Chapter 38
“So, I can’t believe this is the first ever delivery. We don’t even have a procedure or protocol to do it.” While driving Jianmen’s temporary designated car for delivery towards the address somewhere down the road from the inn, Jason said to Caroline.
“Yeah. We are going to ask Boss about that when he comes back. Along with other things.” Caroline sighed and shook her head: “Is Uncle Bu Okay? I know you guys just spent the morning shopping, but I am not convinced that the creepy spider will just give up like this.”
“Have you tried calling him again?” Jason asked.
“I just tried before heading out, still not picking up. Sounded like he’s stuck somewhere with no signal. It’s not like him, something might have happened.”
“I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s Boss, he’s the great cultivating master.”
“Yeah yeah yeah remember what I said about the whole obedient Chinese son thing?” Caroline scoffed: “Have you ever seen him do anything as miraculous as he claimed? He’s kinda all talk and no bite, not to mention spells.”
“Ouch, Caroline. The same shot still hurts here.” Jason chuckled, “Technically he hasn’t claimed anything. He just told us what cultivation could have done. And the Kung Fu moves are no jokes. Have I told you that time I almost got mugged?”
“What? You almost got mugged?”
“Yeah, long story for another time. But the point is, he does know what he’s teaching us. For one we did kick some ghost asses yesterday.” Jason spoke laughingly: “And for two, have you noticed that you got way stronger than before? I moved my bed in the room yesterday without anyone’s help, and I felt like I could practically lift up the whole bed. I haven’t tried an actual weight, but I am pretty sure I could bench press much much more than I used to.”
“Hmm, interesting. So you’re saying I could have made this delivery all by myself. Since I can carry much more than before now.”
“Ha-ha, don’t even think about it. We’re splitting the tips and delivery fee.”
They arrived at the place, it had two small and newly constructed building frames, with some lighting, sound proofing and recording equipment around, looking like a place set up for shooting TVs or movies.
“Hello. We are from Xianshi Inn, we’re here for food delivery?” Caroline walked up to a guy with “security” on his shirt and asked.
“You can just bring the food in.” the guy nodded and showed them in: “Be careful though, the set supervisor’s not in a good mood today.”
“Noted, thank you!”
“Who are you? What in the name of Lao Tzu are you doing here!” when Caroline and Jason brought over the food and stepped into the set, an angry bald man with a well groomed full beard wearing a t-shirt with a huge “力” on it yelled at them before even asking them a question or checking what they had in their hands.
“Um… ” Jason became confused for a brief moment by the weird swear, “We are here to deliver food.”
“Okay, you guys from that ‘Zyanshee Inn’? What a half-ass Chinese name. Not even trying to pretend to be authentic?” the man gave them a “follow me” hand gesture.
Jason and Caroline followed the man into the inner parts of the set. The temperature around them seemed to lowered as they came closer to the inner parts of the set. Unclear if it was due to the lighting of the set or anything else, the inner of the set also felt much dimmer and gloomier than the outside. Finally they made it to a long table with 4 people with name tags on their shirts waiting around and the man leading the way pointed at the table and said: “You can put them here.”
“Alright.” Jason and Caroline’s eyes met, they decided just to shut up, take their money and skedaddle.
“How much?”
“That would be 495 dollars. 20 dollars per person. With delivery fee and tax.” Jason answered, handing over the printed bill.
“Ok.” the man took out his wallet with red and black cloud shapes on it, and took out five hundred dollar bills, and put them onto Jason’s hand.
Jason did not take the money back, instead he and Caroline just looked at the man with an expecting and also slightly judging look.
The man narrowed his eyes with a sense of condescending disbelief, then took out one 20 dollar bill and shoved it into Jason’s hand: “That would be all. You can show yourselves out.”
If Jianmen did not say that they could keep the delivery fee for themselves, Jason and Caroline would have given this man a hard time.
“Holy shit, what a fucking ass!” Caroline cursed as she got into the car: “You still want to get into the entertainment industry?”
“I’m an indie content creator. This is clearly some corporate bro.” Jason shook his head as he started the car and slowly drove away, “Next time we should ask the boss to overcharge them.”
“Crash!” just barely after Caroline and Jason left, a light hanging over the set fell down on one of the wooden prop tables on set, causing the prop table to crash, broken glass and splinters to fly out and hitting two staffers near the table.
“Oh my god! ” “Oh my god!”
“Are you okay? You’re bleeding!”
When Caroline and Jason got back to the inn, they saw that Uncle Bu was having an apparently quite delightful conversation with someone whose right hand and forearm was in bandages. And as they walked into the lounge, they found that the person was none other than their boss Jianmen.