Chapter 47: Money for Life
At four in the morning, He Xiaolan returned home and saw the cooked meal on the dining table. It had long since lost its heat and lay in disarray, like a plate of cold organs silently wailing. He Xiaolan felt no sleep at all, and even felt as if she still had extra energy left in her body.
"You two can sleep in the second bedroom. I have new sheets and quilt covers. One of you can sleep in Yueyue's room." He Xiaolan stared blankly at the two women standing at the door. Qin Tiantian reacted quickly and went to the shoe cabinet to find slippers and threw them to Hua Hudie.
"Why don't you get some sleep? We still have a lot of things to do today, so stay alert." Hua Hudie helped Qin Tiantian clean up the table. The two looked at He Xiaolan worriedly, "How about this, don't pick up your mother-in-law. Just let Qian Helin stay in the hospital. He doesn't have much to do in the store anyway." Hua Hudie felt that Qian Helin was much more suitable than He Lianhua. After all, one only obeyed orders, while the other gave blind orders.
"If I don't tell them about such a big thing about their son, they will blame me. I can't control how the mother and daughter get along after he comes."
He Xiaolan didn't know how she managed to get through the two hours or so. She sorted Wang Qingwei's clothes and put them in a bag. She arranged the placement of everything in the house, except for Wang Qingwei's study. Whenever Wang Qingwei needed something, he would ask, "Where did you put that thing?" The usual responses were, "It's lying on my face," "It's hanging on my eyelids," or "It's tucked around your waist."
One day, He Xiaolan couldn't stand it any longer and half-jokingly asked Wang Qingwei, "If I get seriously ill one day and ask you to go home to get something for me, can you find it?" Wang Qingwei didn't care at all, "I can go to the mall and buy another one. Why do I have to go home to get it?"
Single-threaded thinking can really make people live happily. Finally, at seven o'clock in the morning, He Xiaolan called He Lianhua, "Mom, Wang Qingwei had surgery yesterday and a stent was placed in his heart." He Lianhua sounded confused, probably buying breakfast for Wang Yunfu, "What? What did you say? Bring me two tea eggs and fried dough sticks."
He Xiaolan patiently repeated what she had just said. He Lianhua then became anxious, "Why is this happening? Last year we asked you to have a physical examination but you refused. You insisted that we were urging you to have a second child. Is it a bad thing to ask you to have a physical examination? What should we do now that something has happened?"
"Nothing happened. The operation is already done. Please arrange things for your dad. I will buy you a ticket to Beijing later. Wang Qingwei's friend will pick you up at the South Station. I will send you his cell phone number."
"He's had heart surgery and nothing's wrong. Aren't you guys kidding me? Your dad is fine now, so it's okay for you to be alone at home. I'll go home later to pack my things and go to Beijing."
Qin Tiantian got up when she heard He Xiaolan making a phone call, "What's wrong? Is your old lady blaming you again?"
"It's nothing. She blames us for not going for the physical check-up. I'm really too lazy to argue with her now. Let her take care of her own son when he comes in the afternoon. She should feel sorry for her own son. Don't say anything. I'll call our colleague and ask her to help me ask for leave."
As He Xiaolan spoke, she found Jasmine from WeChat and made a voice call to her. She no longer cared about social distance and social ethics. "Jasmine, are you up? When you go to the company today, please tell Director Li that something has happened at home. Someone in my family is sick, so I have to take a day off. I will send the interview materials I need this year to your email later, and you can give them to Director Li together."
Jasmine was brushing her teeth. When she heard He Xiaolan say that, she felt a little worried. "Sister, who is sick? It can't be you. Your voice doesn't sound very comfortable."
"It's not me, don't worry, go to the company and ask for leave for me first, otherwise the God of Hell will definitely fire me."
"I understand! Just leave it to me."
Qin Tiantian was half lying on the sofa, browsing the takeaway orders on her phone. "These are the foods available near your house, either soy milk and fried dough sticks, or Xisi steamed buns. Forget about the pancake at the door, it's too salty."
"Ask Xiaoxiao what to eat, I don't want to eat anything." He Xiaolan threw her phone aside, her mind a mess of various unsolved problems.
"Wang Qingwei is fine, just don't worry, eat and drink as usual, and relax." Although Qin Tiantian said so, she also knew that her comfort was just some passing wind, and it did not help to soothe He Xiaolan's spirit. "Isn't it possible to visit at three o'clock in the afternoon? You will feel relieved if you go in and see Wang Qingwei. You haven't slept all night, you should get some sleep quickly, otherwise one after another will fall down, and who will take care of Yueyue?"
Finally, they had found He Xiaolan's lifeblood. He Xiaolan went to the bathroom to take a shower and fell into a peaceful sleep. Hua Hudie and Qin Tiantian lay on either side of the sofa in He Xiaolan's house. "What kind of fate is this for Xiaolan? I asked her and her husband to buy insurance at the beginning of the year, but Wang Qingwei said he wouldn't let them. First, Yueyue got sick, and then Wang Qingwei..."
"No one has foresight. You know that Wang Qingwei has always been stingy. They now have two houses to pay for and a child to raise. It is difficult to come up with so much money at once. When Xiaolan's mother was cheated, didn't she also have to borrow money on the spot?" Qin Tiantian looked at the half-dead flowers that He Xiaolan raised on the balcony. Just like He Xiaolan's life, she lowered her head and looked lifeless. She stood up and watered the plants.
"What do women do when they get married? They're always busy with this or that. It's great if one person can feed the whole family. But after getting married and having children, they start to take care of the elderly. If they have children, they have to take care of the whole family. They earn a little salary but don't spend a penny on themselves. They mainly work all day and sleep with their masters at night. The maids in the room get paid. Let's say they're just giving them away for free." The butterfly became more and more excited as she spoke. Qin Tiantian felt that if Qian Helin or Wang Qingwei were in front of her, they would have been beaten with slippers by now.
He Xiaolan didn't sleep well either. Just as she closed her eyes, He Lianhua called and asked her if she had bought a ticket for her.
He Xiaolan simply gave up sleeping and went straight to the living room to get some water. She was so busy all night that she didn't drink any water or eat anything.
Qin Tiantian felt sorry for He Xiaolan and complained about He Lianhua's behavior, "Can your mother-in-law do anything on her own? Does she rely on you for everything?"
"It's not that Wang Qingwei said his mother couldn't learn it, I also have no idea what to do."
The visiting time was at 3 pm. He Xiaolan was sitting at the door of the prison waiting at 2 pm. She had something to deal with at the Butterfly Shop and went back to take care of it. She took Qin Tiantian home with her to get some clean clothes.
He Xiaolan sat there, playing with her phone for a while but felt bored. The air was filled with the bitter smell of disinfectant, mixed with the faint aroma of food wafting from the distant family quarters. She felt indescribably depressed and uncomfortable.
Only a little bit of sunlight came in from the window and fell on He Xiaolan's feet. The shoes on her feet seemed to have been bought the year before last. She hadn't bought herself a new pair this year, always planning to go to the outlet mall when they were worn out.
She happened to catch sight of the family's movements at the door of the cardiac monitoring unit not far away. The sons gathered around the doctor, standing awkwardly, their work shoes still stained with dust from outside, leaving light marks on the tiles.
They were all dressed simply, with gray-washed POLO shirts with loose collars hanging casually at the waist, and whitened lines visible on the fabric; there was a man who looked to be in his fifties, wearing a black cotton coat with shiny cuffs and a hole at the elbow where it had been haphazardly taped with several layers of transparent tape, the tape surface had turned yellow. When he got excited, he would raise his arm and you could see the pilling undershirt underneath.
They spoke in a dialect, their tone urgent. He Xiaolan couldn't quite hear them. She only saw the man who looked like the eldest brother, gesturing with his hands in front of him, arguing with the doctor. Even in the dead of winter, he was sweating profusely, sweat trickling down his temples. He had no time to wipe it off, just repeating his demands over and over, occasionally glancing back at his brothers behind him, his eyes filled with helplessness.
"We have no choice. This is 10,000 yuan a day, and it's just wasted." The eldest brother's voice suddenly rose a little, and the bitterness in the dialect floated out through the words, "We go out to work, how long will it take us to earn this 10,000 yuan? We have children at home who need to go to school, and my wife also needs to eat..." His hands were clenched tightly, his knuckles were thick, and there was some unwashed dirt embedded in the crevices of his nails. It was obvious that he had been doing physical labor for many years.
The doctor's voice was full of helplessness: "Transferring to another hospital is too risky. The old man's condition is unstable now. What if something happens on the way?" But the sons just lowered their heads and were silent for a while, still insisting on transferring. It seemed that they wanted to transfer him to the county hospital in their hometown. They really couldn't afford the fees in Beijing.
He Xiaolan watched their backs, her heart sinking. The corridor fell silent, with only the distant ringing of the nurses' station call bell, which quickly fell silent again. A patient's family member brought in some medicine, each one looking exhausted and dusty.
Life seemed so precious in the face of the ten thousand yuan a day figure. She suddenly remembered someone once saying, "Money can buy life," but now, looking at the men's awkward expressions, it was simply that some lives were not something one wanted to buy, but simply couldn't afford. After all, an elderly man, faced with the choice between losing everything and keeping his life, ultimately chose the latter.
It was visiting time at the cardiac inpatient unit, and He Xiaolan followed the doctor's instructions and walked inside. The patients lying side by side were all waiting for their families to reunite. Wang Qingwei was fully awake, and his condition wasn't serious; he was already able to eat a little with the help of a nurse.
"You didn't go to work today?" Wang Qingwei regained some strength to speak, holding He Xiaolan's hand and looking at her pitifully.
"No, how can you go like this? I called your mother, and Qian Helin will go to the South Station to pick her up later."
He Xiaolan found some water for Wang Qingwei and asked him to drink some, while she kept reporting on the work progress of the previous night.
"If you let her come to Beijing, what will happen to my dad?" Wang Qingwei was a little anxious. After all, his father was just fine. He Lianhua was gone, and the old man had to take care of himself.
"I've told my mother to bring some food and meals occasionally. Your father is able to move and take care of himself now. I can't take too long a leave. I asked the caregiver, and it costs 500 yuan a day and I have to provide meals. You can do the math yourself."
Wang Qingwei listened to He Xiaolan and could only acquiesce to her arrangement. However, when He Xiaolan sent a message to Wang Qingwei's company's HR department asking for leave that morning, they didn't respond for a long time. Not long after, Wang Qingwei's boss called and started rambling, saying that his company was also a small startup and hadn't been doing well in recent years. He valued the lives of his employees and ultimately wanted Wang Qingwei to resign, fearing that his body couldn't handle the intense workload.
The visiting time is only twenty minutes, and He Xiaolan can't stay any longer. She must go to Wang Qingwei's company to ask for an explanation for him.
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