My 26-year-old female tenant

Chapter 9: Good for Evil

Mi Cai drove at a speed of 100 kilometers per hour for 20 minutes to bring me here, which means I am now at least 30 kilometers away from my residence. I feel like dying. Why have all these bizarre things happened to me recently?

I picked up my slippers from the ground, tightened my clothes, looked up, and thankfully the Big Dipper was still twinkling. I found the brightest star, Yuheng, to determine the directions, and then headed towards the distant blurred lights, as if it were a lonely escape.

It took me a full half hour to finally see a road with traffic. When I looked closely, I really wanted to strangle that vicious woman. It was the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway at the border between Suzhou and Wuxi.

...

After a lot of trouble, I was picked up by a kind passerby and taken to the city center just before dawn. I took a taxi back to my residence, and in the end, I didn't even have my wallet on me, so I couldn't pay the fare. I threw the half-pack of cigarettes I hadn't finished smoking to the driver and ran away.

Entering the community, my anger began to burn. I wanted to talk to Mi Cai, not about life or ideals, but about why she treated me like this.

Back in the house, I put the guitar on the living room table and went to Mi Cai's door. I raised my hand and knocked fiercely as a vent: "Is it fun to mess with me? Do you know I have to work tomorrow..." I looked out the window and saw that the sky was already a bit bright, and corrected myself: "No, it's today. You've been torturing me all night. How can I go to work in this state? If my boss is unhappy and fires me, will you support me?"

I kept talking, but there was no response from the room.

"If you want me to curse even worse, just keep pretending you can't hear me." I said and knocked on the door fiercely again.

There was still no response from the room.

"Didn't she come back?" I wondered and tried the door handle, only to find it locked from the inside.

Anyway, in Mi Cai's eyes, I'm already a scumbag, and it doesn't matter if I commit the crime of breaking into her room at night. I found the key to her room from a bunch of keys and opened the door. Whether she slept or not, I had to talk to her.

I turned on the light and finally saw Mi Cai lying on the bed, her back to me, still silent.

"You sleep soundly, have you ever thought about the suffering I've been through? ... The wind on the way here made my nose runny... Ah Choo..." I sneezed, rubbed my nose, and angrily said, "Let me tell you, I've lived for more than 20 years, and I've never seen anyone do things like you do, too sneaky, too unkind!"

No matter how much I cursed, she remained as still as Mount Tai!

Just as I was about to pull her up from the bed to confront her face to face, she suddenly started coughing violently...

Based on common sense, if my sneezing just now was a cold, then her coughing is definitely a fever, and she must have caught a cold last night.

...

I was stunned for a moment, then cursed: "God has opened his eyes! ... You've been punished!"

Mi Cai coughed again, but she didn't say anything to me, and I didn't know whether she was too lazy to deal with me or too weak to argue with me because of the pain of the fever.

"Get out." After a while, Mi Cai said to me in a cold tone.

"You don't need to remind me, I've always liked to see death and not save, the better for you to cough to death! ... Serves you right, punishment..." I said and strode out of Mi Cai's room.

I was going to take a hot bath and then take a nap, but I heard the coughing coming from Mi Cai's room intermittently.

I stopped going to the bathroom and suddenly fell into a struggle for no reason. I always felt that I was the only man in this house, and she was coughing so helplessly, did I really have to watch it happen?

"Forget it, after being a scumbag for so long, I might as well do something good and accumulate some virtue." I said to myself.

...

I put the towel in my hand on the sofa, went to the kitchen, found a piece of ginger and a bag of brown sugar, lit the gas stove and started boiling ginger and brown sugar soup.

I was so sleepy that I could hardly keep my eyes open, so I lit a cigarette to refresh myself and numbly watched the pot of ginger and brown sugar soup.

A round of the sun was already peeking over the easternmost horizon, and the wind was slightly brushing over the hanging orchid on the balcony. The new day was exuding the regular vitality and freshness of hundreds of millions of years in the early morning. I was a bit fascinated. At this time, the world was charming, and it seemed to belong to me alone... Perhaps compared to this rare morning, I don't like the nightlife of nights and liquor so much.

Mi Cai's cough woke me up from my trance, and I realized that the ginger soup had been boiling in the pot for a while. I turned off the gas stove, ladled a bowl and walked towards Mi Cai's room.

"I made you some ginger soup, drink it," I said to Mi Cai, standing by her bedside.

"I don't need your kindness," she replied coldly.

"Who said I'm being kind? I'm just afraid your constant coughing will disturb my sleep!" I retorted, displeased.

Mi Cai ungratefully said, "If you move out, you won't have to hear it."

"If I leave, no one will even know if you cough yourself to death at home... Stop talking nonsense and drink the ginger soup!" I put down the bowl in my hand, propped up her pillow, and roughly helped her sit up.

I touched her forehead, and sure enough, she had a fever. I picked up the bowl from the bedside table and handed it to her, "Drink the ginger soup first."

Mi Cai didn't fight her body anymore, took the ginger soup from my hand, and began to drink. Although she still didn't speak, her expression was not as cold as before.

"After you finish, sleep under the covers. I'll come back later to get the bowl. You have a low fever; take some antipyretics, sweat it out, and you'll be fine."

...

Afraid that my cold would worsen, I put on a thick coat before going out. I rarely get sick and don't have many common medications at home, so I had to go to the pharmacy to buy some antipyretics and cough medicine for Mi Cai.

It was too early; the pharmacies hadn't opened yet. I ran several stops before finding an open clinic. After buying the medicine, I immediately took a taxi back, and after all this hassle, it was already 7:30.

Back at the residence, I came to Mi Cai's room, but she was already asleep. Seeing her breathing evenly and her expression peaceful, I didn't wake her up.

I found her phone in her bag, dialed my number, and left a note on her bedside table: "Remember to take the antipyretics and cough medicine after waking up. If you can't handle something, call me. I've already saved my number in your phone... The scumbag in your eyes, the angel in my own eyes – Zhao Yang left!"

Gently tucking the covers around her, I left her room.

...

I took a hot shower and didn't have time for breakfast before catching the bus to the company, starting the day's work in a state of mental exhaustion.

I was so sleepy, yawning one after another. Eventually, I simply propped my chin with one hand and fell asleep in a technically impressive posture. If you didn't come close, you would never know I was sleeping.

Fang Yuan, busy with his upcoming wedding, didn't arrive at the company until almost ten o'clock. He woke me up with a pat: "Did you go to a nightclub last night?"

Thinking about last night made me angry, but I didn't take it out on Fang Yuan. I yawned again and replied, "Didn't sleep well, it was a restless night!"

Fang Yuan misunderstood my meaning and said, "You should take care of your health, even though you're young, you can't keep going without restraint with women!"

"Can we, as cultured people, speak more subtly?"

Fang Yuan smiled helplessly and then asked me, "Did you finish the plan for Gucci's counter yesterday?"

"Done, saved in the D drive documents."

Fang Yuan nodded and handed me a note, saying, "Zhao Yang, I'll ask for a personal day off for you later. You accompany Yan Yan to buy everything on this list at the mall."

"Am I the one getting married? You want me to go shopping with Yan Yan!" I asked with amusement.

Fang Yuan sighed, "I don't have a choice. There are so many things to buy, and Yan Yan can't carry them all by herself. I'll be going to Shanghai with the business department and the plan to talk to Gucci about setting up a counter in our mall. I can't let my personal matters affect the investment plan the company has been preparing for months, right?"

"Alright," I agreed, but then yawned again. I had been fooled into walking half the night and didn't sleep at all; of course, I was sleepy!

Fang Yuan patted my shoulder and said, "Take it easy, I'll treat you to dinner when you get back tonight."

I waved at Fang Yuan, "Go take care of your business, I'll try to catch some more winks!"

"Don't sleep anymore, Yan Yan is waiting for you downstairs at the company!..." Fang Yuan paused, then suddenly lowered his voice and whispered in my ear, "By the way... Jian Wei replied to the email. There's an 80% chance she'll come back from the U.S. for my and Yan Yan's wedding!"

I stared at Fang Yuan, all drowsiness gone, as if I was suddenly traversing through ice and fire. After three years, is she finally coming back?