Wei Jing and Wei Shuangquan finally signed their names.
Accountant Qiao promptly recalculated Wei Nan’s account.
The ninety yuan that Wei Damin had overpaid, along with the remaining funeral subsidy, was all returned to Wei Nan, making a total of one hundred and seventy-one yuan.
Holding that money and standing in the finance office, Wei Nan felt momentarily dazed, almost unable to believe that she had actually won.
Seeing her like this, a look of sympathy flashed across Wei Qiuxia’s face.
She reached out and patted Wei Nan on the shoulder.
“Don’t think too much about it. Getting the money back is a good thing. Go back first. I still have to go to work. If there’s anything, we’ll talk tonight.”
Wei Qiuxia’s words finally pulled Wei Nan back from her thoughts.
She hurriedly bowed to the people gathered around her and said gratefully, “Thank you! Thank you, Aunt Wang, thank you Accountant Qiao, thank you Sister Wei, thank you Xiao Mei…”
Hearing her call out the names of everyone she knew one by one, the crowd couldn’t help but laugh.
Wang Qiuping laughed as well and said, “No need to keep thanking us. Hurry back and put the money away safely. Tonight wait for Auntie to call you to come eat with us!”
“No, no.”
Wei Nan quickly declined. “There’s still food at home. Aunt Wang, you’ve been busy all day, have a good rest tonight. I won’t trouble you.”
Wei Qiuxia, standing beside her, chimed in, “Chairwoman, don’t worry about Xiao Nan. I’m here. Your family’s waiting for dinner, you probably won’t have time tonight anyway!”
Seeing the two of them insist so firmly, Wang Qiuping didn’t say anything more.
Wei Nan didn’t go home immediately. Instead, she took sixty yuan from the money she had recovered and first paid half a year’s rent.
Wei Damin was already dead, and she herself was now an adult.
There was no reason for the factory to keep subsidizing her.
If she still wanted to live in that apartment, she would definitely have to pay the rent every month.
Wei Nan didn’t want any further trouble arising from this matter, so she simply paid it in advance.
This was the first day since she had transmigrated. According to Wei Nan’s own expectations, she would definitely have trouble sleeping that night.
But what she didn’t expect was that, perhaps because she had cried and argued so much during the day and was utterly exhausted, she went back to the room, didn’t even eat dinner, lay down on the bed, and fell asleep.
Not only did she fall asleep, she also had a very strange dream.
In the dream, Wei Nan entered a room.
The room was empty, there was nothing inside.
Only on one white wall hung a very conspicuous perpetual calendar wall clock.
The clock was an electronic one, with red numbers on a black background, square and boxy in shape, with a rather tacky design.
It looked exactly like the kind of opening gift that friends and relatives give when a small restaurant opens for business.
The clock was very large. Even though it was hung quite high, the characters on it were still perfectly clear.
Wei Nan saw that on the very top row of the clock was written: Monday, November 16, 2020.
In the middle was the current time: 19:59.
Below the time, instead of the usual lunar calendar date, it showed the era she was currently in: Monday, November 16, 1981.
At the very bottom of the clock, there was also a line of small characters: 14 days remaining.
Looking at the electronic clock, Wei Nan was a little stunned.
She couldn’t figure out what it meant.
Why would it display the dates of the eras from both of her lifetimes at the same time?
And what did that “14 days remaining” refer to?
Wei Nan pondered it for quite a while but still couldn’t make sense of it.
So, almost instinctively, she wanted to step closer and take a better look.
Unexpectedly, the moment she took a step forward, she suddenly woke up.
Sitting on the bed, it took Wei Nan quite a while to come back to her senses. Her mind was filled with those 14 days.
By now she had already figured it out, this probably referred to the days between the 16th and the 30th.
But, for some reason, Wei Nan just felt that this date was extraordinarily important to her.
Wei Nan’s mind felt hazy, as if it had turned into a pot of paste, the more she tried to think, the more muddled it became.
The room also seemed to be getting colder and colder. Even wrapped in a quilt, she could still feel the chill biting into her bones.
Forget it. Maybe it was some kind of solar term.
Or perhaps it was simply that what one thinks about during the day appears in dreams at night.
She must miss home too much, which was why she had such a strange and peculiar dream. It probably didn’t mean anything at all.
Putting the thought aside, Wei Nan shook her head, got dressed, and went straight to the kitchen.
Sure enough, although she had carefully sealed up the stove the night before just as Sister Wei had instructed, it had still gone out.
The few pieces of coal had all burned into gray-white ash. There wasn’t the slightest trace of warmth left, it clearly hadn’t been burning for quite a while.
Sighing, she hastily washed up with cold water.
Looking at the leftover food on the table that had already frozen into a solid lump, she really had no appetite. Enduring her hunger, Wei Nan left the house.
She had agreed with Doctor Ling yesterday to come for an iron supplement injection, so after leaving home she headed straight to the factory hospital.
When she arrived, the hospital had just opened. She went to get the injection first, and only afterward did Wei Nan head to Ling Bailan’s office.
Seeing her, Ling Bailan waved her over. “You’re here so early. Have you eaten? I’ve got some buns here, come have a couple.”
Wei Nan instinctively wanted to reach down and touch her stomach, which was growling with hunger.
Fortunately, her reason prevailed. She quickly shook her head. “No need. Sister Ling, you eat them yourself. I’ve already eaten—Sister Wei bought food for me yesterday.”
Hearing that Wei Qiuxia had bought it for her, Ling Bailan didn’t insist any further.
While changing her clothes, she asked, “Did you get the injection? Remember to take your medicine.”
Wei Nan nodded. Then she placed a small bag of dried shiitake mushrooms she had brought from home onto the desk.
“Sister, I brought these back from the countryside. I picked them myself. I brought some for you to try.”
Seeing her put the bag down, Ling Bailan hurried over to stop her. “No, no, take them back and eat them yourself. Really, don’t stand on ceremony with me.”
Wei Nan smiled. “Sister, you’re the one who shouldn’t be polite with me. They’re just things from the countryside, not worth much. But I picked them one by one myself and cleaned them very carefully. Please don’t mind them; it’s just a small token of my appreciation.”
Shiitake mushrooms might not be considered expensive, but in the city they were quite difficult to buy.
Moreover, the shiitake mushrooms Wei Nan brought had all been carefully selected by the original owner. Every single one was whole and intact, without the slightest damage.
They were completely different in quality from the ones sold in vegetable shops, which were often broken into halves.
Anyone who took a glance at them would find it hard to refuse.
Hearing Wei Nan say this, Ling Bailan didn’t stand on ceremony anymore and happily accepted them.
She only told Wei Nan to come again tomorrow morning, saying she would try to get a bag of glucose powder for her to take home and mix with water to drink.
After getting the injection, Wei Nan hurried back home.
Yesterday in the meeting room, she had asked Wei Shuangquan to send her younger sister back to her.
At first, the man had stubbornly refused.
But when Wei Nan said that if they didn’t allow her to bring the girl back, then next month not a single one of Xiao Pei’s non-staple food ration coupons would be given to them, Wei Shuangquan immediately agreed to her request.
He didn’t care at all about the contemptuous looks from the others.
Wei Nan didn’t know what time they would bring her sister back, nor did she know whether another confrontation would be waiting for her.
She had to return early and make preparations so she could take the initiative.
But the moment she entered the apartment building, she saw a small bundle on the ground in front of her door.
The old-style residential building had very poor lighting. Coming in from outside, everything in front of her looked even darker.
As a result, Wei Nan couldn’t see clearly what it was.
She stopped in her tracks.
When the little bundle noticed someone approaching, it moved uneasily.
Only then did Wei Nan realize that the lump was actually a little girl curled up on the ground.
The girl’s hair was messy and yellowish.
It was hard to tell how long it had been since it was last washed; it hung in clumps, covering most of her face so that it was impossible to see what she looked like.
When she saw Wei Nan, the girl hurriedly stood up, but instead of stepping forward, she shrank further back into the shadows.
Wei Nan’s heart stirred, and she called out tentatively, “Xiao Pei?”
The girl clearly moved a little, but she didn’t make a sound. Instead, she quietly lifted her head slightly and peeked at her through the gaps in her hair.
Wei Nan walked up to her, bent down, and gently called again, “Xiao Pei? Is it Xiao Pei?”
Although in her heart she was already almost certain that this child was the original owner’s younger sister, she still found it a little hard to believe.
The child was too thin and too small.
According to the household registration booklet, she should already be six and a half years old.
Even though Wei Nan knew she couldn’t compare her to six-year-old children from later times, judging by her height, she looked about the size of a three- or four-year-old.
Wei Nan remembered that her younger cousin on her aunt’s side was in the middle class at kindergarten, and her build was probably sturdier than this child’s.
When she saw Wei Nan approach, the girl finally made a move.
She still didn’t speak. With her head lowered, she slowly stretched out her hand and tentatively grabbed the hem of Wei Nan’s padded jacket.
Her hand was very ugly, like a chicken claw, thin and shriveled, without a trace of flesh.
Not only that, it was very dark, and both her fingers and the back of her hand were covered with cracked frostbite sores.
The girl seemed to know herself that it looked unsightly. She only cautiously extended her thumb and forefinger, pinching a small piece of fabric.
Only after confirming that Wei Nan did not show any disgust did she grab the cloth with her whole hand, clutching it tightly. Even when the frostbite sores on her fingers split open and began to bleed, she did not let go.
She slowly raised her head and softly called out, “Sister.”
There was deep timidity in her voice.
Wei Nan’s tears instantly burst from her eyes.
She couldn’t tell whether the tears were her own or remnants of the original owner’s lingering emotions; she only felt an overwhelming ache in her heart.
She reached out and pulled the completely filthy Wei Pei tightly into her arms, hugging her firmly for a long while before taking out the key and opening the door.
“Come in. This is our home.”
With her arm around her sister’s shoulders, she spoke softly.
Her voice was kept very low, as if afraid of startling her.
Wei Pei followed her, stepping carefully into the room.
She stood at the doorway, carefully looking over the entire room.
The child looked very slowly and very seriously, unwilling to miss even a single corner.
It was as if she wanted to carve everything she saw into her memory.
Seeing her like this, Wei Nan’s heart ached terribly.
She led her younger sister to a dining table and motioned for her to sit down.
Then she gently patted the hand clutching her padded jacket and said softly, “Sit here for a bit. I’ll go to the neighbor’s place to borrow a piece of coal and boil some hot water for you to drink.”
Wei Nan’s voice was still very soft, but Wei Pei suddenly jumped to her feet.
She used her other hand to press down on her right hand, gripping Wei Nan’s padded jacket with both hands.
She didn’t raise her head, nor did she speak.
Her lips were pressed tightly together as she stared fixedly at a corner of the jacket, as if the cloth she was holding was her entire hope.
No one could make her let go again.
Wei Nan froze on the spot.
Suddenly, she understood the little girl’s thoughts—
She was afraid that Wei Nan was just making an excuse to leave, and that she would abandon her again.
Back then, hadn’t Wei Damin done exactly that, left Wei Pei in the countryside and then secretly run away on his own?
Thinking of this, a surge of intense anger rose in Wei Nan’s heart. She almost wished she could bring Wei Damin back to life just so she could slap him hard across the face a couple of times.
Toward his wife and daughter, just how many unforgivable things had he done?