Chapter 28: 【028】90s cook 28
Gong Mingxia took Gong Xiaoyan and ultimately left Beijing. She politely declined the kind offers from Wang Hao and Deng Guoqiang, and boarded a train heading south.
However, she made a detour back to her hometown along the way, found her alma mater, as well as the local education department, and even went home to retrieve her old examination admission ticket, preserving evidence for related matters.
Before she left the Capital, she had already retrieved her student record from Capital Business University. The person on the record was indeed the Gong Sifang she had seen in her previous life. Due to her family's influence, she had become a clerk at their city's Bureau of Industry and Commerce. With a wealthy and powerful family and an easy job, she didn't show any signs of remorse, and instead escalated her destruction of Gong Mingxia's life. In this lifetime, Gong Mingxia was determined not to let them get away with it.
Of course, retrieving her file and preserving evidence wasn't an easy task. She didn't dare startle the enemy, and when necessary, even spent money to discreetly secure evidence, preparing in advance for a lawsuit to come.
During her trip back home, looking at her parents' aged faces, she couldn't bring herself to ignore them. When she left, she gave her elderly parents one thousand yuan and told them she would send them some living expenses every month in the future.
Her parents had their grievances against her: she hadn't consulted them about her divorce, which was a major issue, and then she just left without a word. How could they not worry after not hearing from her for years?
Even though they favored the boys of the family, a daughter was still flesh of their flesh, so even though they didn't show Gong Mingxia a friendly face, they held Xiao Xiao's hand warmly, asked about their well-being, and cooked tasty food for the mother and daughter. Perhaps the Gong Mingxia of the previous lifetime never realized how heartless she had been?
Seeming indifferent and harboring grievances, but the bone is still connected to the tendon—this was probably the true meaning of blood relations.
When Gong Mingxia left, her parents walked her to the edge of the village, watching as she and her daughter disappeared into the distance, before turning back to head home. Watching their stooped figures, Tangyuan couldn't help but think of her own parents. No matter how hard life got in the future, she still had to fulfill her duties to her parents.
After securing evidence about her student record, she breathed a sigh of relief and continued south with her daughter, arriving in Z province, H city. This place, known for the love story of Bai Niangzi and Xu Xian, was also a beautiful tourist city. The reason she came here was thanks to Liang Tian's reminder.
Since she had come from the future and didn't have a "Golden Finger," could she not find some shortcut?
The price of housing in H city was nearly two thousand yuan per square meter, if not less than that. The cheapest were around 1,500 yuan per square meter. With her current savings, she couldn't even afford a bathroom.
But since Gong Mingxia had left Beijing for this place, she had no intentions of living an average existence. She took her daughter to the West Lake and, using West Lake as the center, expanded her search in every direction. In the week before, she didn't look for a house and stayed in a small hostel that cost ten yuan a day. She went out at dawn and returned only at dusk. Without doing anything else, she noted down the local housing prices, cost of living, from clothing and food to housing and transport, and even the local spirit and government policies.
Once she understood all this, she began house hunting and finally rented a small one-bedroom, one-living room apartment of just over forty square meters in a community with good security. The rent was 350 yuan per month. If she paid for a quarter at a time, they would only charge her one thousand yuan. Selecting this apartment after much consideration, she gave the landlord 1,500 yuan and moved in, with the remaining five hundred being the security deposit.
The reason she chose this place was first, its proximity to several office buildings and a well-regulated property management, which implied safety; second, she planned to sell boxed lunches, so not having a kitchen was out of the question. Additionally, the apartment was on the first floor and had a small vegetable garden where she could park her pushcart. She had found cheaper options, but after looking around, she felt this furnished and amenity-equipped apartment was more suitable. Three hundred fifty yuan it would be; as long as she could make money, that was acceptable.