Chapter 24: Chapter 13 (part 3)

By the time he finally stood in front of Ning Wan's door, Fu Zheng felt like he had only a single breath left in him.

But they had arrived, he comforted himself in his heart. He would quickly bid Ning Wan goodnight, hide in the guest room, unpack, and relax.

However, Fu Zheng soon found that he had still been too naïve in his thinking. When he had last sent drunk Ning Wan home, he had not paid particular attention to the layout of her house. Now, upon closer observation, he found that the house had no guest room. It was a simple one bedroom with a single living room sofa.

From a third party's perspective, though the neighbourhood in general was a little run down and space in the apartment was tight, the decor was cozy and warm. They were hardly luxurious, but one could tell that the furniture had been carefully chosen. A few law books lay scattered on the coffee table and a fresh bouquet of roses sat next to them in a vase.

But...

But there was only one sofa....

Upon entering the living room, Fu Zheng stared at the sofa in a daze. "Is this a pull-out sofa bed?" he asked.

Thank goodness Ning Wan nodded. "Yes, it..." But right then, her phone rang. She smiled apologetically at him. "I'm sorry, it's a client on the line."

Community lawyers generally worked in rotation and picked up other clients on their days off to make ends meet. Ning Wan having to take a customer call was nothing unusual. She disappeared onto the balcony for a short time, and when she came back, she was carrying a broom in her hand, as if about to clean the room.

Although Fu Zheng had regrets, he felt a prick of guilt seeing her apparently about to clean up just because he was here as her guest... the apartment might be a little small, and the sofa bed a little shabby, but she was taking it all very seriously. It was obvious that if not for the misunderstanding between them, she wouldn't have been nearly so antagonistic toward him.

Fu Zheng thought about it in a responsible manner and felt like it might not be impossible to take Ning Wan into his team after all.

However, before he could think too much, the broom was stuffed into his hands.

Faced with his puzzled eyes, Ning Wan told him, "Sweep the floor."

Maybe he had heard wrong. "What?"

Not even bothering with the pretense of courtesy, Ning Wan repeated herself, "Sweep the floor." She looked at Fu Zheng as if this was all right and proper. "I'm letting you stay with me for two nights, you should help clean up a little in return." Waving him off, she said, "Hurry up and go to bed after you're done. I have to write an email."

“……”

Ning Wan, say goodbye to your chance of joining the team.

……

However, this was the path he had chosen and he would stay the course even if he had to crawl. Now that Fu Zheng had made up his own sob story background, he was riding a tiger. He could only meditate on calmness and peace, take up his broom, and sweep the floor. Fortunately, Ning Wan's house was small, and he was done by the time Ning Wan finished her email.

Ning Wan walked around examining the ground and seemed quite satisfied with his achievement. "How clean!"

The way she spoke was as if she was praising a new housekeeper.

Fu Zheng endured the agitation in his heart and smiled a fake smile. "I'm glad you think so."

Ning Wan cocked a puzzled glance at him. "It doesn't matter if I think it's clean. What matters is if you do."

？

Before he managed to put the pieces together, she continued, "After all, you'll be the one sleeping on the floor tonight."

“……”

Fu Zheng felt like he had somehow forgotten how to breathe. Holding back his outrage, he asked calmly, "Don't you have a sofa bed in your living room? Why am I sleeping on the floor? "

Tragically for him, Ning Wan glanced over at the sofa and explained, seemingly sympathetically but without an ounce of sincerity in her voice, "Ahh, well, that sofa was supposed to be a sofa bed, but I bought it second-hand, so it doesn't work. It's no wonder all the sofas on XianyuChinese Craigslist are so cheap."

“……”

She patted Fu Zheng on the shoulder. "Actually, it's good to be sleeping on the ground. I've heard that hard beds are good for the back, so the ground must be even better in that respect. I'll find a couple blankets for you to cover up with. Just think of it as if you're sleeping in a Japanese tatami room! You're experiencing what it would be like to travel to Japan without even spending a dollar! Hahaha."

……

Fu Zheng thought that this was the lowest he would sink to today, but soon after his 'bed' was made, Ning Wan once again tested his limits.

She pulled an onion from the pantry and looked at him with apparent pleasure. "Thank goodness I had onions at home! You lucked out!" She plunged back into the kitchen and he could hear the sound of her chopping up the onion with a knife.

Doubt once again arose within Fu Zheng. Good luck? What did onions have to do with good luck? Was Ning Wan feeling bad to have made him sleep on the ground and frying up an onion for supper? But not only did he not enjoy the taste of onion, he hated the smell of it...

As he was about to call out to decline, Ning Wan came out with a plate of roughly chopped onion. Fu Zheng wrinkled his nose at the smell, but before he could recover she begun sprinkling slices on his 'bed'.

"What are you doing?" Fu Zheng blurted out. "Is this some sort of..." he hesitated, "...bedtime ceremony?" Ning Wan wasn't in a cult, was she? He had heard that some pyramid schemes did similar things. Had he walked into the lion's den?

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"Oh, no ceremony," Ning Wan explained while sprinkling, her voice cheerful. "Apparently someone saw cockroaches in this building. There was only one, but knowing Rong City's climate, there could be more. They come out at night and you're sleeping on the ground, so I'm sprinkling onions around your bed just in case. I read on the Internet that cockroaches hate the smell of onion, so if there's onion around your bed, hopefully they'll stay away!"

“……”

“…………”

“………………”

Fu Zheng felt like he must have truly sinned in his past life. However, Ning Wan seemed to be unsatisfied with just that. After sprinkling onion over his bed like rose petals, she brushed off her hands and added, "Well, I don't know if cockroaches actually hate the smell or not. Maybe it won't work..."

By now Fu Zheng was numb to her attacks. He didn't know if cockroaches hated the smell of onions, he thought, but he most definitely did.

Ning Wan looked the 'bed' over with a satisfied smile. Then she briefly introduced Fu Zheng to the other facilities in her home.

Although the dilapidated little apartment was a one bedroom, perhaps it had been a shared space in the past, because there were two bathrooms, one in the living room and another off Ning Wan's bedroom. They could therefore avoid having to share a bathroom. But after she entered her room, the distinct sound of the door being locked made Fu Zheng wince a little.

She told him she trusted him, but locked the door anyway. Ouch, Ning Wan.

……

Thanks to Ning Wan's 'friendly' cockroach warning, Fu Zheng slept badly that night. He resisted the pungent smell of onion on his 'bed', endured the hard floor, and as he dozed off, he dreamt that he was a steak being fried over a grill while Ning Wan desperately demanded more onions...

He was so wary of being ambushed by cockroaches that he never dared do more than doze, but in the end he finally fell into a deep sleep at around three or four o'clock in the morning. Who knew that unconsciousness was sometimes a sort of happiness?

However, Fu Zheng's happiness didn't last long, because at six o'clock, a great banging and clattering sounded in his ears like a piano being dropped down the stairs. Then came the sounds of people clomping around upstairs, the sounds of the toilets being flushed downstairs, and the sounds of the neighbors quarreling....

It was a truly ear-piercing din.

Ning Wan's neighborhood was old and the insulation sub-par. For a moment, Fu Zheng had the illusion that he was sleeping beneath a bridge like a homeless man.

Ten minutes later, Ning Wan rose. She opened the door, yawned, and padded over to Fu Zheng's 'bed', where she gave him a kick. "Fu Zheng, get up, or you'll miss the bus."

“……”

Fu Zheng used to sneer at the saying "Waking up by yourself every day is living the dream". He had not expected that one day, he would be woken up by Ning Wan's feet.

The culprit headed to the kitchen to make breakfast, while Fu Zheng slowly opened his dark-circled eyes and stared up at the ceiling to contemplate life. How was it that he, a respectable senior partner, had been reduced to not only cleaning the floor and sleeping on the ground, but also being woken with a kick in the morning...?

But luckily at least Ning Wan was making noodles. He heard her voice call out from the kitchen, "Fu Zheng, hurry up and wash before the noodles get soggy!"

Dark circles under his eyes, Fu Zheng rose and folded up his bedding. He walked to the bathroom in a trance. In his blurry mind, he had the impression of being a migrant worker and listening to foreman Ning Wan in the background urging him to have a good meal so that he could quickly move bricks...

With the support of his convictions, he managed to get through his morning routine. Having tossed and turned all through the night, he was starving and looking forward to a hot bowl of noodles.

But five minutes later...

Fu Zheng looked at the cup of instant noodles on the dining table and then back at Ning Wan. "These are the noodles you were talking about? Are you serious?"

Ning Wan nodded, slurping up her share. "And it's braised beef flavour, too. If you weren't here, I'd have saved it for later!"

“……”

Thank you for your generous hospitality...

But he was now a poor man from a fallen family, so Fu Zheng could not retort. He could only bite his tongue and start eating, his face cold and pinched. He had always despised junk food like instant noodles, but after a night of starvation, he actually began to feel like this cheap cup of instant noodles was quite fragrant. If only Ning Wan hadn't said——

She finished eating before Fu Zheng and was examining the cup as if bored. "Ah!" she suddenly exclaimed in amazement as if having made some huge discovery, "It was expired! But it tasted fine, so oh well."

“……”

Fu Zheng felt the noodles stick in his throat. When he thought that he'd have to go through another day just like this, the remorse in his heart overflowed. 

What had he been thinking? Wasn't his life just fine the way it was?

I'll die if this keeps going on. I can't stay here another night.