“The landlady said her surname was Xu, or maybe Xu. Her Mandarin wasn’t standard; she spoke the local dialect. I’m not entirely sure,” An Hong said.
Ye Qingqing's heart skipped a beat. If the surname is Xu, could it be Xu Yuetuan?
Hu Laosan is in jail, and her son Hu Zhiwei is always out fooling around. It's true that only she and Hu Zhihong live at home, and the Hu family only has two rooms.
"Is that landlord very tall and strong?"
“Yes, yes, she doesn’t seem easy to get along with, but actually she’s a nice person.” An Hong nodded.
Ye Qingqing was now certain that the landlord An Hong had described as a decent person was none other than Xu Yuetuan, the universally disliked figure on Fu'ai Road. She knew she couldn't rent a place to someone like that. Just as she was about to warn him, the restaurant owner arrived with the food.
"Let's eat first, and I'll talk to you later."
Ye Qingqing placed the food on the table. The portions were quite generous, and the food tasted very good. The owner even gave her an extra plate of spicy stir-fried snails, saying it was for her classmate.
"Thank you, Auntie. I'll take the plate over later."
"No rush, come back for more if you're still hungry!"
The proprietress left with a smile. She liked regular customers like the Ye family who never haggled over money and were easy to talk to. If you treated them the same way, she would cook better food and give them more portions.
"Eat up, finish all the food."
Ye Qingqing took a rice bowl, filled it with rice for Ye Mingcheng, and then put some of each dish on his plate before giving it to him to eat. Ye Mingcheng doesn't eat much, so he didn't eat much and left a lot of food behind.
"Don't be shy, eat more vegetables and less rice, otherwise we'll have to throw it away. My family doesn't eat leftovers." Ye Qingqing said this deliberately so that Qian Manduo and An Hong wouldn't dare to eat too much.
She knew that Qian Manyu had a large appetite, and these dishes would be no problem for her.
Upon hearing that the food was to be thrown away, Qian Manduo ate the vegetables faster, thinking to herself that city people were so wasteful. Her family couldn't even afford to eat such good food during the New Year, yet they were willing to throw it away.
Before long, all the dishes on the table were gone, and there was no rice left either. Ye Qingqing herself didn't eat much; she never had a good appetite because of the hot weather. Qian Manduo and An Hong, who looked thin and small, both had good appetites.
While tidying up the table, Ye Qingqing said, "You can't rent that house. The landlord has a son, and the room you rented is where her son lives. He's not home now, but who knows when he'll be back. That son is a scoundrel. You two are young and beautiful; it's not safe for you to live there."
Qian Manduo remained relatively calm, but An Hong turned pale with fright, her lips trembling. "Really... a thug? But the landlady said there are no men in the house."
"She's lying to you. Her husband is in jail and should be released soon. That woman herself is a shrew, and her daughter is a petty thug with dirty hands. In short, their whole family is a cancer in our alley, hated by everyone. If you want to rent a place in this area, I can help you get in touch. There are plenty of empty houses."
An Hong looked annoyed. "I...I've already paid the deposit, eighty yuan. I'll pay the rest in a month. What am I going to do now? Will she refund the money?"
She planned to stay long-term, so she paid the first month's rent when she was satisfied with the apartment. Little did she know she had been scammed. That eighty yuan was money she had saved by scrimping and saving, enough to buy a lot of study materials for her postgraduate entrance exam.
An Hong's eyes turned red with anxiety. Although her family was better off than Qian Manduo, they were still struggling financially. Eighty yuan was a huge sum of money for her. She hated herself for trusting people so easily and now she had lost such a large amount of money. Sigh!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com