Bizarre Studio

There’s a craft studio at the Rose Lake Greenbelt Center downtown. Xiao Yao, a sophomore, applied for a summer part-time job there, and his friend wanted to apply too. But despite sending out countless applications, his friend never got a reply. It was as if the studio’s hiring system had eyes and only ever picked Xiao Yao’s résumé. Stranger still, on the day of the interview, the boss wanted to pay him in advance, claiming it was standard practice there. Staring at a monthly wage twice what he’d normally expect from a part-time job, Xiao Yao, who had always believed that “money doesn’t grow on trees,” fell into deep thought.