Money

The private hospital room was quite comfortable; the bed was soft and roomy. After Zhu Qing returned, she stayed there for two more days. The doctors really couldn’t find anything else wrong with her, so they ordered a full round of tests and even sent her to psychiatry to have her mental state checked. Only after everything came back normal did they finally let Zhu Qing be discharged.

Before leaving the hospital, Zhu Qing logged into WeChat, found Li Lan’s chat box, and hesitated over whether to tell her she was being discharged.

During these two days in the hospital, Li Lan had, without fail, had the hotel deliver three meals a day. And from the expression on Qian Cancan’s face before and after paying the bill, Zhu Qing strongly suspected that Qian Cancan had lost the payment battle to that assistant named Qian Chu.

She was eating the other party’s food and staying in the other party’s place; it only seemed right to say something before she left.

At that thought, Zhu Qing quickly typed a line.

[ I’ve recovered and been discharged ]

After sending it, Zhu Qing stared at the line and felt it looked too stiff.

[ I’m going home ]

After sending that, she quickly turned off the screen, her ears faintly red.

Downstairs, Qian Cancan came to pick Zhu Qing up in a flashy electric pink sports car.

“Your luggage is all here. If anything got left behind, that’s your problem; go back and get it yourself,” Qian Cancan said.

Zhu Qing was too busy staring at the car, envy flickering in her eyes. “Is this your fourth beauty?” If she remembered correctly, Qian Cancan had already changed cars three times.

Qian Cancan wore sunglasses and drove with one hand on the wheel, looking very pleased with herself as she shook her head. “Nonono, this is your car.”

Zhu Qing: ???!

Qian Cancan said, “Think of it as Li Lan’s betrothal gift. She wanted to give you a car before the wedding, and you told me to pick the model, so I chose this one.”

A little thrill rose in Zhu Qing’s heart. “I..."

Qian Cancan looked at her, clearly expecting to see gratitude in her eyes and lavish praise for herself.

Be grateful for Li Lan’s generous gift. Be grateful for her help choosing and picking up the car. Be grateful for all of it.

“I finally got my driver’s license,” Zhu Qing clapped her hands with a smack, proud of herself. “I told you, how could ‘road killer’ possibly describe me? I’m clearly the future queen of the road!”

“Heh.” Qian Cancan turned back and, with a cold expression, shattered her fantasy. “How could that be? You failed your road test, so you have to register again.”

Zhu Qing: ......

Half a minute later, Zhu Qing ran her hand over the car’s leather interior. “This car looks expensive.”

Qian Cancan said casually, “Pretty much. Just over seven figures.”

Zhu Qing wanted to pinch someone, gritting her teeth. “I’m going to fight all of you rich people.”

Qian Cancan shot her a look to stop her. “Sit still. The ornament next to you is worth a month of your salary.”

The car had just stopped at a red light. Zhu Qing reached out right away. “I’m going to strangle you rich people!”

Qian Cancan said angrily, “Why are you pinching me? This is your car; it’s an asset under your name!”

Zhu Qing, who had been waving her fist around, instantly short-circuited. “Under my name?”

“Yeah. Property under your name. It’s registered to you.”

Zhu Qing was dumbstruck.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard; she had just subconsciously assumed that even if Li Lan gave her the car, she’d only toss over the keys and let her drive it, not actually intend to give her a car outright.

Zhu Qing had studied international trade, and during college she’d worked all kinds of odd jobs at all sorts of companies. She knew the tricks rich people used.

The house was for you to live in; the car was for you to drive. But if you checked carefully, both the car and the house were actually in the company’s name, and they could even be used as collateral for loans. If anything went wrong, you’d be left with nothing at all. There were so many layers to it.

Li Lan was a big boss herself; she couldn’t possibly not understand the difference.

So there was only one possibility: she really wanted to give Zhu Qing a fixed asset that was completely hers.

Zhu Qing shrank back into her seat, covering the suddenly racing beat of her heart as an unfamiliar feeling rose inside her.

Qian Cancan didn’t know what she’d said that was so magical it had made Zhu Qing quiet as a lamb, but she was more than happy to see it.

Once they got onto the city expressway, the scenery along the road grew more and more familiar. Zhu Qing looked at it and felt something was off.

“Where are you taking me?” Zhu Qing asked after recovering her senses.

Why did this road look like the one leading to the rental apartment she’d lived in before graduation?

Qian Cancan said Zhu Qing’s original address.

Zhu Qing paused. It really was the rental apartment. “I’m married now, but I’m still renting?”

In her senior year, Zhu Qing often ran around outside doing part-time jobs, so she rented a flat with other people. The location was decent, fairly close to both the subway and the mall, though the rent was expensive, and a big chunk of her monthly income had to go to rent.

Still, the commute was short. She was the kind of person who’d rather spend all her money than lose three extra hours of sleep every day. Besides, the housing prices there were seven or eight thousand per square meter; being able to enjoy that place for the price of rent had suited her just fine.

But then again, she was already married, and her marital home was still the rental apartment she’d originally lived in. That gave Zhu Qing a strange, embarrassed feeling, like she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. The other party was a superstar, a delicately raised flower she had crudely uprooted and stuffed into a shared apartment. No, wait—judging from the current state of their relationship, which seemed to have blown up, Li Lan might not even be willing to set foot here...

“Li Lan bought the place,” Qian Cancan said in an utterly calm tone, as if she were talking about some random object she’d picked up off the roadside. “She saw you liked that apartment, so she bought it. She also moved in with Little Bao.”

Zhu Qing’s eyes went wide in an instant. “B-bought it?”

Qian Cancan’s family was rich too. Though her net income couldn’t compare with Li Lan’s, they had accumulated fixed assets over several generations, so houses and cars were not a problem. She wasn’t as shocked as Zhu Qing.

Zhu Qing was still in a daze.

A place worth tens of millions, just like that, bought?

More shocking than a seven-figure car was, without a doubt, an eight-figure house!

Eight figures!

Zhu Qing earned a little over ten thousand a month after exhausting herself to death, and she was already grateful to be bathed in the glory of the new era. How could someone just casually buy an eight-figure house?!

Zhu Qing cleared her throat, wanting to ask, but hesitated. In the end, she couldn’t hold it in. “Then this house... I can live in it too?”

Qian Cancan said, “If not, then what? The house was bought after the marriage, so it’s jointly owned by the two of you.”

Zhu Qing short-circuited again.

So this was the domineering CEO script? Zhu Qing’s mind conjured Li Lan’s cool, ascetic face; the noble, bossy older beauty holding a gold card and slapping it onto the table. “Woman, you want to buy a house? Take it and spend it.”

For some reason, Zhu Qing’s face grew hot.

Qian Cancan said, baffled, “Why are you blushing?”

Zhu Qing looked down. “Mind your own business.”

Qian Cancan rolled her eyes and turned the wheel into the residential compound.

To let Zhu Qing get more sun, the sports car had been a convertible all the way. Just as they made the turn up the slope, the security guard poked his head out of the booth.

Zhu Qing glanced at him; it was the same guard who looked down on renters and always eyed her sideways. She was just about to ask him to open the gate when the license plate was recognized and the barrier lifted automatically.

“You’re back,” the guard greeted them cheerfully.

Zhu Qing awkwardly nodded. “Ah.”

Renters couldn’t have their faces or plates registered; only owners could. Zhu Qing coughed softly, feeling a guilty thrill of borrowing someone else’s authority.

Before entering, Zhu Qing tugged at Qian Cancan.

She exerted all her strength to hold herself back. “Are we just going to walk in like this?”

“You could hop in.”

“No, I mean, let me catch my breath first.”

Zhu Qing stood in the elevator lobby and refused to move. One hand unconsciously worried at the hem of her sweater; her fingers curled and unfurled over and over.

Seeing her reaction, Qian Cancan lowered her voice without realizing it. “What’s wrong?”

“This house,” Zhu Qing bit her lip. As she approached the familiar door, her usually rough nerves suddenly became sensitive. “It’s the house I used to share with other people.”

Her understanding of this place had always stayed at: she couldn’t quit her job, she had to keep working to earn wages, and then she had to scrape together most of her income just to secure the right to live in one of the secondary bedrooms here.

What she had struggled so hard to obtain was only a little temporary living space.

But now the whole apartment had been bought, and it all belonged to Li Lan.

The difference was self-evident.

“Yeah, but now it’s your house. You don’t have to rent anymore,” Qian Cancan said. “Why do you still like sharing with other people?”

Zhu Qing went blank for a second, then shook her head hard. “No. What I hate most is sharing with other people.”

Qian Cancan dragged her forward. “Then hurry up and go in. This luggage is so heavy, I’m exhausted.”

At last, Zhu Qing reached the door.

This small flat had one hundred and seventy square meters of usable space. She had shared it with a couple and a postgraduate exam candidate. The couple lived in the master bedroom, the exam candidate in the smallest study, and she lived in the second bedroom.

Because one half of the couple was a man, Zhu Qing and the exam candidate had tacitly avoided putting their shoes outside by the entry cabinet.

Even so, that couple often made a mess of the entrance.

Zhu Qing liked her little bedroom, but she didn’t like the other people in the space. Ever since the day she rented here, she had been planning to save money, hoping that one day she could truly own a house that belonged completely to her and settle down in a corner of this city.

But at this moment, the entrance was spotless; there was only a fluffy doormat, with a yellow-eyed black cat printed on the white background.

The ordinary old anti-theft door had been replaced with a Grade A door, its understated black alloy panel exquisitely textured. When Zhu Qing’s thumb touched the smart lock, the fingerprint was recognized and the door opened automatically.

Just inside, off to the side, was a wall of greenery packed with little potted plants, growing the violas and geraniums she liked best.

Further in, the cluttered living room from her memory, the traces left by other people—all of it was gone. The whole place had been renovated into the same cream-colored style as her bedroom.

Pure white furniture, an anime corner crowded with figurines, a retro TV cabinet, a soft cream sofa...

Unlike what Zhu Qing had imagined, the house wasn’t light luxury Italian style, nor Scandinavian-French style, and there wasn’t a single expensive material used just because it was expensive. This house felt to Zhu Qing as if, if it belonged to her, she would decorate it exactly this way.

From the inside out, the whole place catered to her taste. It was almost telling her bluntly: this is for you; this belongs to you.

Zhu Qing walked to the windowsill and saw a woven little tea table and a half-dome swing beside it. Her expression went dazed for a moment.

She remembered that when she was little, her biggest wish had been to have a small swing at home.

It would be her private space; she could curl up inside it and enjoy the feeling of rocking gently.

These hidden, tiny things—too trivial for outsiders to know about, and things she had never even dared to ask anyone else for—had all been placed before her the moment she opened the door.

It was as if she had been spoiled from head to toe. Zhu Qing was overwhelmed, flustered, and completely at a loss.