In My Desperate Time

“4 million? Did you eat his one-thousand-year ginseng?”

Steven Song asks me surprisingly.

He's still in the mood to joke. I'm nervous to death!

“Never mind. Anyway, I can’t pay it off for a while. So I'd better go out to relax and get some inspirations. When do we leave tomorrow?”

“Eight in the morning. I will pick you up at Louis’s house.”

Pick me up?

Forget it. It is difficult to figure out Frances Louis’s minds. Steven Song is also a man. I am afraid that he will be unhappy and lose his temper.

“At the dock, right? I’ll go there by myself.”

Then I go back to my office.

If I stayed here much longer, I'm afraid that people will think I'm doing something shady with Steven Song.

This morning Frances Louis told me to go home early. So as soon as I get off work, I hurry home without stopping.

When I get home, he hasn’t gone home yet.

Damn him! He asked me to come home early but he doesn’t come back?

Then why did he order me to come home early?

the kitchen. I let

the spareribs. I'm going to make sweet and

pot, and smokes rise up. I hold the ribs and stand a little further, afraid to be

not to go into

Louis’s voice comes behind

so startled that the ribs I am carrying drop into the pot. The

The pain is sharp.

off the fire, and takes my hand to flush under the water

the cold water flushing my hand, but

one is probably as big as a coin. I've burned myself before,

What a bloody year!

my face and now my hand is burned. Now these are only red spots,

go into

face horribly pale. It is the first time I ever see Frances Louis

before, he had self-control. But today, he

I be blamed for the burn?

entrance, I should

I murmur.

frowns, his

I wuss out immediately.

“Nothing.”

out a first-aid kit, searching in it for a while,

where's the scald

don’t have scald ointment. My hands are hard and rough. Besides, I have been cooking for so many years. Usually I won’t be burned.” She says for a while, looking at the long face of Frances Louis