After returning home, I first confirmed the work process with Yu Shixuan.

She would go back to revise the blueprints with the team. I would handle registering the company and taking care of all the miscellaneous matters, then she would come over.

“We’ll each take fifty percent shares,” she said. “I’ll put in more money, but I really don’t have the patience to run around for these things. You’ll handle it all.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She sat at the desk revising the design draft while I half-lay on the bed researching from scratch. I had never thought about starting a business in my life. I thought it would be troublesome, but when I actually started operating, I discovered—

It was even more troublesome than I thought!

First, I needed a business location. I looked at several places, but they were either too remote or too small.

Second, I needed people. For example, no fewer than ten Level Three or above project managers were required. Our company only had me, a lone commander.

I also had to run to the Bureau of Industry and Commerce, run to the tax office…

I was overwhelmed when Yu Shixuan suddenly asked out of the blue, “Did you and Cheng Xia… sleep together?”

“What?”

I was dazed for a moment before reacting. “What nonsense are you talking about! I was dealing with Old Wang until midnight. After eating a meal with Cheng Xia, it was already dawn.”

“Oh, I thought the great harmony of life had opened up your conception and governing vessels, which made you obediently agree to open a company!” she said.

I was just about to hit her when our door opened. Grandma appeared at the doorway with an ashen face and said, “Ren Dongxue, you’re not going to work anymore!”

Before I could speak, Yu Shixuan said from the side, “She resigned. From now on, the two of us are starting a business together.”

“You had a perfectly good job. Why did you just quit like that!” Grandma immediately panicked, raising her voice and shouting.

I quickly got up and pushed her out the door. “Come on, come on, let’s talk outside.”

“Talk about what! Do you have money to burn! Life was going fine, why are you making trouble!” She angrily slapped me several times. Exhausting an old lady’s thinking capacity to ponder deeply, she finally slapped her thigh and said, “Did your boss get angry! Did he fire you!”

“Ah, yes…”

She took three steps in two, grabbed her coat, and was about to go out.

“What are you doing!”

“I’m going to find your boss! I’ll kowtow to him! I’ll risk this old life of mine but I can’t let you lose your job!”

The old lady had been sick, but she still had quite a bit of strength. I could barely hold her back and said, “Where are you going! I, I, I said it wrong. It’s that I didn’t want to do it anymore. I want to work independently.”

“I knew it!” She jumped up. “Did that little vixen Xiao Yu instigate you! I saw it early on. She doesn’t want to do well herself and has to instigate you too!”

Ever since I started making money, Grandma had always been somewhat cautious with me. This was the first time she had gone crazy without restraint.

She rushed into my bedroom, pointed at Yu Shixuan, and launched into abuse. “You came here, we treated you well with good food and drink. You’ve stayed for several months. We didn’t say anything, but why must you ruin her! I saw early on that you’re rotten goods, your heart is completely black…”

What followed was a string of unspeakable three-character profanities. Grandma was born of street cursing and could curse for hours without repeating herself.

Yu Shixuan was stunned. For people she wasn’t interested in, her perception was very ordinary. She actually hadn’t realized at all that Grandma didn’t like her.

Much less that from childhood to now, she had never been cursed at like this.

“Enough! I already said it has nothing to do with other people!”

I desperately pulled Grandma out of the room. The old lady was truly being stubborn, clinging to the door frame and not letting go, while her mouth continued to curse uncleanly.

Yu Shixuan stood up. She said, “A’Ma, in your whole life, all the money you’ve earned added together isn’t even a fraction of what Dongxue makes, right?”

Grandma froze. I froze too. I didn’t expect her to talk back.

“Then what makes you think that things you can see, she can’t see? What makes you think you can guide her life?”

Grandma trembled with anger and rushed over to slap her. “Because I’m her grandmother! I’m doing this for her own good! What are you!”

I held Grandma tightly. Yu Shixuan packed her things, picked up her suitcase, and left. Before leaving, she left one sentence: “She’s done enough for you. Stop dragging her down.”

“Yu Shixuan!” I shouted to stop her.

She left.

I wanted to go out and see her off, but Grandma roared, “If you leave, I’ll die!”

Her emotions had escalated to the point where her entire body was trembling. I could only support her and pour her water. “Why are you getting so angry over this small matter? I went to Africa, I resigned from such a big organization as S Construction, and you weren’t angry!”

“How can that be the same! Ancestor!” She had just caught her breath when she got agitated again. “You’re already thirty. You don’t have a job. How will you get married!”

I finally understood.

This time she wasn’t going crazy over my work, but was afraid I couldn’t get married.

I just felt weary. I didn’t know how to explain to her. Should I tell her I didn’t want to get married and anger her to death?

I could only vaguely comfort her. “I have money. I’m going to be a boss. What kind of person can’t I marry!”

“Stop your damn daydreaming!” she said. “You’ve been entangled with Cheng Xia all day, entangled for so many years—what have you gotten out of it! People need to be content! Zhou Ting is so good! You quit at this critical juncture—aren’t you just making trouble for yourself!”

“He won’t care. Really! Don’t worry.”

I finally coaxed Grandma to lie down. She held an electric hot water bottle, moaning “ai yo ai yo,” but still didn’t forget to hold me and urge, “Go talk to your boss, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Swear that you’ve broken things off with Cheng Xia! You can’t lie!”

“I swear.”

After making a fuss all day, when she fell asleep, I went to the kitchen to make dinner. Like many evenings in my youth, Grandma collected bottles at those big restaurant entrances, and after school I came home to cook. Looking up, I saw the window covered with grease stains, dim and yellow, just like my future.

A teardrop fell into the oil pan with a sizzling sound.

“The words are harsh, but families where parents aren’t highly capable are like this,” Yu Shixuan said on the phone. “The first eighteen years she educated you, you need to spend even longer educating yourself all over again.”

“That’s too harsh. Don’t say any more,” I said. “Have a safe trip. I’ll rent a studio for you here.”

“Okay.”

I started looking for a business location.

The place had to be large, the rent couldn’t be too expensive, and the transportation had to be convenient.

It was almost New Year’s. I was still wandering around various remote wilderness areas when I finally found an abandoned old factory building.

More than thirty years ago, it was a textile factory. Later the factory went bankrupt and it split into pieces. One part continued as a textile factory and went bankrupt again. Another part split off to build residential buildings. Yet another part did various other businesses.

I actually had an impression of this factory, but when I was born, it was already broken and gray. According to my father, in its glory days, it fed half the city.

The boss was a middle-aged man with a puffy face, always looking impatient. He said, “What’s there to be picky about? The place is spacious! If you clean it up a little, what business can’t you do here?”

I said, “This isn’t called ‘cleaning up a little,’ is it? Your broken building has had trash piled everywhere for ten years at least. I don’t even know how to deal with it…”

“Let’s not talk nonsense. How about this—if you rent for ten years, give me a hundred thousand yuan a year.”

My heart stirred.

A hundred thousand a year couldn’t even rent a good house in a big city.

But it could rent such a large site, and it wasn’t far from Caichang Street…

“Yes or no? I need the money urgently. There are plenty of people waiting to rent it!” he pressed me.

Just when I was about to agree, Cheng Xia called me and said, “Don’t rush to rent that textile factory place, okay?”

“Huh? How do you know about it?”

“Yu Shixuan told me. I checked it out. There are many lawsuits attached to it. It originally belonged to the old factory manager. Later he passed away and his three sons fought tooth and nail over it. It’s also been mortgaged multiple times. There might be landmines in the future.”

My overheated head had a basin of cold water poured over it. “No wonder it’s so cheap!”

Cheng Xia laughed and said, “These old factory buildings all have similar problems. You need to be careful.”

“Okay.”

“Are you at the textile factory? I’m off work. Want to have dinner together tonight?” His voice was very light, as if ready to laugh “unconcernedly” at any moment.

I said, “Sorry, I have plans with someone.”

He indeed laughed unconcernedly and said, “It’s fine. Another day then.”

I sighed and said, “I might not have time another day either.”

The phone was quiet for a while. Cheng Xia asked, “You have plans with Zhou Ting?”

“Yes.”

Zhou Ting’s car was already driving over from far to near.