April. Outside the window, the sunshine was brilliant. At this time of the transitional period between spring and summer in An City, the temperature was relatively comfortable.
At 11:59 a.m., Wen Qian's gaze moved away from her computer screen. She got up to heat up her lunch.
The company had a water dispenser and microwave oven. Wen Qian brought meals every day.
There was no other reason, only that it was cheap and saved money.
"Wen Qian, what are you eating today?" A female colleague behind her placed her lunch box next to her in the queue.
"Ding—" the microwave oven timer went off.
Wen Qian took out her lunch box and showed it to her colleague.
On top of the white rice were some seaweed crumbs, sour and spicy potato shreds, and braised pork.
Her colleague joked, "It looks pretty good."
Wen Qian took her food back to her office seat and started eating.
Except for the fish and meat that Wen Qian bought at the market, the rest of the vegetables were all bought online.
What to buy depended on what was on sale that day.
If carrots were the cheapest, she would buy carrots. If green peppers were heavily discounted, she would buy green peppers. In short, as long as there was meat and vegetables, it was fine. She didn’t care if it was repetitive.
For normal people, eating the same thing over and over would make them bored. But Wen Qian was different—as long as it was cheap, she could eat it for a long time.
Lunch was quickly finished. There was still time before the lunch break, so Wen Qian started comparing prices on her phone.
The rice and cooking oil at home were running low. Wen Qian was looking at which price was cheaper.
After comparing three platforms, Wen Qian bought a 10kg bag of rice and a five-liter bucket of oil from two platforms respectively.
When exiting the shopping app, she found a flash sale had started—550ml bottles of mineral water, 24 bottles for 8.99 yuan.
Not finding anything cheaper than this, Wen Qian decisively placed an order.
According to Wen Qian’s usual money-saving ways, she would normally boil and drink water instead of bottled water.
However, when Wen Qian was in school, she had experienced being trapped by a flood. So she had a fondness for bottled water and biscuits.
Even now living in a ten-plus story apartment building, she would still regularly stock up on bottled water and some instant food.
In recent years, it seemed like all kinds of disasters were increasing. Having some things at home made Wen Qian feel more at ease.
After finishing shopping, Wen Qian started checking coupons on Weibo to see if there was anything she needed.
She needed to replace her underwear and socks, and she was also out of seaweed. As for summer coming, the company would distribute work clothes, so she didn’t need to buy any.
The company distributed two seasons’ worth of tops, so Wen Qian didn’t have to buy clothes. Anyway, she couldn’t wear anything else to work.
Other than working, Wen Qian spent all her other time saving money.
She was now 26 years old. She had been working at this company with her salary rising from 4,000 to just over 10,000 now. She managed to save quite a bit every month.
People around knew she was frugal, but only she herself knew the extent.
Wen Qian had always been very poor since she was little, destitute and down on her luck. Now that her salary was not bad, why was she still saving so much?
Because she wanted to buy a house so that she could have a home of her own in An City.
Wen Qian grew up in a remote little mountain village in An Province, located in the hilly areas. Residents always lived scattered in batches of two or three families per mountain depression.
Where Wen Qian lived, there were only three households, but the other two had moved to slightly bigger mountain depressions, leaving only the Wen family couple behind.
Wen Qian was an abandoned baby, thrown at the roadside in the cold winter. The Wen family couple happened to be passing by to visit relatives. They found her and brought her home.
The Wen family couple was nearly sixty years old and had no children.
They'd had children before but could never raise them to adulthood. Finally they couldn't have any more and gave up hope.
This time finding an abandoned baby, the Wen family couple thought they finally had a descendant. So they summoned up their energy and started raising the child again.
This time, the child grew up well.
Because of their advanced age, the Wen family couple had Wen Qian call them Grandpa and Grandma.
Having such a child made the Wen family couple's days less dreary.
Grandma was responsible for raising the child while Grandpa farmed the land.
If they were a bit younger, Grandpa might have even gone to the city to work. But now that they were older, he could only farm at home.
Fortunately, when the Wen family couple turned 60 years old, the village applied for the rural “Five Guarantees” support policy for them. In addition to the pension after 60 years old, there were also grain subsidies. It was enough for them to get by.
When Wen Qian was 12 years old, Grandpa passed away, leaving only Wen Qian and Grandma relying on each other.
At that time Wen Qian had just graduated from elementary school.
Afterwards, with some state subsidies Wen Qian obtained, she attended middle school and high school.
Grandma stayed at home growing vegetables and raising chickens, waiting for her to come home during school breaks.
Later Wen Qian tested into a first-tier college and chose to study in An City—for the sake of being closer to Grandma.
Grandma was very happy that Wen Qian was promising, but some villagers said that she had raised this girl in vain. The girl probably wouldn’t be able to provide for Grandma in her old age.
But Grandma had long accepted this.
Before Wen Qian even had the chance to repay Grandma, in Wen Qian’s sophomore year of college when she was 20 years old, Grandma passed away.
At that time Wen Qian was home during summer break taking care of the sick Grandma, so she was able to see Grandma off.
After Grandma’s funeral, Wen Qian left the village alone. The village director issued her a certificate. That year, Wen Qian returned to school and applied for orphan financial aid.
Since then, she had been alone.
Although there was still an old home she could return to, Wen Qian only came back once a year in the summer, just checking on the home. For the rest of the time, she was working part time in the city until her graduation.
After graduation, Wen Qian stayed and found employment in An City. In order to reduce rent, she lived in the urban village area with rent of 400 yuan per month.
The urban village area was crowded with poor environment, but because the rent was cheap, everyone still gathered there.
However, the last large-scale urban village area in An City was also to be demolished. Under such circumstances, when it was time for Wen Qian to move and switch jobs, she started saving money towards the down payment for her own home.
Although Wen Qian had always been frugal before, after having this goal, her level of saving went up another notch.
She prepared her own meals, and a lot of her clothes and shoes came from classmates and friends. She saved money to an extreme degree.
After work, Wen Qian would take her lunch box and the drink her colleague bought her back home with her. She could even sell the bottles for money.
Wen Qian kept the express paper boxes in her rented apartment and the usual plastic bottles, accumulating them to a certain level before taking them to sell. Although the money was not much, every little bit counted.
At five thirty today, Wen Qian got off work on time and was in a good mood. She got off the bus and went up the overpass to the other side.
Someone was operating a small stand on the overpass. Phone cases, charging cables, socks, combs...
Suddenly, one stand owner attracted Wen Qian's attention - an old granny with white hair.
In front of the granny, there were only two paper shells the size of pillowcases. On them were some hair clips and hair ties.
According to Wen Qian’s thrifty personality, she would not buy them, but the granny's appearance reminded her of her Grandma who raised her. So she leaned over to take a look.
Wen Qian was going to buy two 5 yuan ones. She picked a cute strawberry hair tie, and then tried to find a suitable hair clip.
"How about this one?" The granny smiled and held up a hair clip to recommend.
It was a pearl hair clip, with three evenly spaced pearls, and the middle pearl was pink.
Wen Qian thought about it and accepted the recommendation. She took out her wallet from her backpack and took out 5 yuan cash.
