After Becoming Roommates with an Obnoxious Wealthy Heiress - Chapter 14

Sister, aren’t you going to sleep?

“Old Wang! A young lady is here to print something! Stop washing your stinky feet and get over here! Don’t keep her waiting!”

The woman, referred to as Old Wang’s wife, glanced at Qin Shuyue while holding her phone to watch a drama, then immediately shouted toward the inner room.

A woman’s coarse voice drifted from inside, grumbling with displeasure.

“Can’t you see I’m washing my feet? What’s wrong with you helping out a bit? Look at you, watching those trashy dramas every single day. You’ve been following them for decades—how are you not blind yet?”

Upon hearing this, Old Wang’s wife instantly perked up. She stopped watching her show, dropped her fan, and scrambled up from her lounge chair with a momentum comparable to a soldier charging into a supermarket to snatch up eggs.

“Wang Yingying, you really know how to get on someone’s nerves! Ever since I married into your Wang family, I’ve been doing the laundry, the cooking, and serving you tea and water. For decades, you haven’t remembered a single good thing I’ve done. Look, it was agreed upon back then…” She held out her hand and began counting off her grievances one by one. “You handle the outside, I handle the inside. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t give an old woman like you a child, what have I ever done wrong? Huh?”

Qin Shuyue didn’t hear the rest of the words. Her mind was stuck on that one sentence: “Ever since I married into your family…”

If she hadn’t misheard, the person in the room… should also be a woman, right?

Between a woman and another woman…

Wait.

Can a girl marry a girl too?

Qin Shuyue was a bit dazed. It was the first time she had been exposed to this kind of new… idea?

Under the barrage of Old Wang’s wife’s eloquent verbal attacks, Wang Yingying, who had been washing her feet inside, hurriedly wiped them dry as if her seat were on fire. She threw on her shoes and rushed out of the room in a frantic hurry.

When she dashed out of the inner room clutching the foot-towel, she saw her wife standing in front of the lounge chair, firing off words like a machine gun with her hands on her hips and her chin held high. Looking at that overbearing posture, Wang Yingying truly wished she could stuff the towel into her mouth.

Wang Yingying tossed the towel upward, and it landed squarely in her wife’s arms.

“Stop your chirping. Go hang up my foot-cloth.”

Muttering curses with the towel in hand, the wife walked into the inner room and slammed the door with a “bang.”

The world finally fell silent.

Qin Shuyue looked down at the time.

22:58.

It turned out Qin Shuyue had been standing there watching this farce for five minutes.

Wang Yingying’s face was piled with smiles. Time had slipped away and her youth was gone; her face was no longer as radiant as it once was, but her eyes were always curved into crescents, brimming with laughter. Her gaze was very kind as she looked at Qin Shuyue, appearing much like a loving old grandmother looking at a junior.

Qin Shuyue handed over the USB drive.

“Hello, I’m here to print some materials.”

Wang Yingying took the drive with a face full of smiles and said, “I remember you. You’re at the barbecue stall next door every night grilling skewers for people, aren’t you?”

Qin Shuyue was momentarily stunned. She hadn’t expected this old lady to actually remember her.

The lady’s voice was very gentle and peaceful, and her tone was comfortable to listen to, carrying a unique sense of calm.

Qin Shuyue nodded. “I come every night.”

“You don’t finish until five in the morning, right? Sometimes even until eight or nine?”

She hadn’t expected the woman to have even looked into her schedule so clearly.

What did she want?

Qin Shuyue’s eyes grew slightly wary.

“Oh dear, I’m just a blunt old woman! Don’t go misunderstanding me! Almost every day when I wake up and get ready to tidy the windowsill, I see you just as you’re leaving. I’m just asking, don’t misunderstand. I just wanted to say, a girl’s body is fragile; you shouldn’t push yourself so hard, or your health will break.”

22:59.

The corners of Qin Shuyue’s mouth pulled into a very faint arc.

If one looked closely, they could clearly catch a fleeting, extremely pale look of bitterness and loneliness in her eyes—a complex mix of emotions intertwined together.

She said, “I’m going to be late.”

After saying that, she hurriedly turned and ran away.

“Hey!”

Wang Yingying waved a hand, seemingly wanting to call her back.

Qin Shuyue walked into the barbecue shop and slipped her work uniform over her white dress.

The boss walked over, checked the time, and then said, “Don’t you usually arrive half an hour early? Why are you so late today?”

“I’m sorry, Sister Wu. Something delayed me on the way today, so…”

“Boss! Five more mutton skewers!”

“Two skewers over here!”

“And here! Give us 15 skewers first!”

“Coming! Right away!”

The boss was working in the heat of the moment, sweat pouring down her face and head like rain.

She glanced at the dress Qin Shuyue was wearing—on such a hot day, she still wore long sleeves…

Sister Wu sighed. “Why do you wear long sleeves every day in this heat? Don’t you feel suffocated?”

Although Sister Wu had her own arms bared, she still shivered from the heat just looking at Qin Shuyue’s long dress.

Sister Wu’s hands didn’t stop threading mutton skewers as she said to Qin Shuyue, “It’s Friday, there are a ton of people. We don’t even have enough mutton skewers to sell… Speed up your hands, thread a few more, and once they’re ready, go grill them for the customers.”

“Okay.”

Soon, Sister Wu was heading out with a large bundle of mutton skewers in her arms.

Before leaving, Sister Wu took a moment to ask, “Have you eaten dinner?”

Qin Shuyue’s hand threading the mutton paused. She pursed her lips and nodded. “I’ve eaten, thank you for your concern, Sister Wu.”

Sister Wu glanced at her. “I’m only a few years older than you, yet you call me ‘Sister’ with every breath! It looks like we’ll be working through the night again. Here, there are two large flatbreads on the back table; I bought them for dinner and there are two left. Eat those to stave off hunger. Once the customers have mostly left, if there are leftovers, we’ll grill them and eat together!”

Qin Shuyue lowered her eyes, nodded, and responded with a “Good.”

With that, Sister Wu left with the pile of mutton skewers to distribute them table by table.

Qin Shuyue deftly finished threading the remaining mutton, and then proceeded to thread the chicken hearts, tenderloin, pork belly, and other skewers nearby.

This kind of work process wasn’t complicated, nor was it particularly interesting, but it gave Qin Shuyue peace of mind.

It required no technical skill and didn’t test any professional knowledge; it was just threading and grilling. Compared to critiquing high-end designs in luxury hotels, the fragrant aroma of these skewers felt more grounded.

Her chaotic heart seemed to calm down significantly at this moment.

This was where she was supposed to be.

After finishing the prep work, she went over to grill for the customers of her own accord.

Regulars who frequented the shop knew there was a “Mute Young Lady” here. Though she didn’t speak, the skewers she grilled were irreproachable.

Mutton skewers become tough if grilled too long and are raw and inedible if grilled too short; however, Qin Shuyue could master the heat just right, earning unanimous praise from everyone.

Sister Wu also felt that although the girl didn’t talk much, she was capable and quick, so she had kept her on.

“How about this: 16 yuan an hour to start. Every night starting from 23:00, the duration is uncertain—sometimes we’ll go all night. If you work here for two full months, I’ll raise it to 30 yuan an hour. As for later on, once you’ve been here a long time, we’ll decide on the wages then.”

“In short, if you can stick with me, I’ll give you half of whatever I earn.”

“If you think that works, stay; if not, you can leave.”

At that time, Qin Shuyue’s mother had just been in a car accident and was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. Her father was having an affair, refused to pay the medical fees, and even wanted to give up on treatment.

It was she who refused to give in. She had been persistent and begged desperately, refusing to let go no matter what.

That was the time when she was most desperate for money.

Because she was fifteen and not yet sixteen, many places wouldn’t take her. Since she finally found someone willing to take her in, she naturally had to grasp the opportunity firmly.

She had been doing this for three years.

She had endured both the bitterness and the exhaustion. No matter how much she had wanted to quit or retreat, she had gritted her teeth and persisted until now.

“Qin Shuyue, this table is out of cumin powder. Go to that cabinet and get some more, and get more plum powder too—pour a bit extra.”

Qin Shuyue walked over to Sister Wu, took the two jars in her hand, and deftly walked back into the shop, taking the cumin and plum powder out of the cabinet and evening them out between the containers.

After handing the powders to Sister Wu, she went back to grilling for the customers.

Watching her bend over and seriously grill skewers for the patrons, Sister Wu truly wondered if there was a computer code running in the girl’s brain, like a generated command.

No matter what the command was, her final action always defaulted back to the result of grilling skewers for the customers.

“Qin Shuyue, we’re out of tables! Go inside and drag another one out!”

“Qin Shuyue, grilled skewers! Ten pork belly skewers!”

“Qin Shuyue…”

The sky began to show the “fish-belly white” of dawn, and the clear chirping of birds drifted through the air. A new day arrived slowly with the rising sun.

Finally, having seen off the last table of customers, the two women collapsed on the ground, sitting back-to-back, nearly exhausted to the point of collapse.

Sister Wu frantically pinched her own philtrum, exhausted to the point of fainting. “I’m exhausted…”

Qin Shuyue was also so tired she couldn’t open her eyes. Leaning against Sister Wu’s back, she closed her eyes and gave a soft, “Mm.”

“It’s better to be in school… if only I had studied well back then… haha, let’s not mention that.” Sister Wu scratched her hair. “But then again, I wasn’t cut out for school; I couldn’t understand anything. As soon as I graduated from vocational school, my mom made me go out to work. But fortunately, fate has been fair to me. I opened a barbecue shop… tsk, it’s actually doing quite well.”

“Hey, Qin Shuyue, aren’t I pretty impressive?”

There was a hint of pride in her tone, and Sister Wu’s eyebrows lifted excitedly.

Qin Shuyue was too tired to say a word; in fact, she didn’t know what to say anyway.

“Yes, you are.”

Just as she closed her eyes and was about to doze off, Sister Wu nudged her arm. “Qin Shuyue, don’t sleep yet. I promised I’d grill some skewers for you to eat.”

Qin Shuyue’s head tilted to one side, her voice as faint as a mosquito’s hum. “I’m tired…”

Sister Wu nudged her a few more times. “Don’t sleep here. There’s a small iron bed in the shop. Go there and squint for a bit, and I’ll grill some skewers for you.”

Seeing that Qin Shuyue seemed to have fallen into a stupor, unable to hear anything and too lazy to move, Sister Wu shook her head helplessly. She picked Qin Shuyue up in a princess carry, placed her on the small bed, thoughtfully covered her with a thin quilt, and turned on the electric fan by the bed.

“Jie jie jie…” The metal inside the old fan was already decayed, groaning as it wobbled its head, making strange noises from time to time.

Just as Sister Wu was about to tiptoe out, she suddenly felt her clothes being tugged from behind.

Qin Shuyue was already semi-conscious; her eyes were bleary with sleep, but she held onto a final shred of sanity, asking muzzily:

“Sister, aren’t you going to sleep?”

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