Chapter 13.3: What’s Most Precious?
An Ning felt apprehensive for two days but in the end all was quiet. However she cannot help wondering if Xu Mo Ting will make fun of her again?
On the third day, Qiang Wei called her out, saying she managed to track down her sister.
When she was going out, the elderly lady who was sitting in the doorway and basking in the sunshine, smilingly said: “Ning Ning dressed so pretty today, are you going on a date?”
An Ning was smiling, “Grandma, you think too much. I am just going to meet a friend.” While saying that, she turned one round, “Wearing this new sweater to go out now.”
She met up with Qiang Wei at one of the bus stand in the city center. From a distant, she saw a familiar figure talking on the phone and walking over, “I am sorry, you’ve the wrong number. I don’t know him. Woman, why are you like this? I’ve already said I don’t know any doctor!” She did not know what the other party said but Qiang Wei was getting more and more impatient. When she reached Meow Meow, she slipped her arm around An Ning’s shoulder and said in one breath: “d.a.m.n it, we have not got out of bed yet. He is busy, so has no time to answer your call!”
The people around who were waiting for the bus, were looking at them. An Ning smiled calmly, such a thing like realm ……
Qiang Wei looked Meow Meow up and down, “Young lady, very beautiful ah.”
“Of course.”
Sister Fu reportedly has been staying in a district near the city center these two days. When the two of them arrived at the gate, they heard the sound of argument near the flowerbed. An Ning and Qiang Wei looked at where the sound was coming from. They saw a man and a woman trading insults at each other. The woman was sister Fu, “Do you think I am willing to follow you?! You don’t even earn as much as me!”
That man was flushed with anger and flew into a rage out of humiliation. He went so far as to wanting to dash over to slap her in front of the crowd. However Qiang Wei acted faster than him, as she dashed over and kicked him from behind, “You dare to slap my sister! I am going to kick you to death!” After saying that, she kicked him again twice. During the fight, more and more people around were looking at them, “What are you looking at?! You have never seen gang fight before!”
“……”
That man was struggling to get up from the ground and blurted out some swear words, “d.a.m.n it!” In a spurt of energy, he wanted to get up and hit Qiang Wei. At this moment, sister Fu kicked him violently from behind!
An Ning did not know whether she should worry or laugh at this situation. Whereas that man was very furious until he brushed aside Qiang Wei and fought with sister Fu. After all, she is a woman, so sister Fu was at the losing end. The situation was a little out of control. An Ning saw a wooden stick by the iron gate and pondered briefly —— took it up and also hit that man from behind.
Everyone looked at her …… that man also looked at her one last time before fainting.
She did not know who called the police. When the man fell down, the police arrived on the scene.
Then, An Ning went to the police station for the first time in her life.
In a little over twenty square meters room, there was a few long benches. In the middle was a square shaped table. Besides the three of them, there were another two men and a woman.
“Girl, I’m sorry for involving you in this.” Sister Fu sat beside An Ning and patted her arm.
An Ning smiled, “Just treat it as a life enriching experience.”
“Oh, you are interesting!”
Qiang Wei who was standing at the doorway and looking outside most of the time, turned around and asked: “Will we really be detained? We were involved in a fight!”
A man who had her head bowed, lifted it to glance at Qiang Wei, “First time here ah? Have someone to get ready eight hundred dollars. Pray that the man you hit doesn’t sue you, or else you may end up going to jail!”
“Really?” Qiang Wei and An Ning looked at each other.
Contrary to what one might expect, sister Fu was rather calm, “It is all right because I have a backer!” While saying that, she made a call.
An Ning sat at the same spot and felt a little bored while waiting. She took out her mobile phone to read the news but to her surprise, she could not go online. She got emotional. Why the signal in the police station was worse than the mountain area? The next best thing was to send text message. After sending out the message for less than half a minute, the other person called right away.
“What’s the matter?” Xu Mo Ting’s voice was calm and did not sound different from usual.
“Uh, nothing.” She previously sent, “I was involved in a fight. In the police station now but cannot go online.” The main point she wanted to express was “it turns out that you cannot go online in a police station!” After all this is a public sector ……
“Are you hurt?”
“No, no!” An Ning did not want him to worry about her. Moreover this was really a small matter, which was why she only mentioned it briefly to him, like reporting a ‘trip.’
Mo Ting pondered and muttered, “Did you hurt other people?”
Uh, she felt fairly embarra.s.sed, “Yes.”
The other person paused for two seconds, “Then it is all right.”
An Ning gazed at the ceiling. Why she felt so much like …… ‘helping tyrant Zhou in his oppression (a Chinese idiom meaning taking the side of the evildoer)’?
She chatted a bit with Xu Mo Ting and he seemed not anxious anymore. When she was hanging up the phone, sister Fu was slamming down the phone, “Always boast that you know this bureau chief and that officials. d.a.m.n it, in the end, you don’t know anyone but the driver! A good-for-nothing!”
Qiang Wei said: “How about we use some money to settle this?
Sister Fu disagreed, “Why do we’ve to pay? We are not in the wrong. It is that cheap little man. We’ve already let him off lightly by not hitting him until he has to look for his teeth all over the floor (a Chinese idiom meaning beat the c.r.a.p out of him)! Moreover, paying him off is encouraging bad behavior.”
Qiang Wei gave a bitter laugh, “What are we going to do? We do not really want to be detained, right? If my record is tarnished, it is hard to seek a marriage partner ah.”
An Ning asked: “How about I try to find someone to help us?”
Sister Fu turned around, “Do you know anyone in the police department?”
“It is not considered a police department…… But it is also a government department.”
An Ning looked for Zhou Jin Cheng, Although she was reluctant, Qiang Wei and her sister were also involved, so her emotion was second in the consideration. Moreover Zhou Jin Cheng was the only government official who she could look for.
Zhou Jin Cheng asked in detail what had happened. When An Ning told him that she hit the man until he fainted, Zhou Jin Cheng seemed to chuckle at the other end of the phone.
While she was still in the middle of the telephone conversation, a male officer came in and said he wanted to make a police record so who should he start with. Sister Fu volunteered to go first.
“What offense did you commit?” The unknown woman who had sized them up when they first came into the room, asked.
Qiang Wei shrugged her shoulders, “Fighting.”
“Oh, you don’t look like it.”
An Ning tilted her head and asked: “Then, what does she look like?”
The woman said: “Intellectual.”
Qiang Wei laughed out, “Sister, you’ve good taste! We are precisely the future scientists.”
An Ning quietly turned to look at the corner of the walls.
When it was An Ning’s turn to be interviewed, Zhou Jin Cheng had already arrived. He instantly saw the person he wanted to look for but he did not go to her immediately. Instead he shook hands and exchanged conventional greetings with the head of the police station who came out from his office.
“So she is Secretary Li’s daughter.”
Zhou Jin Cheng smiled, “She is young, so naive.”
“In fact, even if Mr. Zhou did not come, we will also release them because I just received a call from my superior that she is related to the Xu family. I—— hey, it is really a small thing. The hospital called and said the man who was beaten is all right now. After we’ve completed our procedure, by asking all the relevant questions, they are free to go.”
Zhou Jin Cheng nodded and shook hands with him again, “Thank you.”
After walking out of the police station, Sister Fu thanked Zhou Jin Cheng. Qiang Wei gestured to An Ning to contact her later. Then she left with sister Fu in a taxi.
An Ning walked behind Zhou Jin Cheng for a while, “Thank you for today.”
Jin Cheng looked at her and said: “I’ll send you home.”
An Ning did not say anything else. After reaching home and taking a bath, she heard the phone ringing when she came out of the bathroom. It was Qiang Wei who did not bother to give small talk about sending gift to express thanks but directly got to the subject matter: “Your uncle is very powerful.”
“Yes.” While rubbing her hair, she answered vaguely.
“Meow Meow ah, my sister made me ask you, does your uncle has a girlfriend yet?”
“Ahem!” (Sound of coughing)
On that evening was the day, Li Qi Shan usually goes home for dinner. During this time, he will look for his daughter for a chat. When An Ning was walking down the stairs, she saw Li Qi Shan entering the door. There was also Zhou Jin Cheng who went home together with her earlier. She was thinking to herself that she will look for grandma and go out for a walk with her later.
When the elderly lady who was sitting on the sofa, saw her granddaughter coming down, she got up, went over and held her hand with a loving smile, “Hungry yet? I specially accompanied auntie Zhan to go to the market today to buy a lot of food which you are fond of eating.”
“Thank you, grandma.”
When Li Qi Shan saw the elderly lady pampering his daughter, he shook his head: “She is already an adult, yet you still treat her like a child.”
The elderly lady did not care about these but chuckled, “I’ve only one granddaughter. If I don’t love her dearly, who should I love?”
An Ning sat on the sofa with grandma. Zhou Jin Cheng sat on a chair not far from her. She and this little uncle have never been on good terms with one another, mainly because of some previous unpleasant experience. However, after all, he helped her today, so An Ning called him ‘little uncle’. He nodded slightly. Li Qi Shan spoke with Zhou Jin Cheng about work matter for a while, before turning his attention to his daughter, “After the Lunar New Year, what is your plan?”
“I want to apply to do PhD.”
After saying that, everyone looked at her. Grandma Li was also a little surprise, “What? Ning Ning still wants to continue studying?”
Li Qi Shan said: “It may not be useful to study too much.”
An Ning also realized in her heart that his father will definitely not agree easily. When she was about to speak up, Zhou Jin Cheng who was siting next to her, smiled faintly: “Actually, it is even better for Ning Ning’s field of study, if she can study PhD. For physical and chemical field, academic qualification is very important.”
An Ning stared blankly and her eyes looked a bit puzzled.
Li Qi Shan obviously disagreed, “A girl does not need to be too highly educated.”
The elderly lady said: “If Ning Ning wants to study, let her study.”
“Sir and ma’am, dinner is ready.” Auntie Zhan brought out the first dish from the kitchen. An Ning got up to help and heaved a sigh of relief. She simply did not understand why Zhou Jin Cheng will speak up for her on this kind of thing.
During dinner, the elderly lady was talking about Buddha’s teachings, so it was inappropriate for Li Qi Shan to talk further with his daughter.
“Those who hold true to their word shall have a household of peace and harmony, and naturally shall blessings come. This is not something that is bestowed by the G.o.ds.” The elderly lady smiled and said: “Those who are young need to comprehend for a few years before being able to understand Buddhist principles.”
An Ning smiled and said: “Grandma, was this spoken by Ananda?”
“Yes, yes!” The elderly lady was astounded, beamed with joy and said to her granddaughter: “People live a hundred years without understanding the meaning of life and death. It would be better to live merely one day to understand it.”
“Oh grandma, it is said that Ananda aroused the great indignation of both men and G.o.ds with his handsome, natural and unrestrained appearance.”
“……”
She also cracked a cold joke on her grandmother. She saw Zhou Jin Cheng who was sitting opposite her, looking at her with a trace of a smile. An Ning coughed and lowered her head to eat.
Auntie Zhan came up to her and said: “Ning Ning, someone is looking for you.”
An Ning thought, who had come to look for her at this time?