Chapter 3
It was a little late when she got home, but the rooms near her house were still very busy. Jiang Rong was used to it. However, when she was halfway there, a door with a pink light on was opened by someone from inside the house. The door almost hit Jiang Rong in the face. Fortunately, when she heard the noise, Jiang Rong took a step back very experiencedly and hid herself behind the door.
I saw a woman in a cheongsam, supporting a drunk man to the stairs. She didn't continue to see him off, but waved her hand: "Brother Liu, I won't see Xiaolu off. Be careful on the road."
The man patted his chest manly and said with a grin, "I'll come back to take care of your business in a few days."
The woman named Xiaolu smiled and said "hmm". Then she heard the clang of the security door downstairs, which was not locked at all. The smile on her face disappeared instantly. When she turned back, she noticed Jiang Rong behind the door and smiled mockingly: "Why are you back so late again?"
She was about to pinch Jiang Rong's cheek: "Didn't I tell you that our line of work makes money quickly, while doing that kind of hard and tiring work is really bad for our reputation."
Jiang Rong quickly dodged to the side, obviously not wanting to be pinched by her. Xiaolu didn't feel embarrassed and naturally changed direction. She took a cigarette and a lighter from the table next to the entrance. She tapped her fingers lightly and pressed the lighter while holding a thin cigarette.
Her face flickered in the light of the small flame. As smoke escaped from between her lips and teeth, Jiang Rong did not stay behind the door and continued walking towards her home.
In fact, her home is not that close to this shop. She has to walk through the corridor and go up another flight of stairs. The problem is that her path is connected to the stairs of her home. It is a necessary road and cannot be avoided.
The woman didn't know if she didn't notice the disdain in Jiang Rong's eyes, or if she was already used to it. She continued to speak to Jiang Rong, "By the way, in case you don't understand, all of our houses are actually rented. Today I saw the landlord come to collect the rent."
Jiang Rong paused and frowned as she looked over. Xiaolu could see the disbelief in the girl's eyes. She shrugged calmly, "The money isn't going into my pocket. I'm just telling you so you can be prepared."
"Come and tell me if you've made up your mind. I'll always welcome you here. Even though you're so unlucky, you're still so strong-willed. But you said the landlord would show up. Could it be because of your bad luck? I don't think I'll work here anymore, but I'm still waiting for you these few days..."
Jiang Rong was too lazy to listen any further, so she continued walking towards home. She couldn't say she didn't believe it, so she bit her lower lip. It wasn't so much that she didn't believe the rent, but she couldn't believe that she could be so unlucky.
The teacher said that if I didn’t take extra classes, I might as well take the independent admissions exam.
I finally found a job, but the owner sold the shop and quit.
Now they are even saying that there is a landlord who wants to collect rent. I have lived here for so long and have never heard of any landlord.
Jiang Rong walked to the door and saw a mark on the wall that was obviously carved with a knife. The girl's cheek turned visibly white.
She knew what this meant. The debt collectors had come to her door, and although they didn't see her, this was a sign that they would come again in a few days.
Jiang Rong did not continue to observe at the door. She quickly inserted the key that had been prepared in her pocket, quickly hid in the house, locked the door, leaned her back against the door and bit her fingers anxiously. She didn't know when these people would come, but now she had no place to work, and she might meet them tomorrow.
And there is no doubt that I have no money to pay them back.
After all, he borrowed one million from his father in prison.
How could I possibly have that much money to pay them back?
Her eyes were wandering around and she scratched her head but couldn't think of any solution. Just as she was struggling, she saw a white envelope on the ground. Jiang Rong picked it up with some confusion. She remembered that there was no such thing on the ground when she went out.
She first glanced at the address on the cover to make sure it was her home, then glanced at the door that had been secured, and then she nervously opened the envelope.
Very good, Xiaolu did not lie to himself. There was indeed a landlord coming to collect the rent. This letter was the notice letter left by the landlord. He also specially put the total rent price at the bottom, for fear that someone would not be able to calculate it clearly.
However, probably because he was afraid that the tenant would not agree, he made the regulations clear and marked each price below.
Jiang Rong's eyes darkened when she saw the tens of thousands of yuan in fees. The landlord was not a mean person. The rent of the house was only a few hundred yuan a month. The problem was that the fees accumulated over time were not a small amount.
Jiang Rong walked to her room with heavy steps, carrying her schoolbag and holding the letter. She wiped her forehead which was dripping with sweat due to the heat, turned on the old-fashioned fan placed aside, and then took out a notebook and started to count. The minus signs one by one made Jiang Rong's heart almost stop beating.
I knew about the debt before, but I didn't expect them to come to collect it so quickly. I don't know if I can escape this time.
The money from the landlord is more important. I didn't know that the house was rented. If I can't pay it back, he will kick me out. Where can I go?
Fortunately, I didn't dare touch the money I saved from working before. Apart from paying tuition, water and electricity bills, I had no other use for it. Although I was more or less sure that it was my unlucky star, I didn't expect bad luck to come so soon.
The problem now is that no matter how I calculate my savings, it is not enough. If I still have my previous job, I will probably have money to give to the landlord in two months.
At least we can reduce our foreign debt.
But that job is gone!
Jiang Rong bit her finger, her mind full of the teacher's talk about individual recruitment and her words about her definitely getting a scholarship, but...
She glanced at the family photos on the wall, especially the kind smile of her grandmother. She hugged herself, who was only as tall as her waist at the time, and reminded herself that she must study hard and not be like her mother.
That was the first and last time she met her grandmother.
Thinking of the accident that year, Jiang Rong rubbed her fingers harder, but she still had no plans to go for individual recruitment.
If it doesn't work, I'll look for another job tomorrow.
Jiang Rong took a deep breath, put down her nails that had been bitten to pieces, and took out the carefully protected piece of bread from her pocket. It had followed her to work and then traveled such a long way home, but its packaging was still so perfect and the bread inside had not changed at all.
She couldn't help but hold it up to the light and look at it for a while, swallowing unconsciously. She patted her cheeks and took out a wrapping paper from the drawer. The logo on the plastic bag was exactly the same as the one in her hand. She put the bag back with satisfaction, and then put the bread in front of the electric fan.
Smelling the faint aroma of bread in the air, Jiang Rong swallowed again, touched her still quite satisfied stomach, tried to take her eyes off the bread, and took out the mobile phone and envelope given by her aunt from her pocket.
She almost forgot that her aunt had given her some money.
After counting, I found that the aunt not only gave me my salary, but also several hundred extra dollars and a small note that said: [The extra money is the bonus from the aunt, the aunt did not count wrongly]
Jiang Rong's eyes instantly turned red. It had been so long since she had felt the kindness of others that the girl unconsciously wanted to cry.
Just thinking about my aunt's body...
It was obvious that the aunt had no problem when the two of them first met. Jiang Rong pursed her lips and thought that if she gave the money back, the aunt would definitely not want it. However, Jiang Rong felt bad about not giving her a gift in return, so she decided to make something for her, which could be considered her own gift.
She opened the bottom drawer, took out colored paper and started folding. She knew all the steps of origami by heart. When she was young, there was an old lady upstairs who loved origami. Under her hands-on teaching, origami became what Jiang Rong was best at.
However, it might be because colored paper was cheap enough, or it might be because Jiang Rong had only learned this one thing in her life, so she was extremely skilled. She quickly folded a few camellias and prepared to send them after school tomorrow.
As for the mobile phone, Jiang Rong turned it on, fiddled with it for a while, and then threw it aside. Probably because she had never touched a mobile phone since she was a child, Jiang Rong didn't know what was so fun about the clickable screen on it.
After putting all the money into the piggy bank, Jiang Rong stretched lazily, turned around and prepared to go to bed. After taking a shower, she realized that she still had unfinished homework, so she quickly spread out the homework and began to write furiously.
Although the teacher wouldn't care if she didn't do her homework in her senior year, homework had become the lowest-cost way for Jiang Rong to learn and review.
By the time she finished her homework, it was already very late at night. Jiang Rong lay on the bed tiredly, and almost fell asleep as soon as she closed her eyes. But when she smelled the increasingly strong aroma of bread in the room, Jiang Rong couldn't help but open her eyes and look at it.
She wasn't sure if the bread would go bad just by the power of the electric fan. After all, when she was young, at the beginning of her mother's second marriage, they would buy some cakes and bread for breakfast the next day, and those had to be kept in the refrigerator without exception, not to mention it was still summer.
Thinking of the refrigerator that she had unplugged for a long time, Jiang Rong touched her stomach which was not yet hungry, and stood up to plug it in. Although she felt a little sad, her heart ached even more when she thought of the bread being spoiled.
Thinking that I could eat the fragrant and soft bread tomorrow morning, I put the bread in with a smile on my face and then went to bed.
I had a good night's sleep. In my dream, I went to work in the coffee shop downstairs. The aroma of fragrant and soft bread filled me with fragrance until I was woken up by the alarm clock and opened my eyes in the morning.
Only then did Jiang Rong realize that the fragrance was not an illusion, but that the coffee shop had baked bread, and the fragrance drifted into her room on the wind.
She sniffed the fragrance in the air again, got up in a good mood, opened the refrigerator, but found that there was no such cold air as she remembered from her childhood, and her heart instantly sank.
The bad news is that the refrigerator, which had not been used for a long time, did not cool down successfully.
The good news is that the bread is not spoiled. I even planned to wait for the bread to heat up before eating it on the way, but now I can put it in my mouth directly.
As Jiang Rong walked on the road, she was still comforting herself and carefully put the packaging bag with the logo in her pocket. Her good mood only lasted until she entered the classroom.
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