The Landlady and The Amnesiac

31

Chapter 31 – Pitiful Child

As soon as Miss Chen heard this, she exploded in anger, “What do you mean by this? Do you think I want him around? Without him, I don’t know how many times better my life will be. I wish he was kidnapped by child traffickers, I tell you.”

Luo Bei and Jiang Sihan were left tongue-tied by her words.

She hurriedly glanced at the little boy and only relaxed after she saw that he was emotionless. She couldn’t avoid the shock that came after.

Children were actually very sensitive. Hearing their own mother saying these things, there was no way they wouldn’t feel sad. But the little boy didn’t react in the slightest, which meant that this kind of verbal abuse was common for him.

Although there were only two people left in the Luo family, Luo Bei led a very happy childhood. Even though her parents would be very irresponsible later on and run away with all their money, she remembered that both Mommy and Daddy loved her very much. When they were still around, they would be very caring towards her. While they loved themselves the most, they still had her in their hearts.

The only reason they ran away was because they couldn’t bear the responsibility and were cowardly, so they decided to dump everything onto Grandma. Of course, this meant they had a bad character, but Luo Bei had never negated their love for her because of this.

Unlike Miss Chen’s bristling anger, Luo Bei was very calm, “Miss Chen, I believe that you’re the child’s mother, but nowadays, there are regulations in place everywhere. You can ask other landlords if you don’t believe me, they all have the same policies. It’s a different world now, we can’t just be fine with accepting money and possibly fake IDs. Let’s not look too far to find examples, Mr. Jiang over here can testify. There are relevant personnel coming and checking the register almost every two weeks.”

She wasn’t lying to Miss Chen, only omitted the fact that there were still many landlords in the slums who wouldn’t check for kinship if there were children. Someone did come to check every month, though, she was telling the truth.

The low-income neighborhood had a diverse population and it was easy for problems to occur, so the relevant departments also attached great importance to public safety. Although the system wasn’t perfect, it was better to have it than not.

Luo Bei didn’t know whether she was doing the right thing, but she thought that if the other party really was a trafficker, she would definitely be flustered with her probing.

Miss Chen wasn’t flustered at all, only indignant.

Finally, she brought out some documents. While not complete, it was enough for Luo Bei.

After signing the contract, Miss Chen took the little boy right out the door to their new apartment next door. Luo Bei prepared to leave for the community center to register the new tenants and also have them check whether the two were related at the same time.

Jiang Sihan went with her. On the way, out of curiosity, he said, “That Miss Chen doesn’t look like a good person, I didn’t think you wouldn’t lease it out to her.”

If he knew the other party was very troublesome and very difficult to deal with, he would definitely avoid any further interactions, he thought.

Luo Bei smiled. “You thought wrong. I’ve encountered tenants much worse than Miss Chen. As long as they aren’t doing anything illegal and they can pay the rent on time, we also won’t be picky. Of course, it’s ideal if they can maintain the room well.”

Jiang SIhan’s voice was heavy with emotion, “If she and that child are actually biologically related, then I feel really bad for the child.”

Luo Bei nodded, “I can understand if she’s his stepmother. I’ve had tenants who were stepmothers and they would scold their stepchildren. Generally, though, even if they don’t love them as much they love their own children, they would treat them well. Of course, we don’t know everything so we can’t just assume Miss Chen is a bad person.”

Jiang Sihan glanced at Luo Bei. She had been calm the entire time. How strange, he was older than her but for some reason, he had always felt that she handled things much calmer than he did.

***

Zhao Pianpian heard that the new tenant’s child was around four or five years old and couldn’t help but be disappointed. She had been excited at the thought that Baby Chen could finally have a playmate since children usually weren’t willing to play with others much younger than themselves. Even though Baby Chen wasn’t even six months old yet, Zhao Pianpian was already worried about how he was going to make friends in the future.