Chapter 69 Lighter
After lunch, it was getting dark and no one was clearing the snow outside the window, so Xu Wenyao took the initiative to go to the parking space to clear the snow.
Aunt Zhang and her husband stayed for some tea.
In order to save money, Xu Jiqing's family rented a new house on the fifth floor of an old resettlement community with no elevator. Apart from cheap tenants like them, almost all the residents are elderly.
There was not much open space in the corridor, which was filled with dusty miscellaneous items. Several old 28-bar bicycles were stacked there, and the baskets were filled with plastic bags and old rags. There was also an enamel spittoon at the bottom that people were reluctant to throw away.
The couple went downstairs. It was so dark that they couldn't see clearly and almost stepped in.
The woman was so disgusted that she quickly grabbed the hem of her cotton coat and brushed off the dust with a frown.
The husband beside her murmured quietly, "I don't understand you women either. I've lived in the compound for more than ten years, and I haven't seen you and Lin Yuezhen say a few words. Now it's hot, and you don't even celebrate the New Year at home, but you drag me to run to someone else's house to work."
"I think you're still like when you were young. You think Xu Wenyao is handsome and you came here to feast your eyes on him."
"Are you really stupid or are you just pretending to be stupid?"
Zhang Hongying pinched his ear hard and said, "What's the use of having a pretty face? Didn't he go to jail for beating someone up?"
"You told me before the New Year that the store was short of two people and that hiring people in a big city was expensive, so I came up with some ideas for you."
"Xu Wenyao just got released from prison. Respectable companies wouldn't even look at him. Give him a little money and he'll be grateful from the bottom of his heart. There's nothing he wouldn't want to help you with. He can do all the accounting and hard work by himself. How much can he save in a year?"
"You're the boss, he can't bully us. After all, he's an old accountant who has worked in the factory for many years, so he's more useful than a young man."
No matter how profound the reason was, she held back and didn't say it.
She joined the factory with Lin Yuezhen when she was a teenager.
Neither of them finished high school and had no reliable relatives to rely on, but Lin Yuezhen was luckier than her.
Because she is beautiful, she is often placed in the front row to receive leaders. In the end, she fell in love and got married. His husband is a handsome college student who all the girls in the factory blush and steal glances at.
Things change with time.
The factory went bankrupt and Lin Yuezhen's good days were over. She was getting worse and worse every year. She hadn't seen her for just a few months, but she had already come to Jiangcheng with her son. How could Zhang Hongying bear this!
Lao Liu is a decent man.
It's okay to just focus on work, but Zhang Hongying takes care of all the social interactions at home, and my wife has the final say.
After being scolded, he remained silent for a long time. After a long while, he managed to say, "Their two children are watching at the dinner table. It's not right for you to plot like that."
"Look if you want. I didn't steal or rob. I paid for all the dishes, meat and fruits on the table at noon."
"The Xu family's son is a good student, right? If he becomes successful in the future..."
"What's the point?" Zhang Hongying sighed. "You think this is my hometown? The big cities are full of well-educated and wealthy kids. Why would they need someone like him?"
"He might not even be able to get his college entrance exam ticket off his hands. Even if he goes to college, who would want him after graduation? I've never really seen him before. Just now, I was sitting next to him at dinner, and when I took a sudden look, I was so scared that I broke out in a sweat."
"They don't take the college entrance exam," Old Liu said cowardly. "I heard from our daughter's school teacher that contestants are rare."
"Isn't it just to trick you into signing up for the Mathematical Olympiad class?"
Zhang Hongying sneered, her face full of disdain.
The two of them talked in low voices as they walked up the stairs to the first floor.
The lock on the corridor door was rusty and couldn't be opened after several attempts. Zhang Hongying was sweating profusely and was about to call her husband for help when a hand suddenly reached out from behind her.
Xu Jiqing stood there silently.
I don't know when he came, but his pale and slender hands were holding a supermarket discount flyer, which he folded several times and then opened the door lock with a click.
Zhang Hongying was frightened by him and felt extremely guilty. "Why...why did you come down here?"
"Thank you for coming all this way. I'll bring you something."
He was holding a gift box of eggs.
"Thank your parents for me," Zhang Hongying took it and forced a few polite words, "Well...it's cold outside, and you're wearing thin clothes, so don't give it to me."
People go in and out of the door frequently, and the snow melts and freezes again when stepped on, forming a layer of shiny ice on the gentle slope.
Zhang Hongying was walking in a panic and slipped and fell. The raw eggs were broken all over the floor and her sleeves were covered with sticky eggs. She couldn't even get up.
Old Liu stood there in a daze for a long time, then hurried over to help.
Xu Jiqing stood in the shadow of the corridor door and looked at the two of them calmly. "Take care."
"I won't see you off."
After he closed the door, the footsteps gradually faded away.
Zhang Hongying came to her senses and limped a few steps, feeling humiliated and angry.
No matter how tall he is, he is just a seventeen-year-old boy.
She has seen a lot of storms, so how could she be scared like this by a child?
-
Go back upstairs.
There was a table full of orange peels and melon seed shells. Lin Yuezhen was busy in the kitchen with her back to the kitchen, and the sound of running water was heard.
There is wind in the corridor.
When Xu Jiqing entered the room, the security door made a loud noise.
Lin Yuezhen turned around and saw Xu Jiqing standing in front of the table in the living room. She turned off the faucet with her stiff hands.
She walked over and was about to peel an apple for her son, but he spoke first, "What were you talking about?"
His voice was flat and as cold as the coldest day of the first lunar month, when everything was frozen.
"When nothing happens in the past two years, come back and enjoy your retirement?"
Ever since Xu Wenyao appeared, Xu Jiqing never called her mother again.
Lin Yuezhen's heart was torn between the two men, feeling extremely sad, but she didn't dare to look up at him.
She stammered, "Dad came back a little hastily yesterday. He only told me it was the Lunar New Year, and I didn't expect it to be so soon... He, he hasn't been spoken to in the past two years, so he's a little bit bad at expressing himself. He cried to me all night last night, saying this was really the last time..."
The last time.
Which time is not the last time?
Lin Yuezhen's voice became lower and lower, and she felt her face getting hot. She avoided Xu Jiqing's gaze, wiped her hands on her apron, and took out a piece of white paper that had been folded many times from her trouser pocket.
"He, he wrote me a letter of guarantee, signed it and put his red fingerprint on it."
The woman's hands were raised tremblingly in the air.
It took a long time before Xu Jiqing took it.
Without even looking at it, he picked up the lighter on the table, and with a click, bright flames shot up.
Xu Jiqing seemed to feel nothing and let the paper burn completely at his fingertips.
Lin Yuezhen was shocked and frightened, "You..."
Xu Jiqing said calmly, "Give me your and Xu Jiaojiao's ID cards, your family's household registration books, all your bank cards and passbooks now."
"If Xu Wenyao wants to work for free, that's fine. If you can't bear to leave him, just go with him."
"Just one thing, he absolutely cannot move in."
Xu Jiqing raised his eyes, his gaze swept across Xu Jiaojiao's closed bedroom door, and fell back to his mother's bewildered face. His voice was very calm, "Tell Xu Wenyao that I'm not afraid of anything."
"Whether he wants to go in again or leave, I'm always here to accompany him."
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