Seven years had passed in the blink of an eye. In a small house located in a narrow alley of the city, a little girl was clinging onto Flora's legs, refusing to let go while sobbing and begging: "Mom, take me with you... I want to come with you..."
Flora had a vision that her daughter would cry and cling onto her for fifteen more minutes before she could finally leave. If she hadn't left, she wouldn't have made it. Looking at her daughter's round eyes filled with tears, Flora was at a loss for what to do.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the staircase. A young boy appeared, around the same height as the little girl, yawning and stretching. Flora see like pleading with her son for help with her eyes as she frowned
"Paul, let go of your mom. She needed to find a job. You won't get cake to eat if she doesn't have a job," a young boy said.
Did she really need to tell him that she needed to find a job urgently? She had lost her previous job and income, and needed to find another one quickly. But today, she had not gone out to look for a job. Instead, she was meeting a close friend who she had not contacted for a long time.
Later that day, at the café where she was meeting her friend, Flora reluctantly nodded in agreement to something her friend said: "Haha, he's laughing at you! Did he tell her that?"
Her friend exclaimed as she banged her hand on the table. Flora nodded again, and Layla, her friend, sipped her sweet milk tea through a straw as she said: "Does your daughter let you out because she wants to eat cake?"
Flora nodded again.
"To her, the cake is more important than her mother," Layla said, crouching down for a straw and sipping milk tea.
The sweet milk tea slid down her throat, making it impossible to resist a sentence of admiration.
"Time flies. We've grown this much already... Who would have expected you to be a mother of two?" Layla continued, reminiscing.
Speaking of which, Layla suddenly remembered Flora's former boyfriend.
"But you were determined to have two children like that, on Patrick's side... Do you still have any connection with him?"
When she mentioned to Patrick, Layla's eyes dropped slightly, and if Flora noticed, she heard it in a somewhat nervous tone. But Flora was thinking about her two kids and didn't notice. She burst into laughter.
"What can I do? I gave birth to two babies, became a single mother, and couldn't contact him to help raise them."
Layla nodded in agreement. Even if Patrick agreed, his parents would never approve.
Listening to Flora talk, she said, "Come to think of it, I don't have time to contact my old friends anymore, and it's not easy to take care of my two children. I have to pay for diapers and vaccination money, and now I have to worry about which school they will attend, which teachers, and where to get the money... I have a headache..."
As she spoke, she held her head. Seeing the sympathetic look of her friend sitting across from her, she sighed again.
"In the past, even with three jobs, I still couldn't make ends meet. Now... I just lost a job, and I have to spend money for the kids to go to school..."
Facing her best friend, she started to whine. This is a problem that all parents with young children have to endure, and she is no exception.
Her children are going to school. Where will she get the money? Layla listened attentively, knowing that it's not easy to raise a child alone.
Layla's mind began to work at full capacity, trying to figure out how to help her best friend. And she did come up with an idea.
"I remember, my company is hiring people. They just made an announcement yesterday..." She quickly took out her phone, opened the recruitment page, and then turned the phone in the opposite direction.
"Take a look."
Flora took the phone and read it. Layla looked at her from top to bottom.
"I see... you're qualified," Layla said, smiling confidently.
Flora glanced at the salary section in the job posting, not believing her eyes.
It's just for the general manager's secretary position. The salary is up to ten thousand five hundred dollars a month, and there are more bonuses and allowances. Isn't that too good to be true?
She couldn't help but look up at her best friend, smiling confidently, and asked: "This salary... isn't it too high for a secretary?"
Layla glanced at the number on the phone screen, her fingers moving up and down like a pendulum.
"Of course, it's not wrong. You should look at which corporation's recruitment announcement..."
Slipping to the top, there was a catchy line: "The announcement of secretary recruitment for SEI's general manager."
Again, she scrolled down to ask the candidate if they were over one meter sixty tall, with a well-proportioned body, pinkish-white skin, and a beautiful face. They should also be good at drinking, fluent in foreign languages, have good communication skills, and be available at any time. The demands were so high...
"I feel like they're announcing the general manager's lover's recruitment," she couldn't help but say her thoughts, but she received a glare from her best friend.
"What are you talking about? The CEO of SEI Corporation needs to find a girl like this? He has a fiancée, who will choose his secretary."
Despite the analysis being full of words, the whispers couldn't be resisted:
"More than that, if he were to hire a mistress, all the female employees of the corporation would be scrambling to apply."
Hearing her best friend say that, Flora was relieved too.
The salary of ten thousand five hundred dollars a month, excluding allowances, touched her heart. Having such a high salary would enable her to provide a better life for her children and her mother.
"Goodbye, Layla," she thought as she happily stopped by the bakery at the end of the alley and bought her two children some small cakes.
As soon as she pushed the door open, a little girl rushed towards her like a koala bear.
She smiled and rubbed her baby's head, her hand shaking with a bag of confectionery.
"Paul, look what I brought you."
The little girl saw the cake, and her bright eyes hugged Flora tightly. It was only natural for her to let go of her mother's feet.
Not far away, the boy sat on the sofa, pouting contemptuously, witnessing the whole scene from beginning to end.
"You don't have money and always wasteful."
Being looked at by her son with that look, Flora suddenly felt like a wreck, although what she bought was just a few cheap cakes.
She frowned and took a few steps forward, rubbing the boy's head roughly.
"Talk to me with some respect. I am your mother."
The boy looked at her again as if he were condemning the last act of violence.
She helped her baby stroke his short hair covering up his one eye.
"I got a new job with a very high salary, and tomorrow is an interview... To celebrate a little today, can't I?"
Her son frowned at her, removed her hand from his head, patted his hair back into place, and then raised his voice in disbelief.
"What company? You didn't fall for a scam, did you?"
Apparently, she was the mother, and he was the son, but sometimes she felt like the roles between them were reversed.
"Did you forget that I'm your mother just because I never scolded you?" She refrained from emotionally wanting to hold her son's ear, blinked her eyes, and changed her mind.
But her son had been fixated on this issue. He held up his black eyes and emotionless face unlike hers, opened his mouth, and continued to speak:
"Why don't you answer me? Don't people fool you? Now there are crooks everywhere..."
Strangely, he didn't change his expression, but she had the impression that he meant to say: "No wonder you got fooled easily."
The boy's face showed his age and his words sounded old, which must have been inherited from his unknown father.
She sighed and explained to her son that she had not been deceived.
"I am interviewing at SEI Corporation, definitely not a fraud. You should feel fine."
At this moment, the sweet voice of her little girl sounded next to her.
"Brother, do you want a cookie?"
The contemptuous boy often eyed the cake in his sister's hand and pouted:
"Eat it alone, be a fat teddy bear. No boyfriend will like you."
The siblings began to argue again.
Twins born less than ten minutes apart, but why were they so different? The little girl was sweet and cute, while the boy was... hard to describe.