The Landlady and The Amnesiac

26

Chapter 26 – Give and Take

After the seafood incident, Jiang Sihan, Luo Bei and Granny Luo formed a closer relationship.

Grandma Luo and Luo Bei could give Jiang Sihan food to eat without overthinking since they had plenty of excuses now. The seafood that Jiang Sihan had packed for them was not cheap by any means. It was normal for them to invite him over for a meal.

As winter was approaching, Luo Bei invited Zhao Pianpian and Jiang Sihan to eat hotpot together.

Grandma Luo went to the market early in the morning to buy fresh beef and handmade beef balls. Delicious fragrance filled the air of the living room.

Eating hotpot was the happiest occasion in the middle of winter. After a few bites, Zhao Pianpian asked casually, “Is the room next door not rented out yet?”

She was quite concerned about this. Although the rent of a 2LDK wasn’t much, the Luo family had debts to pay off and renting even a day earlier would be of help.

Luo Bei bit into a beef ball, nearly burning her tongue. It wasn’t a good time for her to answer.

“Someone gave me a call the day before yesterday to tell me they would be coming to inspect the place tomorrow. If there’s no problem, they’ll sign the contract and move in tomorrow,” Grandma Luo said with a kind smile. “This time it’s a single mother. Pianpian, maybe you can learn a thing or two from each other. Since I haven’t raised children for so many years, I won’t be as knowledgeable.

Zhao Pianpian happily said, “That sounds great. If the children are around the same age, our Chenchen would have a new playmate, too!”

Mothers nowadays also had to worry about how the baby would socialize in the future.

There were other children in the neighborhood, but the youngest was in kindergarten. If the new tenant’s child was one or two years old, Zhao Pianpian could be relieved since her son would have friends in the future.

Jiang Sihan wasn’t one to talk much. Even if he was well acquainted with them, he didn’t usually participate in conversations on this topic. Most likely because he had eaten at the Luo’s often lately, his complexion had improved slightly and he looked much better than before. Luo Bei recalled the plot. If she remembered correctly, Jiang Sihan’s turning point in life was coming soon.

No one would have the nerve to eat and drink others’ food all the time. Unlike other tenants who would bring over some fruits and local specialties when they came over to eat, Jiang Sihan would help out the Luo grandmother-granddaughter pair to the best of his abilities when it came to things they couldn’t do. This included repairing water pipes, checking the electric circuit as well as helping them drag back rice from the supermarket.

Indeed, with Jiang Sihan’s help, the Luo family’s life became much more convenient.

After eating hotpot, Jiang Sihan went to change the broken light bulb on the first floor.

Luo Bei was the one doing these things originally, now he was the one doing everything.

Just because there weren’t that many tenants in the building didn’t mean that there weren’t a lot of trivial things to deal with daily. The trash at the corridor had to be cleaned every day since the property management company in a low-income neighborhood refused to deal with such things. Therefore it had been up to Luo Bei to give everything a thorough clean every day after work.

One day when Luo Bei came back from work, she saw Jiang Sihan cleaning the corridor with a mop.

He had almost taken over all of Luo Bei’s original tasks. Of course, in return, Grandma Luo invited him over for a meal every day. Jiang Sihan refused in the beginning, but agreed in the end because he couldn’t defy Grandma Luo.

The thing with freeloading for food was that it was awkward at first but it was easy to become accustomed to. At the very least, Jiang Sihan didn’t feel any pressure from coming to the Luo’s to eat.

Jiang Sihan was technically ‘working’ for the Luo family, the only difference was that he was paid with food. But outsiders wouldn’t know what was going on; some people in the ghetto were now starting to say that that tenant was pursuing Luo Bei. He was very diligent and did all the dirty and toiling work.