Tenant’s Secret Love

Chapter 65: Never get close

After dinner at the A-Lin restaurant, I wandered through the streets of Suzhou at night with my guitar and Violetta on my back. The fallen leaves, the cold wind, the shadows and the towering buildings all contributed to the appearance of late autumn and made up this city.

I lit a cigarette and enjoyed the hazy smoke after a good meal. I couldn't help but look back at the city frequently. When I really had to leave, I realized that I didn't really hate it, and I even felt a little reluctant to leave. At least it had recorded my youth and life, including my love. Here I understood: thinking about someone is called loneliness. Here I learned: if the liking of two people is sublimated into marriage, it is called love; if there are only memories left, it is just a legend, a lonely and miserable legend.

When we got tired from walking, Violetta and I sat on a bench by the street. We were both silent for a while, and then I finally asked Violetta, “How have you been?

Violetta shook her head blankly and said, ”Same old, not good, but I haven't given up trying.”

I nodded, not knowing how to respond to Violetta's words for a moment, because I could understand the meaning behind her words. When she said she hadn't given up trying, she was actually questioning me about why I had given up trying.

After a short silence, Violetta asked me, “What are you going to do when you get back to Xuzhou?”

I took a long drag on my cigarette and thought for a while before answering, ”If my father is willing to get me a job at the company where he works, that would be great. If he's not, I'll find a job myself, then find a woman to spend my life with, and eventually wait for old age, illness, and death.”

“Don't subjectively plan your life so far in advance. Life is full of uncertainties, isn't it?”

“Actually, I'd rather be able to see the end of my life at a glance.”

Violetta smiled and said, “That's why you fantasize about a crystal clear city as a place to take refuge in your heart.”

“Yes, only crystal clarity can see the farthest without any obstacles.”

“Maybe we really aren't the same kind of person!” Violetta exclaimed.

“Yes, the island with the cooking smoke that you fantasize about requires swimming across an ocean to get there, so compared to crystal clarity, you have to go through a lot more.”

Violetta suddenly looked at me as if she had suddenly understood something, and after a long time she said, “Do you feel that we are like two stars that are destined not to appear together? I am at the tip of the cape, and you are in the sky, echoing each other from afar but never able to get close?”

I didn't respond, but just looked into the distance. In a daze, it seemed that I really saw that city in the sky and a beach echoing each other from afar, but unable to get close to each other.

That night, Violetta and I embraced and said goodbye. Perhaps after we leave Suzhou, we will really go further and further in the direction we each hope for, and one day neither of us will remember that we had an affair. Perhaps life is made up of countless forgetfulnesses, and in the end we forget everything in death.

...

Three days have passed. Apart from eating, sleeping and going to the bathroom, the only thing I have done in the past two days is show this bachelor apartment I am renting to prospective tenants.

This afternoon, I showed the apartment to a total of three tenants, but for one reason or another, none of the negotiations worked out. In the end, it was a young couple who had just graduated from university.

The two of them held hands as they looked back and forth at the apartment. In the end, they thought it was not bad, and the guy asked me, “How do you want to rent this room?”

“One month's rent in advance and three months' rent in total, 5,200 RMB.”

The boy and girl looked at each other and whispered a few words. The boy then said to me, “You can round off the 200 yuan, and we'll take the room.”

“Young man, 200 yuan is not a rounding off. If I wasn't in a hurry to leave, I couldn't possibly offer you this price,” I said without any room for negotiation. Of course, this was the truth. I had originally paid 5,600 yuan to rent the room, and I had only lived there for less than a week.

The boy and girl whispered again. This time, the girl said to me, ”5,200 is fine, but we need to move in tonight. Is that okay?”

I weighed up the situation and said, ”Yes, if there are no other problems, we can sign the contract now.”

The boy and girl nodded to indicate that they had no problems, and I immediately went inside to get the sublease contract that I had prepared earlier.

While the two were looking at the contract, my phone rang again. I subconsciously thought it was another person calling to request a viewing of the apartment, and I took the phone out of my pocket only to discover that it was Renee, someone I hadn't spoken to in a few days.

This phone call made me feel a hundred different emotions. I had bullied this woman without any scruples, but because of her, I had also lost the career prospects I had worked so hard to achieve in this city. Perhaps we really were destined to be enemies, although for a little while we had been more like friends.

I walked outside and answered the phone. Surprisingly, we both waited for the other to speak first.

In the silence, I finally couldn't hold back and said, “You called me, why don't you say something?”

Renee seemed to suddenly hear me: ”Ah... I'm sorry, I was looking at some documents and didn't realize I had already answered the phone!”

“Oh, you seem to be quite busy. Aren't you just a building manager at Jumei? You can't be that busy,” I said, even though I knew that Renee was the CEO of Jumei.

Renee didn't care about my nonsense, and smiled, saying, ”I am quite busy, but I'm almost done.”

“Oh, go ahead, tell me what you wanted to call me for. Is there a leak in the room I've been occupying?”

“No, I finished work early today. Didn't you say you could cook for me?”

I was a little surprised. I had told Renee that, but I didn't really expect her to come. Could it be that we could really become friends after we stopped fighting over the apartment?

Renee saw that I was silent and asked again, “Is that not okay, or are you not confident in your cooking skills?”

I came back to my senses and asked Renee in return, ”What do you think of my father's cooking?”

“It's great!”

“Like father, like son. Have you heard that before? You come over, I'll show you how to cook tonight, so you won't think I'm useless all the time!”

“Okay, I'll be there in a bit.”

“Well, buy whatever you like to eat at the supermarket, I'm not providing the ingredients.”

I thought Renee would say I was being stingy, but she just said “Okay” and hung up.

...

I went back inside, and the young couple had already read the contract and signed their names.

I took the contract handed to me and said to the couple in a friendly tone, “Let me negotiate something with you. I have a friend coming over for dinner later, so I won't be able to move out tonight. I'll give you a 200 yuan discount as compensation, okay?”

The boy and girl began whispering again, while I was a little speechless. This young couple really respected each other, and they had to discuss even the most trivial matters with each other.

After waiting for a long time, the two finally finished discussing. The boy said to me, “400 yuan off!”

I frowned and said, ”Young man, you should be honest. 200 yuan is enough for you two to find a hotel to stay for the night and even have some money left over for a late-night snack.”

“The contract has already been signed, and now we have the right to use the house. If you don't give us 400 yuan off, we won't agree to your request.”

“Fuck...” I habitually swore.

The boy and girl seemed to be shocked by me, looking at me with fear.

I said with a laugh, ‘If you two are so timid, don't learn from those social scum and play the victim card!”

The boy finally plucked up the courage to say, ’Who told you not to give us 200 yuan off just now...”

I hate sissies, and impatiently interrupted him, saying, “Okay, don't argue. 400, right? I promise.”

The boy and girl glanced at each other again, as if they had picked up a huge bargain, and overjoyed, took out the money from their bag and counted out 4,800 yuan for me.

I gave them a copy of the sublease agreement and a key. The two of them left, and I was a little between tears and laughter. I never thought that I, Lucas, would ever be taken advantage of by someone else, and I was such a sissy!

Without thinking any more, I picked up the mop and started cleaning the house to welcome Renee's arrival. After Violetta, God gave me another chance to say goodbye to Renee.