Chapter 56: 050 Aunt Fang’s Astonishment
 

Entering the internet café, Shen Rongfei was greeted by a bustling scene.

There was an incredible feeling in her heart.

This internet café was so popular that it seemed like it could make twenty or thirty thousand yuan a month!

Li Zhiyan was just an 18-year-old kid.

When they arrived at the computer Li Zhiyan was using, since there were no seats available,

Shen Rongfei sat down next to Li Zhiyan’s chair.

It was hot, and she really was a bit tired.

Although she wanted to understand the world of the youth, her eyes couldn’t help but drift involuntarily toward the sofa from time to time.

Xiao Yan truly was someone destined for great things at an early age.

Li Shiyu voluntarily stepped out for a walk, feeling that Li Zhiyan probably wanted to help the class leader’s family try for a second child.

The class leader’s family should really have a second child by now.

So his presence wasn’t quite appropriate at the moment.

“Aunt Fang…”

“What kind of QQ password would you like to set?”

Fang Zhiya thought for a moment.

“Just use six zeros.”

This familiar password reminded Li Zhiyan that his mom’s password was also six zeros. Do all aunts like using this number?

“It’s better to have a more complex password, Aunt Fang, otherwise your QQ account might get hacked easily.”

“With a password like yours, a hacker could steal it with ease.”

“Then, you set one up for Aunt Fang.”

Li Zhiyan typed in Fang Zhiya’s name.

“Let’s use the initials of your name followed by six zeros, and then the initials again.”

“That way, it should be easier to remember.”

“Okay, I’ll listen to you.”

After creating the QQ account,

Li Zhiyan asked to look at Fang Zhiya’s phone.

“Aunt Fang.”

“Do you have QQ installed on your phone?”

In that era, apart from the rarely seen smartphones,

ordinary phones needed to have the mobile QQ app built-in to use QQ.

“Auntie doesn’t know, I’ve never tried before.”

“You help Auntie check it out.”

He recalled that Fang Zhiya’s pink BBK music phone had built-in QQ.

“Aunt Fang, I’ll log in for you. We’ve already added each other as friends just now. When you hear a notification sound, it means I’m trying to contact you.”

Since Fang Zhiya had just signed up and had no friends on QQ, any messages would definitely be from him.

Next, Li Zhiyan taught Fang Zhiya how to chat with him.

During this process, the system released another new task.

“As it is unsafe for Fang Zhiya to go rent a house alone, please pretend to be her son and accompany her.”

“And try to give her a hug.”

“Task reward, ten thousand yuan in cash.”

This task didn’t seem too difficult, and the reward was pretty mediocre.

The only real challenge might be managing to give her a hug, as long as it wasn’t something too intimate like massaging ankles.

Li Zhiyan felt that taking advantage of pretending to be her son would make giving her a hug not a big deal.

However, for Li Zhiyan with his savings of one hundred and thirty thousand yuan, it was definitely a tempting offer!

Seeing that it was nearly time for dinner, Li Zhiyan pointed to a snack bar across the street and said,

“Alright.”

Looking at Li Zhiyan, Fang Zhiya couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. Once her son had helped suppress him for his teacher,

they were enemies, yet he was so good to her.

In contrast, even her own son was unwilling to answer her calls.

If only Li Zhiyan were her son, she thought, reading Fang Zhiya’s gaze,

Li Zhiyan found it quite familiar; evidently, the same kind of look had appeared in the eyes of Gu Wanzhou and Rao Shi Yun, the kind that signaled a loving mother’s desire to take in a godson.

However, he had no intention of becoming anyone else’s godson.

Having one mom was enough for him,

unless it was Su Mengchen’s mother, Shen Rongfei, who genuinely was his mother.

Because as a son-in-law, he would of course have to start calling her mom.

They ordered two servings of fried rice with eggs, but Fang Zhiya seemed hesitant to speak.

After a moment, she finally said, “Xiao Yan, Auntie has something she wants to ask for your help with.”

Li Zhiyan knew that she was referring to renting a house.

A beautiful single mature woman looking for a place to rent was obviously not ideal,

too easy to attract the attention of bad people.

“Please tell me, if it’s within my ability, I will definitely help.”

“You hold an important place in my heart as an elder.”

“If I can help, I definitely will.”

Fang Zhiya’s tears nearly spilled, unintentionally betraying her emotions.

Her own son didn’t care for her, yet her son’s enemy showed such concern; he truly was a filial younger generation.

But I didn’t know him before, and I’ve never doted on him.

How do I deserve to enjoy his kindness toward me?

For a moment, Fang Zhiya found herself unable to speak. Asking for a salary, and considering how he settled her last night, she already owed this child too much.

“Aunt Fang, please just tell me if you need anything. I know this is the time you need help. As classmates with the monitor, it’s only natural for us to give a hand with his family matters.”

After hesitating for a while, Fang Zhiya said, “Xiao Yan.”

“Aunt wants to ask you for a favor.”

“Could you pretend to be Aunt’s son and go with Aunt in the afternoon to rent a house?”

“Because it’s not very convenient for a woman to rent a house on her own…”

She didn’t specify what made it inconvenient.

She always felt that Li Zhiyan was just a child, and some topics were not suitable to discuss with them.

Although this child had already matured beyond his years.

“Why doesn’t the monitor go with you? If you call him, he’ll definitely come. After all, mother and son share a connection.”

“I think the monitor would come.”

The boss brought over the fried rice with egg.

“He hung up on my call today and turned off his phone.”

Some grievances, when not spoken, are bearable, but once voiced, they tend to erupt completely.

Fang Zhiya couldn’t help but let her tears flow, looking pitiful and eliciting sympathy as she cried.

“Aunt Fang, please don’t cry. I’ll go with you, and I’ll come to visit you often in the future.”

“I promise to protect you from being bullied. From now on, you can consider me as your son.”

“It upsets me to see you crying.”

Fang Zhiya then managed to control her emotions.

It indeed was inappropriate to cry in front of a child.

“Okay…”

“Aunt won’t cry anymore.”

…

In the afternoon, Li Zhiyan called for two taxis and followed Fang Zhiya to a somewhat dilapidated urban village.

Now, Fang Zhiya only had the ten thousand yuan in cash that Li Zhiyan had managed to retrieve for her, kept in the lining of her suitcase.

Besides that, she had nothing else.

This urban village was full of illegal constructions, all of which were small property-right houses without property certificates.

The landlord Li Zhiyan was considering was a local elderly couple.

These two appeared very proud, having built seven-story self-constructed houses.

Local people mostly behaved this way, but this old couple’s attitude was quite good.

The old lady enthusiastically introduced the seventh-floor room to Fang Zhiya.

“The sixth and seventh floors were specifically built to be rented out.”

“Each room is 20 square meters.”

“They are all independent layouts.”

“The bathroom is downstairs. There’s a public toilet. You just have to pay two yuan a month to use it.”

“You can use this coal stove freely, it’s very convenient for boiling water for showers and such.”

“Oh, and you can also use this electric fan anytime you like — we’ve provided it for our tenants.”

“The rent is three hundred yuan a month.”

“Lease starts at six months.”

“Though there’s only one bed, it shouldn’t be any inconvenience for you two to squeeze in together.”

In Wancheng, even after ten years, a monthly rent of three hundred yuan is extremely hard to come by; that’s why Fang Zhiya was drawn to this price.

Li Zhiyan looked around the rental. It was just one complete room.

A long communal corridor at the entrance led to the door of each rental room.

The windows lacked curtains, making it easy for someone’s privacy to be intruded upon.

A single room with a coal stove posed the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Aside from a bed and a dining table, it was hardly big enough for anything else.

Outside the door, several neighbors curiously observed Fang Zhiya.

Especially one middle-aged man whose eyes nearly lit up.

This mature woman was truly exceptional.

But upon seeing Li Zhiyan, he quickly restrained the thoughts in his heart.

She had a son, and if anything were to really happen, this young man might beat him to death.

“We’ll rent this place.”

Despite the poor conditions, Fang Zhiya felt that this was all she could afford now.

Gone were the days of Audi A4s, a bank savings of a million, and living in an apartment with an elevator — those days were never coming back.

“Young man, are you here to study for your senior year of high school, and your mother came to accompany you?”

“There are many high school seniors here. The girl from this room just checked out with her mom after the college entrance exam. Heard she scored over thirty points above the first-tier cut-off. My house is lucky, you see.”

The old lady talked a lot and took out two standard lease agreements from her bag.

“However, young man, you and your mother don’t look very much alike.”

Hearing this, Li Zhiyan embraced Fang Zhiya from behind.

Wrapping his arms around Aunt Fang’s slender waist, he rested his head on her shoulder.

Inhaling the scent of a mature woman from Fang Zhiya.

He smiled and said, “Auntie, where do we not look alike?”

“Take a closer look, my mom and I are exactly the same.”

Li Zhiyan clearly felt Aunt Fang’s body soften.

He quickly tightened his grip, holding onto Fang Zhiya’s waist.

The two clung together tightly.