The security guard glanced at Zhang Xuemei and her companion's empty hands, smiled, clenched the banknotes in his hand, took a few steps outside, pointed to a small shop diagonally opposite, and whispered, "See that? That small shop belongs to Lu Qiang's family. Just go and ask. By the way, he likes to drink."

"Okay, thank you, sir. How should I address you?" I can't keep calling you "sir" all the time; I need to give you a surname.

"What a coincidence, my surname is also Lu. You can just call me Uncle Lu."

Zhang Xuemei was taken aback, feeling something was off.

"Sister-in-law, what are you doing? Come on!" Xu Mingwan saw her sister-in-law standing there in a daze, so she reached out and pulled her hard, then smiled and waved to Grandpa Lu.

After regaining her senses, Zhang Xuemei thought about it and realized that she was probably overthinking things; it couldn't possibly be such a coincidence!

"Sister-in-law, shall we go there now? Have you decided how much money to give?"

Zhang Xuemei pondered for a moment, "We just wanted him to give us four or five days, so three hundred should be enough, right?" She was also a little unsure whether three hundred was enough, and wished she had gone home first to ask Minghan.

"Hmm, I think that's enough. It's hard to say whether he even makes that much a month. What more do you want? Shall we just go over there?"

"Wait a minute, let's count out the money first. Do you have any hundred-yuan bills? Count out three and put them in my pocket." You can't give a huge pile of loose change as a gift!

Lu Qiang, who was idly drawing circles on a piece of paper in the convenience store across the street, rubbed his stomach, which was getting a little hungry, and wondered why his wife hadn't brought him food yet. He was starving.

While I was drawing, suddenly everything went dark. I immediately stood up and blurted out, "Want to buy something? We have cigarettes, alcohol, instant noodles, and snacks... Oh, it's you guys. What, you haven't gone home yet?"

Zhang Xuemei smiled and pointed to the boxed wine on the cabinet, "Boss, take that wine down so I can take a look."

Lu Qiang raised an eyebrow, glanced casually at the security booth across the street, then turned around, took the wine off the shelf, and handed it to Zhang Xuemei. "Sixty-eight."

Seeing that the box had been opened, Zhang Xuemei understood what was going on. She reached out, opened the box, quickly stuffed money inside, closed it again, and handed it back to him.

"Boss, I made a mistake, this isn't the wine."

Lu Qiang smiled, holding the bottle of wine in his hand. "It's alright. It's better to drink less, so as not to be late for work. We need to open early tomorrow!"

“Yes, the boss is right. See you tomorrow then?” Zhang Xuemei didn’t leave. After saying that, she looked at Lu Qiang with a smile.

"Ugh, I had to get up early every day this week, and I'm exhausted. I'll finally be able to rest properly next week, and so will you all." (I've never given gifts before, so I just made this up. Just bear with it!)

It was completely nonsensical, and Xu Mingwan didn't understand a word of it, but she did know that Qian Luqiang had accepted it, so did that mean the matter was settled?

After walking quite a distance, Xu Mingwan finally asked, "Sister-in-law, what were you talking about just now? Did Lu Qiang agree?"

"Don't call him 'Lu Qiang' anymore, lest he hears you. From now on, just call him Director Lu, understand?"

Xu Mingwan stuck out her tongue; she had just gotten used to calling her sister-in-law that!

"Anyway, he took the money. From what he said, he can only let us sell for a few more days. Starting next week, we won't be able to."

"It's already Thursday, which means it's been three days? My god, that's really greedy. They're charging us three hundred for just three days. Why don't they just shut us up?" Xu Mingwan said indignantly.

"There are two weekend days, so there should be more people. It's okay, let's try to sell as much as we can!" What else can we do? We can only sell as much as we can.

Zhang Xuemei heard her youngest daughter, Linlin, crying before she even opened the door. The child was becoming more and more clingy as she grew older.

"What's wrong? What's wrong? Do you miss your mom?"

"Why are you only coming back now? I've kept the food warm in the pot for you! Wash your hands and eat!"

Grandma Liu held her granddaughter and swayed her left and right, but the girl just wouldn't listen and kept reaching out towards her mother.

This broke Zhang Xuemei's heart. She stopped eating and took the child from her mother-in-law's arms. "Mom, let me hold her for a while. I haven't held her all day. She must miss her mom, right?"

"Ah, ma, ah ma." The little girl opened her mouth and made a mumbled "mama," which made Zhang Xuemei happy, so she grabbed the little girl's hand and kissed it repeatedly.

"Oh my, my little baby can call me 'Mama' now! Mom, Xiaowan, did you hear that just now? Linlin just called 'Mama'!"

"Yes, yes, I heard it too. It sounded like she was calling for her mother. It seems like Linlin will start talking early. She's only eight months old and she can already say 'mama'."

Xu Mingwan looked at her little niece with the same surprise. There was no child who could talk at such a young age!

"Linlin, call me 'Mommy' again." Zhang Xuemei wasn't satisfied yet, so she teased her little daughter to call her "Mommy" again.

"Ah, ah, ha," the little girl shouted a bunch of interjections, but none of them were the words she wanted to hear about her mother.

"You were calling me 'Mommy' just now, why aren't you saying it anymore?" Zhang Xuemei looked annoyed. Why don't you say it more often? It sounds so nice!

Granny Liu stepped forward and took the child from her arms, saying, "Alright, hurry up and eat! It's just a coincidence. How could she talk at such a young age? It's not like she's a first-time mother. Panpan didn't start calling people until she was a year and a half old. Do you think it's possible for your little girl to call you 'Mama' at eight months?"

“Some people speak up early, maybe Linlin is one of them!” As Zhang Xuemei spoke, she remembered that she hadn’t seen Panpan since she came back. Oh my god, did she forget to pick her up?

"Mom, where's Panpan? Didn't you pick her up from kindergarten?" She stood up as she spoke, ready to rush to the kindergarten. It was already 6:30 pm, and school usually ended at 5 pm. How scared Panpan would be if no one picked her up!

Granny Liu couldn't hold back any longer. She rolled her eyes at her and said irritably, "So you think you're the biological mother? Your father and I are your step-grandparents, right? We're not dead. How could we forget the child? Your father took him out to play."

Zhang Xuemei was relieved after hearing her mother-in-law's words. She chuckled twice and explained, "I was just afraid you'd forget because you're busy."

Grandma Liu didn't seem to mind. "But you two came back a bit late today, it was already dark. I was a little worried about you two women. How about we have your dad pick you up starting tomorrow? He's not much of a use at home anyway."

On her way back, Zhang Xuemei had already told Xu Mingwan not to tell her family what had happened that day. Firstly, the matter had been resolved, so there was no point in talking about it again, and secondly, she didn't want them to worry.

So they could only make up a busy excuse to get by, but they didn't object to their father-in-law picking them up, since it would be safer that way.