Liu Chen had heard a saying in her previous life.
A woman must have her own study.
At the time, she didn't even have her own bedroom, let alone dream of having her own study? She had even scoffed inwardly:
This must be something rich women say.
And now, as she truly sat in her own study, feeling that everything within it was her own possession, a sense of satisfaction bloomed from the soles of her feet upwards.
This feeling of possessing a separate world, simply by having a study, was so comforting it sent shivers down her spine.
The window faced the community's central courtyard. It was late, and the lights in the green belts of the courtyard slowly illuminated.
The speculation frenzy had not yet reached C City, so even though the building was only a few months old, the occupancy rate within the community was still not low. Warm yellow and cold white lights spilled from the windows of the tall buildings.
In her previous life, a high-end residential complex like this had been out of reach. Now, she lived in it, and even had a study!
Liu Chen, who had been adjusting her mindset well since her rebirth, found herself sleepless. In the middle of the night, wearing her pajamas, she practiced the Ba Duan Jin twelve times in her bedroom.
She broke into a light sweat all over her body. Only then did she enter her private bathroom, soak in the warm bathtub, and listen to the sound of rain dripping outside the window.
...
Hu Xingfa was currently sitting in the company's finance office. It wasn't until yesterday that he learned the company's salaries for the previous month had been overdue for so long.
He couldn't get through to Hu Jin by phone. Remembering that she had taken leave to go to her brother-in-law's hometown, he figured the signal might be bad in the mountains. He had no choice but to return to the company's finance office to find his savings cards and withdraw money from the bank.
Hu Xingfa took the neatly organized cardholder that Hu Jin had sorted from the drawer and drove late at night to an ATM opposite the nearby police station.
He worried about being targeted if he withdrew too much cash, so he deliberately chose the ATM machine opposite the police station.
The night was quiet, and all the shops on the street were closed. Hu Xingfa, with the cardholder in his pocket, walked into the bank's ATM room.
He casually picked up a card, inserted it into the machine, clicked withdrawal, and selected 5000.
"Sorry, your card has insufficient balance."
Although Hu Xingfa was a bit impatient, he simply retrieved the card from the machine and inserted another one.
"Sorry, your card has insufficient balance."
"This Hu Jin, why keep cards with no money in them? Does she alone know which ones have money?"
There were a total of six cards in the cardholder. Hu Xingfa inserted and removed them, removed and inserted them, until only the last one remained. By then, Hu Xingfa's face had darkened as much as the night outside.
With a final hope, he inserted the bank card and saw the familiar sentence still displayed on the machine.
"Sorry, your card has insufficient balance."
Seeing this message on the machine, Hu Xingfa frowned so deeply he could have trapped a mosquito. He said:
"Impossible! This machine is broken!" As he withdrew the card, Hu Xingfa moved to the adjacent machine, inserted the card, and complained:
"If it's broken, they should put up a sign! You've wasted so much of my time!"
"Sorry, your card has insufficient balance."
Seeing this line appear before him again, Hu Xingfa felt a hint of panic. But he composed himself, frowned, and tried inserting the remaining five cards into the ATM one by one.
The reaction was still exactly the same.
Now, Hu Xingfa was completely flustered.
He grabbed the cardholder and turned to walk out the door. Just as he stepped out, he turned back, picked up his phone from the ATM, and then hurried across the street to the police station opposite to report the incident.
The police station first took his statement and then told Hu Xingfa to wait. They would go to the company during the day to understand the situation.
"By the way, it's best for you to contact your company's accountant, your second sister, and ask her to recall."
Hu Xingfa stopped outside the police station and turned to ask:
"What if I can't reach her..."
"How could you not reach her? Go to her house and find her! Isn't she your own sister?"
"Oh, okay, okay, I'll go now."
With that, Hu Xingfa walked out looking dejected.
After he left, a young police officer who had been taking his statement came out and stood beside the captain.
"Captain, I think he might not be able to find his second sister. He himself said earlier that his second sister took leave around the 18th of last month to go back to the countryside and hasn't been reachable since."
The middle-aged man, referred to as the captain, nodded.
"There's a high probability of that. But the important thing is to see what happens after he goes to the accountant's house."
"The captain is right!"
...
Hu Xingfa rushed out of the police station, got into his Mercedes-Benz, and started the engine. Only then did he suddenly realize that he didn't know his second sister's home address at all.
Reluctantly, Hu Xingfa began to search his phone for information about his second brother-in-law. Fortunately, due to his business dealings over the years, his number had always been saved in his phone.
He dialed the number saved as "Second Brother-in-law."
In 2009, people had not yet experienced being bombarded by telemarketing calls. Seeing an unknown number late at night, their first reaction was to answer it, not to hang up.
"Hello? Who is it?"
Hearing this voice, Hu Xingfa, clutching his phone, relaxed. As long as the call connected, it was good.
"Hello? Brother-in-law? It's me, your brother-in-law! I'm looking for Hu Jin!"
As soon as he finished speaking, another female voice came from the other end of the phone.
"Who? I don't have a brother! And who is Hu Jin? Zhang Dashan, you better explain who this Hu Jin is!"
Hearing the female voice on the other end, Hu Xingfa even quipped:
"You scoundrel brother-in-law, how dare you mess around with someone else behind Hu Jin's back! Go home now and give the phone to Hu Jin. I'll pretend I don't know about this."
As soon as Hu Xingfa finished speaking, Zhang Dashan on the other end was explaining to his wife sleeping beside the pillow, while yelling into the phone:
"Hu Xingfa, what's wrong with you in the middle of the night! I divorced that woman Hu Jin nearly ten years ago! Are you crazy? Coming to me in the middle of the night looking for your sister?
My wife misunderstood, are you going to explain! If you want to find Hu Jin, go to her house! Don't go crazy here!"
Sitting in the car, Hu Xingfa heard the successive pleas for forgiveness to his wife and his fervent oaths on the other end of the phone.
Images from the past ten years kept flashing in his mind. Every time he needed his second brother-in-law to come to their house for something, Hu Jin would look troubled and say she couldn't get him to come.
What had he said back then?
"If you can't get him to come, then you're incompetent."