After returning to the residential complex and parking his bicycle under the shed, Fang Yi turned around—only to see Zhao Wanqiu standing there with teary, reddened eyes staring at him.
The moment he saw her expression, Fang Yi immediately understood what she meant. He walked over and gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Come on, I'll walk you back."
"Should I go with you guys too?" Shen Hao asked, hesitating.
Fang Yi waved his hand. "No need. You go get some sleep."
Today, Shen Hao had served purely as a prop—a background character meant to fill the numbers.
Now that his part was over, he could be tossed aside like an empty water bottle.
…
They made their way up to the fifth floor. Zhao Wanqiu pulled out her keys and unlocked the door.
As the door creaked open, the rhythmic clang of stir-frying echoed from the kitchen, accompanied by a wave of mouthwatering aromas that filled the entire room.
Hearing the door open, Wang Juan walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Mom!"
The moment she heard her daughter's trembling voice—tinged with suppressed sobs—and saw her red-rimmed eyes along with Fang Yi's grim expression, Wang Juan's heart dropped.
Something had happened.
Her instincts screamed at her—something serious had happened. Very serious.
But she was a tough woman. Taking a moment to compose herself, she forced a smile. "Wan'er, what's wrong?"
"Mom, I… I have cancer."
Zhao Wanqiu, bless her heart, was not exactly the most subtle person. She just blurted it out like she was reporting the weather.
The worst part? If you're going to say it like that, at least explain it properly, for god's sake.
There's a world of difference between early-stage and late-stage cancer, okay?
Sure enough, Wang Juan's face instantly crumpled, and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Seeing this, Fang Yi quickly stepped forward. "Aunt Wang, it's not that serious. It's early-stage lung cancer. The doctor said surgery should take care of it."
He then went on to describe everything that had happened at the hospital, word for word, from diagnosis to treatment plan.
By the end of it, Wang Juan had calmed down somewhat.
She wiped away her tears and looked at Fang Yi with gratitude. "Xiao Yi, thank goodness for you. I don't know what we would've done without you."
"Auntie, don't say that. In my eyes, Wanqiu is like my own little sister. Being able to help her makes me happy," Fang Yi replied with a warm smile.
At his words, Zhao Wanqiu puffed out her cheeks in a small pout.
She didn't know why, but hearing Fang Yi call her a little sister made her feel… oddly disappointed.
"Wang Juan!"
Just then, the front door opened again, and in walked a middle-aged couple—Shen Hao's parents.
They were carrying a bag of fruit. Seeing them, Wang Juan blinked. "Old Shen, what's this about?"
"We heard from Shen Hao that Wanqiu's been diagnosed with lung cancer, so we thought we'd drop by and check in," Shen Guofu replied with his usual honest smile, setting the fruit down on the table.
Shen Hao's simple, good-natured personality was clearly inherited from his father—quiet, sincere, and not the best with words.
"How did something like lung cancer happen to such a good child?" Shen Hao's mother, Tian Hong, sat beside Zhao Wanqiu and gently ruffled her short hair, sighing deeply.
"Who knows," Wang Juan murmured, her voice heavy.
She had been holding it together in front of the kids earlier. But now that her good friend Tian Hong was here, she couldn't hold it in anymore.
"The heavens must be playing a joke on me. Wanqiu's dad died when she was only three. I raised her all on my own. She just finished high school and was about to go off to college… and now this—lung cancer!"
"If something happens to her… how am I supposed to live on?"
"Try not to overthink it. I've heard that if cancer's caught early, there's a good chance it can be cured," Tian Hong said, gently patting her back to comfort her.
After chatting a while, Tian Hong reached into her pocket, took out a 100-yuan bill, and placed it on the coffee table.
Wang Juan hurried to stop her. "What are you doing? You really don't have to—take it back!"
"This isn't for you. It's for Wanqiu," Tian Hong replied firmly.
In the end, under the couple's insistence, Wang Juan finally accepted the 100 yuan.
But just as they left through the front door, another knock came from the hallway…
That's how it was in the residential complex near the Anchor Chain Factory. Everyone had worked together for over a decade. Any news—good or bad—spread like wildfire.
Sure, neighbors bickered and argued from time to time, but when something truly serious happened, everyone would show up and lend a hand.
Bit by bit—fifty here, a hundred there—a small pile of cash began to form on the coffee table.
Don't scoff at the amount. At the time, factory workers only earned five to six hundred yuan a month. Even Fang Yucheng, the workshop supervisor, made barely over eight hundred.
"My poor baby girl!"
When Zhuang Shufen showed up, the entire vibe of the room changed.
If you didn't know better, you'd think she was the birth mother, and Wang Juan was just the evil stepmom!
She clung to Zhao Wanqiu, tearfully rambling for quite a while before placing 200 yuan on the table. Then she called Fang Yi to come home for lunch.
…
On the way back, Zhuang Shufen sighed. "Ai, that Wanqiu child really has had a hard life. Lost her father young, and now she's got cancer…"
Fang Yi, however, was walking with both hands behind his head, looking completely relaxed.
Nice. Another item checked off his rebirth wish list: Save Qiu-ge's life √
Now that the college entrance exams were over and Qiu-ge's life had been saved, it was time to move on to the next priority: making money.
For lunch, they had cold noodles. The springy, chilled noodles were drenched in savory meat sauce and spicy chili oil, topped with crunchy shredded cucumber and carrot—absolutely divine.
Fang Yi devoured two big bowls and returned to his room feeling satisfied and burping with contentment.
He sat at his desk, pulled out a fresh notebook, and with a flourish of his pen, scrawled three large characters across the top: Ghost Blows Out the Light!
"Tomb raiding is not like inviting someone to dinner, not like writing an essay, not like painting or embroidery. It is not so elegant, not so leisurely, not so polite, refined, modest, and humble. Tomb raiding is a technical craft—one that involves destruction…"
The perks of being reborn were just too good to be true.
As he carefully recalled the storyline, the entire novel unfolded vividly in his mind—word for word, scene by scene.
Compared to writing his own book from scratch, copying one was way faster.
By the time dinner rolled around, he had already reached the part where Hu Bayi and Fatty Wang were setting up a stall at Panjiayuan Market.
At this pace, he figured he could finish copying the entire first volume—The Ghost Cave of Jingjue—in two or three days at most.
After dinner (under the relentless urging of Zhuang Shufen), and after watching an episode of Journey to the West: The Sequel with Fang Yucheng, Fang Yi shook his head and returned to his room to continue copying.
To be honest, the plot of that show was actually quite decent. The acting was solid, and even the special effects were alright.
The only problem?
The director.
The fight scenes were so outrageously ridiculous that Fang Yi couldn't help but wonder—
Was this guy a Bilibili meme editor in his past life who got reincarnated as a director?