When Qian Fei arrived at Wangfujing Department Store, Hu Zining was waiting for her at the entrance with two cups of cola.
Just as she was about to apologize again for being late, he handed her the cola, saying, “Did you run here? You look out of breath. Sip to calm down!”
As she took the cola, she felt like she was about to cry from emotion. She thought she was so lucky. She was nearly twenty-seven, on the verge of becoming a leftover woman who couldn’t get married, and yet heaven had somehow let such a thoughtful and caring good man slip through to her!
While Hu Zining went to exchange the tickets, she couldn’t help but call Yao Jingjing to quickly express her joy.
“Jingjing, how could I possibly meet such a caring and gentle good man? He even said I’m beautiful!”
However, Yao Jingjing reflexively poured cold water on her excitement, “Qian Feifei, let me tell you, men like that usually come from hanging around a lot of women. They’re experts at sweet-talking! But for him to praise your face as beautiful when you’ve only put on Dabao cream, that’s practically a good deed for the day!” She paused, then changed her tone, “Listen, what’s he really like? I don’t have time to see for myself. I might have to leave at any moment these days, so I can’t even give you a proper send-off. You need to be careful on your own! Take it slow, don’t rush into anything intimate. When I get a chance to come back, I’ll properly vet him for you!”
Qian Fei retorted, “Get lost! The main reason I’m looking for a partner is to get intimate soon and regulate my increasingly imbalanced hormones. Who has time to wait for you!”
She hung up the phone just as Hu Zining returned with the tickets. He had exchanged them for a showing five minutes later.
The movie starred Fan Bingbing and was called “Double Xposure”. The plot was somewhat confusing, and Qian Fei found herself losing track of it. She even dozed off for a while in the middle. When they finally made it to the end, she heard Hu Zining ask with lingering interest, “What did you think?”
She answered stiffly, “It was brilliant! How do you think the screenwriter came up with such a time-travel and rebirth concept? So talented!”
Hu Zining’s smile was a bit dry, “This wasn’t about time travel or rebirth!”
Qian Fei couldn’t hide her confusion, “But didn’t Fan Bingbing live twice, with different things happening each time?”
Hu Zining patiently explained, “She didn’t live twice. The earlier events were all imagined by Fan Bingbing!”
Qian Fei made an “Oh” sound, “So Fan Bingbing had a split personality!”
Hu Zining chuckled, “Qian Fei, you are an interesting girl!”
Qian Fei felt strangely flattered and suddenly felt a surge of emotion.
Hu Zining asked Qian Fei if she was hungry, and Qian Fei said, “I am a bit hungry! Let’s go eat!”
They found a random restaurant and ordered some food.
When they finished eating, Qian Fei rushed to pay the bill. Hu Zining protested, “How can a woman treat a man!” He said this while reaching for his wallet.
Qian Fei quickly blocked the waitress, not letting her take Hu Zining’s money. “It can’t always be you treating! Besides, you already treated me to the movie!” She handed the money to the waitress.
As Hu Zining put his money back in his wallet, he sighed, “Qian Fei, you are a different kind of girl!”
Qian Fei found this comment extremely flattering, and she blushed with pleasure.
Hu Zining offered to see Qian Fei’s home. Qian Fei looked at her watch – it was only 9:15 PM – and said, “No need, it’s not that late yet. I’ll just take the subway home. We’re going in different directions, it wouldn’t be convenient for you to see me home!”
So Hu Zining saw her to the subway station.
On the subway, Qian Fei received a WeChat message from Hu Zining.
“Qian Fei, I had a great time today. Thank you for treating me to dinner! I like you, and if you think I’m okay too, why don’t we make our relationship official? What do you think?”
Qian Fei stared at her phone for a full minute, feeling her heart pounding.
For the past few years, she had been hanging all her hopes on Wang Ruohai, and she had almost forgotten what it felt like to be pursued by someone of the opposite sex. It turned out to be such a wonderful and exhilarating feeling; she felt like she was eighteen again.
She took a deep breath and replied to Hu Zining, “Sounds good to me!”
Qian Fei returned home feeling refreshed and elated.
She felt that the moon she saw looking up on her way home was so damn round, so round that everything looked pleasing to her eyes.
Until she got home, and the moment she opened the door, her good mood instantly vanished.
The house was a mess, with water everywhere, completely resembling a scene of flooding.
She peeked into the kitchen and saw that the faucet was still gushing water. She quickly waded through the water to turn off the faucet and pull out the sink plug.
She came back and knocked on Gui Lili and the others’ room door. After several knocks with no response, she thought no one was home and took off her coat, rolled up her sleeves, preparing to start cleaning the house. At this moment, Gui Lili opened the door, rubbing her eyes.
She had been sleeping in the room, and the sound of the running faucet hadn’t bothered her at all.
Qian Fei felt herself entering a state of speechlessness.
“Ah!” Gui Lili exclaimed when she saw all the water in the house, “How did there get to be so much water!”
Qian Fei looked at her and said weakly, “You plugged the sink and forgot to turn off the faucet!”
At this moment, the front door opened, and Li Yifei came home.
“What happened?” He looked at the water all over the floor, seeming a bit annoyed, and asked Gui Lili, “You did this again, didn’t you?”
Qian Fei looked up at the ceiling.
This wasn’t the first time this woman had done this.
Gui Lili looked at Qian Fei with an innocent face and said, “I’m so sorry, Qian Fei! I wanted to fill the sink to wash some rags, who knew I’d fall asleep so quickly? But usually, isn’t the hole at the top of the sink connected to the drain? Why isn’t yours connected? If it were connected, this wouldn’t have happened…”
Her voice was weak, and for a moment, Qian Fei felt like it was her fault for choosing such a faulty sink.
“Enough already! Is it that hard to honestly admit your mistake just once, always looking for excuses everywhere!” Li Yifei said from the side.
Gui Lili’s tone immediately rose, a complete reversal from her previous weak demeanor, “Li Yifei, you’re one to talk! If you hadn’t left me alone at home on a big weekend, would this have happened? When I ask you where you’re going and who you’re eating with, you don’t say. What do you mean by keeping secrets from me like this!”
“I don’t want to deal with you!” Li Yifei ignored her, took off his suit jacket, and threw it on the living room sofa, irritably tugging at his collar.
Gui Lili slammed the door with a “bang” and hid in the room, refusing to come out.
Qian Fei could faintly hear Gui Lili crying. The crying was so heart-wrenching, as if expressing all the grievances in the world, made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Goosebumps rose on her arms, and she said softly to Li Yifei, “Why don’t you go in and comfort her? Come to think of it, on a big weekend, you went off to enjoy yourself at the Cheng family banquet, leaving her at home to wash rags. When you think about it, it is quite miserable!”
Li Yifei glanced at her, his voice tinged with confusion, “Are all you girls so fickle? When you first start dating, you’re all sweet and clingy, but once you’re together, it’s all crying and screaming?”
Qian Fei resisted the urge to roll her eyes and shrugged, “Who doesn’t have early menopause sometimes? Besides, if you didn’t provoke her, she probably wouldn’t be crying and screaming…”
His sweeping generalization was quite broad, covering half the sky.
“You’d better go in and comfort her. Her crying is making me uneasy!”
Li Yifei hesitated for a moment, then stepped towards the room. Just before reaching the door, he suddenly turned back and said, “Don’t tell her about me eating at the Cheng family banquet tonight!”
Qian Fei was stunned for a moment, then nodded, “Alright! I’m a peace-loving person. I only collect rent, I don’t moonlight as a neighborhood committee busybody!”
Li Yifei gave her another look, then turned and entered the room.
After a while, Gui Lili stopped crying. A bit later, she came out of the room to help Qian Fei clean up the house.
By the time they finished tidying up, it was already past eleven. Qian Fei’s back and waist ached from bending over all evening. She went back to her room, quickly washed up, and crawled into bed.
The indicator light on her phone kept flashing. She saw that Hu Zining had sent her a WeChat message an hour ago. He asked what she was doing.
Looking at the time, she figured Hu Zining must be asleep by now, so she didn’t reply.
A moment later, another message came in.
She thought it was from Hu Zining, but it turned out to be a text from Li Yifei.
“I’m very sorry about today. The floor has warped from the water. Calculate how much it will cost to replace the flooring, and I’ll transfer the money along with the rent next time.”
Qian Fei was most susceptible to people who showed a good attitude when admitting their mistakes. Whenever someone showed a good attitude, she would immediately forgive and forget, especially when someone like Li Yifei, who seemed like he would never admit to being wrong, actually apologized.
“It’s alright. I’ll have to renovate anyway when I stop renting out the place in the future, so let’s just forget about it this time.”
However, as soon as she sent the text, she began to regret it. Why was she so quick to give up money…
On Monday at work, during lunch break when everyone was chatting, she told them about the water incident at home.
After hearing about the text she sent, her colleagues all told her not to give up treatment and to keep taking her stupid pills.
Xiao Yuan even slammed the table and stood up: “Qian Fei, can you stop being such a saint? Look how you spoiled your ex-boyfriend! Now you’re starting to spoil your tenants!”
Only Hu Zining, after hearing about this, praised her greatly: “Qian Fei, you are a kind girl!”
Qian Fei felt that regardless of how others saw it, having someone who could say such a thing to her in the end was enough.
The shared living situation gradually unfolded, and various annoyances spread out along with it.
Qian Fei felt like she was practicing new tolerance skills every day.
The couple next door was particularly wild, often coming home very late and making a lot of noise when they did. They would talk loudly while washing up and occasionally argue, never failing to wake her up.
Qian Fei was good in every way except for one – she found it hard to speak up and give others feedback. As long as a situation was still within tolerable limits, she would choose to remain silent.
So, amidst the clanging and banging noises from next door, she quietly bought twenty pairs of earplugs on Taobao and started sleeping with earplugs every night. From then on, unless the couple was arguing particularly fiercely, she generally wouldn’t be disturbed.
However, recently she noticed that the frequency of arguments between the couple next door was increasing, and she felt like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from their constant fighting.
And besides the late-night disturbances, there were many other annoyances.