Wu Jun spent a little while comforting Ma Siyu, coaxing her until she smiled through her tears. He was good at this sort of thing.
When the two of them returned to the hospital room, only Ma Dongmei, Xu Xiulan, and Wu Guangqiang, who was on the bed, remained.
Wu Jun asked, "Did Uncle and the others leave?"
"They just left a little while ago." After speaking, Ma Dongmei looked at Ma Siyu. "You, too. You’re a grown woman, acting like a little kid. Why were you arguing with your aunt? You even looked like you were about to hit her. Who do you think you are?"
Ma Siyu pouted. "She was the one who said such nasty things. What business is it of hers that Wu Jun bought you supplements? If she wants some, she can ask Ma Chaoyun to buy them for her. No one’s stopping her."
"Alright, alright, that’s enough from both of you." Seeing that his mother and cousin were about to start bickering again, Wu Jun quickly stepped in to mediate. Xu Xiulan also chimed in with a few calming words, and the two of them finally dropped the subject.
They stayed in the hospital room until ten at night, when Ma Dongmei shooed Wu Jun and Ma Siyu out. "You two both have work. Hurry up and go home to sleep."
Downstairs, the two of them hailed a cab. After dropping Wu Jun off at the Tianyuan residential complex, the taxi drove away with Ma Siyu.
It was already past ten-thirty when he got back to the building with his supermarket. The lights in the small store were still on.
As soon as he entered, he saw Xu Fei coming out of the bathroom, flicking water droplets from her hands. The white T-shirt she was wearing was soaked and clinging to her body.
"Still haven’t gotten off work this late? What have you been doing to get so sweaty?" Wu Jun pulled a few tissues from the dispenser on the counter and handed them to Xu Fei.
"Oh, you’re back, Wu Jun." Xu Fei took the tissues to dry her hands and said, "A little while ago, Brother Chen and his wife delivered the packaging bags. They’ve all been moved inside."
Wu Jun walked into the bedroom he used for sleeping and took a look. Sure enough, the floor was completely covered with packaging bags.
Wu Jun turned and asked Xu Fei, "Why didn’t you hire a mover? Did the three of you unload the truck yourselves?"
Xu Fei nodded. "Yeah. Brother Chen and his wife just left a little while ago."
"You haven’t eaten, have you? Come on, let’s go get something to eat." Noticing Xu Fei’s soaked clothes, Wu Jun turned, went into the bedroom, and found a thin jacket of his. "Put this on for now."
"Thank you, Wu Jun." Xu Fei’s face flushed red as she took the jacket and slipped her arms into it.
Wu Jun was almost six feet tall, while Xu Fei was just a little over five-foot-three.
After putting on Wu Jun’s jacket, it looked like a dress on her. The hem hung down to the back of her knees, making her look like a child who had secretly tried on an adult’s clothes.
’If I let Xu Fei go upstairs to shower and change, the restaurants outside will probably all be closed by the time she’s done. We’ll just have to make do for now.’
He locked up the small supermarket, and the two of them walked toward a little restaurant outside the complex.
On the way, Wu Jun walked while texting Chen Xingyang: "You worked overtime and must be exhausted after a long day. Why didn’t you hire a mover? And you didn’t even wait for me to get back so we could have dinner together before you left."
Chen Xingyang: ??? My wife and I got back a long time ago. Little Xu said she’d call someone to unload the truck.
Wu Jun: It’s nothing, man. Get some rest.
After asking Chen Xingyang, Wu Jun finally realized Xu Fei had lied to him. ’That silly girl,’ he thought. ’She probably couldn’t bear to spend the money on movers and unloaded the truck herself.’
Wu Jun turned his head and glanced at Xu Fei, who was walking beside him, taking small steps and struggling to keep up. He intentionally slowed his pace and reached out to gently ruffle her hair.
Xu Fei didn’t understand, looking up at Wu Jun with a cute, blank expression. "What is it, Wu Jun?"
Wu Jun smiled. "Eat a lot later, so you can grow taller."
Xu Fei: "..."
At a small restaurant, Wu Jun ordered eight dishes. Xu Fei exclaimed that it was too much, grabbed the menu, and crossed off six of them, leaving only two.
After dinner, the two returned to Building 27. They parted ways downstairs, and Xu Fei took the elevator up.
Arriving at the entrance of his small supermarket, Wu Jun was suddenly startled.
A shadowy figure spoke, "Jun, you just got back?"
The voice sounded familiar. Wu Jun took a closer look and saw it was his uncle, Ma Chaoyun.
"Uncle, what are you doing here so late?" Wu Jun went up to greet him and unlocked the supermarket door. "Come on in. Let’s talk inside."
Ma Chaoyun followed Wu Jun into the supermarket. He had just pulled out a pack of cigarettes to light one when he remembered Wu Jun didn’t smoke, so he put it back in his pocket.
Wu Jun brought a chair over for Ma Chaoyun, inviting him to sit. "What’s wrong, Uncle? Why did you come over here so late?"
Ma Chaoyun was only eleven years older than Wu Jun. When they were kids, Wu Jun and Ma Siyu would often trail after this uncle, who was like a big brother to them. They had always been close.
Ma Chaoyun said, "Jun, I came to apologize for what happened at the hospital. Your aunt has been blaming herself ever since she got home. She had me drive her over, but now that we’re here, she’s too afraid to come in and see you."
Wu Jun stood up. "Aunt is here too? Where is she? I’ll go get her."
"Jun, just listen to me first," Ma Chaoyun said, pulling Wu Jun back into his seat and sighing. "Your aunt... her menopause started early. Lately, her temper has become incredibly volatile and unpredictable. She can’t even control it herself. I hope you can be the bigger person and not hold it against her."
"Early menopause?" Wu Jun was stunned. Dong Lizhu was the same age as Ma Chaoyun. She was only thirty-eight this year and already going through menopause? ’That’s way too early!’
"Two months ago, your aunt’s position at work was taken by a new, well-connected young woman. They reassigned her to the workshop, and she got so angry she just quit," Ma Chaoyun said with a troubled expression. "At our age, it’s not easy to find a new job. She hasn’t found anything suitable these past two months. The early menopause is probably directly related to all the stress."
Dong Lizhu used to work for a fairly large company. It had taken her over a decade to climb from a regular clerk in the personnel department to the position of director. She had only been in that role for less than two years before being knocked all the way back down. It was obviously a roundabout way of forcing her out.
Now that she was looking for a new job, her age made things difficult. She was too proud for a low-level job but not qualified for a high-level one.
Back in the hospital room, Wu Jun had wondered why Dong Lizhu was acting like a completely different person, what had gotten into her. So that was the reason.
"It’s alright, Uncle. It’s no big deal. I didn’t take it to heart. I’ll go get Aunt and bring her in." After speaking, Wu Jun stood up, walked out of the supermarket, and went to an old Jetta parked in front of the building.
The car door opened, and Dong Lizhu got out. Her face was full of guilt, and she apologized to Wu Jun profusely.
Since Wu Jun had learned about Dong Lizhu’s unusual situation from his uncle, he naturally wouldn’t hold a grudge against her.
What happened tonight wasn’t a huge deal anyway—just a few unpleasant words. No one was hurt or harmed.
For family, something like this could be smoothed over with a little talk and laughter.
He invited Dong Lizhu into the supermarket, and the three of them chatted until midnight. As Wu Jun was seeing them out, he also returned the 50,000 yuan he had previously borrowed from Ma Chaoyun, telling them to use it for emergencies and not to worry about finding a job.
Dong Lizhu refused to take it no matter what, but Wu Jun insisted and stuffed it into her bag.
After repaying the debt to his uncle’s family, Wu Jun only had about 3,000 yuan left in his savings. He was counting entirely on that big order of over 1 million from ICBC to make ends meet.
Seeing that it was getting late, Wu Jun took out the phone linked to [Resource Tycoon] and stored the roomful of packaging bags into the game’s warehouse.
He would be signing the contract with Luo Zhengang tomorrow, so it wouldn’t be too late to retrieve the inventory from the game and put it in the warehouse then. Although the warehouse wasn’t far from the supermarket, it wasn’t worth making a trip over there in the middle of the night.
Besides, there was no guard at the warehouse. If the bags were unfortunately stolen, he wouldn’t even have a shoulder to cry on. It was safer to keep them in the game’s warehouse.
’Even the greatest thief can’t crawl into a phone to steal my goods.’
He locked the phone linked to [Resource Tycoon] in the safe, closing it with a SLAM, and secured the lock.
Wu Jun turned and left the room to wash up in the bathroom.
The moment he stepped out of the room, a strange scene unfolded in the bedroom. Red light began to flash continuously from the crack of the safe.
Inside the safe.
On the phone linked to [Resource Tycoon], ten consecutive alerts with red exclamation marks appeared.
By the time Wu Jun returned from washing up, the room was back to normal.
He flopped directly onto the bed and went to sleep.