"Are you familiar with the kid who just came into your shop selling cardboard boxes and plastic bottles?" Unexpectedly, the man asked the shop owner a strange question.
The boss was puzzled. Why did he suddenly ask about the child?
"I wouldn't say we're familiar with them, they're just kids who often come here to sell scrap," the owner said truthfully.
The man casually glanced around the shop, his tone calm, as if in a normal conversation: "You're not a scrap collector, so why are you buying that child's scrap?"
The boss looked at the people in front of him suspiciously: "Who are you?"
"Please rest assured, we are not human traffickers, nor do we intend to harm anyone. We just want to know some things." The man took out his phone and scanned the payment interface. The shop owner was also taken aback when he heard the notification that 500 yuan had been deposited into his account.
If they were human traffickers, they wouldn't charge 500 yuan just for asking a question.
The boss thought about it and realized that given the child's condition, he felt that being abducted by human traffickers might have been better for him than he is now.
“I really don’t know him well. He’s the only one in his family I know. We live in the same neighborhood. That day I closed my shop and went home. It was late and I didn’t want to cook, so I bought a pancake on the way. He was crying at the entrance of the building, saying he was hungry, so I gave him the pancake.”
As the boss spoke, he stole a glance at the man in front of him and saw that the man's brows were furrowed, while the extremely beautiful woman who had been listening to the commotion not far away had red eyes and looked...very angry?
"Anyway, his family rarely comes home, and there's no food at home, so he runs away on his own. I run into him every few days. I can't keep giving food to other people's kids. What if they get sick from eating it and their parents come looking for me? So I tell him to go collect recyclables and then come to me. I give him money so he can buy food himself. I give him the money directly at the purchase price, without taking a cut!"
The boss noticed that the person in front of him had an impressive presence and was dressed in fine clothes, suggesting that they had some connection to him.
"I don't know anything else. That kid doesn't talk much, and he seems a bit slow. When he first started picking up trash, he picked up everything, but now he knows what he can and can't pick up."
The man looked upset, as if he were saddened and dejected, but then he gave a polite smile and said, "Thank you for your help with that child. I really am very grateful."
The man spoke while operating something on his phone.
The boss was a little embarrassed; it was rare to receive such sincere thanks, and such good manners were truly remarkable.
"So he must have some connection with that child," the boss thought.
"Well then, we'll be going now, thank you." The man walked to the woman's side, put his arm around her shoulder and left. At the same time, the boss suddenly heard a notification that a sum of 30,000 had been deposited. He immediately took out his phone and saw that it was the same account as the one that had just transferred 500.
"Damn... So it's true that doing good deeds can be rewarded?" The boss was utterly shocked.
Outside the bustling vegetable market, Yang Xiaoyu leaned on Chu Jianshu's shoulder.
She bit her lip hard, suppressing the sobs rising in her throat.
Chu Yigui, who had heard the whole thing, turned her attention back to Wan Qiu's thin back.
Thin, short, and malnourished.
Wan Qiu's old, worn-out cart had only three wheels that couldn't support the entire board. A stone was tied to one corner as a footrest, and it made a very unpleasant sound as it was dragged along the ground.
The broken little cart, however, is doing its best to find proof that it still has value.
Wanqiu was really heartbroken for his little cart, and he carefully hid it before going home.
The old building looked sturdy enough, but the interior was a complete mess.
The old building's main entrance serves no defensive purpose. The walls are completely bare, covered in tangled dust and exposed electrical wires. The air is filled with a musty smell and the stench of rotting garbage left unattended by residents at their doorsteps.
Chu Yigui looked up and saw Wan Qiu observing the trash, scrutinizing it carefully.
However, there seemed to be no trash worth picking up. Chu Yigui didn't need to see what Wan Qiu looked like when he opened the trash, so it was impossible to say whether it was lucky or unlucky.
When Wanqiu opened the front door of his house, the dark hallway was illuminated by the light from the room, giving him a sense of sudden openness.
Chu Yigui was somewhat surprised.
The house is very clean.
Although a faint smell of alcohol lingered in the air and the walls were stained yellow from smoking, the overall place was still orderly.
Chu Yigui couldn't imagine that Wanqiu's 'parents' would do this kind of housework.
"The house is very clean. Did you clean it all? That's amazing," Chu Yigui asked provocatively.
Wanqiu turned around, looked at Chu Yigui, and felt lost.
Is it a great thing to be able to clean your house?
“I do all the housework; my parents have to earn money,” Wan Qiu said.
“Making money? What kind of money do they make? Do you think they could make so much money that my son can’t even afford to eat and has to scavenge for garbage?! He’s only a few years old! He’s still in school, still growing…” Yang Xiaoyu’s irritable voice kept coming through the earphones.
Wan Qiu washed his hands with a small, disposable bar of soap that was clearly from a hotel, and invited Chu Yigui to wash his hands with him.
The soap had a very plain scent and a cheap feel. There were also many small bars that I couldn't bear to throw away, so I put them in the soap dish.
Although the house was cleaned, it was still badly damaged, with furniture showing signs of being bumped and knocked over everywhere.
"May I look around?" Chu Yigui asked.
"Okay." Wan Qiu did not refuse.
The house was very simple, with two bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom. The smallest room, which Chu Yigui could almost take up most of the space when she stepped inside, was small but tidy.
Wanqiu's textbooks were neatly arranged on the table.
There was summer homework on the table. Chu Yigui casually flipped through a few pages and raised an eyebrow.
The homework is very neat, and you can tell that it was written carefully and attentively. Every word was written with care and effort, but it's not very pretty.
Judging from the dates, the assignments are being completed according to the daily workload, but...
Chu Yigui reviewed the homework from different subjects, and the accuracy rate was horribly low.
Chu Yigui was too lazy to even look at the questions in the fifth-grade summer homework, but Wan Qiu carefully wrote down the wrong answers on every single page.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
