The weather was clear the next day. The clouds were high in the sky and there was very little wind.
Xiwan's three roommates brought fruit snacks to the small basement. When they arrived, Zhou Liqing pouted. "Xiwan, why can't I get through to your phone?"
Xiwan had switched to her new phone card the day before, and she hadn't wanted to inform them immediately. She said, "I lost my phone. I just switched to a new one yesterday with a new number. Give me your numbers."
Zhou Liqing nodded to show that she understood. "You should have changed your phone a long time ago. You..." Her voice trailed off when she saw her other two roommates winking at her out of the corner of her eye. Thinking of her family's situation, she immediately changed her tone. "Show me your new phone."
When Xiwan took out the latest iPhone, her three friends could not hide the surprise on their faces. "An iPhone!? An iPhone..." Zhou Liqing was so shocked that she was almost incoherent.
Xiwan remembered her current identity. "Oh, I'm paying for the contract and that covers the charge on the device. It can be considered a zero yuan purchase."
How could no one know what a phone contract was? Xiwan had dropped a huge bomb on her friends, and the girls were so stunned that they were actually fooled by her story.
Subsequently, Xiwan asked for the numbers of some 'important people' in their class to inform herself about her school. Most of the time she listened quietly. There was no point in saying too much.
"There are still more than twenty days until the start of school. Who are you going to choose as a tutor?" Qian Mengfei asked Xiwan. Xiwan remembered, to her surprise, that the owner of this body was a student entering her fourth year of university. The school was not the one she had attended, and her major was different too. Her head ached. There had to be a way out of this. There was still a whole year. She'd have to write her graduation thesis, but she should be able to rush it.
"Who did you choose?" Xiwan asked.
"I want to have Li Meijun as my tutor, Liqing plans to choose Pan Da, and Huayu wants to pick Chen Jiang."
"That's right, that's right." Zhou Liqing nodded as if she was pounding garlic with her head. "Huayu plans to choose Yama."
"Then I'll also choose Chen Jiang." After chatting for a while Jiang Xiwan could see that Sun Huayu was a stable, generous person. The tutor she chose should also be pretty good.
"F*ck, you're also choosing Yama? He's very strict. I heard that he made people revise their graduation thesis almost a hundred times! Some seniors walked out halfway through defending their papers. Think about it." Qian Mengfei was shocked.
Zhou Liqing giggled. "But our Xiwan is also a top student. Chen Jiangfei isn't going to know what to do with her."
"That's true."
The four of them chatted for a long time and only left, reluctantly, long after the sun had gone down. After everyone left, Xiwan tidied up the basement.
Later on, Xiwan's cheap mother came home. The two of them ate a little, and although the food was simple, the taste was good. The mother of this girl was a good cook. No wonder there was a food stall outside.
After the meal, Xiwan looked at her "cheap" mother. She wasn't even 40 years old and already had a daughter who was about to graduate. Then, she looked at the shabby house. No heating. No air-conditioning. She said tactfully, "Mom, let's rent somewhere else."
Her mother was still with shock. The only thing that moved were tears, streaming down her face.
Xiwan quickly took a napkin from the table to wipe her tears.
Her mother broke her silence. "It's me, I'm useless! I'm a bad mother."
Xiwan knew that she didn't have money. It made sense. City enforcement in City B was very strict. An unlicensed stall like her mother's was locked in a guerrilla war against the city's enforcement officers. More than just that, City B had heavy fog, and there were frequent television reports about the quality of food at unlicensed stalls. Everyone left in a hurry, and they rarely stopped to buy food. Because of that, there was not much money left to save each month after their expenses.
Xiwan said carefully, "Mom, I have some money."
"..."
Xiwan made up a lie about how she had won 100,000 yuan in the lottery. It couldn't be any more fake. However, this middle-aged woman, who loved her daughter dearly, seemed to believe her. Even though she was initially worried that the money wasn't from the right source, Xiwan promised her several times, and eventually she nodded in agreement.
"Let's rent a better house."
Her mother nodded.
It was actually Xiwan's intention to buy a house, not rent one. This sum of money, three million yuan, was a considerable amount for an ordinary person. In a place like City B, however, every inch of land was extremely valuable. It was simply wishful thinking to try and buy a house within the third ring road.
When she thought of how her previous houses had disappeared without a trace, her heart ached. She had no relatives. She hadn't written a suicide note. Even more than that, everyone knew that she had only had one 'best friend,' Su Nuanyu, and she hated the thought of her inheriting all of her things!
She did not want to think about these troublesome matters. She still had to solve the issue of where they were going to live.
In the end, she bought a 100-square-meter villa in a newly opened district in the suburbs. Although the location was remote, it was still very close to the subway station. The price was reasonable, and it sold for two million yuan.
The name on the real estate certificate was, naturally, her own, but the excuse to her mother was that the monthly rent was 1,500 yuan.
Having a busy schedule healed her wounds. The television station's final compensation of 30,000 yuan was paid, and it was transferred to her mother's bank card.
With the blink of an eye, time passed, and summer faded into golden autumn.