Yu Miaomiao had spent two blissfully carefree days.
She slept in every day until she woke naturally, then took Maodou downstairs for a stroll, visited the park, flirted with other little female dogs, and on the way back, stopped by the market to pick up some fresh ingredients. She’d whip up a couple of simple dishes and wait for Brother Gui to come home from work to eat.
Life, she’d figured out, was more leisurely than even the retired elderly.
After all, their pensions couldn’t compare to what she earned.
In the blink of an eye, her Life Span balance was down to ten days again.
That day, she returned home humming a tune, holding flowers bought from a young woman’s stall at the subway entrance in her left hand and half a large watermelon in her right.
She found Brother Gui eating ice cream again.
She’d bought ten ice cream cups, and he’d polished them off in just two days.
“You eat so much ice, you’ll get cold in the body!”
Brother Gui didn’t care at all, scooping another large spoonful of honeydew-flavored ice cream into his mouth.
“I’m with you every day, so I’m hardly lacking in cold energy.”
“Even if you’re not lacking, you can’t eat it all! You didn’t leave a single one for me!”
She yanked open the freezer compartment, then slammed it shut angrily.
Brother Gui glanced at the ice cream cup in his hand. “There’s one bite left. Do you want it?”
“I don’t want to eat your saliva!”
Yu Miaomiao shot him a glare. Fine, she’d eat spicy strips instead.
After finishing the entire cup of ice cream, Brother Gui got down to business.
“Your balance is down to ten days. It’s time to renew your Life Span.”
This was a serious matter.
Yu Miaomiao took tasks seriously. “What do I need to help with this time?”
“That friend of mine who helped you beat up the hooligan took on a deceased person the day before yesterday. He’s refusing to move on because of some money.”
So it was one of the three Brother Gui’s tasks.
Yu Miaomiao had always wanted to repay him, and now she finally had the chance.
“What exactly happened? Tell me quickly.”
“The man’s name is Yu Lixin. He was a construction worker, the sole breadwinner in his family, and life was quite tight.”
“He has a seven-year-old daughter who’s been wanting to sign up for dance classes, but his wife thought it was too expensive and didn’t let her.”
“Yu Lixin loved his daughter dearly, so he used his days off and evenings to deliver takeout, secretly saving up 2,400 yuan—exactly enough for six months of dance classes—to give to his daughter as a birthday present.”
“But a few days ago, he fell from the scaffolding and died.”
Yu Miaomiao listened angrily. “You guys are something else, not taking the bad guys but picking on these poor souls. Bullying the honest folks, huh?”
Brother Gui took the undeserved scolding and weakly defended himself. “We’re just following the rules…”
“And then? His wife still won’t sign the kid up for classes?”
“No, the deceased didn’t keep the money in his phone but withdrew it and stored it in a card.”
“The card is still in the drawer of his dormitory at the construction site. In a few days, it’ll be thrown away as trash.”
What that Brother Gui wanted her to do was go to the construction site dormitory, retrieve the card, withdraw the money, and use it to sign his daughter up for six months of dance classes.
The reward was five days of Life Span, as usual.
Yu Miaomiao thought, wasn’t this a piece of cake?
“Alright, I’ll go right now!”
Following the address Brother Gui gave her, she rushed to the construction site.
Just as she was about to enter, she was stopped.
“Construction inside, no entry!”
“Brother, I’m Yu Lixin’s sister. I wanted to check his dormitory to see if he left anything behind.” Yu Miaomiao thought that since the deceased was respected, she might as well be straightforward. Surely, out of respect for the departed, they’d give her some leeway.
She was wrong.
The gatekeeper immediately looked nervous upon hearing the name Yu Lixin.
“Relatives of anyone won’t work—no entry means no entry!”
Yu Miaomiao hadn’t expected such an initial setback, getting stuck right at the entrance.
“This is just a construction site, not a military restricted area. What’s the harm in me going in?”
The gatekeeper looked down his nose at her. “Only workers are allowed on the site. What if you get hurt or hit by falling objects? Who would be responsible?”
“Just give me a hard hat and that solves it!”
“No! No entry! Get out of here!” His tone was firm, his attitude terrible.
Yu Miaomiao was baffled. They were both working people—how could he have so little sympathy!
Since he wouldn’t let her in, she couldn’t force her way through.
No problem—she could outsmart him.