22 You should bet on me
Early the next morning, the two sisters had breakfast and prepared to go out.
The order came in the morning at around nine o'clock, from a new customer, an old man who had been paralyzed in bed for ten years.
The client's family told Zhang Chenling that he had never taken a hot bath in the past ten years.
Ni Yue clicked his tongue, "This is going to break our record for land reclamation and cleaning!"
"Yes, it has suddenly risen to an unattainable height!"
The two sisters were chatting and putting on their shoes at the door.
Fifty meters away at the entrance of the alley, Xu Zhiqian was sitting in a van waiting quietly.
You should bet on me
Like I'm Apple in the 90s
You should bet on me
Gonna wanna get behind me like I'm 23
Before Mikey was on Nike's
You should bet-bet-bet-bet on me
Zhang Chenling's work phone suddenly rang. Seeing that it was the family of the client who had called earlier that morning, she quickly picked up the phone, "Hello!..."
Ni Yue didn't take it seriously at first, but when she saw her cousin's pupils suddenly shrink and her mouth opened into an O shape, her heart skipped a beat. Did something happen to the client?
The voice on the other end of the phone was intermittent and not very clear, but I could feel that the speaker's tone was very calm.
The expression on Zhang Chenling's face gradually relaxed, and finally, she said slowly: "Then I apologize for your condolences."
After hanging up the phone, he turned to look at Ni Yue with a bitter expression, "We don't need to go."
The client just passed away at home and was unable to wait for the once-in-a-decade house cleaning.
Ni Yue couldn't believe his ears. "I've been waiting for ten years, and this is all it takes?..."
My nose felt sore and I felt sad for this old man whom I had never met.
Bending down to untie the laces of his sneakers, he looked up at his cousin and found that she had already stepped out the door. As she walked downstairs, she reminded him, "I'm going downstairs to say hello to Xu Zhiqian. You don't have to follow me!"
Xu Zhiqian leaned on the steering wheel, looking deep into the alley, and saw Zhang Chenling's slim figure appearing in the distance.
She twisted her hips as she walked, left and right, avoiding the various sundries and bicycles piled up in the alley... From time to time, dark shadows fell on her face, coming from the vests and shorts floating above the alley.
It is both funny and charming.
He chuckled, quickly took out his phone to take a picture, and then grinned at her.
It was not until Zhang Chenling came closer that he noticed that something was wrong with her expression, and he immediately stopped smiling.
I was so busy laughing that I didn't realize that Zhang Chenling walked out alone and was missing a follower.
Could it be that Ni Yue is not feeling well and cannot come?
Before he could ask, Zhang Chenling told him the whole story.
"I see..." He put his worries to rest and sighed, "It's really a pity that the old man didn't have a bath before he passed away!"
Zhang Chenling leaned on the passenger window sill and stared at him. She found that his face was dark, his forehead was black, and his eye sockets were sunken. He must have not slept well at Old Lady Dong's house last night?
"Don't mention it!"
Xu Zhiqian rubbed his eyes and said, "I almost didn't sleep the whole night!"
Last night, accompanied by a police officer, he went back to the Scream Youth Hostel to pick up some luggage, and then returned to Mrs. Dong's home.
When I entered the house, I found that Old Mrs. Dong was still asleep, as if she was unaware that a big riot had just happened in her house.
To be cautious, the police officer reached out and felt Mrs. Dong's breath, just like he did when he first entered the room. He then carefully observed her by the bed and turned to Xu Zhiqian and said, "Old people usually sleep lightly. We've been in the room twice, and she's been sleeping so soundly each time. Something seems a little off!"
Sure enough, the next second, she received a call from a colleague, saying that Fang Damei confessed to forcing Mrs. Dong to sign the donation agreement. She also said that Mrs. Dong usually had sleep problems and often took sleeping pills, but tonight she was afraid that she would hear herself having a tryst with a man, so Fang Damei fed her an amount of estazolam that exceeded the standard dosage and explained that this was not the first time.
Hearing this, the two men were shocked and quickly drove Mrs. Dong to the hospital.
Mrs. Dong had her gastric lavage done while she was in a coma, and was then kept in the hospital for observation. Xu Zhiqian stayed with her in the ward all night until this morning when a nurse was arranged for her, and he was able to escape.
Zhang Chenling sighed, "This old lady Dong is really lucky!"
"Lucky? I think she's very lucky!"
Xu Zhiqian rubbed his eyes until they turned red, and couldn't help but complain, "You don't know, at three or four in the middle of the night, the effect of the medicine wore off, and she lay on the bed groaning and farting... The noise was particularly loud. Later, the patient in the next bed was woken up by her, and she couldn't stand it anymore and called the nurse on duty, but the nurse couldn't do anything about Old Lady Dong. And there's something that you and Ni Yue would never have imagined..."
He paused deliberately.
"What?" Zhang Chenling was indeed full of curiosity.
He raised his eyebrows and said word by word, "Old Mrs. Dong knows how to speak!"
"ha???"
"Really! I finally managed to doze off, and around five o'clock I heard Old Lady Dong muttering sutras above my head! Something like 'The past mind is unattainable, the present mind is unattainable, the future mind is unattainable'... I was so scared I thought I'd ascended to heaven with her!"
"Pt. Pt. Pt. Pt.!" Zhang Chenling spat at him harshly, but a smile couldn't be concealed in the corners of her eyes and eyebrows. "It turns out she didn't like to talk before, not that she couldn't talk! It's true that those who can live to be ninety are the best of the best!"
"She's simply a living god!" Xu Zhiqian pulled the corner of his mouth helplessly, "She needs to stay in the hospital for observation today. If there's nothing serious, she'll be discharged tomorrow morning, so I have to go to the hospital tonight."
"Thank you for your hard work."
Zhang Chenling's tone softened, and a hint of tenderness appeared in her eyes. Her attitude was no longer as pretentious as usual.
Xu Zhiqian's heart suddenly felt warm.
But he felt dizzy and his mind was a mess. He couldn't tell whether the change in this woman's attitude was due to the boss's sympathy for her employees or the woman's love for her man. He could only smile at her and whispered, "It's not hard."
Just as he finished speaking, a series of anxious horns were heard nearby. Then he realized that the van was blocking the entrance to the alley and there was a truck parked nearby waiting to move things.
"Then go back and rest first, and we'll contact you in the afternoon!"
Zhang Chenling retreated to the scallion pancake stall behind her and watched the van slowly turn into a white dot and finally disappear before turning around and going home.
It smells like scallion pancakes.
The order was cancelled, and Zhang Chenling had half a day off out of the blue. As soon as she got home, she dragged Ni Yue along. The two sisters sat at the computer and sorted out the company's to-do list.
While we are busy taking a big shower every day, we cannot neglect the daily operation and management of the company.
Especially in the coming week, there are several very important tasks that we must start preparing for now.
"The first one is an interview with the official media that Mr. Wang helped us contact. They said that the program team would come from Beijing to record a program that would last about an hour."
"Wow," Ni Yue's eyes lit up, "So formal?"
"Of course! And Mr. Wang specifically told me that it would be best if we could arrange for them to film a real bathing process on the spot, so I'm going to call each client over the next few days to see if anyone is willing to be on camera."
Ni Yue seemed to be lost in thought. After a moment, he grumbled and asked tentatively, "Will that program also interview Xu Zhiqian and me?"
"Of course! I've already told Mr. Wang that this isn't my solo show. We're a team, so we have to be on the show together as a team!"
"Really?" Ni Yue's eyes flickered. "Then can I read a short essay I wrote?"
"Of course! You'll talk more then, and it's okay if you tell me your share too!"
Ni Yue was a little excited when he heard this. He picked up his phone and flicked through the memo with his thumb, muttering to himself, "Which part should I read..."
Zhang Chenling couldn't help laughing at this and added, "I expect they will ask a lot of formulaic questions, such as why we do assisted bathing, what difficulties we encountered during the process, what kind of help we hope to get, etc. We can think about these questions first and then brainstorm with Xu Zhiqian later."
Even good wine needs no bush. In this era of vying for attention, no matter how unique "Shangshan Ruoshui" is, its story must be touching enough.
"That makes sense!" Ni Yue agreed, and buried his head in writing down the questions his cousin had just mentioned.
"The second important matter next week is about a new client. Her situation is rather special, so we must make full preparations."
"Oh, how special is it?" Ni Yue was curious.
People who have difficulty taking a bath are either paralyzed or numb. Which one of them is not special?
Zhang Chenling smiled and said, "That person is King B's wife."
"What, King B is married???"
Ni Yue was dumbfounded and thought: Oh no, the dream of a couch that I had woven for my cousin is shattered!
But then he was puzzled. King B looked only in his early thirties, so his wife couldn't be that old either. What illness could prevent her from bathing herself at such a young age? Besides, why couldn't King B help his wife? Were those two unicorn arms that everyone wanted to touch and bite all for nothing?
Ni Yue babbled for a while before asking, "What's wrong with his wife?"
Zhang Chenling's smile faded, and her expression became serious. "B Wang's wife has ALS."
"Ah???" Ni Yue was so surprised that he couldn't close his mouth.
In recent years, there have been many reports about ALS on Internet platforms, and Ni Yue naturally knew about it.
Whenever she sees videos of ALS patients fighting the disease tenaciously, she bursts into tears, feeling both moved and heartbroken.
Before they contracted ALS, those people were normal people like everyone else. But after contracting the disease, they had to watch themselves gradually become numb, transforming from a lively and normal person into a living dead, until they died...
In her opinion, this incurable disease is a hundred times more cruel and terrifying than cancer.
"That's right!" Zhang Chenling's eyes were firm. "Giving baths to ALS patients is also the most difficult task. We must not make any mistakes."
Although there are exemption clauses in the bathing assistance service contract, they will make sufficient preparations before each bathing assistance. For customers with special diseases, they must understand the relevant taboos and precautions in advance to ensure that the bathing assistance can be completed smoothly.
"So his wife hasn't taken a bath for many years?" Ni Yue asked with a frown.
"No," Zhang Chenling shook her head in denial. "She said she used to be able to sit in a chair to wash, but now her muscle atrophy and weakness have worsened. She can't sit in a chair anymore. Even with a rope tied around her, she keeps sliding to the floor. She can't sit down to wash anymore. Although her family has a bathtub, they don't have any professional equipment. Her family doesn't dare to help her wash, so that's why King B came to us."
"So that's it!" Ni Yue suddenly realized.
But she still felt somewhat confused. It was hard to connect that muscular man with overflowing sexual tension and who indulged in sensual pleasures all day long with a soft and flabby woman.
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