Chapter 2 Barcarolle

The conference on organic agriculture was a great success. Next week, the company welcomes foreign agricultural experts to meet and discuss a research project on new plant varieties.

Until his empty stomach protested, Ji Sung decided to get up and leave. As he put on his coat, he glanced out the window and saw that it was drizzling.

Each wave of rain fluttered under the yellow lights of the city night, as beautiful as in a movie. The scenery outside the window made him suddenly feel a little sad.

In order not to drown himself in the sadness that has just appeared, Ji Sung distracted himself by thinking about the hunger in front of him. Sadness could be difficult, but hunger always had a solution.

Should he go for beef or chicken noodle soup? Ji Sung wondered about the steaming hot bowl of noodle as he walked along the empty corridor.

Suddenly, music came from somewhere, pulling him back to reality.

Ji Sung stopped walking and listened carefully.

The sound seemed to be coming from within the hall. The closer to the door of the hall, the louder the piano sounded. Someone was clumsily playing Tchaikovsky's version of Barcarolle.

However, the sound is still very clear. It is clear like pearls falling in the dark night. As if someone had accidentally dropped a string of pearls on the floor, the pearls fell one by one, hitting the floor and rolling around the room.

At first, the sound was slow and a little timid, Ji Sung could feel the player's hand shaking slightly.

But just a moment later, the sound of the piano was as soft as raindrops falling on the vast grasslands. The player's hand was no longer shaking. He could picture those fingers gliding over the keys.

There was something in the music that kept clinging to Ji Sung, making him unable to move his feet. The progress in the piano's voice was shown in just one piece of music amazed him. He really wanted to know who the owner of that sound was. Who in this company can play like that?

The hall door did not close. The inside of the hall was only separated from the hallway by a dark velvet curtain. Ji Sung gently slipped through the curtain and stepped inside.

The whole hall was pitch black, with only one light on the stage illuminating the figure of a woman. Fingers gliding over the keys, she was immersed in the music she played.

Under the spotlight, her hair and clothes were shining like in a dream. Her face was in the backlit part, but because Ji Sung was standing in the dark, he could still recognize her face. And because he recognized it, his heart was now extremely surprised.

This face, wasn't that the janitor he met last week?

What was her name?

Ah, that was right, So Hee. Her name was Lee So Hee.

Seeing who was playing the piano made Ji Sung pause.

He didn't know what made him more confused right now. Was the stunning image of the person sitting on the stage, or was the gray uniform she was wearing that told him she was just a janitor in the company?

The music ended.

Ji Sung saw the woman on the stage sitting motionless for a moment. Her head was slightly bowed, her eyes fixed on her hands resting on the keyboard. Then suddenly, he saw her move. The piano sounded again, the sound was like raindrops falling all over the room, making Ji Sung feel his soul was watered by indescribable emotions. He seemed to be swept away by the sound of the piano.

After the shock, he was suddenly startled by a big question.

What was she doing here?

Her place should have been in a posh living room, under sparkling crystal lights and in a well-tailored evening gown, not in the halls of a fertilizer company and in that gray uniform.

That thought immediately made Ji Sung feel uneasy. He quickly lifted the velvet curtain and stepped outside.

He went down to the company parking lot. He sat in the car but was not in a hurry to drive away. He sat still for a while in the driver's seat, and then decided to start the engine.

He drove to the other side of the road, stopping at a position near the door of the company. From this place, he could clearly see the people coming out from there.

About half an hour later, Ji Sung finally saw her appear. She walked out, turned right to the bus stop and then stopped.

For some reason, she didn't have the tired look of someone who had just finished her shift late. Her face was very calm now, and there was no sign of impatience from someone waiting for the bus near the end of the day.

Perhaps because he saw her image under the spotlight, no matter how he looked at her now, Ji Sung found her beautiful.

When the bus came, she got on, neither fast nor slowly. At the end of the day, there were only a few people on the bus. She held out her monthly ticket and then sat down on an empty seat next to the window. When the bus rolled, Ji Sung's Volvo started up.

He followed the bus, went to an apartment complex in the suburbs, and saw her getting off.

He knew this place. It was recently built, the lowest price being more than half a billion. The cheapest rent was probably around one million a month. His company's janitor salary was not more than two million. If she didn't work overtime, how could she afford to live in this middle-class residential area?

Doubt was growing in his heart. So at the foot of a strange apartment building, he sat in the car, opened his phone and logged into the company's human resource management system. There are not many staff in the janitor department, it took only a few seconds for the name Lee So Hee to catch his eye.

Her profile is nothing special. Thirty years old, from B. city. Divorced, no children.

She looked like that, but turned out to be only his age.

Below, the human resources department noted that before entering the company, she was only a housewife, without any work experience. Maybe that's why she had to work as a janitor after the divorce? Maybe her ex-husband was wealthy, and the apartment was the compensation?

This explanation temporarily made Ji Sung somewhat more secure, but somehow he still had a hunch that there was something unclear behind this.