Yi Anguo no longer hesitated. He took out the spare key he'd prepared and opened the door.
Upon entering the room, he saw a woman lying on the bed in the master bedroom. Her face was pale, her eyes were closed, and she was completely motionless.
A three- or four-year-old girl was crying and pushing the woman, trying to wake her up.
"Mommy! Wake up, please! Duo Duo is so hungry! Duo Duo wants to eat!"
"Little girl! What's wrong with your mom? How long has she been lying here without waking up?" Yi Anguo asked as he reached out to check for breath under the woman's nose. He found that she was still breathing, but just barely.
Yi Anguo was stunned and quickly dialed 120. If she dies here, I'll be in serious trouble—after all, I'm the landlord!
He didn't dare move the woman, fearing he wouldn't be able to explain himself later. Seeing the little girl crying from hunger, he went to the refrigerator to find something for her to eat. But when he opened it, the fridge was completely empty.
They haven't paid rent for two months. Don't tell me they don't even have money for food? The child is wailing from hunger... could the adult have fainted from it? What a joke it would be if word got out that someone starved to death in such a nice house in this day and age.
The kitchen was also bare, aside from some cooking seasonings. Yi Anguo called Wang Bing and told him to immediately bring some milk and bread to Apartment D on the seventeenth floor of Building 13.
Wang Bing arrived quickly with the milk and bread. "Boss, what's going on?" he asked curiously. "Since when does collecting rent involve delivering milk and bread?"
"The adult probably fainted from hunger, and the child is crying her eyes out," Yi Anguo said. "What else was I supposed to do but ask you to bring food?"
"No way!" Wang Bing said, astonished. "They can afford an apartment that costs over 3,000 yuan a month, but they've fainted from hunger?"
Soon, the ambulance arrived. The paramedics rushed into the room, began examining the woman, and asked what had happened.
Yi Anguo didn't know the full situation. He explained that he was the landlord and had come to collect rent, only to find the woman unconscious on the bed and the little girl crying from hunger beside her. He asked if it was possible the woman had fainted from starvation.
The doctors requested that Yi Anguo accompany them to the hospital. He had planned to go anyway, as he was sure the woman didn't have a single penny on her.
Yi Anguo arranged for Wang Bing to look after the little girl temporarily while he went with the ambulance to the hospital.
An examination at the hospital confirmed that the woman had indeed fainted due to starvation. If she hadn't been discovered in time, she really would have starved to death.
They say a person can survive sixty days on just water, so how long has this woman been starving? Thank goodness she didn't die in the apartment, and thank goodness I came to collect the rent myself today. Otherwise, this would have been a catastrophe.
When the woman woke up, she called out for Duo Duo. Yi Anguo reassured her that someone was taking care of Duo Duo for the time being. He had also bought some preserved egg and lean meat congee for her to eat. She was too famished for solid food and could only eat congee.
"Landlord! I'm so sorry for causing you all this trouble!" the woman said, tears streaming down her face.
"Sigh... what exactly is your situation? How did it get to the point where you couldn't even afford to eat?" Yi Anguo asked helplessly.
"I can't get in touch with my man anymore," the woman explained through her sobs. "Ever since I got with him, I've just been a housewife, cooking and taking care of our child. Now the money's all gone, and I can't find him. My own family disowned me because they were against our relationship."
"What about his family? Can't you contact them?" Yi Anguo asked.
The woman shook her head. "My man is from Harbor Island. My identity has to be kept a secret because he has a wife and children over there. I'm just the other woman he keeps on the side."
"But you've been with him for a long time, right? Your child is already so big. Didn't you save any money over all these years?" Yi Anguo asked, finding it hard to believe. Even a mistress gets a living allowance of several thousand yuan a month. There's no way she could have spent it all, right? She's just crying silently... Is there something she can't talk about? She probably can't answer that question.
After the woman was discharged from the hospital, Yi Anguo couldn't bring himself to kick her out. Not only was he not getting any rent, but now he also had to support the mother and daughter. He was really a one-of-a-kind landlord.
Back home, while they were having dinner, Fu Huanhuan suddenly spoke up. "Uncle! Can your boss, the developer, get me a teaching job at one of the schools here? If not an elementary school, a kindergarten would be fine too!"
"I asked you to come here to help me with my child, and now you're telling me you want to go teach in a school?" Yi Anguo said with a laugh.
"I can still help you with your child even if I'm a teacher! Besides, if I just keep babysitting, wouldn't all my education go to waste?" Fu Huanhuan retorted.
"Telling me is useless. You need to have your parents call me. Only then can I try to work something out for you." I can't make any promises about an elementary school, but kindergarten should be manageable. After all, the developer of Blue Coast definitely has that kind of pull with the Blue Coast kindergarten.
"Why do I need my parents to call you before you'll help me become a teacher?" Fu Huanhuan pouted, unconvinced.
"You know the situation, don't you?" Yi Anguo said with a smile. "Your parents didn't want you to come out here to work in the first place. They're afraid you'll fall in love and run off with some guy from another province. You're their eldest daughter, and they're counting on you to find a live-in son-in-law to take care of them in their old age. Even if you don't do that, they definitely won't let you marry someone so far away."
"What era is this? Who's still looking for a live-in son-in-law?" Fu Huanhuan countered. "If I get a stable, well-paying job in Shenzhen, I could just bring them to Shenzhen to live with me when they're old. Wouldn't that be great? I've heard the pay and benefits for teachers here are excellent."
"It's no use telling me," Yi Anguo said, with an air of it not being his problem. "Go convince your parents. Ask them if they'll agree to you staying and working in Shenzhen long-term."
That woman who nearly starved to death is named Han Ying. I can't just support her for nothing! Coincidentally, Hu Jing had been thinking about opening a convenience store, since she couldn't just stay unemployed forever. After some thought, she decided a small convenience store was the way to go.
Yi Anguo thought it was a good idea, too. They could open a 24-hour franchise convenience store. Although there would be a franchise fee, they wouldn't have to worry about sourcing stock. The company would deliver whatever they needed; they would just have to manage sales and collect the money.
A 24-hour store would need at least three people to run it. Hu Jing couldn't possibly do it alone. So, they decided to have Han Ying work the day shift. Since she had a daughter, it wouldn't be convenient for her to work nights. They would hire two more people for the night shifts.
Furthermore, Han Ying and her daughter definitely couldn't continue living in that apartment by themselves. He would have to find two female tenants to share it with her. Given her current situation, even with a job at the convenience store, she still couldn't afford a three-bedroom, two-living-room apartment on her own.
This wasn't Yi Anguo being heartless. Any other landlord would have just kicked her out long ago. Who else would bother to help her this much?
Thinking about the woman made Yi Anguo feel weary. He decided to change his strategy. From now on, if a tenant was more than half a month late on rent, he had to go and collect it in person. It would be a huge hassle if someone actually died in one of the apartments. Being a landlord isn't so easy; there are definitely risks.
Today, Wang Bing came back fuming after trying to collect rent. "Boss, the tenant in 9B, on the eleventh floor, is over a month late. When I went to get the rent, she had the nerve to say, 'The landlord himself hasn't even pushed for it. What are you pushing for?' It's infuriating! You'll have to go collect that rent yourself. I really can't help you with this one."