If you have one hundred thousand Yuan, what would you do?

What Jiang Youyou chose to do was to rent a room first, then she would go to the bank to open a savings account. She was longing for a safe room so much. A very big bed would be placed in the room, and it would be most wonderful if it had the wooden floor, so that she could trod barefoot on it. The gla.s.s of the windows should be large and let in a lot of light. The curtains must be shading. When she didn"t want to be exposed under the suns.h.i.+ne, she could draw the curtains close and the room would be darkened. And the room should be in the direction that the landscape could be viewed once she opened the door.

With such good wishes she lingered in front of the door of an estate agency. Within ten seconds a young gla.s.sed man in a short-sleeve s.h.i.+rt and tie came to take Jiang Youyou in.

She should pay 50 yuan for one visit of a rental house. The agent brought her a cup of water and tried to make a guess what kind of girl she might be. She looked pale with a frightened expression mingled with the confident pride. She carried a lump of shabby clothes in a bag.

"OK, I"ll go for a visit right now. I want a safe community." Jiang Youyou looked the agent in the eye and said, "And I"ll pay you just 50 yuan till I have found a satisfactory house."

So you can see, once you had a lot of money, you might be more cautious in spending it, or to put it another way, be much shrewder.

The so-called safe community is that in which there were a lot of security guards and an infrared monitoring system. When they got to know that she was going to rent a house here, their tone immediately became arrogant, "Fill in a registration form in the office first."

After being busy doing everything over and over again all afternoon, she finally settled down in this community in the centre of the city. She rented a flat with three thousand and five hundred yuan per month. The flat had two bedrooms and a living room in addition to all necessary household appliances and furniture. And most importantly, the community was safe.

She lived on the seventh floor. Looking down from the window, she could see a magnificent police station which stood nearby. She felt safe enough now.

Living in a strange but gorgeous flat alone, she felt a queer feeling. It was dark, a flavor of fried eggs with green pepper diffused from somewhere, which she could not tell whether from the next door or upstairs flat. It was time for dinner. And she could conveniently buy some housewares.

Jiang Youyou closed the door, took out a few hundred yuan and wrapped the remaining ninety thousand yuan in a piece of old newspaper. She hid the packet in a shoe box and put the shoe box in the fridge. She went to the door. But before she opened the door she went back to put the packet of money into her bag. However she felt it unsafe to have the money in her bag, so she returned to the flat and put the packet in the waste bin behind the door.

She felt relieved this time. Could a dirtiest place be the safest place?

The fruits were more expensive than those in her hometown in Hubei Province. But she should have them even if they were expensive. Beside the fruit stands there was a stall for ShXian snacks of Fujian. She ordered a portion of fried wonton, and then a bowl of black chicken soup with ginseng, recommended by the stall keeper as to replenish vitality for her.

When it was raining, a complicated feeling arose, when seeing those tall buildings with her blurred eyes. It was a summer"s cool rain.

After she had been stuffed, she went to the nearby supermarket to buy some kitchen ware and necessaries in need such as knives, rice, soy sauce, tea, sugar and chili sauce.

Now that she had money, she could not think about many things for the time being, such as the past when she was bullied and insulted and the future that was unknown and remote. In this city with a population of twelve million, no one would care what you had done, what you were doing and what you would do in the future.

When returning to her flat with the heavy shopping bag, Jiang Youyou planned to find a job, or to open a pet shop or a chafing dish restaurant. It was really wonderful to cook every kind of food in a hot pot and to sweat like a pig when eating. She would try to save more money and, next month, pick up Mother Fang Ruxiang to here for a holiday tour.

At the gate of the community, the security guard on duty didn"t salute to her, nor did he help her with her heavy bag. Perhaps he mistakenly considered Jiang Youyou as a kept woman of some rich person, so he just showed a look of indifference.

Jiang Youyou didn"t care about it. Her guineapig experience last time had made her numb and mature as well.

Suddenly the guard shouted at her, "What happened to you, Miss?"

Jiang Youyou looked back at him and felt strange. So she asked, "What do ye mean by "what happened to you"?"

The guard simply couldn"t believe his own eyes. The woman had a wound in the middle of her calf of the leg. The reddish fresh was explicitly exposed and the blood was mingled with the rainwater, dripping along.

The guard pointed to her leg.

His words sent a chill down Jiang Youyou"s spine. How could she be unconscious like this? Previously when she had chosen the kitchen knives in the supermarket and turned to leave, she felt as if a mosquito bit her but she didn"t pay much attention to it. She even didn"t notice that she had such a big slit on her calf.

She hurriedly covered the calf with one palm and ran back to her flat. The cleaner in the elevator was greatly frightened and quickly followed the woman with a b.l.o.o.d.y leg, pulling the mop behind her. The inside of the elevator was blood-stained and the blood ran all the way to the door of the flat.

Why didn"t I feel pain? Jiang Youyou took a towel to cover the bleeding wound and dialed Bai Zhehan"s phone.

"h.e.l.lo!" Bai Zhehan answered at the other end.