get per month! But, we need you to go to work everyday as usual. We’ll give you a Swiss account, that the government cannot detect. It will be in your name. You can check your account online, and withdraw money from anywhere in the world. How does that sound?”
Cece cannot believe such an offer. It just seems so surreal? Should she take it?
“Please think about it. I’ll contact you again when we need your service.”
Cece continues to think about this offer on the way home. She tries to list up Pros and Cons in her head. In the end, she concludes that it doesn’t hurt to try. What could be the worst? It’s certainly not illegal to take care of some weeds in the company yard, and she has to go to work anyway. Even if they don’t pay her like they said, so what?
~~~~~ The End ~~~~~