Tenant’s Secret Love

Chapter 9: Return good for evil

Renee drove 100 miles per hour for 20 minutes to bring me here, which means I am at least 30 kilometers away from my residence. I am depressed, how come I have been involved in all these unbelievable things recently!

I picked up my slippers from the ground, straightened my clothes, looked up, and was relieved to see the Big Dipper still twinkling. I found the brightest star, Yuheng, and determined the cardinal directions. Then I walked towards the distant, indistinct flicker of lights, as if in a lonely escape.

After half an hour, I finally saw a road with cars passing by. I fixed my eyes on it, and really wanted to strangle that vicious woman. In front of me was the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway (a highway in Jiangsu Province, China) at the border between Suzhou and Wuxi.

...

It was almost dawn when I was finally driven to the city centre by a kind passer-by. I took a taxi to my accommodation, but as I didn't have my wallet with me, I couldn't pay the fare. I threw the half-finished packet of cigarettes to the driver and ran away.

Once I entered the residential compound, my anger flared up. I wanted to talk to Renee, not about life or ideals, but about why she had treated me like that.

Back in the house, I put my guitar on the living room table and went to Renee's room door. I raised my hand and pounded on the door like I was letting off steam. “Is it fun to play with me? Do you know I have to go to work tomorrow...” I looked out the window and saw the sky was already brightening up a bit, so I corrected myself, “No, it's today. You've been messing with me all night, in what state am I going to go to work? If my boss gets upset and fires me, are you going to support me?”

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

“If you want me to swear at you even more, just keep pretending you can't hear me,“ I said, and then I slammed the door again.

There was still no response from the room.

“Did she not come back?” I wondered, and twisted the doorknob, only to find that it was locked.

Renee already thinks I'm a scumbag, so breaking into her room at night is the least of my problems. I find her room key in the bunch and unlock the door. I don't care if she's asleep or not, I'm going to have a serious talk with her.

I turn on the light and finally see Renee lying on her side on the bed. She's covered up with the quilt and is facing away from me. She still doesn't say a word.

“You slept soundly. Have you ever thought about the suffering I endured? ...The wind on the way blew my nose running...ahem...” I sneezed, rubbed my nose, and angrily said, ”I'll tell you, in the past 20 years of my life, I have never seen you do things like this. You're a thief, you're not honest!”

No matter how much I scolded her, she remained calm and unruffled!

Just as I was about to pull her up from the bed and have a face-to-face argument with her, she suddenly had a violent cough...

According to common sense, if my sneeze just now was a cold, then her cough definitely meant she had a fever and must have caught a cold last night.

...

I froze for a moment, and then scolded, “God has opened his eyes! ...you've been punished!”

Renee coughed again, but didn't say anything to me. I don't know if she was too lazy to bother with me or if she was too weak from the fever to argue with me.

“Get out,” Renee said coldly after a while.

“I don't need you to remind me. I like to see people die without helping them. I hope you die of this cough! You deserve it, you'll

I was going to take a hot shower and take a nap, but I could hear Renee coughing intermittently from her room.

I paused in the bathroom, suddenly inexplicably caught in a struggle. I always felt that I was the only man in the house, and she coughed so helplessly. Should I really just watch her like this?

“Forget it, I've been a scumbag for so long, I might as well do one good deed, just to accumulate some good karma,” I said to myself.

...

I put the towel down on the sofa, walked 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. I lit a cigarette to wake myself up, and then looked numbly at the ginger and brown sugar soup in the pot.

A round of sunshine had already leaked out of the easternmost part of the sky at the window, and the wind blew slightly past the hanging orchid on the balcony. A new day exuded the vitality and freshness that had been regular for billions of years in the early morning. I was a little lost in thought. The world at this time was charming, and it seemed to belong only to me...

Perhaps compared to this rare morning, I didn't really like the night's revelry that much.

Renee's coughing woke me from my reverie, and I realized that the ginger soup had been boiling in the pot for quite some time. I turned off the gas stove, scooped up a bowl, and walked towards Mi Cai's room.

...

“I made some ginger soup, have some,“ I said to Renee as I stood by her bed.

“You don't have to be so nice,” she said.

“Who's being nice? I'm just worried about you coughing all the time and disturbing my sleep!” I said discontentedly.

Renee said ungratefully, “If you move out, you won't hear it anymore.”

“If I move out, no one will know if you cough to death at home... Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and drink the ginger soup!” I said, setting down the bowl in my hand, raising Renee's pillow, and rudely helping her up.

I felt her forehead, and sure enough, it was feverish. I picked up the bowl on the bedside table and handed it to her: “Drink the ginger soup first.”

Renee did not fight against her body anymore, took the ginger soup from my hand and drank it. Although she still did not say a word, her expression was not as cold as before.

“After you finish the soup, you should sleep under the covers for a while. Leave the bowl here, I will come back to collect it later. You have a low-grade fever, so take some more fever-reducing medicine and you will sweat it out.”

...

I was afraid that my cold would get worse, so I put on a thick jacket before going out. I rarely get sick, and my family doesn't have any daily medications, so I had to go to the pharmacy to buy Renee some fever and cough medicine.

It was still too early, and the pharmacies weren't even open for business. I had to go to several stops before I found a clinic that was open. After buying the medicine, I immediately took a taxi back, and it was already 7:30 after all the time changes.

I went back to the apartment and went to Renee's room. She was already asleep. I watched her breathe evenly and with a quiet expression, so I didn't wake her up.

I found her phone in her bag, dialed my number, and left a note on her bedside table: “After you wake up, remember to take the fever and cough medicine. If there's anything you can't handle, call me. I've already saved the number in your phone... The scum in your eyes, the angel in my eyes—Lucas.”

I tucked the quilt around her lightly and left her room.

...

After a hot shower, I didn't have time to eat breakfast before I got on the bus to the office again and started the day in a drowsy mood.

I was so sleepy that I yawned one after the other, and finally I simply rested my chin in one hand and fell asleep in a very technical position. If you didn't come close, you would never have noticed that I was sleeping.

Harlan was caught up in the hustle and bustle of his impending marriage and didn't come to the office until almost ten o'clock. He snapped his fingers to wake me up: “You went clubbing again last night?”

I was annoyed when I thought about last night, but there was no need to take it out on Harlan. I yawned and answered, “I didn't sleep well, it kept me up all night!”

Harlan misunderstood what I meant and said, ”You need to pay attention to your kidney health, even though you're still young, you can't keep messing around with women like this without limits!”

“We're both educated people, can we be a bit more subtle?”

Harlan smiled helplessly and then asked me, “Did you help me get the planning case for the GUCCI counter yesterday?”

“It's done, I saved it in the documents on your D drive.”

Harlan nodded and handed me another note, saying, ”Lucas, I'll help you take some personal leave with the manager later, and you can go shopping with Natalie at the mall and buy everything on the list in this note.”

“Are you getting married or am I? You're asking me to go shopping with Natalie!” I asked, a little amused.

Harlan sighed, ”I don't have a choice. There's so much to buy, and Natalie can't carry it all by herself. I'll be going to Shanghai with the investment promotion department to discuss the GUCCI concession with them. I can't let my personal matters affect the company's investment promotion plan that they've been preparing for months, can I?”

“Okay,” I answered, but then yawned. I had been tricked into walking for most of the night and hadn't slept a wink. How could I not be tired!

Harlan patted me on the shoulder and said, ‘Work hard, and I'll take you out to dinner when you get back tonight.”

I waved at Harlan and said, ’Go do your thing, I'll catch some more shuteye!”

“Don't nap, Natalie is waiting for you downstairs!” Harlan paused, his tone suddenly softening, and whispered in my ear, ”Oh yeah... Brittany replied to my email. She'll probably come back from the US on the day Natalie and I get married!”

I stared at Harlan, all sleepiness gone. Suddenly, it felt like I was caught between fire and ice. After three years, is she finally coming back?