21 The sisters’ sigh in the animal world attracted curious glances from others.
Ni Yue quickly covered her mouth and whispered through her fingers, "That Fang Damei loves money like her life. Could it be that she started a side business on the sofa bed and became a middle-aged slasher?"
Her first reaction was prostitution.
"That shouldn't be the case!" Zhang Chenling said after a moment's hesitation, "It's more likely that her husband or boyfriend comes over often, and they eat and drink together, and then have sex on the sofa bed at night."
"Oh my god...that's disgusting enough!" A picture of the animal world and Teacher Zhao Zhongxiang's classic opening remarks immediately flashed through Ni Yue's mind.
Extremely filthy.
"Indeed...it's possible!" Xu Zhiqian nodded in agreement.
"Thank goodness you found it!" Zhang Chenling cast a light glance at him and swallowed the second half of her words: Men really have a keen sense of smell for that thing.
The sarcasm hidden in her eyes stabbed him like a knife, and Xu Zhiqian's face turned red in embarrassment.
He had just been tidying up the bathtub when he accidentally saw the bottle of lubricant. His first reaction was that something was amiss, so he took a photo with his cell phone, intending to show it to the two sisters, but he didn't think about it as deeply as Ni Yue.
Ni Yue had no time to pay attention to the silent exchange between the two talented people. She was lost in deep thought. Suddenly, she slapped her forehead and exclaimed, "Oh, I thought of something else!"
"What?" Zhang Chenling and Xu Zhiqian were brought back to their senses by her shout.
"The small medicine bottle next to Mrs. Dong's pillow!" Ni Yue's lips trembled with excitement. "Estazolam, it's a sleeping pill!"
"What about sleeping pills?" Zhang Chenling frowned. "Old people generally have some sleep problems, so it's normal to take sleeping pills."
"No, no, no," Ni Yue shook his head like a rattle, "I remember that medicine is not suitable for the elderly!"
Ni Yue also took estazolam.
During the most painful period, she went to the hospital's psychiatric department and got a prescription for alprazolam. She fell asleep almost every night holding the small bottle of medicine... She remembered very clearly that the instructions for use of the medicine said: Use with caution for the elderly.
Xu Zhiqian took over the conversation, "Estazolam is a moderate-acting sedative that helps with sleep by suppressing brain activity. If the brain is suppressed for a long time, it can easily lead to Alzheimer's disease, so elderly people need to be particularly cautious when taking this type of medication."
He had previously worked as a community volunteer helping the elderly and knew a thing or two about this.
"That's right. I also felt that the side effects of the medicine were too severe, so I stopped taking it after a week!" Ni Yue's eyes rolled. "Is it possible that Fang Damei was afraid that her dirty deeds would be known by Old Mrs. Dong, so she fed her sleeping pills every night?"
As a veteran literary youth, Ni Yue has read many suspense novels. When she thought of the situation of Old Mrs. Dong, her hair stood on end.
It feels like the old lady is not far from being silenced and dismembered.
Zhang Chenling shuddered at what she said, but then forced herself to calm down. "Maybe Mrs. Dong really has trouble sleeping. Let's not speculate on that for now. The real issue is the bruise on Mrs. Dong's thigh and the gift agreement."
"Should we call the police?" Xu Zhiqian said solemnly.
"Of course!" the two sisters said in unison.
The three of them ran to the police station decisively.
Just as Zhang Chenling expected, after listening to their description, the police officer believed that it was almost certain that the real estate agent had violently threatened the elderly man to sign the gift agreement, but he was conservative about adult lubricants and sleeping pills.
They discussed whether to send the police immediately and whether it was necessary to contact the neighborhood committee and Mrs. Dong's family in the United States to learn more about the situation.
"We must send the police immediately!" Ni Yue was anxious. "The contract was signed four days ago. A lot of money might have been transferred by now. Fang Damei might pack up and run away in two days. It would be terrible if she pinned down Old Lady Dong and bled her before leaving!"
The policeman was amused by her. After thinking for a moment, he turned on the computer and searched for "Fang Damei" in the database. Several pages of results popped up, which needed to be checked one by one.
"Do you still remember Fang Damei's ID number on the agreement, even the first few digits will do?" he asked Zhang Chenling.
Zhang Chenling thought hard and shook her head. She was so nervous that she was shaking all over, so how could she remember these details?
"Cousin, didn't you just scan her payment code?" Ni Yue reminded.
"Oh yes, I also lost four hundred yuan!" Zhang Chenling quickly took out her cell phone.
Soon, the police officer retrieved Fang Damei's file based on the payment records.
You won’t know until you see it. You’ll be shocked when you see it. This Fang Damei actually has a lot of dark history:
After dropping out of college, she worked as a nanny in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Her thieving habits led to reports from several employers, and she also engaged in romantic affairs with three male employers. Her most recent escalation came over two years ago when she worked as a nanny for a hemiplegic elderly man living alone in Guangzhou. She successfully extorted over one million yuan in "bonuses," and was subsequently pursued by his children. However, the case remains unresolved, as the man maintains he volunteered.
"I know!" The police officer stood up suddenly, ready to take action.
When the police knocked on Mrs. Dong's door, Fang Damei was indeed sitting on the sofa with a man, drinking beer, eating melon seeds and duck necks, while Mrs. Dong was sleeping soundly in the room next to the door.
The man and woman were immediately taken back to the police station for investigation. Also seized were a gift agreement tucked inside a book, lubricant under the sofa bed, and a bottle of sleeping pills next to Mrs. Dong's pillow.
The police officer immediately informed the neighborhood committee and Mrs. Dong’s children who were far away in the United States of the situation.
The daughter, who was having afternoon tea in Los Angeles time, was so scared that she started crying and howling, and immediately said that she wanted to find another reliable nanny.
The three teammates of Shangshanruoshui had been waiting at the police station. When they heard what the police officer said, they all rolled their eyes.
Ni Yue couldn't help but sneer, "The old lady is in such a state, why don't they go back to China and take a look? What are they thinking? Is this her biological child?"
"Little girl, don't get excited," the police officer chuckled. "What's that? I'm telling you, we've seen far worse than this! Do you know how many elderly people die in their homes every year, only to be discovered by their neighbors after the stench is unbearable? We investigated afterwards, and guess what happened?"
The police officer played it safe, and the three men craned their necks in agreement, "What's going on?"
"Few of those elderly people are truly widowed or alone. Most of them have children! Some live away from home, some abroad, and they all live their own lives. They haven't contacted their parents for years and months, and they don't even know that their parents have died! This old lady Dong's daughter even knew to hire a nanny and someone to take care of her baths. She's already doing quite well!"
Huh, it seems like this is a worse society?
Ni Yue was disgusted.
But on second thought, is it possible that those elderly people weren't such reliable parents when they were young? In today's society, the idiom "fatherly love, sons filial" seems to be the only one mentioned repeatedly. What about "fatherly love"? Does anyone care?
This idea is too bold, even a little outrageous.
Ni Yue was so frightened by his sudden idea that he broke out in a cold sweat. He quickly bit his cheeks, fearing that he would accidentally blurt out something.
Then she will definitely become the target of public criticism and be criticized by everyone.
I looked up at my cousin and found that beneath her murky expression, there seemed to be many kinds of emotions surging.
Ni Yue didn't know that her cousin had the same idea as her.
However, compared to Ni Yue's smart mind, Zhang Chenling's mind has one more smart mind - she thought of herself and her old mother Chen Hongmei, with whom she had been out of contact for a long time.
I felt a little guilty inside.
The next second, this little bit of guilt was crushed by her.
She was once a filial and sensible daughter, and a good sister who tried hard to help her brother, but Chen Hongmei and Zhang Chenguang were unreliable and had exhausted the last bit of her sincerity towards her relatives. They certainly did not deserve her love.
Since she has chosen to break off the relationship, there is no reason for her to be kidnapped by family affection and filial piety, or to be manipulated by ethics and morals. She can justify her indifference with confidence.
But… she was thinking about others, but what about Mrs. Dong’s children? What about the children of the other elderly people? They would all try to excuse themselves, wouldn’t they?
Are family love and filial piety universal values or moral shackles? Are parents fulfilling their responsibilities? Are children fulfilling their filial duties? Is filial piety necessary? How should one fulfill it? And who should judge?
There is no solution.
She sighed inwardly, pulling her mind away from these abstract and empty questions, and worried about the more pressing and realistic difficulties before her. "So, what will Mrs. Dong do during this period before she finds a new nanny?"
"That's a good question!" The police officer took over the conversation. "The neighborhood committee just said they could help take care of her, but they can only take care of her during the day, so Mrs. Dong is alone at night."
"I'm afraid that won't work," Zhang Chenling suggested without hesitation, "How about I go to her house to help look after her for a few days at night?"
"Ah?" Ni Yue was worried, "Then I'll go with you!"
"It's okay, I can do it alone! Old Mrs. Dong's house is so small, how can it accommodate so many people? Besides, are you willing to squeeze on the sofa bed with me?"
Ni Yue was stuck when asked this question, thinking of that dirty pigsty...it was indeed a bit discouraging.
"None of you should go. I'll go!" Xu Zhiqian took the lead. "Old Mrs. Dong is quite heavy. If anything happens, you won't be able to move her."
The police accompanied Xu Zhiqian back to the youth hostel to pick up his luggage and took the two sisters home.
As soon as he entered the house, Ni Yue dived into the soft sofa like throwing a depth bomb, struggling and crying out in exhaustion.
Zhang Chenling was also exhausted physically and mentally.
I wanted to take a bath to relieve my fatigue, but when I looked at the clock on the wall, it was already past nine o'clock. I had an order early tomorrow morning, so I needed to get up early, and it might be too late to fill the water for a bath.
He walked over and lay down next to Ni Yue, planning to rest for five minutes before taking a shower.
Ni Yue moved further into the sofa to make room for his cousin, as he didn't want her to put her arm around his waist.
The hand was big and warm, and through the layer of T-shirt, it felt like a hot pack stuck to the body.
The two sisters had never been so close.
"You're really skinny!" Zhang Chenling rested her forehead against Ni Yue's shoulder and murmured, "A pile of hard bones that can kill people! Look at that old lady Dong, she's over ninety and still has so much flesh on her body."
Ni Yue chuckled, "It's better to have less meat. When I get old, I'll just need two people to help me bathe!"
Zhang Chenling narrowed her eyes and pondered, "But this old lady Dong is really pitiful. At her age, the nanny pinched her thigh to ask for money."
“Everyone is pitiful when they get old, but I think we are even more pitiful!”
"How do you say that?"
"I think we, oh no, I'm wrong, it's me! First of all, I won't live to be 90. Secondly, even if I do, I won't have a million dollars on my card!"
"Pah! First of all, you have no confidence in your own health; secondly, you have no confidence in our business!"
"Aha, sorry!" Ni Yue stuck out his tongue. "Let's assume I have a million, but I don't think my children will live in the United States. In fact, I probably won't have any children at all. At most, I'll have a dog."
"But Mrs. Dong's money was swindled away by her nanny, and her children are not around. She is all alone, and it doesn't make much difference whether she has them or not."
"That's right," Ni Yue said after a moment's contemplation. "So, for Mr. Tixin, Professor Xu, Uncle Qian, Mrs. Dong, and all the other elderly clients we've served... whether they have savings or not, children or not, their situations are essentially the same. Abundant material conditions can only make the fading of age less striking, but everyone, without exception, ages. Whether they're quiet or bossy, it's simply a stress response to resist the passage of time."
Having said that, Ni Yue paused briefly.
She thought of Wu Xia, a woman in her late fifties who knew that menopause was inevitable, yet she tried her best to delay that day, and even placed unrealistic hopes on the masters of traditional Chinese medicine to make her menstrual period permanent.
It can be seen that the fear of aging is deeply engraved in everyone's bones.
"...Unfortunately, aging and death are the most equitable phenomena in human society and even the entire universe. They are the common fate of all living things, and no one is immune. Sooner or later, you and I will, like the elderly around us, slowly grow old in fear, regret, and helplessness..."
My nose felt sore and tears flowed from the corners of my eyes.
Ni Yue didn't expect that he would say such profound words. He felt that he had been elevated.
...What responded to her was a series of faint snoring.
I turned around to look at my cousin, and she was already asleep with her eyes closed.
Ni Yue was afraid of disturbing her, so he didn't dare to make a sound. He quietly pulled a cushion under his neck, then held up his mobile phone and silently wrote down his feelings in a thousand-word essay.
When she opened the online literature app again, she found a message reminder that had been down for quite some time, and she hadn't had time to read it.
Unexpectedly, her comment yesterday is still fermenting. The latest reply comes from Paoqiujie, the author of Ni Ai personally stepped in:
Dear readers, I'm glad you enjoy my work. I always read your discussions and draw inspiration from them. Rational discussion is refreshing. However, the tone in the comments section has been a bit off lately. You can criticize my characters, but please respect each other and refrain from verbal abuse or personal attacks. If something like this happens again, I will request that the comments be deleted. Thank you. Happy reading.
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