Zhu Yi angrily shook his head. “Can you believe this guy? What sales representative? What physiotherapist? He was clearly pulling my leg!” While complaining, he still didn’t forget to wave at Li Ming so that they could go in and start preparing.

Li Ming simply smiled good-naturedly. He also didn’t think that you could guess a person’s job that easily. While Zhu Yi might think that a suit was a dead giveaway that somebody was a security guard, there were tons of jobs that one would wear a suit for. And a physiotherapist joining some kind of sports course was honestly a good guess. As for the sales representative … he was afraid that had only been a random guess because the poor guy had been caught off-guard.

Zhu Yi still grumbled a bit but seeing that Li Ming at least didn’t mind, he finally stopped thinking about it after pouting for a bit. “Well, let’s not think about that idiot any longer. You help me set up the room!”

Li Ming nodded and then expectantly looked at Zhu Yi to find out what kind of preparations he had in mind. After all, this was something he had never done before.

Zhu Yi motioned at a stack of mats in a corner of the room. “As I said before, they have all kinds of courses in this room so we always have to prepare everything ourselves. Since it’s easy to trip and fall if you’re not careful, I usually lay out mats to soften the blow.

“If I can’t get it done in time because the course before me takes longer, I also ask the first half of the participants to grab a mat for themselves but with the two of us, we should be able to do it all on our own.”

Li Ming nodded and followed him over before distributing the mats just like Zhu Yi wanted him to.

The room was more than big enough to accommodate fourteen people, especially if two of them would always work together. They put down two mats for one pair of people and then left some space before the next pair of mats. This way, everyone would have enough space.

When they finished, Zhu Yi rubbed his hands and smiled brightly. “Great!” He glanced at the door and then inched closer to Li Ming when he saw that nobody was there yet. “You might think it’s not a big deal but I like having everything done when the first participants walk in. To me, it just seems more professional.”

Li Ming nodded. He could imagine that. “If it’s because of the previous course, it’s not your fault though.”

Zhu Yi smiled. “I know but it’s about appearances. When it comes to that, things are seldom fair. Anyway, the participants can’t see what happened before. They’ll only know whether everything was prepared when they came in or not. It’s not a problem when it happens once or twice but if it happens more often than not, it can turn into one.”

Li Ming gave a hum. “Has that happened often?”

Zhu Yi pondered but then shook his head. “Not in this course, at least. I do have one where it regularly happened in the beginning because the course in front would always let out later. It got so bad that my participants arrived before it ended so they at least saw what was going on.

“I finally complained to staff though and the course lead got a stern talking to from what I heard. They assigned us to a different room starting from the week after that anyway. Probably to make sure the person wouldn’t retaliate or something.” He shrugged his shoulders again. “Well, anyway, that was dealt with. And for this course, you don’t have to worry. Brother Shang is alright. He really plays by the rule.”

Li Ming nodded. Anyway, this was something Zhu Yi would have to worry about. He simply had to follow his lead.

Zhu Yi also didn’t dwell on the topic any longer and simply nodded toward the door. “Well, after this, there isn’t much to do. We can just wait until the participants arrive. Then, I usually talk a little with them. Today, I don’t want to give anything away ahead of time though so you try and stay back a little. Just … look serious.”

Li Ming’s lips twitched as if to defy the order on purpose. He couldn’t help it though. Just trying to imagine what Zhu Yi would do later on … that was making him nervous. “Are you going to let them guess as well?”

Zhu Yi pursed his lips. To be honest, he had been thinking about that but considering how that had worked out just now, he wasn’t so sure anymore. “Well, I guess that might not be the best idea. Let’s just tell them straightforwardly.

“I just don’t want some of them to know ahead of time while others will only find out later. That’ll just lead to them trying to ask questions and already knowing everything before we can start. Then, they’ll be bored later on and might make trouble. It’s better to wait until everyone is here so they’ll find out together.”

Li Ming nodded. “I’ll give my best.”

Zhu Yi gave a hum and then raised his brows. “Right!” He motioned to the other side of the room. “There’s a water cooler there. Usually, everyone brings their own water but apparently, somebody collapsed a few years ago so they got one for the bigger rooms and one for the actual gym in the front. So, if you need something to keep busy, you can also go over there.”

Li Ming nodded but, to be honest, he would feel even more awkward if he went to pretend to get water for several minutes while everyone arrived. No, he’d rather stand close to Zhu Yi so he could deal with any questions that came up.

Well, if he had known just who would walk into the room a few minutes later, he might have made a different decision.