Has the Little Money-Grubber Saved Enough for a 'Wife Fund' Today? - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Long Xuan felt as if her consciousness were spinning silk.

Everything else was deep in slumber, except for this single strand, which spun incessantly—circling from left to right, expanding from a flat plane into a three-dimensional shape, wrapping the rest of her consciousness inside. Layer upon layer, it wound into an airtight, thick cocoon.

When she fell into a deep sleep, almost nothing could wake her. Her family had tried a thousand different methods, all in vain, unless she chose to wake up herself and actively tear through this closed, bloated cage.

Her head had been too heavy yesterday; a long-absent ailment had come knocking, forcing her to rest early. She didn’t know what time it was now; she only knew that every fiber of her consciousness was enticing her to remain asleep, and her body followed suit.

This was not a good sign. If the cocoon became too thick, she wouldn’t be able to receive the reminders she had set for herself, nor would she be able to flip the switch of her consciousness to wake up voluntarily.

She had things to do this morning—very important things. She wanted to hear the reminder, wake up at her planned time, and finish her tasks smoothly. But that surviving strand of agile consciousness was only concerned with weaving the cage, working diligently, completely ignoring her.

This left Long Xuan both frustrated and helpless.

On this day, Long Xuan, who intended to wake up at seven in the morning, slept until three in the afternoon. The early wake-up was a failure.

The reasons for this failure were easy to summarize. The primary reason was the fierce onset of her old ailment; her body couldn’t withstand it and needed stable sleep to repair itself.

A secondary reason was that her mother had entered her room and turned off her alarm. The “mechanism” she had set lost the sound source needed to stimulate it, failing to trigger the next step. Naturally, she didn’t wake up.

Regarding the latter, Long Xuan had no grounds for anger. They had agreed long ago: if her alarm rang twenty times and still failed to wake her, her family had the right to enter and turn it off. Alarms, after all, are quite a public nuisance if they ring too long.

Long Xuan’s head had been heavy before sleep, but upon waking, it felt empty—as if a brain-draining machine had been hooked up to her, sucking out every drop of content. She sat on the bed in a daze for a long time before remembering her next step.

Brush teeth, wash face, eat.

She got out of bed and put on her slippers. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the bedside table and froze again, staring blankly at the square gift sitting there. A doubt surfaced in her empty head: Why is this here? Shouldn’t I have put it in the cabinet?

Unable to reconnect with yesterday’s thought process, Long Xuan leaned over and did what her current cognition deemed correct: she put Mu Yiyan’s gift into the cabinet and stored it away properly.

Her cabinet held many such boxes and cards, all sent by the same person. She had specially found a place where no one else could see to keep these things, each one carefully preserved. They were like building blocks that could form a wall, but Long Xuan didn’t like moving them; she would find a single, fixed position for each and come to look at them every night.

After putting the gift away, Long Xuan rubbed her eyes and walked toward the bathroom. The scent of corn chowder wafted from the kitchen—it smelled wonderful. Her stomach growled at her; having missed two meals, its attitude was quite poor, complaining incessantly. Long Xuan wanted to tell it that she was just as innocent; she hadn’t wanted to oversleep either.

She scrubbed her face with a towel several times, but she still couldn’t clear the sleepiness from her eyes. She struggled to open her bleary eyes, hoping to see a clear reflection of herself, but all she saw was a blurred shadow. Giving up the struggle, she followed the scent to the kitchen.

“You’re up.” In the kitchen, Shen Zaiqing was using a ladle to stir the soup in a pot. With her stirring, even more fragrance poured out.

“Mhm,” Long Xuan replied groggily, her stomach growling louder than her voice.

Shen Zaiqing smiled, ladled out a bowl for her, warned her to be careful of the heat, and added, “It’s Sunday, why didn’t you sleep a bit longer?”

“When the alarm hit the twenty-seventh ring, I went in and turned it off. I tried calling you twice, but you didn’t react. It’s the weekend; if you’re tired, sleep more. Why get up so early?”

“Thanks, Ma. I actually had something to do today; I wanted to head out early.”

Shen Zaiqing became concerned: “Is it still in time to go now?”

Long Xuan vaguely recalled what she had to do and nodded slightly.

Shen Zaiqing suddenly remembered she had steamed buns. She opened the lid, and layers of steam rushed into the range hood. “Are you in a hurry? Do you want Mama to pack two crab-roe buns for you?”

Long Xuan blurted out, “Hurry.”

Ten minutes later, Long Xuan stood beneath Mu Yiyan’s apartment building holding two crab-roe buns and a cup of corn chowder, staring at her surroundings in confusion. Even though she was eating and replenishing her blood sugar, her brain was still a chaotic mess. She clearly remembered the purpose of coming here, yet she would occasionally lapse into a daze, looking around blankly, wondering why she was standing there.

Regardless of whether she remembered or not, Long Xuan had one common realization: the side effects of this sleep were far too long-lasting.

While she chewed on her straw and ate her crab-roe buns, a box truck was parked beside her. To be precise, she was parked beside the truck, because the truck had been there all day, while she had arrived less than five minutes ago.

Housekeeping staff in orange uniforms were lifting cardboard boxes into the truck, stacking them neatly one by one. Judging by how full the truck was, these people would soon be able to stop and grab a drink. Long Xuan glanced at the company name on the truck; it looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember when she had ever interacted with them.

“Once we lift this sofa up, we’re about done.” The box-movers left, replaced by three young men carrying a sofa. These three were small-framed with thin arms and looked quite frail; it was unclear why they were in this profession—perhaps they weren’t pros, but were just called in to help.

They were carrying a white sofa wrapped in plastic film. Long Xuan recognized it at a glance. She had lied on this sofa; she remembered its soft fur, the large upward-curving circle in the center, and the backrest that was pure white, like the spray from a whale’s blowhole—two sprays joined together.

She also remembered that this was the very first—and so far only—portion of her “wife-fund” she had ever spent.

Did the money for her sister’s car count? Long Xuan felt it didn’t; although that money also came from her wife-fund, she had already converted it into an equivalent monetary value when calculating her savings. If Mu Yiyan didn’t agree to her proposal early, she would still have to sell her sister’s car to make up the numbers. Long Xuan called this “returning money to the original owner.”

Long Xuan’s gaze was glued to the sofa that had exhausted her wife-fund. It was soft and beautiful—anyone would love it. But the three men carrying it didn’t know how to appreciate or care for it at all; they were treating it quite roughly.

They carried the sofa to within a meter of the truck. Suddenly, on a whim, they egged each other on and reached a consensus. Together, they swung the sofa back and forth and then hurled it heavily into the cargo hold. The bottom of the sofa slammed into the metal floor while the side hit the cardboard boxes, letting out a loud, sharp “shriek.”

The three men hadn’t expected the small sofa to make such a loud noise. Fearing a scolding from the owner, they turned back nervously to look. Seeing no one behind them and realizing no one upstairs could hear, they breathed a sigh of relief and acted as if nothing had happened.

“What’s inside this? Steel plates? Why is it so loud? It felt pretty light to carry,” said one flat-topped young man with itching hands. To solve his confusion, he poked the plastic film wrapped around the sofa, creating several small holes.

Another slightly chubby boy leaning against the truck door called out, then lowered his voice to scold him: “What’s wrong with your hands? I spent so long wrapping that. Don’t let that one see. Word on the street is that Miss Mu up there is the new leader sent to our branch by the Group. The Director takes her very seriously—otherwise, he wouldn’t have pulled us in just to make up the numbers. Be careful, don’t offend her.”

The flat-topped boy didn’t take it seriously, laughing dismissively. “It’s fine. I’ll just move it a bit and no one will see. It’s only a few kilometers; it’ll be unwrapped in a bit. How would she know?”

“I’ll be the one to unwrap it later, okay? I’ll act proactive in front of the new leader; maybe she’ll even give me a few words of praise.”

As he spoke, the man grabbed the leg of the sofa and turned it inward a few degrees so that only the other side was visible from the outside.

But Long Xuan saw and heard everything. She was very angry.

In her anger, her brain finally started working, and she firmly remembered why she had come here. Yesterday, she had learned from Long Xi that Mu Yiyan was moving. She had come today to help—in her sister’s words, to “seize every opportunity to build presence,” preferably staying right in front of Mu Yiyan’s eyes at all times.

Whether Mu Yiyan let her help or not was one thing; at the very least, she had to be a supervisor to keep an eye on these reckless people. Her straw was bitten through and her soup was no longer drinkable; Long Xuan stared huffily at the movers.

“Phone, phone! The Director is calling us up; there are still a few boxes to move.” At the leader’s call, the three boys vanished in a flash. Long Xuan couldn’t even find them to confront them.

She got even angrier. She threw away her things and walked toward the open truck doors with a dark expression. She leaned over to check the sofa’s legs, then tilted her body to see the small holes that had been moved to the back. Her face instantly turned black.

As soon as Mu Yiyan came downstairs, she saw Long Xuan standing there with her back ramrod straight. The posture made it look like someone owed her hundreds of millions and she had come fuming to collect the debt. Mu Yiyan figured the packing upstairs was nearly finished and had come down to check the truck, not expecting to see this “Little Dull Dragon” here.

The Little Dull Dragon had definitely just woken up. On such a hot day, despite being so sensitive to heat, she had zipped her jacket all the way to the top and was wrapped up tightly—this was absolutely something only a sleep-dazed dragon cub would do. More importantly, she was angry—very angry—staring intently at a spot inside the truck. She was so furious she had practically taken root, not moving even as the sun beat down on her face.

Mu Yiyan approached her, took off her own hat, and placed it on Long Xuan’s head, asking with a slight smile, “Who upset you? You’re all puffed up with anger.”

The hat was a bit wide, and because Mu Yiyan had “unceremoniously” popped it onto her head, the brim kept slipping down. Long Xuan adjusted it to keep it steady. She didn’t know or care if it was sunny; in her simple perception, if A-Yan gave her a hat, she naturally had to wear it properly. She then thought happily that while her mother and sister had teased her yesterday for having no gift, today she had one more gift than they did.

Recalling the frustrating events from moments ago, Long Xuan said stubbornly, “No one upset me.” She wanted to sulk by herself for a while. Though sulking was no good; it hadn’t been long, and her head was starting to ache again.

Mu Yiyan was dressed in black casual wear—a very simple style with no patterns—but her natural grace made anything look good on her. Long Xuan stared at her without blinking. Mu Yiyan stood beside Long Xuan, slightly taller than her. She leaned lightly against the outer truck body, her chin tilted toward the interior, speaking with a merry smile: “You’re looking at it with such deep-seated resentment; I feel like you want to pick a fight with my sofa.”

Long Xuan’s eyes widened: “Why would I fight with it?”

The smile in Mu Yiyan’s eyes deepened, crinkling the corners: “Then are you dissatisfied with its owner?”

Long Xuan shook her head like a rattle-drum and said firmly, “It has nothing to do with you.”

Although her gaze was mostly obscured by the black brim, Mu Yiyan still captured a tiny bit of what could be called a clue. When the Little Dull Dragon cared about something, she couldn’t help but be drawn to it—glancing away one second, then staring only at it the next. After observing a few times, Mu Yiyan found the object of her frequent stares.

She shifted to Long Xuan’s left, scanned the interior of the truck, and quickly discovered the anomaly. It made sense; what else but this could make her this angry? Mu Yiyan understood completely and immediately thought of a method that would strike right at the heart of a “little money-grubber” and soothe her anger instantly.

She said to Long Xuan, “I’ll dock their pay.”

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