Making a living in Dongguan, her fiery red lips offer me tenderness.

At this very moment, Ding Yang was still fast asleep, unaware that the gears of his destiny were already turning at breakneck speed.

The next morning, Ding Yang got up and felt that his feet didn't hurt much, just a little sore, but his shoulders felt like they were being scraped by a knife, and his mouth tasted very bitter, probably because of the ibuprofen he had taken.

Ding Yang quickly washed up, changed his clothes, went to the street corner, bought a basket of xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) for three yuan, and started walking back, carrying the bag in one hand and stuffing food into his mouth with the other.

Upon arriving at the entrance, I saw a middle-aged woman loitering around the shop, carrying a bag of vegetables in her hand.

Ding Yang approached,

It turned out to be the landlady.

"Aunt Tian, ​​what brings you here?"

"Xiaoyang, I came here specifically to find you after buying groceries at the market. Old Li said you work at a real estate agency around here, but I didn't see anyone at your shop."

"Aunt Tian, ​​this shop doesn't belong to me, it belongs to my cousin. She's usually out doing business in the mornings and isn't in the shop. These days, business is usually handled by phone. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Oh, so you're renting my tin shack to sell sand and cement? Then you'll definitely need to put up a 'GG' sign at the entrance, right?"

"Yes!"

"I still have a plaque on my old house. I'll bring it to you then, and you can just put a few words on it. Also, you know how to ride a motorcycle, right?"

"meeting!"

"I have a men's motorcycle that I haven't ridden in a long time. It belongs to my son. He bought a new motorcycle and doesn't ride it anymore. You can take it to get it repaired; it'll still be rideable. It'll be convenient for you to run errands."

Ding Yang thought to himself, "It's just a bag of fruit, why are they being so polite? This is so heartwarming. It seems there are still many good people in the world. This is like sending charcoal in snowy weather."

"Aunt Tian, ​​you're too kind. I can't help but feel embarrassed."

"It's alright, Auntie likes hardworking young men."

"Aunt Tian, ​​please come in and sit down! I'll pour you a glass of water."

"No, no!"

"Xiaoyang, where is your hometown?"

My hometown is in southern Hunan!

"You said yesterday that your parents are gone. Who else is in your family? Do you have any siblings?"

Ding Yang wondered, "What's wrong with this woman? Why is she asking about my family?"

"Auntie, my father has passed away, but my mother is still alive. I just don't know where she is now. When I was in junior high school, she used to send me money, but I haven't seen her for more than ten years."

"I am an only child, I have no brothers or sisters, but I have a few cousins, and I also have my grandparents at home."

How are your grandparents' health?

"Grandpa is over 70 years old this year. He is still in relatively good health, but he is getting old after all. He does some farm work at home and raises a few pigs."

"oh!"

"Did you go to high school?"

"Auntie, I'm attending a vocational high school, also called a technical secondary school."

"oh!"

Ding Yang laughed and said, "Auntie, why are you asking me all this? You're not trying to set me up with someone, are you?"

The woman suddenly blushed.

"No, no, just asking. How long have you been in Dongguan?"

"I've been in Dongguan for over three months now. Before that, I was in Fenggang, working as a QC in a factory. But I hated the atmosphere there and felt there was no future in it, so I quit."

"oh!"

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

Ding Yang has high emotional intelligence, so we can't let her figure out our secrets, and we can't follow her lead in everything.

"Auntie, you're asking me all this because you really want to introduce me to a girlfriend, right?"

"If you don't have a girlfriend, Auntie can introduce you to some. Auntie knows a lot of great girls."

"You've got to be kidding me. To be honest, I'm so poor I've even pawned my pants. How could I possibly afford to find a girlfriend?"

"There's a saying: 'How can one enter the bustling world when one is poor? How can one ruin a beautiful woman when one's pockets are empty?' With my purse empty, I dare not hope to win the heart of a beauty."

"This kid, he's got a whole set of lies to tell. Don't you trust your aunt? Tell me the truth, do you have a girlfriend or not? And what's with this cousin surnamed Huang? Is she your real cousin? Her accent sounds different from yours. Could she be your girlfriend?"

"what……"

"Auntie, don't say things like that. Let me tell you the truth."

"I met a translator at the factory in Fenggang. She is Ms. Huang's cousin. We got along very well. Later, I quit my job and had nowhere to go. She said that she had a cousin who worked as a real estate agent in Chang'an, selling houses. If I had nowhere to go, I could try coming here."

"This was my first time in Dongguan, and I was unfamiliar with the place and had nowhere to go, so I called Ms. Huang on a whim. I simply said I was her cousin's boyfriend. I was a little afraid she wouldn't like me, so that's why I said that."

"I didn't expect Sister Huang to be so kind. She let me stay at her shop. I only arrived the day before yesterday, and I didn't even know where she lived."

"Oh, I see. So you weren't dating that translator?"

"No, how should I put it? She's a high-ranking translator, so she probably wouldn't look up to me. In my eyes, she's just an ordinary working girl, and I wouldn't look up to her either. Being friends is fine, but being lovers is a bit far-fetched. Besides, she's from Northeast China, and I'm from Hunan. That's too far apart, and it's not realistic."

"Oh, I see! So when are you moving in with me?"

Ding Yang thought to himself, "Why does this sound so awkward? I'm not asking to be kept by someone."

"I'll move there this afternoon. After all, this is someone else's place, and it's inconvenient for me to stay here all the time."

"Okay, I'll be going now."

"Auntie, please take care."

"Okay, wait a moment!"

After Aunt Tian left, Ding Yang felt something was off. Something was definitely amiss. Why was that old woman always asking what I was doing there? Was she being too helpful?

Not long after Aunt Tian left, Huang Xiaoxiao rode over on her motorcycle.

"Xiaoyang, I just saw Old Li's wife come over. What's she doing?"

"Oh, you mean Aunt Tian? She said she was passing by here on her way to buy groceries and asked when I was moving in."

"Hu Zhi, the market is over there. Why are you going to walk past here to buy groceries? You're just going further and further away."

"Sister, she just asked a couple of questions casually, and didn't say anything else. Maybe she came here for a walk after buying groceries."

Huang Xiaoxiao wondered if she suspected that Lao Li was having an affair with her and had come here to catch them in the act. But she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"Xiaoyang, you said yesterday you were going to buy used furniture, did you buy it?"

"I bought it. A classmate of mine works in a factory in Shatou. He went with me to buy it. We bought a cabinet, a sofa, and a bed. It cost 600 yuan."

"Oh, that's so expensive, it's not cheap."

"There are several items, even tea sets, and they're not expensive."

"Sister Huang, I plan to move over there soon. I won't stay here tonight; I'll stay in the tin shack."

"What are you doing? What's wrong with living here? I didn't kick you out. Anyway, this place is empty."