Su Xiaoqi hazily returned to her auntie's dormitory.
Her steps were a little unsteady.
On one hand, she was really frightened by the sudden system upgrade. On the other hand, she really felt tired from all the walking today.
After swimming and walking all day, when she gave up her seat on the bus for someone else and caught a thief at night, her system mysteriously leveled up twice for no reason.
When she got back, her mind was still messy, but as soon as she lay in bed, she fell straight asleep.
In the middle of the night, she woke up briefly when her auntie came to grab some things. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was after 4 AM. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
The next morning, she woke up needing to pee urgently.
Opening her eyes, she surprisingly saw it was after 7 AM. She had probably overslept because of how tired swimming had made her yesterday. Her legs felt especially sore, as if they were not her own.
As Su Xiaoqi got up, she instinctively reached for her glasses by the bedside.
After groping around for a while without finding them, she suddenly realized she could see very clearly without her glasses. She had already put away her now unnecessary glasses.
She should get some lens-less fake glasses, otherwise it might seem strange when she went home after randomly taking off her glasses.
She hurried to the bathroom and then came back to wash up.
Her hair was a messy bird's nest so early in the morning. To get to the bathroom, she had to go through a hallway and climb some stairs. Living here was a bit inconvenient.
Or she could rent a place nearby for herself.
As Su Xiaoqi stood at the sink brushing her teeth, she suddenly thought:
Wait, with so much money, she could probably afford to buy a small house!
Housing prices in Lvshan weren't too high. It reached as high as 8,000 or even 10,000 RMB per square meter near First Middle School because of school district home buyers.
But she could buy somewhere not as central for around 5,000 RMB per square meter.
She would only need to pay the down payment. She didn't dare take out a mortgage before because she worried about repaying it, but now she could!
Though there was still the issue of her being a bit young. She was still a year shy of 18 years old. She wondered if she could buy property.
Besides, her parents probably wouldn't feel comfortable living in those commercial high rise buildings. They had spent most of their lives in the countryside and still preferred having a small courtyard. If her parents moved to the city, they wouldn't be able to earn much money doing odd jobs either. Her dad was quite skilled at weaving bamboo products. He would probably still prefer doing that as a job to feel productive.
With her toothbrush in her mouth, Su Xiaoqi distractedly mulled over these messy thoughts without reaching a decision.
Should she renovate her house back home, buy one in the city, or do something else?
She just couldn't figure it out.
She had downloaded an app called Ximalaya to learn English. One of their advertising mottos for reading stuck with her: Why do people read books? Because you haven't given up yet. You're still gazing afar.
So for now, Su Xiaoqi decided she would go to the library.
When people are stupid, they read books. When people are poor, they read books. When people have nothing to do, they still read books.
Many people had added her on WeChat yesterday.
Among them was unexpectedly Xie Ruan, the girl Liu Shaowei had brought along.
Yesterday she had read books about researching WeChat. In practice, she habitually started mindlessly scrolling through Moments.
Early that morning, she saw Xie Ruan had posted a Moment.
A cup of coffee, a spacious lobby, a sandwich on a plate. As Su Xiaoqi ate the fried dough sticks and soy milk she had bought from a street breakfast stand, she couldn't help giving it a like.
Her auntie was very busy today after taking yesterday off, without even time to eat breakfast. Su Xiaoqi brought up the food she had bought for her.
Recently she felt like her appetite and food intake had sharply increased. It was as if her body was sprouting and needed lots of calories, so she had bought a lot for breakfast.
Seeing her come up with so much to eat, her auntie said, "Help me take this soy milk and pastry to the old granny in bed 24. I saw she hasn't eaten anything for a long time."
Su Xiaoqi sometimes helped run errands without asking questions, so she obediently went over.
But the patient her auntie had asked her to deliver breakfast to wasn't actually a patient, but rather his accompanying elderly mother. The patient himself was a young man still fast asleep.
The old lady sat dozing off in front.
Su Xiaoqi handed over the food and said, "My auntie told me to bring this for you. My auntie is Nurse Su."
The old lady was startled to see a young girl bringing her things. But soon her eyes flooded with tears.
"I don't need it, thank your auntie for me. I'm not hungry. You're a good girl." Although the old lady's voice was hoarse without much strength, she spoke very clearly.
Just then, the man in the hospital bed suddenly opened his eyes.
He seemed to have already been awake and just hadn't opened his eyes.
"Mom, eat something first to regain your strength to take care of me. And thank you, little sister, as well as your auntie," said the young man from the bed.
Su Xiaoqi was also startled.
"It's nothing. I didn't really help with anything."
Seeing the old lady's brimming red eyes with tears rolling down her face, Su Xiaoqi couldn't stand the scene and hurriedly left after handing over the things.
A severed leg could not be reattached.
Even just being lame like her own dad made life in the countryside very difficult and inconvenient.
As for the patient in that hospital bed, the shape beneath the blanket was sunken from the knees down where his legs should have been. It was empty.
They said the perpetrator who had hit him still hadn't been found. And his bride had inexplicably disappeared, claiming she went out to work. There was still the issue of medical fees. The bride's family had taken 160,000 RMB of dowry from the groom before marriage. He had barely scrounged that together through his migrant work and borrowing money everywhere.
Yet now his bride suddenly said it was gone because her brother had spent it all buying property.
Things in this world were sometimes so absurd and laughable.
Su Xiaoqi thought if she were that patient lying paralyzed in a hospital bed, she would probably be depressed to death.
But as soon as she walked out of the hospital entrance, she heard a mechanical voice from her system speaker: "Host helped deliver breakfast and received one sincere thanks. Though the host's actions were small, she increased the positive energy of a sunny-hearted young man. Reward: Host is granted enhanced sense of smell, reaching the level of a Chinese rural dog. Host now possesses the sense of smell of a Chinese rural dog."
Su Xiaoqi: ......
