After hurriedly returning to the first floor, the thin woman pacing outside the duty room, her face full of hesitation, was met with a puzzled inquiry from the administrator lady:
"Miss Laila? Shouldn’t you be helping at Doug’s Restaurant now? Why are you back so early?"
Upon hearing the inquiry from behind, the woman, around twenty-six or seven years old, dressed in an old velvet dress, couldn’t help but stiffen slightly and then turned around, her face embarrassed:
"I was just... fired by the boss over there..."
The administrator lady was slightly taken aback upon hearing this, then said with some helplessness:
"Miss Laila, if I remember correctly, this is the third time you’ve been fired this week, right?"
"I’m sorry... but I really didn’t do it on purpose..."
Faced with the kind person who introduced her to three jobs, only to have them all messed up by her, the thin woman, covered in coffee stains, lowered her head and shamefully explained:
"This morning, when I was simmering borscht, the sour cream ran out, so I intended to fetch a new can from the storage room. However, as soon as I twisted the doorknob, I saw the head chef with Jenny... the waitress, they were... doing..."
"...doing that kind of thing?"
Then... I lost my job...
With a slightly odd expression on the administrator lady’s face, the woman with delicate features covered her scalded arm and said with a bitter face:
"Although I was startled and immediately assured them I didn’t see anything and wouldn’t say anything, Jenny still... accidentally bumped into me while serving coffee to a customer in the afternoon.
I supported the tray, but a whole pot of freshly brewed hot coffee poured directly over the customer’s head, and then the head chef rushed out from the back kitchen shouting, accusing me of being clumsy and constantly messing up the ingredients. Doug’s owner drove me back..."
The thin woman sobbed, her eyes reddening:
"I cherished this job, working more than ten hours a day and completing twice as much work as others without stealing ingredients or anything of the sort, only packing leftover meals which were agreed upon previously.
But... but the head chef framed me, and others didn’t dare to speak up for me. He... he’s just retaliating for me exposing his affair with Jenny. I really didn’t steal anything, please believe me!"
"Laila, don’t rush..."
Looking at the thin woman who seemed almost on the brink of collapse, the administrator lady couldn’t help but comfort her warmly, then helplessly said:
"I understand what kind of person you are; otherwise, I wouldn’t keep introducing jobs to you. But... why do you keep encountering such things?"
Recalling the woman’s unlucky experiences over the past two weeks, the administrator lady said with a peculiar expression:
"You were doing well cooking for the engineering team, but you casually used scrap paper to pad the soup pot, only to find it was a fake invoice from the foreman;
Before that, at the hotel as a waitress, you slipped while cleaning a room, accidentally crashing into the adjacent suite, witnessing the owner bribing a city councilor, and now you’ve exposed the head chef and waitress doing that kind of thing... Isn’t this a bit too coincidental?"
"I... I don’t know what’s going on either..."
The thin woman wiped her tears and said:
"I’ve always been unlucky since childhood, constantly discovering things people want to keep hidden: at home, I caught my stepmother having an affair with the neighbor; at school, I saw the principal accepting bribes; even while working as a maid at Ryan Manor, I stumbled upon...
In short... it’s never intentional, and I don’t dare to expose anyone. I just want to find a job to support myself and my brother, but... but why is it always... so hard to live properly?"
Seeing the woman recounting her series of unlucky experiences, ending with a collapse into tears, the administrator lady couldn’t help but feel both amused and sorrowful.
"Cry, you’ll feel better after letting it out."
Taking out a handkerchief, she approached the thin woman to tend to her scalded arm, gently patting her back and comforting warmly:
"These indeed aren’t your fault. Don’t rush; I’ll try to figure something out to introduce another job to you... Don’t worry, people aren’t always this unlucky."
Hard to say, she might continue to be this "unlucky."
Standing in the stairwell on the second floor, after hearing the entire conversation between the administrator lady and "Miss Laila," Leon pondered as he looked at the review form in his hand.
[Name: Laila Roberts]
[Charges: Espionage, leaking Kingdom secrets]
[Punishment: Capture and interrogation followed by secret execution by hanging]
[File: Suspected ace spy infiltrating from another country, her presence has repeatedly appeared in various important venues over the last six years, causing numerous confidential documents and evidence to go missing.
The Secret Investigation Bureau surveyed 29 locations, checking a total of 571 entries on personnel lists, tracing for 19 months before pinpointing this deeply hidden spy. Some missing confidential documents and evidence were discovered in her apartment, listed as follows:
The "Secret Control Document on Auxiliary Food Market Price" signed privately with the Kingdom of Orleson, carefully folded and placed under a wobbly dining table;
The "Seventeen-Point Mutual Defense Agreement" fragments signed with the secret envoy of the Black Forest Duchy, disguised as book covers, were trimmed and hidden inside a "Children’s Storybook";
The ceremonial porcelain exchanged during a clandestine alliance between the former Duke Ryan and the Kuko Family, agreeing to jointly resist the royal family, now chipped and placed with drooping wild lilies on the apartment’s windowsill...] Latest content published on noveⅼfire.net
[Dispute: This person’s file was investigated by Deputy Director Isha Hill of the Secret Investigation Bureau, questioning her espionage charges, reported under suspected ’Special Situation No. 3’ and handed over to the Police Department’s Clean-up Bureau for review]
[Clean-up Bureau Verification Opinion: ...]
My verification opinion is... the policewoman is right, this person indeed carries an abnormal object.
Looking at the archives listing a long string of confidential documents and evidence, and their very "domestic" handling results, Leon couldn’t help but display a peculiar expression similar to that of the administrator lady.
Generally speaking, it’s hard to imagine so many coincidences occurring, so Miss Laila likely possesses an abnormal object related to "exposing secrets," making her more prone to uncovering things others wish to keep hidden.
As for those secret documents she took...
If my guess is correct, she’s probably lived quite impoverished, developing a habit of thrift similar to mine, repurposing discarded materials. Perhaps she’s illiterate or only partially literate, which led her to inadvertently accumulate such a pile of critical items.
Take, for example, that ceremonial porcelain from the Ryan Family; it might have been unintentionally broken by other servants or someone, secretly discarded, spotted by her, collected, and brought home to use as a vase...
[Confirmed as an abnormal object holder]
Spreading the review form on the staircase railing, Leon wrote down the preliminary judgment with a charcoal pencil, deep in thought.
It’s true Miss Laila possesses an abnormal object and fully meets the bureau’s recruitment criteria, but now the question is whether someone like her is suited for the Cleaner position?