Seeing how tired Shu Yan looked, Feng Zeyu brought her home to get some rest. He woke her up two hours later.
"You sleep any more, you will be up all night." Seeing that Shu Yan was still dispirited, Feng Zeyu hesitated for a little bit before he finally told her, "Grandma fell when she went to the bathroom in the middle of the night two days ago. She's still in the hospital."
"Grandma fell?" Shu Yan woke up instantly. She asked as she put her clothes on, "How come Aunty didn't tell me? And you. Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"You were on the plane when it happened. I figured you will have jet lag when you returned so I had Aunty wait on telling you." Feng Zeyu finally let his weariness show.
Feng Zeyu was the saddest person with his grandma taking a fall. It had only been just the two of them since he had got out of prison. She was like his real grandmother. With an accident like that, Feng Zeyu felt very guilty.
"I should have listened to you and hired a nanny for her."
When they moved over to this house, Shu Yan said to have the old grandmother move in with them, but the old grandmother didn't want to do that.
Shu Yan then said to hire a nanny for her so there would be someone there with her 24/7, but the old grandmother didn't want that either.
She said that she was used to being by herself and didn't want to be watched over by someone all the time.
"That's not your fault. Who'd have thought that someone as energetic as Grandma would take a fall?" Who'd have thought that she would take a fall on flat ground? That would have happened with or without a nanny! "Okay, let's not talk about that right now. Let's hurry up and go visit Grandma at the hospital."
Everything was different when one was old. A young person taking a fall can just get right back up, but Grandma's fall was much more serious. She had fractured her pelvis and she was too old for surgery. As such, she could only be treated conservatively, meaning bed rest. Nobody knew how long it would take her to heal.
Shu Yan was startled when she saw the old grandmother. It had only been two weeks and the old grandmother, who used to look fairly healthy now looked emancipated and all her hair had turned white.
"Grandma, I'm here to see you."
"Oh, hi, Yanyan. When did you get back? Have you had dinner yet?" The old grandmother was very happy when she saw Shu Yan.
"I just got back today and learned that you had taken a fall. Is it still hurting?"
"No. I've had some pain relievers. Sigh, I'm old. Just fell on flat ground like that. I am bringing trouble to Xiao Yu and you." The old grandmother blamed herself.
"Don't say that. It's no trouble. Xiao Yu is your grandson and I'm your granddaughter-in-law. We are a family. You just rest up at the hospital. We will be worried about you until you have recovered."
Both Feng Zeyu and Shu Yan were busy and couldn't stay with the old grandmother at the hospital for a prolonged period of time. They hired a care worker to take care of her. Shu Yan planned to see if there was someone from Aunty's hometown who would be interested in being a nanny. The old grandmother would need someone to look after her.
"Yes, of course. Many had asked me to refer jobs for them. Don't worry. I will for sure find an honest and hardworking one." Aunty patted herself on the chest and guaranteed to Shu Yan.
"Everything else is negotiable but they need to be patient and attentive." Taking care of a patient was not the same as taking care of a normal person. One must be very patient.
"Of course. Don't worry. I will bring her for you to check her out first. We can always send her back if you don't like her."
Aunty took a car ride back to her hometown the very next day and returned with a woman in her 30s two days later.
Shu Yan found out that the woman was just 24 years old after their introduction. She, too, had a sad past. The husband whom she married was ill and couldn't do any physical labor; as such, the burden of the family fell upon her.
"Xiao Lan was the girl next door to me and had helped me a lot before she got married. My daughter followed her around when she was young. She was like half a mother to her." Which was why she was the first one that Aunty wanted to help when the opportunity arose.
Xiao Lan shyly addressed Shu Yan as Boss Lady the way Aunty did.
"I trust that Aunty had mentioned to you who you will be looking after? The old grandmother is normally very kind but, you know, when someone is ill, their personalities will change a little. We will need you to be patient with her and also take good care of her."
"Don't worry. My husband is bedridden a lot as well and I have always been the one taking care of him," said Xiao Lan quickly.
Shu Yan brought her to the house next door before she discussed the pay with her.
"Your work is a little different from Aunty's being that you will need to be watching over the old grandmother 24 hours a day and you need to clean up after her. It was harder work. As such, I will offer you 600 yuan a month. You will have two days off a month.
If you don't want to take off, I will pay you 50 yuan a day. If you work a full month, I will pay you an additional 50 yuan as bonus. Holidays are extra. Room and board are included. I will have Aunty buy extra food when she shops and drop them off here for you. And.... that is pretty much it. Do you have any other questions?"
"No, no. This is great."
Aunty had told her 400 yuan on their way here and she thought that was high already. She didn't expect her boss lady to add 200 yuan to her pay.
That, along with the overtime pay and bonus, put her at 750 yuan. She would be very greedy if she wasn't satisfied with that amount.
The old grandmother needed to spend a few more days in the hospital and was taken care of by the caretaker. Xiao Lan cleaned the house during this time and delivered soup to the hospital every day.
When the old grandmother was home, Xiao Lan stayed over to take care of her. Feng Zeyu and Shu Yan would go and visit the old grandmother for a little while after work every day before they returned to their own place.
"It's so sad seeing Grandma like that." Shu Yan lamented after visiting the old grandmother. "When my time comes, I want to die in my sleep."
"You are still young. Why would you think about such things?" Feng Zeyu didn't like it when Shu Yan talked about death or anything surrounding the subject.
"Time flies. I'm almost turning 30." She had already been here for over two years before she knew it.
They thought the old grandmother would recover after some time. Unfortunately, her health declined steeply after her fall, and she returned to the hospital after just three months. This time she did not make it out of the hospital.
With the old grandmother gone, a bunch of her nephews showed up and said they wanted to attend her funeral. It was obvious what was on their minds.
Feng Zeyu pulled out the old grandmother's will. It was stated there that the house would be sold, and the money donated to children who didn't have money to go to school.
Nobody believed that it was real and felt that Feng Zeyu had faked it.
"This will was made in the presence of the village head of Xiazhuang Village and Lawyer Chen. It is legally binding. Lawyer Chen is here right now, and you are welcome to bring this to court if you have any doubts about it." Feng Zeyu didn't want to even talk to them.
Of course none of them dared to sue Feng Zeyu. They confirmed from the village head that the will was real and, all of a sudden, all of the nephews disappeared, leaving just Feng Zeyu and Shu Yan.
The old grandmother's funeral was particularly deserted. There were only a few friends of hers and a few closer family members. Nobody cared if anyone else showed up. The old grandmother probably didn't want to see them either.
"Are you done taking care of the funeral matters?" Hu Ruixue saw how haggard Shu Yan looked.
"Yes. Humans are so scary. That was the old grandmother's own house. What did it have to do with any of them? None of the close family members showed up at the funeral just because the old grandmother donated her house. They didn't care about anything else," said Shu Yan with a sigh.
"It was one thing if they had no expectations at all. The old grandmother had no children so all of her nephews figured that they would have rights to it. Naturally they wouldn't be very happy when they were told otherwise." Hu Ruixue, too, lamented.
"She looked so healthy the last time I saw her, and it looked like she had another 8 ~ 10 years left in her. Who would have thought that one fall would have taken her out? Humans are so fragile."
The old grandmother was gone but they did not move back to Nanfu Mansion. Three bedrooms and two living rooms were enough in the past but seemed crowded with the addition of Xiao Bao.
The house was bigger, and the two children enjoyed the backyard as well, so they decided to stay.
With three children at home and Xiao Bao being so young, Shu Yan decided to keep Xiao Lan around. Naturally, her pay would be a little lower, also 400 yuan, same as Aunty's, with 20 yuan per day for overtime pay.
Xiao Lan wasn't upset about that. With two people taking care of cooking and cleaning and two of the three children were older ones and did not need to be dropped off or picked up from school, all they needed to do was to take care of Xiao Bao. It was quite easy to take turns watching after him. The pay was pretty high already.
It was the new year again and their hometown had been phoning Shu Yan and Shu Li to go home for the New Year. It had been years since they've been back, so they decided to bring the children with.
Feng Zeyu brought with him a couple of bodyguards who didn't need to go anywhere. They could help carry things and would be helpful just in case something happened.
Shu Jianyang came to pick them up in a minivan after they got off the plane.
"Why did you bring so much with you?" Shu Jianyang helped load the stuff into the car and he could barely fit everything inside.
"We have so many relatives back home and it adds up when we bring a little bit for everyone." Shu Li placed two bags of stuff under her feet. Most of the stuff was hers.
"I told Second Sister to bring less but she wouldn't listen to me." Shu Yan, too, felt helpless. With the overall standard of living improving, one could buy everything at City Xi. There was no reason to bring so much with them. They could buy them here directly.
"That's not the same. It meant more when I brought them back on the plane." Shu Li felt that her philosophy was the correct one.
They had lunch over at Shu Jianyang's place. His mansion was done being built but the remodeling was not. They were still living in the house that he bought from Shu Yan.
"Did you know that Li Jiaojiao and Ye Zhiqiang had a divorce?" Li Miaomiao said to Shu Yan in a low voice when Shu Yan went to help out in the kitchen.
"No, I didn't know. I hadn't heard anything about them for a while. Why did they get a divorce?" Shu Yan was surprised. She really had no idea what had been going on with Ye Zhiqiang.
Last time Ye Zhiqiang turned his attention toward Tianbao, Feng Zeyu asked for his comrade in arms' help and had Ye Zhiqiang's mistress get pregnant. It was about time that the child was born. So the mistress was able to successfully displace the wife to become the new wife?
"You won't even believe it. So lucky that you had divorced him. That man is such a scum." Li Miaomiao covered up the pot and took a look outside. She made sure that Feng Zeyu wasn't paying them any attention and said,
"He had someone pretended to be some rich man to seduce Li Jiaojiao then caught her red handed and forced her into getting a divorce. By the time that Li Jiaojiao realized that the rich man was hired by Ye Zhiqiang, the divorce was already final and there was nothing that she could do about it anymore. Ye Zhiqiang found himself a new one in less than a month. Care to guess who that is?"