Chapter Thirty-Nine: Water Outage

After the torrential rain, a cold wave swept through Shanghai, and temperatures plummeted to their lowest point in half a century. When Lin Yu received Jiang Chuan's call, he was wrapped in his pajamas and standing at the entrance of the neighborhood committee, negotiating with the property manager about the water outage in the community.

At first, she didn't take the water outage seriously, assuming it was just a common emergency that the property management would handle quickly. But as time passed, she repeatedly turned the valve on and off, but not a single drop of water came out of the faucet.

Desperate, Lin Yu stood before the sink, growing increasingly anxious with the endless wait. The residents' group chat was in an uproar; unread messages had already surpassed three digits. Lin Yu scrolled up several pages before finally seeing the property management's announcement.

"The extreme low temperature caused the rooftop water tank to freeze and crack, and a full overhaul will take at least four days."

The once-in-fifty-year extreme weather, coupled with a once-in-fifty-year thorny problem, has left the property management company overwhelmed.

Lin Yu is the kind of person who gets covered in fleas if she doesn't shower for a day, so going four days without water is simply unthinkable for her. However, the property management of old residential areas is never reliable, and their efficiency is as slow as rusty gears.

The cold wind outside the window lashed against the glass. Lin Yu stared at the property management's perfunctory announcement on his phone screen and thought for a moment. Instead of wasting time echoing complaints in the owners' group, he decided to go downstairs and ask the property manager for clarification, seeking a solution that would satisfy both parties.

She got up, grabbed her keys and phone from the entryway, and went out the door.

When Lin Yu arrived at the neighborhood committee, the scene before her made her freeze in place. A long line stretched from the water room next to the neighborhood committee all the way to the flower bed.

Men, women, and children were all carrying various containers: faded red plastic buckets, yellowed mineral water bottles, and even vegetable drain baskets. This made her, dressed in SpongeBob pajamas and empty-handed, stand out conspicuously in the crowd.

"Hello, what are you doing queuing here?" Lin Yu grabbed a girl of similar age at the end of the line. She was wearing a hat, and water droplets were still dripping from her hair when she turned around, obviously she had just finished washing her hair when the water was cut off.

"Is this for emergency water supply?" The girl shook the kettle in her hand as if it were commonplace. "The property management said that until the water tank is repaired, the water room will be open for two hours each morning and evening."

She glanced at Lin Yu's empty hands and laughed, "The water won't be restored in a short time. You didn't come empty-handed, did you?"

"Just four days?"

Lin Yu was completely unaware of his situation. He asked in disbelief while frantically checking his phone. He dug out the buried property management notice from the 99+ group messages.

She suddenly felt an itch on her scalp, as if she had gone through the ordeal of not washing her hair for three days.

"Maybe it will take longer than four days!" The little girl shrugged helplessly at Lin Yu. "I've lived here for almost six years, and the property management's repair speed is slower than my grandma knitting a sweater. Don't expect them to handle problems at a pace that exceeds the timeframes specified in the written notice."

"Oh my god!" Lin Yu tugged at the two goat-horn-like braids on her head. "I live in the innermost building! It takes me ten minutes to walk from here to my house, even at a fast pace. I carry a basin of water back and forth every day. By the time the water tank is fixed, the muscles in my arms will be strong enough to crack walnuts!"

The girl clicked her tongue sympathetically. "Then you'd better work on your arm strength beforehand, or take fewer showers and wash your hair less often!" Before she could finish speaking, a commotion broke out in front of them, and the tap suddenly stopped running.

She turned to Lin Yu and said, "Hurry back and get a bucket to fetch water, or the water supply here might run out soon too!"

Lin Yu left the group dejectedly, staring blankly at her thin wrists. She didn't have buckets or large kettles at home; the largest container she could hold was probably a washbasin about the width of her forearm. Given her physical condition, she would probably spill more water than she collected during the round trip.

She was torn between ordering ten buckets immediately or booking a room at a nearby budget hotel by the hour and taking a shower first. Then Jiang Chuan's call came through like a lifeline.

Five days had passed, and the voice on the other end of the phone returned to its usual tone, cool yet with a hint of lazy laughter. "Why is it so noisy over there? Did you go to the night market again?"

"What is it, Attorney Jiang?"

She had always felt that Jiang Chuan had a strange sense of contradiction. He usually seemed unapproachable, but at certain moments, he would reveal an almost perverted obsession.

Just like how he added so much seasoning to his congee a few days ago, it was perplexing. This contradictory and complex quality made her unconsciously attracted to him, yet instinctively wary.

Jiang Chuan sensed Lin Yu's distance, and there was a brief silence on the other end of the phone. "You left something with me."

"What is that?"

Lin Yu frowned in thought. It was probably nothing important; if it were, he wouldn't have been back for five days without noticing it. "If it's not important, just handle it as you see fit."

"I'm afraid that won't work." Jiang Chuan suddenly chuckled. "After all, replacing an ID card is quite a hassle!"

"What? How could this be?" Lin Yu suddenly stood up straight and began to recall the scene at Jiang Chuan's house that day.

She remembered that as soon as she entered the house, she hung her backpack on the coat hook in the entryway of Jiang Chuan's house, and kept her ID card in the inner zippered pocket.

But halfway through, she suddenly remembered that the company needed them to submit visa materials for the Southeast Asia project. So after Jiang Chuan fell asleep, she did take out her ID card from a hidden compartment in her backpack, took a picture of it, and sent it to HR.

At the time, she was sitting on Jiang Chuan's sofa. After taking the photo, she was in a hurry to reply to emails and may have casually placed her ID card on the sofa armrest, causing it to fall into the gap of the sofa.

"Sorry, it probably fell out by accident." She cleared her throat, trying to salvage the awkward situation. "You can just send it by courier with cash on delivery, that way neither of us will have to go through the trouble."

"I'm afraid it still won't work," Jiang Chuan said regretfully, as the car's turn signal could be heard in the background. "I'm almost at the entrance of your residential area."

"Huh? How did you know where I live?"

Lin Yu didn't remember telling Jiang Chuan her address. She was aware of this level of security; the feeling of being spied on was unpleasant. She suspected Jiang Chuan had used his position to access her personal information. "Are you investigating me?"

"Lin Yu, where do you get so many wildly imaginative ideas?" Jiang Chuan's light chuckle drifted into her ear through the phone. "Haven't you noticed that your residence permit is gone too?"

Lin Yu was speechless for a moment, feeling embarrassed and annoyed by his rashness. He could only soften his tone and give an awkward laugh: "Do you need me to meet you at the gate? The old neighborhood is quite winding."

"Has she had a change of heart now?" A car horn suddenly sounded in the distance, the short, sharp sound seeming to mock her suspicion.

"So..." Jiang Chuan said sarcastically, "Now, could you please ask this Ms. SpongeBob to put her hand down in front of her?"

She squinted and peered carefully through her fingers at the license plate. Before she knew it, the familiar black sedan had stopped two meters in front of her.

The driver's side window slowly rolled down, revealing Jiang Chuan's face, which held a half-smile. His long, slender fingers held her missing ID card between them.

Lin Yu ran to the front of the car in a few steps, opened the passenger door and got in. He then expertly directed Jiang Chuan to back the car into a narrow parking space.

I hadn't seen him for a few days, and he looked much better than when he was sick. "You were injured, and I'm so sorry to have troubled you to come all this way."

Lin Yu spoke in a businesslike tone, her face plastered with feigned politeness. Jiang Chuan held her ID in his hand, turned it over, and examined it for two seconds under the overhead light. The light penetrated the thin film on the ID, revealing the disastrously large headshot in the shadows.

"He was cuter when he was little!" He returned the ID to Lin Yu and commented calmly, without any emotional fluctuation in his tone.

Lin Yu didn't know what he meant by those words, but she felt they were somewhat sarcastic, so she snatched the documents away in annoyance.

The shiny, oily forehead in the photo seemed to be a silent mockery. Two large, dark bags under his eyes drooped from his dull lower eye sockets all the way to the corners of his mouth, making him look like a criminal suspect being interrogated overnight.

The photo on her ID card was taken when Lin Yu went back to her hometown to apply for a passport. At that time, she spent all her time at the driving school, and her whole body was tanned and puffy. She was also in a daze and looked completely different from how she is now.

Now, every time I go to the bank to conduct business or go through airport security, the staff will hold my hand and repeatedly compare and confirm it.

She instinctively tried to stuff her ID into her pocket, frantically checking her clothes and pajamas, only to realize they had no pockets. In the end, she could only awkwardly turn her ID over and hold it in her hand as she prepared to get off the bus.

"Take care on the road, goodbye!"

Jiang Chuan reached out and grabbed her arm, the soft, fuzzy feel of her pajamas causing his fingertips to linger unconsciously. "Aren't you going to invite me up for a coffee?"

His eyes were full of sincerity, without the ambiguous probing that Lin Yu had imagined. "You said it yourself, I came all this way, and my arm still hurts!" he said, then gently flicked her pigtail with his finger.

Lin Yu didn't know when Jiang Chuan had started to play the victim, but when he thought about how Jiang Chuan got his injuries, he couldn't bring himself to say anything harsh. "Our neighborhood's water's cut off. If you like dry coffee, I can get you some."

"Water outage?" Jiang Chuan looked at the crowd gathered at the entrance of the neighborhood committee office with a puzzled expression. "Seeing you standing here like this, I thought you were queuing up for eggs." He said, smiling at her. "Do you need me to go buy you two buckets?"

"We need another carrying pole, thank you!" Lin Yu rolled up her sleeves, showing him her slender arms that she couldn't lift with her hands.

Jiang Chuan suddenly reached out and pointed at the grinning SpongeBob SquarePants on her pajamas. "I think it absorbs water quite well." He even pinched its white front teeth as he spoke. "Maybe it can replace a water bucket and hold ten or eight liters."

Lin Yu slapped away his mischievous hand and sighed. "I was originally planning to book a room at the hotel next door for an hour to tide me over."

"Then why don't we go to my place? It's cheaper than a hotel." Jiang Chuan blurted out without thinking, vaguely sensing that this was an opportunity. As for what kind of opportunity it was, he didn't have time to think about it; he just wanted to seize it first. "I won't charge you for the room."

"Isn't this a bad idea?" Lin Yu's fingertips unconsciously rubbed the pocket of his pajamas. He said it was a bad idea, but his mind kept drifting to the thermostatic shower head in Jiang Chuan's house that could adjust seven different water flow modes.

The powerful water pressure in this upscale residential area feels like being under a waterfall in a primeval forest. It's definitely much more comfortable than the intermittent, frequent urination experienced by elderly people in older, dilapidated communities.

But Lin Yu still had reservations. Although she vaguely sensed Jiang Chuan's affection for her, the two had only known each other for a short time.

The man before them was deep and his motives were hard to fathom. Moreover, his health was gradually improving, and no one could guarantee that he wouldn't suddenly become a threat.

Jiang Chuan noticed Lin Yu's hesitation and deliberately retreated to advance. "If you feel it's inconvenient, I can stay at the company."

"No need for that," Lin Yu blurted out, then quickly explained, "Your injury hasn't fully healed yet." She twisted her fingers and thought for a moment, then added, "The water outage in our neighborhood is quite troublesome; it'll probably take four days to fix, so I was worried it would be inconvenient for you."

"Perfect." Jiang Chuan raised an eyebrow, a hint of a smile flashing in his eyes. This opportunity had come even more smoothly than he had expected. "I'm going on a business trip the day after tomorrow and won't be back so soon. You can stay here without worry."

Just then, a commotion broke out among the people queuing for water. Lin Yu looked up and saw that the property management was closing the iron gate to the water room, and several elderly men at the front of the line who hadn't gotten any water were already cursing.

She turned to look at the composed Jiang Chuan before her, and suddenly became absolutely certain that this was the man sent by heaven to save her. "Then I'll trouble you."