Five Star Billionaire: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

didn’t want to see what happened; it was not important to her. The only thing that mattered was that the blond girl had gambled.
    She took her expensive new phone to a Sichuan girl who traded things in the dorm and sold it for a nice sum of cash. She washed her hair and tied it neatly before going to Boss Lin’s office. She was wearing her tightest jeans, which she usually reserved for her day off. They were so tight that she could not sit down comfortably without them cutting into the tops of her thighs.
    Little miss, it’s highly irregular for us to hand out salaries before payday, he said, but he was already looking for the number of the accounts department.
    Come on, it’s almost the end of the month—only a week to go. Phoebe twirled her hair and inclined her head the way she had noticed other girls doing when they talked to the handsome security guards. Anyway, she laughed, our relationship is a bit irregular, don’t you think?
    Foshan, Songxia, Dongguan, Wenzhou—she was going to bypass them all. Her bar was going to be raised all the way to the sky. There was only one city she could go to now, the biggest and brightest of them all.
    THE GIRL AT THE next table was still reading her magazine, her boyfriend still sending messages on his iPhone. Sometimes he would read a message aloud and laugh, but the girl would not respond; she just continued to page through her magazine. He looked up at Phoebe, for only a split second, and at first Phoebe thought he was scowling in that familiar look-down-on-you expression. But then she realized that he was squinting because of the light. He hadn’t even noticed her.
    The girl’s mobile phone rang and she began to rummage in her handbag for it, emptying out its contents on the table. There were so many shiny pretty things—lipstick cases, key rings, and also a leather diary, a pen, stray receipts, and scrunched-up pieces of tissue paper. She answered the phone and, as she did so, stood up and gathered her things, hastily replacing them in her bag. Her boyfriend was trying to help her, but shewas frowning with impatience. A five-
mao
coin fell to the floor and rolled to Phoebe’s feet. Phoebe bent over and picked it up.
    “Don’t worry,” the boy said over his shoulder as he followed his girlfriend out. “It’s only five
mao
.”
    They had just left when Phoebe noticed something on the table. Half hidden under a paper napkin was the girl’s ID card. Phoebe looked up and saw that they were still on the pavement, waiting for a gap in the traffic in order to cross the road. She could have rushed out and called to them, done them a huge favor. But she waited, feeling her heart pound and the blood rush to her temples. She reached across and took the card. The photo was bland; you couldn’t make out the cheekbones that in real life were so sharp you could have cut your hand on them. In the photo, the girl’s face was flat and pale. She could have been any other young woman in the room.
    Outside, the boy was leading the girl by the hand as they crossed the road. She was still on the phone, her floppy bag trailing behind her like a small dog. The skies were clear that day, a touch of autumn coolness in the air.
    With a paper napkin, Phoebe wiped the bread crumbs off the card and tucked it safely into her purse.

2.
CHOOSE THE RIGHT MOMENT TO LAUNCH YOURSELF

    E VERY BUILDING HAS ITS OWN SPARKLE, ITS OWN IDENTITY. AT night, their electric personalities flicker into life and they cast off their perfunctory daytime selves, reaching out to one another to form a new world of ever-changing color. It is tempting to see them as a single mass of light, a collection of illuminated billboards and fancy fluorescent bulbs that twinkle in the same way. But this is not true; they are not the same. Each one insists itself upon you in a different way, leaving its imprint on your imagination. Each message, if you care to listen, is different.
    From his window he could see the Pudong skyline,