The Billionaire's Hidden Affection-Chapter 655 - 652: Nothing is Bigger Than Death8_1

Her heart ached. She simply took the young girl’s hand and said, "Save some money, and you should go back home."

The young girl stopped smiling and said, "I’m getting older each day. I want to go back home and find someone to marry, but I’m afraid of becoming penniless..."

"If you ever need my help, you can always turn to me."

Cindy suddenly asked, "Yan, can I ask you a favor?"

"Go ahead."

"If I can’t make a living like this anymore, can I work at your shop?" 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Yan Xixi was surprised but immediately nodded and said, "You can come anytime."

Cindy nearly jumped for joy and exclaimed, "Really?"

"Yes. As long as the shop is open, you can come."

"Thank you, Yan. I really appreciate it."

"Even though the pay isn’t much and it’s hard-earned, it’s definitely enough to make a living."

"I know. I like the uniforms the staff wears, and I also like that type of environment. In fact, many sex workers earn less than they do."

Yan Xixi laughed along.

"Now I can rest easy. Knowing I have a fallback plan, I won’t be scared. Yan, you have no idea how much we admire you. You’re intelligent; you even got into Harvard. Unlike us, stuck in the mud forever... Yan, sometimes I also wonder if I could have better days if I, like you, had never made a wrong turn. But I know I couldn’t. I’m not good at studying; I’m just hopelessly stupid. I don’t have the talent..."

Never made a wrong turn?

Yan Xixi couldn’t answer.

She knew Cindy meant that she hadn’t ended up as a sex worker... and yet, she had still managed to pull through. She was their idol, a legend in their eyes. When she was a con artist, they were sex workers; when she was at Harvard, they were still sex workers. Wan Donglin was right: scammers rely on their intelligence, while sex workers rely on their bodies. Scammers, if their luck turns, might still achieve success. However, for sex workers, turning their lives around is much more difficult. Everyone looked down on sex workers, despised them. But were people like Yang Wei and Old Zheng, with their supposedly respectable occupations, truly nobler than Cindy and her friends? At least Cindy had never intentionally hurt anyone, nor had she ever bullied others by leveraging power.

Saying goodbye to Cindy, Yan Xixi walked out, clutching the hard-earned talisman tightly. She asked herself again: Would I die if I didn’t live such a wretched life? Would I?

She didn’t know herself. She was just instinctively, in the self-preservation way of a little person, struggling for a sliver of a chance to survive. She couldn’t just walk away completely either—if she left so nonchalantly, what would happen to Xu Xiaoya? Leave her behind to die?

What followed were various groups of people with dubious backgrounds.

Of course, they didn’t resort to violence or vandalism, but they had all sorts of excuses. They would often stand in the store for hours, refusing invitations to the office, and just loiter on the sales floor.

Many customers, seeing this scene, quickly left.

After repeated incidents, the store gradually became deserted.

The once-flourishing business was now a thing of the past.

At the end of the month, during inventory, Xu Xiaoya said with a troubled expression, "Last month’s performance was already bad enough, but this month is even worse. Compared to the same month last year, our revenue has decreased by two-thirds... I don’t even dare to think about next month. Xixi, if this continues, I’m afraid we’ll have to close down."

Yan Xixi said calmly, "Just think of it as making less money."