With only two days left until Chinese New Year, everyone who could be discharged from the hospital has already gone home. Nobody wants to stay in the hospital during the holiday.

After sitting in the outpatient clinic all morning without seeing a single patient, Li Chu gave her son an early lunch break when it was time for lunch.

He was sitting on the sofa in his office in the afternoon, bored and about to go out for a walk, when suddenly the office door was pushed open with a "bang".

There's no need to even look; besides his wife, no one else will ever walk in like this again.

"Are you alright?"

"There was nothing wrong to begin with. I'm not coming tomorrow. I'm going out for a walk with Xiao'e."

"Okay, go ahead. Hmm? Lou Xiao'e just came by?"

"Yes, the restaurant is already closed for the holidays. She came over this afternoon since she had nothing else to do, and she just left."

Ding Qiunan plopped down on the sofa, grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds from the coffee table, and said while cracking them open, "Xiao'e just told me that Qin Huairu and He Yuzhu's restaurant has closed down."

"That's normal, their store is closed too."

"Their house is closed for the holiday, while that one is shut down."

Li Chu, who had been looking at the newspaper in his hand, finally looked up.

"Did I hear that right? You said it's closed down? It's shutting down? It's only been open for four months and she's already quitting?"

"How can we pay wages if we can't even get paid?"

"What's going on? How did Lou Xiao'e know? Yesterday, Xu Damao only said that the business was about to go out of business."

"What Xu Damao said was all about last month. Their decision to close down was only yesterday. Lou Xiao'e only found out about it this morning. One of the kitchen helpers who used to work with He Yuzhu came to see her this morning, wanting to come back and work here after the New Year."

They said that when He Yuzhu took them there, he promised to pay them 80 yuan a month, but he only paid them that for the first month. For the next two months, he only paid them 60 yuan each month, and yesterday, when January's pay was given, he only paid them 40 yuan, saying he was really out of money and told them to wait for the rest.

Wait, how can we wait? These people live off this money. Unlike factory workers who receive wages and coupons, these people need coupons and have to buy them at the pigeon market, which inevitably costs them more. How are they supposed to celebrate the New Year?

"And Xiao'e only found out today that He Yuzhu had been deducting money from these kitchen helpers' wages before."

"What's going on? How will your salary be deducted?" Li Chu was stunned. Although He Yuzhu wasn't a very good person in his memory, he shouldn't have done something like this, right?

"Back then, He Yuzhu brought his apprentice, the one surnamed Ma, and three kitchen helpers. His salary was two hundred, his apprentice was paid one hundred and twenty because he also had to cook, and the other three kitchen helpers were paid seventy each."

Every time wages were paid, Xiao'e would give the money directly to He Yuzhu, letting him distribute it himself in the kitchen. However, he would deduct ten yuan from each person's pay, meaning it was a token of his respect, since he was the one who helped them find the jobs.

"Holy crap, that's forty a month?"

"What do you think? Besides, he also ruined his apprentice Xiao Ma this time. Originally, Xiao Ma was supposed to be the head chef at Qin Huai Ru's place, but after this incident, he went there instead, and Xiao Ma became his assistant again, earning only a pittance."

The kitchen helper said that Xiao Ma's wife had given him an ultimatum: if he continued to follow He Yuzhu like this, she would divorce him and leave him.

"Sigh~" Li Chu sighed. Every family has its own troubles.

The wife wasn't being unreasonable without reason. She was doing well working for Xu Damao, but he forced her to come here. Fine, she could have been a good cook, but what's the point of her coming here?

With wages being cut again and again, it's already a sign of good manners that Xiao Ma's wife didn't go to He Yuzhu's door to yell at him.

He Yuzhu really ruined the lives of the people who followed him this time, including Xiao Dang.

If he hadn't lent Qin Huairu the money, the restaurant would never have been able to open. Xiao Dang could have continued working for Xu Damao with peace of mind, earning over a hundred yuan a month. Now, all of that is ruined.

He ended up with nothing, his wife was gone, and his son has now changed his surname. At fifty, he is all alone again.

They used to be a happy family, but now they've become like this. Who can they blame but themselves?

While Li Chu and Ding Qiunan were discussing He Yuzhu, He Yuzhu himself was sitting by the roadside near his house, looking distressed and smoking alone.

Because he was all alone at home, he didn't know how to spend the New Year.

He was now in a difficult position, unable to express his grievances. What he least expected about this incident was that Cui Chunmei would have such a fiery temper.

Whether he lent the money he was keeping for Yi Ping'an to Qin Huairu or secretly took money from his own home, it was all just to help her. He didn't have any other intentions at all.

In his mind, even if Cui Chunmei discovered that he had stolen money from the family, as long as he admitted his mistake and made a good promise, she would probably forgive him for the sake of their son.

But to his utter surprise, the other party didn't say a word when they discovered the money was missing. Instead, they took some men and went to block the door at night.

He went there that night simply to check if Qin Huairu had bought all the necessary kitchen supplies.

But late at night, a man and a woman alone were trapped in a house, and at that time, they couldn't explain themselves no matter what.

He was also angry that Cui Chunmei was so decisive and made him lose face, so he readily agreed to the divorce.

He regretted it the next morning at the entrance of the neighborhood office, but Cui Chunmei was determined to either go to the police station or go inside, leaving him with no way out. And so, they got divorced in a daze.

Looking back now, he really wants to slap himself a few times.

People only see Xu Damao making a lot of money by opening a restaurant, but they don't see how much he does behind the scenes. The restaurant has plenty of vegetables, eggs, meat, chicken and duck every day, which doesn't come on its own.

Well, now that's it, three thousand yuan has been thrown in, and there hasn't even been a sound.

Qin Huairu turned around and went back home, but what about him? He's still owing money.

Not only did he owe his apprentice and kitchen helper wages, but more importantly, he also owed Yi Ping'an two thousand yuan, which he had to save up before kicking him out.

He was getting more and more depressed the more he thought about it.

His neighbors in the courtyard talked about him all day long, so no one in the courtyard interacted with him anymore.

Who can stand someone who has a good life but spends all their time hanging out with a widow?

That is, it's the 1980s now. If it were in the 1950s or 60s, the people in the courtyard would definitely kick him out. They would think it would be beneath them to live with someone like that.