After Going Bankrupt, I Got Clung To By A Canary Omega - Chapter 6

“Eldest Miss Fu, this is the quotation. If there are no issues, please sign here.”

Fu Qingli took it and checked each item one by one.

Side-door window glass, including the electric window regulator assembly; passenger seat assembly; repair for scratches on the car door; deep interior cleaning and odor removal.

There were no unnecessary items.

When her gaze swept to the price at the end, Fu Qingli’s breath caught. Then, without showing anything, she asked, “Repairing it is quite troublesome too. I’ve recently taken a liking to a new car. In your estimate, if I don’t repair this one and have someone take it off my hands, how much would it be worth?”

The staff member blinked. “The all-in price for this model brand-new is a little over ten million. If you sell it in its current condition, it would probably fetch three or four million.”

Fu Qingli was a little surprised. “That big a difference?”

“People with a net worth like yours wouldn’t buy secondhand. A used-car dealer would definitely need to leave room for repair costs and enough profit, then look for buyers in a lower market.”

Fu Qingli decisively signed the quotation.

How could she let a secondhand dealer earn the price difference?

After leaving the 4S dealership, the balance in her payment app had been almost completely emptied.

Fu Qingli searched the map and looked at the forty-yuan ride-hailing fare, then decisively walked toward the bus stop across the road.

Perhaps because rush hour had passed, there were not many people on the bus.

Fu Qingli found a corner seat and pulled out the credit report she had printed at the bank before going to the 4S dealership.

By the bus’s overhead light, she roughly skimmed the account balances, and her expression improved a little.

“Miss, you’ve got quite a lot of loans.”

Fu Qingli turned her head and only then discovered that someone had sat down in the seat beside her at some point.

The woman looked around fifty. Her messy tied-up hair revealed a few silver-white strands. She wore a dark red top patterned with large white flowers, its sleeves rolled up. A cardboard QR-code card hung from her waist pouch, wrapped in tape. Beside her black-and-white polka-dot straight-leg pants leaned a half-transparent rice sack, only filled at the bottom, its mouth tied tight with a black shoelace.

If the other party had chatted about anything else, Fu Qingli would have been happy to reply a few times and while away the long one-hour ride.

But that absolutely did not include the other party peeking at her privacy and then pointing it out so openly.

Noticing the passengers in the front seats looking over, as well as the few people standing in the aisle turning their eyes this way, Fu Qingli put away the credit report and turned her head toward the inner window.

Outside the bus, night had already fallen thick and heavy. The window reflected the old woman’s conflicted expression.

Fu Qingli felt a little stifled. She raised her hand to pull the window open, but it would not budge.

“It’s broken. Hasn’t been fixed all this time. If you’re uncomfortable, that window over there works. If you’re too embarrassed to say it, I’ll ask the person sitting on the outside to move her bag. You can’t just occupy a seat like that.”

The old woman beside her pointed to the front right, where a fashionably dressed middle-aged woman had placed a white handbag on the inner seat.

Fu Qingli’s eyes softened. “I’m not uncomfortable. I just wanted to open the window and see where we were. It’s the same if I wait for the speaker to announce the stop. Do you take this bus often?”

Seeing that Fu Qingli had replied, the old woman immediately became enthusiastic. “I take it morning and night. I go set up a stall and sell a few vegetables and such.”

As she spoke, she untied the woven sack, took out a tomato, wiped it on the front of her shirt, rubbed it again with her hand, and handed it to Fu Qingli. “Try it if you don’t mind. Grew it myself.”

Fu Qingli accepted it and took a bite. “Your tomatoes really do taste good. As it happens, I don’t have any vegetables at home. Sell me the rest.”

The old woman’s eyes lit up. She gripped the mouth of the sack, her words warm and eager. “What do you mean sell? If you like them, just take them home.”

Fu Qingli pulled over the QR-code cardboard hanging from the old woman’s waist and scanned it, joking as she said, “Taking advantage of others affects my luck. If you won’t sell them to me, I’ll have to make a trip to the supermarket instead. But honestly, the tomatoes from the supermarket are hard and bland. They really aren’t as good as yours.”

The old woman smiled brightly, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes turning vivid too. After refusing several times, she weighed the sack in her hand and quoted ten yuan.

Fu Qingli estimated the amount inside and transferred one hundred based on supermarket prices.

The old woman became even warmer, telling Fu Qingli how to store them and how to cook them so they tasted good. When she heard the speaker announce that the bus was about to arrive at the next stop, she hesitated for a moment, then still leaned closer.

In a low voice, she said, “Young lady, don’t take out all kinds of messy loans. Your loan amount is much scarier than what my daughter borrowed. I dragged her to the bank and had this same kind of report printed. In the end, I had to pay with my whole family’s savings before filling the hole for her…”

Fu Qingli agreed.

After watching the old woman get off the bus, Fu Qingli took out the credit report again, searching up professional terms as she read.

When she finished, Fu Qingli leaned against the bus’s plastic seatback and closed her aching eyes.

Thinking of the dull, sparse chat history between the original body and Fu Qiqin on WeChat, Fu Qingli sighed. The original body truly deserved the impression she left on others as someone who lived off her parent.

She had no source of income. Her expensive daily spending depended entirely on credit cards. Whenever she could no longer keep things turning over, she would go to Fu Qiqin…

It seemed the original body had not only asked Fu Qiqin to invest in filming because of her acting addiction.

She had taken plenty of kickbacks in the process too.

Thinking of Tang Lin’s swift, decisive working style, Fu Qingli figured there should be results from the variety show soon. She had to gather twenty million as quickly as possible.

She flipped through the contact list.

Fu Qingli’s gaze locked firmly onto the call records.

That morning, the original body had actually contacted Fu Qiqin first.

Although she was not certain of the content of the call, it was most likely that she had failed to get money, or even had a fierce conflict with her. Unable to think things through, the original body had then taken the road of no return.

Fu Qingli repeatedly folded the credit report in her hand, pondering what other methods could quickly gather money.

The phone on her lap suddenly vibrated, reminding her that she had reached her stop.

Fu Qingli packed her things, picked up the sack of tomatoes she had bought, and got off the bus.

The area around East Lake Villa was connected to a botanical garden and was famous for its excellent greenery.

Beside the road where cars could not enter, tree shadows swayed. Streetlights filtered through lush leaves, scattering patches of dancing light and dark across the ground.

The night wind, neither hot nor cold, swept past, stirring up waves of rustling. The insect calls broke off for a moment, then rose high again.

Now and then, a few couples walked toward her, leaning against each other as they chatted about everyday food, shopping, or celebrity gossip, occasionally stopping to take selfies.

Old ladies strolling shoulder to shoulder talked about how their children were doing lately, their dialect spoken at flying speed.

A delivery rider rushed past, playing a deafening viral internet song from his speaker.

Fu Qingli felt the pleasant wind brushing against her face. She lifted the slipping woven sack and slowly relaxed, breathing in the rich scent of grass and trees with fascination.

She felt the same ordinary warmth of human life in a different world, vibrant and full of vitality.

Aside from feeling pained over the more than two hundred thousand she had saved, which she had no idea who would end up benefiting from, she had no attachments in that world.

Another couple crossed paths with her from the front, whispering something to each other.

Fu Qingli heard the urgent sounds behind her of someone turning back and tugging at someone else, then footsteps faintly following her. The corner of her mouth hooked up.

A young girl pulled her companion and ran a few steps, circling around in front of Fu Qingli. Staring at Fu Qingli’s face, she said excitedly, “Um, are you Shen Chaomu’s… rich girlfriend?”

The curve of Fu Qingli’s rising mouth seemed to be abruptly pinched off. It froze, then rapidly fell.

Several groups of young people strolling nearby seemed to hear a familiar name, and their eyes all turned over to size her up.

Fu Qingli slightly hunched her shoulders, lifted the woven sack in her hand, swung it up, and carried it over her shoulder. She went around the girl blocking the road.

Her tone was indifferent. “I’m single.”

No one chased after her. Faintly, she heard the girl’s companion mutter, “I told you it wasn’t her. This person’s dressed all proper like a person, but maybe she’s actually a scavenger selling scrap. That resource-backed celebrity who keeps Shen Chaomu must be super rich.”

“That’s not being kept. Shen Chaomu has money and beauty. She just has bad taste. Out of all things, she picked cow dung to stick herself into.”

…

Fu Qingli pulled the woven sack down from her shoulder and walked neither fast nor slow, restoring her calm, steady pace as she tossed the noise behind her.

Over all those years in the past, she had grown used to being an actress in name, yet receiving no attention. The few times she had been recognized, a vegetable-selling auntie had even gotten her character’s name wrong. Fu Qingli remembered that when she signed an autograph for her back then, she had signed another person’s name on her behalf.

The original body really should have listened to those words just now.

There was also one point Fu Qingli did not want to admit: “Fu Qingli” truly had only gained some attention because of Shen Chaomu.

If they went on the variety show, and Shen Chaomu appeared with her as her partner, the popularity would absolutely explode.

Thinking of how she and Shen Chaomu had parted unhappily that afternoon, Fu Qingli felt a bit of a headache.

She really did not know why, once she ran into Shen Chaomu, she was so easily led around by emotion.

She should not have cut off the internet. She should have first coaxed Shen Chaomu onto the variety show, then talked about breaking up.

Or she could do both without delaying either.

Break up first, then go on the variety show by contract.

Otherwise, once the variety show produced by Fu Entertainment became a hit, Ri’an successfully went public, and her own net worth rose, what would she do if Shen Chaomu regretted it?

At the villa.

The moment Fu Qingli entered the door, she heard the sound of a game coming from upstairs, occasionally mixed with a few complaints.

She guessed that Shen Chaomu had deliberately left the door open while playing games.

Fu Qingli secretly shook her head. Shen Chaomu was not young anymore, yet her temperament was like a child’s.

She probably had never suffered much hardship.

Fu Qingli carried the woven sack to the kitchen island, intending to tidy it up first, then make a simple dinner.

It turned out that the woven sack the old woman had given her did not only contain tomatoes. There were also bell peppers, broccoli, cucumbers… quite a lot of everything, and all of it was very fresh.

She sorted them into the fridge, took out two eggs, then turned around and suddenly noticed the sink.

The plate and spoon Shen Chaomu had used at noon had not moved even a little from where they were.

Fu Qingli pinched the space between her brows.

She had truly never seen someone this lazy, this sloppy, and this incapable of reflection!

She moved the tableware aside, washed two tomatoes, cut them into pieces, prepared the other ingredients, turned on the stove, and stir-fried them quickly over high heat.

Soon, she had made tomato-and-egg noodles.

Upstairs.

At first, Shen Chaomu had still been paying attention to the movements downstairs. But after a few rounds of gaming, she had long since forgotten about blocking Fu Qingli and beating her up.

“…Support, hold the river. Stop wandering around. Wait for me to flank…”

“…Shen Chaomu is my wife, where are you charging off to? Didn’t you see the other side squatting in the grass, just waiting for you to jump into the pit? If Shen Chaomu knew you played this badly, she’d slap you twice, believe it or not. And you still call her your wife? After this round, you’d be divorced…”

After being filled with anger by pig teammates, Shen Chaomu exited the game and suddenly smelled the aroma of food.

She had asked Aunt Liu about it that evening. Aunt Liu would not be back until next week, so it could only be Fu Qingli.

Shen Chaomu clenched her fists.

Today, Fu Qingli had caused trouble more than enough times.

If Shen Chaomu did not teach her a lesson, Fu Qingli would definitely push her luck, then use her heat to threaten her into submission.

Fu Qingli had just sat down at the dining table, ready to eat dinner—or rather, a late-night snack—when she heard the thudding footsteps on the stairs.

She really knew how to pick her timing. She did no work and only enjoyed the results of others’ labor.

However, Fu Qingli had only made one portion.

The pots and utensils in the kitchen had all been washed clean.

“Fu Qingli, are you looking to get beaten up?”

Shen Chaomu rushed downstairs and saw that Fu Qingli did not even lift her eyelids. She was calmly and leisurely eating a bowl of tomato-and-egg noodles that looked excellent, without the slightest guilt over being exposed for her trick of cutting off the internet. Shen Chaomu could not hold back and slammed her palm directly onto the dining table.