Chapter 23 Will Tomorrow Be Better?
When He Xiaolan opened the door, the damp, dusty air, unoccupied for so long, made her sneeze violently. This shabby two-bedroom, one-living-room apartment was filled with her childhood and adolescence. Some unfinished trash lay on the floor. He Xiaolan picked it up and discovered it was "The Adventures of Shuke and Beta," a book that Zhang Xinrong had bought her when she was little. She dusted it off and put it in her bag. The corners of the book were curled, and the first thirty-seven years of her life were packed into the backpack.
He Xiaolan asked her cousin to clear out everything in the house, leaving only a few unwanted broken chairs.
"Lanlan, our lowest price is 35. I've asked around, and nothing has sold for less than 350,000." The uncle sweats a lot, and the house isn't well ventilated. Within a short while, his scalp was covered in shiny crystals. He Xiaolan pulled a tissue out of her bag and handed it to her uncle, wiping away her impatience and anxiety.
When the real estate agent arrived with the buyer and the uninvited guests, everyone was still gathering to pick a nickname for their cousin's child. Xiao Cheng, the father, resolutely followed his wife's suggestion and named the child Dan Tart. His eldest brother-in-law was quite dismissive, saying it sounded like a dog's name. One of the two older people, having read too many Qiong Yao novels, insisted on naming the child Wanjun, while the other said a cheap name would be easier to raise and preferred Hongdou. Both were rejected.
Before opening the door, He Xiaolan asked them speechlessly, "How did you know it was a girl?" She turned around and saw He Tianci standing at the back, slamming the door shut again. Her cousin and Xiao Cheng quickly went on alert, while her uncle went to open the door himself to check on the situation.
He Guo's old face, grinning, was pressed against the door, and it was considered restraint that his uncle didn't hit him.
"I heard Xiaolan wanted to sell her house, so Tianci and I came to see if there was anything we could help with."
Ms. Zhang Xinrong immediately got furious when she heard He Guoqiang's voice. She rushed to her uncle and pushed He Guoqiang hard, saying, "It's none of your business if I sell the house. Take your bastard and get out of here."
He Tianci saw that the scolding was directed at him, and he jumped over like a cannonball, shouting that he would set the house on fire. Although He Xiaolan was not as tall as him, she was definitely not at an advantage in a fight. Relying on her cousin and Xiao Cheng standing in front of her, she said she would not let him go.
"What are you yelling about? Besides your bastard father, what else does this place have to do with you? If you're not a bastard, what are you? Did your parents get legal permission when they gave birth to you? You didn't even choose your life carefully. Why did you have to be a bastard when you could be born into any other family? You're not a good bastard, either. You're owing money everywhere. Your father even borrowed money from me. Don't you feel ashamed?"
When the buyer saw the house had become a fighting arena, he quickly said goodbye to the agent and ran away. The agent, seeing that the deal was not going through, immediately stepped forward to dissuade the two parties, but neither listened to him, and each side continued to output.
"I'm telling you two, as long as I'm here, don't even think about selling the house. I had a share in this house when you bought it. Now you want to sell it without even telling me. Do you still regard me as your father, He Xiaolan?"
"Who are you? Are you worthy of being my father? Have you ever fulfilled your father's duties for a single day? And you still have a share? Go and ask around. Everyone around here knows that you and my mother are divorced. Now you want money and rush to my house to recognize my daughter. I wonder if your damn son will lose all the few cents you earned again."
The two groups of people were like a famous painting from the Renaissance. Two people were blocked at the door by two huge men. The two women were like Pomeranians, jumping and shouting at the same time, making sure that every insult they uttered could reach the ears of the two men without missing a word.
"I have to take half of the money from selling the house, otherwise there's no way they can sell it. Even if they do sell it, I'll make it impossible for them to live there. You guys can do whatever you want."
"I'm going to call the police right now and have you both jailed for a few days to teach you a lesson. So that you can understand what a society ruled by law is. I, He Xiaolan, am 37 years old, not seven. How dare you bully me?"
He Tianci saw He Xiaolan took out her cell phone from the gap between the two "door gods" and thought that she was really going to call the police, so he quickly pulled He Guoqiang's clothes and said, "Let's go. If we really call the police, we won't be able to figure it out after a long time. Let's go home and eat first, and come back tomorrow!"
Calling the police was He Tianci's Achilles' heel. He had previously been sentenced to a year and a half for reselling stolen cars, and a second stint in prison would be a real nuisance. At the time, He Guoqiang had borrowed money from his aunt to bail out his child, but He Xiaolan found out. He was young then, and his cursing skills weren't nearly as good as they are now. He was humiliated by He Guoqiang, so angry he couldn't eat for three days.
As soon as He Guoqiang and his father left, He Xiaolan immediately went to ask the agent how they knew the house was for sale and how they knew the buyer would be signing the contract today. The agent looked quite young and it was his first time witnessing such a fierce battle up close. He Xiaolan's questioning made him speechless.
He sat on a broken chair in the middle of the living room. The chair legs were unstable. To maintain his balance, he could only stand on his left foot and bowed to He Xiaolan with his leather shoes. "He Tianci is the son of my cousin's sister. We live in the same town. We have known each other since we were kids. He has my Douyin account. When I took a photo of my house and posted a Douyin introduction, he called me and asked about it. We haven't been in touch since we grew up. How could I have known this? Sister, I also wanted to sell it to make money. I really didn't mean it."
The agent was telling the truth, and there was no point in asking further. He Xiaolan only had a few days of vacation, and judging by Yang Fan's behavior, if she wanted to take more leave, she would probably be fired soon. She had to take care of the house matter in the next few days. She owed money to Hua Hudie and Qin Tiantian, and He Xiaolan was feeling uneasy.
The first house selling meeting was held at my aunt's house in the evening. My aunt and my uncle were the main speakers. Their suggestion was to send my uncle to lobby He Guoqiang to stop making trouble, and my aunt to collect information to see if He Tianci really owed money outside again.
The uncle supported the second suggestion, but found the first difficult to implement. He Guoqiang was a jerk; how could he possibly listen to his uncle's advice? If he had, he wouldn't have been causing trouble all these years. He Xiaolan sat aside, unable to think of any solution. The father and son would just stay in this county town, with hundreds of days to cause trouble. While they could force the house out, they would still suffer if the other person lived there unhappily. Even though the house had been sold, regardless of the after-sales service, they still couldn't get over it.
"Xiaolan, we can only give you advice on this matter, you still have to make your own decision." When the aunt said this, He Xiaolan looked at the people sitting in the room. Their originally strong voices were no longer loud, and their vocal cords were mixed with a lot of grinding.
Time is like a wild dog peeing. No matter where it goes, it leaves its mark to prove that it has been there.
"No, Xiao Cheng and I will call a few people tomorrow and ask He Shazi what he wants to do."
"Don't get yourself into trouble for them. They don't play by the rules. They might blackmail you later." He Xiaolan quickly stopped him from thinking that. However, her cousin was indeed her cousin. He had always solved problems in such a simple and crude way since he was a child.
When He Xiaolan was in elementary school, she went to the same school as her cousin, but she was in the second grade and her cousin was in the fifth grade. During the school sports meet, her cousin used his pocket money to buy her a bunch of snacks, but before she could even eat them, they were snatched away by a child.
He Xiaolan cried and found her cousin. Less than ten minutes later, the child came to apologize, trembling, and handed her a dollar, saying it was compensation. If the teacher found out, at most he would be scolded. But as an adult, even a little more or less discretion could lead to irreparable damage.
No matter how good her aunt and uncle are to her, she cannot let their son and son-in-law get involved. He Xiaolan knows this very well.
"It's almost ten o'clock. You old people should go back to sleep. I'll send my uncle and aunt back and find out what they want to do tomorrow."
After seeing them off, He Xiaolan didn't want to go back, so she drove around the county town. When she was a child, the county town wasn't that big; a narrow river divided the small town into two halves. He Xiaolan waited for the red light to turn green at the bridgehead. Groups of high school students, fresh from evening self-study, parked beside her on their electric bikes.
On the same night, He Xiaolan pedaled home as fast as she could, the mountain bike she'd inherited from her cousin. Her future lay in her schoolbag, and when she got home, she had to fill it up, one page at a time, and leave it to tomorrow. She wandered aimlessly until she reached the foot of the small park on the hill. The fried skewers shop was still open; the owner, the store, and the flavors remained the same, but she couldn't stomach all that greasy food at once.
Ms. Zhang Xinrong had not gone to bed yet. She was leaning on the bed, reading a novel seriously.
"Go take a shower quickly, your aunt and uncle are asleep, be gentle." "Mom, don't take what happened today to heart."
Zhang Xinrong put down his phone, pulled his glasses up his nose, and smiled nonchalantly. "What's the big deal? They're just scoundrels. What can they come up with? There's definitely a way to deal with them. Take a shower and go to bed. You've been exhausted all day."
The clothes that He Xiaolan took off were stained with the sauce of fried skewers, which was noticed by the sharp-eyed Ms. Zhang Xinrong at once. "Did you go to eat fried skewers secretly? That thing is carcinogenic. Don't eat that thing. When I took care of Yueyue, I never let her eat pancakes with fried skewers. It's not clean and not healthy."
"You still have to let her try these things. If you don't let her eat any, she will be jealous of her classmates eating them, which is not good."
He Xiaolan asked about Yueyue's situation in the Wang Qingwei family group, but no one replied. When she turned on the camera, she saw that everyone had gone to bed. On the day she returned home, He Xiaolan seemed to have turned back into her eighteen-year-old self. There was only her mother and family, no work to worry about, no children to play around with, and no husband who was away from home.
People just don't know how to talk. Just after cursing Wang Qingwei in his heart, he took the opportunity to call He Xiaolan and asked her how the house issue was going. After listening to what He Xiaolan said, Wang Qingwei was silent for a long time and then squeezed out a "sorry".
He Xiaolan heard the enthusiastic DJ music in her aunt's room, and the bright light stubbornly extended from the crack of the door. Tomorrow, everything will be fine.
Will it definitely get better?
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