Max

Halia looked at the food sitting inside the lab and her mouth opened wide in surprise.

There was a pizza, some dumplings and even a Peking duck!

Jackson smiled. Max never failed to disappoint when it came to food.

Jackson knew the strengths of his men. After all, they had followed him all the way from France to Beijing.

Max's passion for food started from a young age. Back then, his parents ran a little restaurant in the city center of Xi'an where many tour groups visited for the terracotta warriors. Because of the booming tourism industry, his parents worked hard and made enough money to send him to culinary school in Paris. But, to make ends meet, he had to find a part time job while he studied, and the only thing he found was a position in a small Chinese restaurant. Jackson used to eat there at least once a week.

One day, Jackson was eating in the restaurant when a customer had a complaint. The head chef immediately threw the blame on Max, dragged him out of the kitchen and made him kneel and apologize in front of the customer.

"I didn't even touch that dish," Max cried innocently in Chinese. He had only been in France for 6 months and only knew basic French at that stage.

But, the customer had no idea what he was saying and continued to scold him in French. All the while, the head chef hit Max in the back of the head and told him to shut up.

Jackson realized Max was obviously being treated as a scapegoat. Eventually, he couldn't watch anymore and decided to intervene.

"This man didn't cook your dish. If you have a complaint, you should take it out on the head chef," he explained to the customer in perfect French.

The customer glared at the head chef and started swearing at him, "You f*cken dishonest b*stard!"

Jackson took this opportunity to help Max up. "Are you OK?" he asked. Max nodded his head. He then tore off his apron and threw it on the floor. "I quit!"

After that day, Jackson and Max became good friends. Jackson taught Max French and Max cooked for Jackson. At that time, Max didn't know that Jackson was involved in the gangs.

It wasn't until another 6 months down the track, when he saw Jackson being chased by some gangsters, that he realized what his friend was involved with. On that particular day, he impulsively ran in to help Jackson and was subsequently stabbed in the stomach. Of course, he also got a few punches in before the police arrived. But after that, the gangsters remembered his face and started causing trouble wherever he went. They even went to his culinary school and trashed the place.

Eventually, Max was kicked out of culinary school.

Jackson felt guilty, so he took Max under his wing. He gave him a place to stay and let him follow him around.

Finally, when Jackson moved to Marseille 5 years ago, he took Max with him and opened a restaurant for him to run. For those 5 years, Max felt like his dream had come true. Even though he dropped out of culinary school, he still got to do what he loved: cooking. He even made enough money to send back to his parents and make them proud. So, when Jackson said he was returning to Beijing, he was happy to leave everything behind and return with him.

"I want a bit of everything!" Halia smiled as she ran straight over and grabbed a slice of pizza.

Jackson looked at the woman and smiled.

...

At this time, Max had just arrived outside Halia's apartment.

He took a deep breath, pulled out Halia's keys from his pocket and stared at it with hesitation. While he was standing there in a daze, the next door neighbour returned home and looked at him with curiosity.

"Who are you? I've never seen you before?" the young woman asked.

The neighbour was a young woman in her late 20's. She was dressed in activewear and looked like she had just returned from a jog with her dog that she had on a leash.

"I'm Halia's friend. Sh-She's on a business trip and she asked me to feed her dog," Max stuttered.

The woman was quite good looking and it made him nervous. But, she wasn't the only thing that made him nervous.

Max looked down at the woman's dog. It was a little French bulldog and it was looking up at him with its tail wagging. Suddenly, without warning, it jumped up and started licking his hand. Max quickly screamed and jumped in fright.

The young woman quickly grabbed the dog and covered her mouth in laughter. "Are you afraid of dogs?" she asked.

Max looked at the woman awkwardly and nodded his head...