Chapter 1 — A Day as a Janitor

I wrung out the cleaning rag with a firm twist.

“Wipe the surface of the desk.”

She shoved the documents neatly into a leather portfolio folder.

“Get out.”

I did not move an inch.

“The coffee table has not been cleaned yet.”

Zheng Huai Ren stared coldly down at me.

“Qin Yu Zhen, do not push your luck and fail to appreciate when you are being given a shred of decency.”

The moment those words left his mouth, the few people lingering outside the open door all raised their heads. I looked straight into his eyes.

“When have you ever given me any decency?”

The muscles in Zheng Huai Ren’s face twitched violently. I proceeded to wipe the coffee table. At the bottom of the porcelain cup rested a faint brown coffee stain. It belonged to La Qian. I wiped the surface three times over, until the wood shone so clearly it could act as a mirror reflecting a human silhouette. Only then did I push my cleaning cart forward. As I reached the threshold, Ma Cheng spoke from behind me with a sneer dripping from every syllable.

“You really are practiced at this work. Tell me, was this what you were always meant to do in the first place?”

I halted in my tracks. I turned my head slowly around.

“Director Ma, three years ago when your mother came making a chaotic scene in the middle of the company lobby, screaming that you had taken her retirement savings to gamble on the stock market, who was the one who gently persuaded her to go home?”

All the blood drained from Ma Cheng’s face in a single instant. I continued, my voice unhurried.

“Back then, you knelt right outside the archive room door, begging me with tears in my eyes not to report the incident to the upper management.”

A few collective gasps echoed softly from the hallway outside. Ma Cheng lunged forward in a panic.

“You are talking nonsense!”

From the side compartment of my cleaning cart, I pulled out an old, worn registration ledger. The cardboard cover was frayed and bleached white with age.

“The unusual visitor registration log, volume number seven from the year two thousand and one.”

I flipped the pages open to a specific marked section in the middle.

“Would you like me to read the entries out loud?”

Ma Cheng’s hand froze rigidly in mid-air. Zheng Huai Ren strode over in long strides, slamming his palm heavily down on top of the book.

“Are you stealing company documents and taking them outside?”

I looked down at his hand resting on the paper.

“This is merely a duplicated copy of the logistics department visitor log, which the cleaning staff happened to discover while clearing out the utility closet.”

I pulled the notebook back into my possession.

“You ordered me to perform janitorial duties, so I am simply conducting a thorough inventory of the items according to standard cleaning procedures.”

La Qian’s complexion turned another shade paler. Finally, it dawned on her that inside the basement utility closet on the first level, there was much more than just discarded mops and brooms. There were also old registration ledgers, obsolete keys, and signed delivery slips that they had carelessly treated as wastepaper for years. Those things were mere trash in the eyes of ordinary people. But in my eyes, they were the tangible archives of thirty-two years of history. I pushed the cleaning cart away from the twenty-eighth floor. Just as the elevator doors were sliding shut, Zheng Huai Ren chased after me.

“Qin Yu Zhen, before the workday ends today, hand that ledger over.”

I looked at him calmly.

“Very well.”

He let out a visible sigh of relief. Then I added, “I will deliver it to the person who ought to receive it.” The elevator doors slid shut, cutting his tense face entirely out of my sight. My phone vibrated in my pocket. A text message arrived from an unknown number. Do not touch the twenty-ninth floor. I stared intently at those six characters. The digital floor indicator inside the elevator was currently descending toward the twenty-seventh floor. Instead, I reached out and pressed the button for the twenty-ninth floor.

03

The indicator light for the twenty-ninth floor illuminated brightly inside the elevator cab. The complexion of the young cleaning attendant standing beside me turned deathly pale in an instant. She had ridden up with me, a timid girl named He Miao. She lowered her voice to a nervous whisper.

“Auntie Zhen, we cannot go up to the twenty-ninth floor.”

I watched the glowing numbers shift upwards.

“Says who?”

“Everyone in the building says so.”

“And who exactly is everyone?”

She could not formulate an answer to that. The elevator chimed and came to a complete halt at the twenty-ninth floor. The doors parted. There was not a single soul in sight. Only half of the overhead lights along the hallway were switched on. The reception desk stood entirely vacant. Hanging on the wall were faded, aged photographs belonging to the Yuan Tai Corporation. The very first photograph captured the front gates of the original factory taken thirty-two years prior. I stood still before the photograph, gazing at it for two long seconds. Back then, Yuan Tai was not yet a sprawling corporate conglomerate; it was merely a modest manufacturing plant. More than a dozen people stood clustered in front of the gates. The young man standing right at the center was none of other than the current chairman, Shen Zhao An. And the young woman with short hair standing right beside him was none other than myself. The photograph had grown terribly old. A thick layer of dust coated the glass surface. I picked up a clean rag and slowly wiped the frame until it was spotless. He Miao stood apprehensively behind me, too terrified to make a sound.

“Auntie Zhen, were you actually inside this picture from the past?”

I answered softly, “Yes.” She asked in a timid whisper, “Then why on earth do they treat you the way they do now?” I did not reply to her question. Because a great many people had chosen to forget. And there were others who deliberately made sure that people forgot. I pushed the cart further down the corridor. The door to the chairman’s executive office remained tightly shut. The brass door handle was entirely free of dust, which clearly indicated that someone had recently been inside. In the wastebasket of the adjacent small meeting room lay half of a shredded express delivery slip. I bent down to retrieve the torn pieces. The recipient listed was the Board of Directors Office. The return address originated from a secluded nursing home. I slipped the paper fragments into my cleaning pouch. He Miao watched me with unconcealed anxiety.

“Do we have to collect trash like this as well?”

“Standard garbage sorting and recycling.”

In the pantry area, I gathered another paper cup. At the bottom of the cup lingered a faint smudge of lipstick. The twenty-ninth floor supposedly had no active personnel working on it. Yet, there were freshly used paper cups. I placed the cup into my bag and labeled it properly. At fifteen minutes past eleven, the sound of footsteps echoed softly from the elevator lobby. It was not Zheng Huai Ren. The footsteps were slow, measured, and exceedingly steady. I was currently wiping the engraved nameplate outside the chairman’s office. He Miao was so frightened she instinctively took several steps backward. An elderly man stepped out from the elevator. He wore a dark, heavy overcoat and leaned firmly on a black wooden walking cane. A middle-aged man followed closely behind him, carrying a leather briefcase with a solemn expression. The old man spotted me and came to a sudden halt. I stopped as well. A heavy silence hung in the air for a brief moment. He was the first to speak.

“Are you a member of the cleaning staff?”

I gave a slow nod.

“For today, yes.”