Finding two orphans at the landfill, Jack hurriedly took them with him to his business meeting. And when they read the contract out loud in CHINESE… 😲😲😲
For nearly half an hour, Jack had been watching through the window of his car as two small, thin, fragile figures wandered around the garbage dump, picking things up off the ground and putting them in their mouths.
“At one time, in our childhood, we used to come here too,” Jack muttered aloud, thoughtfully. “Only we weren’t picking up scraps—we were picking berries. And yes, we’d eat them right away.”
“Mr. Jack, maybe we should leave… I can barely breathe,” said his personal driver, holding a handkerchief over his nose.
“What’s wrong, Mike? Don’t like the smell of the homeland?” Jack asked with a bitter grin.
He opened the car door and stepped outside. The stench was so strong, it stung his eyes.
The girls were still picking something up and eating, and Jack’s heart tightened.
“Hey, girls! Come here!” he called out, motioning to them.
They looked in his direction and slowly walked toward him without much enthusiasm. One of the girls came close, while the other kept her distance, watching cautiously and picking her nose.
“Emily, don’t go! Who knows what he wants?” the one standing back said.
“Don’t be scared, what can he do to us?” replied the braver one.
They were filthy. Their hair was so matted it looked like a tangled nest. Their clothes were torn and stained. They were nearly barefoot—just scraps of fabric wrapped around their feet. It was clear they had never known parental care.
“Maybe they’re from the countryside? Nearby villages?” Jack wondered. But remembering his own childhood, he knew kids never looked like that. Yes, they’d run around barefoot, yes, they got dirty, but his grandmother would never have let them go to bed in that state.
Bath first, then home. In the morning, she’d give him and his brother clean shirts, and they’d run off to play all day again. But these girls were obviously homeless.
“Where are your mom and dad?” Jack asked.
“We don’t have a mom—she died,” yelled the girl who stayed back.
“And we’ve never seen our dad,” said the one who came close.
From what Jack understood, the brave one’s name was Emily. He looked at their frail bodies and remembered himself and his brother. They had also been orphaned young.
Their father was killed by poachers, and their mother died of grief a year later. But he and his brother never felt abandoned. Their grandmother had raised them, helped them become who they were.
His brother was a year older, and he was the first to be drafted into the army. Unfortunately, he never came back. Their grandmother’s hair turned white overnight when she got the death notice.
She clung to Jack and whispered, “I won’t let you go.” And they didn’t take him.
First, because he was now her only grandchild.
Second, the doctors had found scoliosis. The army said they didn’t need someone with a crooked spine.
“Girls, are you hungry?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” the girls answered in unison. Only then did Jack notice how much they looked alike.
“Come on, hop in the car,” he winked at Emily. “Bring your sister too.”
“You’re not tricking us, right?” Emily asked.
“No, I promise I’m not.”
Emily turned to her sister and called out, “Sophie, come on, he’ll give us food and a ride!”
Sophie shook her head and stood still, clearly scared.
“I’m not that scary,” Jack told himself.
“Then I’m going alone!” Emily shouted and climbed into the car.
“She’s always like this—afraid of everything.”
“Well, we can’t leave your sister behind.”
“We won’t. You give me food, buy some for her too, and bring it back.”
“That’s fair,” Emily said.
There was logic in her words. But Jack didn’t want the girls wandering around the landfill. That wasn’t the kind of man he was.
He didn’t do things halfway. If he started something, he saw it through to the end—the absolute end.
It was clear the girls needed urgent help, before something terrible happened, before someone else found them.
“Mr. Jack, you’ve got that meeting in less than an hour, and we still need to get back to the city,” the driver reminded him.
Rushing to his meeting, Jack brought the girls with him. And when they read the contract in CHINESE… 📖
Emily sat in the luxurious car beside Jack, staring wide-eyed at the leather interior and shiny buttons. Sophie, who had finally agreed to come, sat pressed against the door, casting suspicious glances at the man.
“Mike, stop at the first drive-thru,” Jack ordered.
When they got there, he bought them burgers, fries, shakes, and dessert. He watched them devour the food with wide eyes and dirty fingers. His heart ached again. He remembered how much he had loved fast food as a kid, but his grandmother rarely let him eat such “junk.”
“Where do you girls live?” Jack asked as they ate.
Sophie looked down, but Emily answered boldly: “Nowhere. We sleep wherever we can. Winter was hard—we mostly stayed at the old train station.”
Jack sighed. He couldn’t just drop them back at the dump. But he didn’t have time to deal with this right now. His meeting with the Chinese investors was crucial for his company.
“Listen,” he said, deciding quickly. “I’ve got an important meeting. I’ll take you with me, and after that, we’ll figure something out. Maybe find you a better place to stay. Sound good?”
The girls looked at each other. Emily nodded excitedly, while Sophie shrugged, unable to say no to the hope of shelter.
“But we look awful,” Sophie whispered, looking at their filthy clothes.
Jack checked his watch. Forty minutes until the meeting.
“Mike, stop at the first mall.” He took the girls into a children’s clothing store and bought them simple but clean outfits—jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, and sneakers. Then he brought them to the mall restrooms and told them to wash up and change.
He waited outside, checking his phone constantly, getting updates from his assistant about the meeting prep.
Ten minutes later, the girls came out transformed. Their hair was still damp but combed, and in clean clothes, they looked like normal kids. Jack was surprised at how beautiful they actually were. Emily had blonde hair and blue eyes, while Sophie had chestnut hair and the same piercing gaze.
“Much better,” he said approvingly. “Now let’s go to my meeting.”
They reached his company headquarters just minutes before the meeting started. Jack told the girls to sit quietly in the corner of the conference room and not disturb anyone. He gave them tablets loaded with cartoons to keep them busy.
The Chinese delegation arrived—three men in immaculate suits, accompanied by a translator. They looked surprised to see the children, but Jack explained vaguely that they were his nieces, and their guardian had an emergency.
The meeting started smoothly. Jack was proud of his project—a modern wood processing factory that would create hundreds of jobs in the region. The Chinese investors seemed interested, though cautious.
Then came the moment to sign the preliminary agreement. The document was nearly a hundred pages long, in both English and Chinese. Translators on both sides were reviewing every page carefully.
During a pause, while the Chinese delegation chatted among themselves, Emily walked over to the table and picked up a copy of the contract. Sophie joined her, and they both glanced over it.
One of the Chinese men smiled and said something in Mandarin, probably assuming the girls were just curious. But to everyone’s shock, Emily began reading the Chinese section aloud—fluently. Sophie took over and continued reading.
The room fell silent. Jack stared at them, as did the entire delegation. Mike dropped his phone.
“What… what are you doing?” Jack whispered, walking over.
Emily looked up, confused. “Reading. Are we not allowed?”
“You… you understand what you’re reading?” one of the Chinese men asked in accented English.
“Of course,” Sophie replied, shrugging. “It says that if production goals aren’t met within two years, your company takes full control of the factory and the 125 acres of land, with no additional compensation.”
Jack turned pale. He snatched the contract from them and turned to his translators. “Is that true?”
The translators looked embarrassed. They quickly checked the section Sophie had pointed out.
“Yes, Mr. Jack. It’s a hidden clause in the Chinese version. It’s not in the English one. They should’ve been identical but…”
One of the Chinese investors started speaking rapidly to his colleagues. The atmosphere suddenly turned tense.
Jack turned to the girls. “Where did you learn Chinese?”
“At the orphanage,” Emily replied. “Before we ran away. There was a volunteer teacher from China. We learned quickly, so she taught us more than the others.”
Jack was stunned. These two girls from the landfill had just saved his company from a trap that could’ve cost him millions.
He turned to the Chinese team with a cold smile.
“I think we need to revise this contract. We won’t be signing today.”
The negotiations were postponed. The Chinese left visibly unhappy. Once the room emptied, Jack sat beside the girls, still processing everything.
“You just saved my company,” he said simply. “And probably my career.”
“Are you taking us back to the dump now?” Sophie asked in a small voice.
Jack shook his head. “Never. In fact, if you’re okay with it, I want to help you. Find you a place to live, send you to school.”
Emily’s eyes lit up. “Can we stay with you? We can help. We know more languages than just Chinese. And we learn fast.”
Jack thought of his big, empty house. His lonely life, devoted to work since his grandmother’s passing. The promise he made—to always help others, as he had once been helped.
“Yes,” he said. “You can stay with me. But first, we have to do it the right way. Get your documents, arrange adoption or legal guardianship.”
The girls looked at each other in disbelief.
“Really? You’re not joking?” Sophie asked, showing emotion for the first time.
“Absolutely serious,” Jack confirmed. “But first, you need to tell me your whole story—how you ended up at the landfill, where you came from—everything.”
Over the next few hours, in a quiet office with plenty of pizza and soda, the girls told Jack everything. About the orphanage full of abuse. About escaping six months ago. About surviving on the streets and finally at the dump, where they sometimes found things to sell.
Jack listened, heart breaking at every detail, but filled with admiration for their resilience. He made a few phone calls, setting his legal team in motion to start the guardianship process.
A week later, after renegotiating the deal with the Chinese—this time fairly, with Emily and Sophie reviewing every page—Jack signed the papers making him the girls’ legal guardian. He enrolled them at the best school in the city, where their exceptional language skills amazed the teachers.
One year later, with Emily and Sophie well-settled into their new lives, Jack received an offer to expand his business into Asia. At the first meeting with potential Japanese partners, he arrived with two special “consultants”—Emily and Sophie, who had since learned Japanese.
When introducing them, Jack always said the same thing:
“These are my daughters. They saved me before I ever saved them.”
And the girls, dressed sharply and brimming with confidence, smiled—knowing that no matter how dark their past had been, the future was brighter than they had ever dreamed.