Shengxia thought she was in a mirage, and covered herself with the quilt and yelled, "Qin..."
Suddenly realizing she was at home, she quickly changed her tone: "Grandma, what are you doing? I'm freezing to death! I'll sleep a little longer! I'll be up soon."
Shengxia buried her head in the quilt, but before she had slept for two minutes, her grandmother lifted the quilt up again. Shengxia felt a chill all over her body: "Grandma, I'm already so old, why are you still lifting my quilt!"
"Look at you! You can't even pay during Chinese New Year. You just throw your dirty clothes away after taking them off. I've already cleaned up your closet, but you're just treating it like decoration!"
Shengxia looked back and pulled the quilt over herself again, "It's okay!"
Grandma was so angry that she wanted to hit her with a feather duster: "Look at how lazy you are. You will never get married!"
"Oh! Oh! Isn't it just right that I can't get married? I can stay with grandma forever."
After she finished speaking, grandma was so angry that she slapped her twice again. Shengxia woke up completely this time. She hid while looking for clothes, put on her pants, and went downstairs to wash her face with the basin in her hand as if she was running for her life.
Oh my god, when Grandma gets angry she's much scarier than Qin Ge! Luckily Qin Ge has a better temper than Grandma! Grandma only cares about her for a little while, and then she treats her like a cabbage. Qin Ge can't even bear to hit her with a feather duster.
At the dinner table, Shengxia was drinking porridge from her bowl, and her grandmother picked up some vegetables for her: "This is the vegetables your Aunt Li grew herself, and she's pickled. Yesterday I went to ask her for money, and she knew you were coming back, so she brought them for you. Try them, they're really appetizing. Go bring Aunt Li a basket of our own cabbage later."
"Okay, okay..."
Grandma had finished her meal in the morning and sat at the table, holding a basket, picking vegetables while she said, "Today is New Year's Eve. Grandma will make dumplings for you tonight. When you come back from Aunt Li's house, go to the market and buy some meat..."
Shengxia nodded and said she understood. While eating, she felt something was wrong and turned to look at her grandmother.
Grandma liked to listen to an old radio while picking vegetables, but this time she was not listening to anything. While picking vegetables, she looked up at Shengxia from time to time, looking at her, but she seemed to want to say something but stopped herself from speaking.
Shengxia took a few bites of rice and couldn't help herself: "Grandma... if you have anything to say, just tell me directly. When you look at me like that, I feel cold inside..."
Grandma glanced at her and said, "It's New Year's Day, why are you so angry?"
Grandma put down the food in her hand, glanced at the phone on the table, and asked her, "I asked this morning. It costs one or two thousand yuan to install such a phone. You said Qin Ge installed it for us, but why would he install such an expensive thing for us?"
"Oh, that's what you wanted to say!"
Shengxia thought she had heard it when she called grandma last night! She let out a long sigh, clutching her heart: "Qin Ge and I are good friends. Their company has a cooperation with the city's business hall. This is an internal benefit. It will be much cheaper to install it. I asked him several times to get it!"
"You still begged him?"
Shengxia ate the food: "That's right! In order to save you from having to run around, I went to his house to beg him several times! But Qin Ge is really loyal. He saved me almost half of the money, but I also gave him a few hundred yuan..."
When grandma heard the hundreds of dollars, she immediately put the basket on the ground and reached out to hit her: "Hundreds of dollars! You're asking for favors and spending so much money just for a phone call!"
"Hey, hey, hey, don't hit me, I haven't finished yet!" Shengxia quickly raised her hand to block her grandmother's hand that was about to hit her: "Or maybe it's because we have a good relationship! Qin Ge is broad-minded and values friendship. He didn't ask me for a penny, he just waved his hand and did it for me."
Shengxia took out a red envelope from her pocket: "Grandma, this is what I earned as a tutor in the city this semester... I wanted to install a phone for you, but Qin Ge didn't want it, so I took it back. Grandma, it's New Year's, and you've been making me new clothes. Why don't you make yourself two sets too!"
Grandma opened the red envelope and saw that there was actually 500 yuan inside: "Xia Xia, you are not lying to me, are you? Can you make so much money as a tutor in the city?"
Of course Shengxia didn't dare to tell the truth, so she could only pretend to be very impressive: "Of course, I am a famous student of Jinghai University."
Grandma had never been to school. She just spat on her hand and counted the money several times, repeatedly confirming that it was really five hundred yuan. Shengxia didn't hear any sound for a long time. When she looked up, her grandma's eyes were red with joy: "Great, Xia Xia has grown up!"
Shengxia felt a pang of sadness in her heart, and she quickly ate two more mouthfuls of rice, patting her chest and assuring her grandmother: "This is nothing, I will count more money for you in the future! By then, I will have to hire two nannies for you, one to pick vegetables for you, and the other to hold the radio by your side..."
Grandma was so amused by her that she patted her, carefully put the money away, turned around and went to the kitchen. Shengxia smiled, finished her meal, and put on her coat.
"Grandma! I saw the lights were off at Zhang Xiaofen's house yesterday. Did her father get transferred to the city and go there to celebrate the New Year? Song Wenjing and I are going to check it out."
Who knew that grandma would lift the kitchen door curtain and stop her from going: "Don't go. The Zhang family's debt collectors are blocking the door and staring at us every day!"
"What!"
Shengxia quickly ran to Zhang Xiaofen's house and saw that it was indeed the case! The lock on her front door had been broken. In the yard, there was a table where a group of people were playing cards, cigarette butts and wine bottles scattered on the ground, and they were cursing.
It sounded like they were not locals when they spoke, and Shengxia couldn't understand them anyway.
Shengxia scratched her head. How could this happen? At the intersection ahead, Song Wenjing was hurriedly riding a bicycle towards her. Shengxia hurriedly called out to her, "Song Wenjing! Song Wenjing!"
Song Wenjing got off her bike in two steps and rushed to her: "I was just about to look for you! Something happened at Zhang Xiaofen's house!"
"I saw it! What's going on?" Shengxia pulled her aside because she was afraid that the two of them were shouting too loudly.
Song Wenjing took a breath. "It seems, it seems that Zhang Xiaofen's father was scammed when he went to Guangdong! He was swindled out of hundreds of thousands of yuan! Now he can't pay it back, and the debt collectors are coming to his house!"
"Over 300,000! Did his father gamble?"
Sheng Xia was shocked and said, “No, where did his father get so much money to be defrauded?”
"I don't know either. My mom only told me yesterday after you left! Do you think her father got scammed and borrowed money from loan sharks in another city? I heard from the people at my aunt's restaurant that people out there are so cunning, one person could be as smart as several of us!"
Shengxia pulled Song Wenjing aside and cautiously looked into Zhang Xiaofen's yard. "The gate isn't locked, so they probably didn't find anyone. Where are Zhang Xiaofen and her mother?"
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