"Sis, help me teach him a lesson."
"Okay," Wen Changling took Tongtong's hand, "then let's go have some fun."
A child and an adult, neither of them too familiar with the area, didn't stray far and played on the nearby streets. Today was the weekend, and Willow Street, a kilometer away from Lotus Pond Street, was very bustling. Wen Changling bought two sticks of cotton candy, one for each of them, and they walked and ate.
In front of them was a bank; at the entrance stood a child waiting for her mother, holding a stuffed bunny in her arms, the bunny clutching a carrot.
Tongtong was attracted by the bunny and gave it several looks.
"Do you want that one?"
Tongtong shook her head sensibly.
"You don't want it?" Wen Changling took a bite of her candy, sweet, "but your sister wants it."
So, she led Tongtong into the bank. On the right side of the bank's main entrance was a red carpet, piled with many gifts, including a four-piece bedding set, peanut oil, an air fryer... and the bunny stuffed animal with the carrot.
There was a staff member nearby, and coincidentally, Wen Changling recognized her; she had fixed a watch at Granny Zhu's shop before.
Wen Changling went up to inquire, "Excuse me, can we buy that stuffed animal from you?"
The employee, seeing a familiar face, was very friendly, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but this is a gift from our bank with a deposit, not for sale."
"How much do we need to deposit to get it?"
The staff member replied, "You can get it with fifty thousand yuan."
Wen Changling remembered that she had only brought her phone when she left home, without her bank card or ID.
But Tongtong really liked that bunny, should she go back to get it now? As Wen Changling was pondering, a bit of an accident occurred in the neighboring ATM booth.
"Eh? What's wrong with this machine? The money has been deducted from my account, but the cash isn't coming out."
"Same here; it swallowed my money."
Both customers encountering the same problem rushed into the lobby, agitated.
A loud customer named Liu, tall and with a booming voice, "What's going on with your bank? Are you deliberately swallowing our money?"
Customer Zhao was also very emotional, "No wonder I always felt there was less money in my card, it must be you secretly deducting it."
The staff immediately went to communicate and negotiate, finding that there indeed was a problem with the machines.
The staff first tried to calm them, "It seems there's a problem with the operating system, I've already contacted our technicians, please wait a moment, gentlemen."
When it comes to money, it's serious business.
The two customers were swearing in the lobby, and now the customers who were waiting to deposit money also became hesitant. The standoff didn't last long before the bank manager arrived, and the technician did as well.
The technician tried to fix it, but the system problem remained unresolved, and it wasn't just the ATMs; even the counter systems were glitching. Now things were really chaotic; the customers who were there to deposit money were now clamoring to withdraw it, fearing it would be swallowed by the bank. Someone was shouting this sentiment.
The bank manager was trying hard to explain, but there were too many voices in the lobby, and his assurances were of little effect.
At that moment—
"Um..."
An adult and a child squeezed through the crowd and made their way to the bank manager, each holding a stick of cotton candy, one red and one green.
"I can fix the system, can I give it a try?"
Wen Changling just wanted that bunny stuffed animal.
The bank manager looked at her skeptically, "Can you?"
Wen Changling didn't dare to guarantee, and handed her candy to Tongtong to hold, "You can have your technician watch the entire time, I won't do anything else, and if you are still not at ease, you can record it."
According to the rules, it wasn't allowed for external personnel to operate the bank's internal computers. The staff member who recognized Wen Changling approached the bank manager, informed him of Wen Changling's address, and conveyed that Wen Changling was a local resident, likely not a corporate spy or an internet fraudster.
In urgent situations, the bank manager had to take a risk, a gamble. He announced loudly with great pomp, to ensure everyone heard, "Our technical consultant has arrived, everyone, please don't panic, the problem will be resolved shortly."
Suddenly finding herself appointed as the technical consultant, Wen Changling was like, "..."
The bank president personally escorted Wen Changling to the internal computer room and arranged for her facial recognition to be recorded, even going so far as to include Tongtong's face. He then gave the technician a meaningful look, indicating that they should keep a close watch.
Tongtong sat on a chair nearby, eating candy.
Wen Changling operated the keyboard expertly. Knowing that the bank's computers were tied to financial transactions, she was cautious with every step, pausing after each operation and waiting proactively for the bank's technician to inspect her work before proceeding to the next step.
It took about fifteen minutes.
"All done," she announced.
The technician immediately went over to check.
Wen Changling explained, "It was a compatibility issue with your computers, and there were some issues with your system's defenses, but everything has been fixed now."
After the technician finished the tests, he told the bank president, "It's all good now."
The bank president's look towards Wen Changling changed instantly, and he used a respectful tone, "Are you in this line of work?"
"No," Wen Changling revealed her true intention, "Could I have a rabbit stuffed animal?" She said somewhat apologetically, "I didn't bring my bank card or ID, so I can't deposit fifty thousand yuan."
In the end, the bank president generously gave Wen Changling four stuffed animals, and she and Tongtong each held two. Tongtong was very happy, and so was Wen Changling.
Wen Changling also took Tongtong on a carousel ride, treated her to ice cream and candied hawthorn, and they didn't head home until lunchtime. As they passed by Grandma Lin's yard, she saw Xie Shang inside, painting lanterns.
Wen Changling had heard that the lanterns hanging from the eaves were over a year old, and the government had been committed to the urban development of distinctive thematic streets, planning to replace the old lanterns with new ones. Grandma Lin from Lotus Pond Street was a handcrafted lantern maker, and the government specifically awarded her this project as a form of indirect subsidy for the elderly living alone.
Grandma Lin's yard was next to the one beside Wen Changling's, adjacent to Xie Shang's pawnshop.
Sister Tao, carrying a box of pineapples, passed by and made small talk with Wen Changling, "Boss Xie is quite talented."
Xie Shang was working on a watercolor painting for the lanterns, tracing the outline from a distance, painting rabbits. Wen Changling thought to herself that the pawnshop business must really be poor for Boss Xie to have so much free time.
Wen Changling brought Tongtong back home, where Sun Zheng had already left.
Wu Haomin had stayed at Granny Zhu's for two nights. On the third morning, Wu Haomin received a phone call from the police station, and she hurriedly left after hanging up.
It wasn't until evening that Wu Haomin returned, greeting her mother before knocking on Wen Changling's door.
"Are you asleep?" she asked.
Wen Changling replied, "No."
"I'm coming in," said Wu Haomin.
"Okay," responded Wen Changling.
Wu Haomin pushed the door open and entered, visiting Wen Changling's bedroom for the first time. The two floors behind, all used by Wen Changling, were seldom visited by Granny Zhu and Wu Haomin. Wen Changling lived in the room on the first floor facing the east side.
The room was simply furnished, not at all like a girl's bedroom, lacking even a vanity table — there was just a desk, a bookcase, and a wardrobe. The only thing that had a hint of femininity was a pair of pink rabbit stuffed animals on the bed that the bank president had given.
"Tongtong has two as well, you gave them to her, didn't you?"
Wen Changling didn't take credit, "They were given by the bank president." She sat on the bed, apparently having taken a bath, clad in a plain nightgown.
Wu Haomin pulled up a chair and sat down, "Sun Zheng went to the police station to turn himself in, admitting that he threatened and extorted me using my photos."
"Oh," said Wen Changling, her reaction calm.
"Sun Zheng was also injured, carried into the police station. It seems he was in a car accident," Wu Haomin even wondered for a moment if her prayers had come true, and that the beast had truly been hit by a car.
"Oh," said Wen Changling, just listening.
"Tongtong said it was sister who helped her," inquired Wu Haomin directly, "Changling, was it you?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Wen Changling admitted, "It was me."
"Did you give him money?" Wu Haomin couldn't think of any other way a frail woman like Wen Changling could have made a thug like Sun Zheng go turn himself in voluntarily.
"No, I just thought of a very crude method," Wen Changling sat there, quiet and composed, "I installed a brake controller on his car. Sun Zheng is a coward, he wet his pants from fear. After the car hit the wall, I wrote my demands on the LCD screen inside his car. He thought he was cursed, targeted by ghosts."