Lin Xinyan opened the door and found a delivery man standing outside in his helmet. There was a large parcel in his hands. “Excuse me, are you Ms. Lin?”
Lin Xinyan nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”
The delivery man handed her the parcel. “Here’s your delivery. Please sign to acknowledge that you’ve received it.”
Lin Xinyan remained rooted to her spot. She hadn’t bought anything. The last time she received something like this, it had turned out to be those disgusting photos. What could it be this time?
And what a huge box it was!
Afraid that there was something sinister in the parcel, Lin Xinyan refused to sign the acknowledgement slip. “Put it down on the floor first. I want to check if the items inside have been damaged.”
The delivery man looked rather nonplussed. It wasn’t the first time a customer had asked to check if the items were in good condition. He set the parcel down and yanked the tape away, opening a box to reveal a Styrofoam box. The delivery man removed the lid of the box. Inside it was an ice pack, and beneath that, they found a neat row of fresh radishes.
Lin Xinyan gawked at the radishes in shock, as though she was wondering why she had received them.
“Take a look and see if they’ve been damaged,” The delivery man told her.
Lin Xinyan snapped out of her daze and quickly signed the acknowledgement slip. “Could you help me move this into my house?”
It was a little too heavy for her to move it by herself.
The delivery man said, “Alright.”
Lin Xinyan wasn’t trying to make things difficult for him. She was truly afraid that there was something dangerous hidden within that box of radishes. It was very hot outside, so she took out a bottle of iced water from her fridge and handed it to him. “Thanks for your help.”
The delivery man smiled and accepted her bottle of water. “No problem. It’s my job, anyway.”
When the delivery man left, Lin Xinyan shut the door and walked over to gaze down at the box of radishes on the coffee table. She reached out and grabbed one of them. The radishes were so fresh that they still had leaves attached to them. She walked into the kitchen and sliced it into half, noting that its insides were red and crispy. The skin was so tender that she found it easier to peel it away by hand than to use a peeler. Lin Xinyan bit into a slice and found that the radish wasn’t spicy at all—in fact, it tasted a little like carrots. Because of the ice packs in the box, the radish was a little cold, and it made for a great snack in the middle of the afternoon.
At that moment, she heard the front door click open. Lin Xinyan looked over and saw Qin Ya walk into the house. Qin Ya frowned when she saw Lin Xinyan gnawing on a radish in the living room. Is this girl addicted to radishes?
Changing into her slippers, she walked over to the box and peered down at the neat row of radishes. Stunned, she looked up at Lin Xinyan and asked, “Did you really buy so many of them? Can you even finish this?”
Lin Xinyan continued chewing. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t buy this.”
The radish was very crispy, and a loud crunching sound reverberated around the room as Lin Xinyan chewed. Qin Ya couldn’t help but wonder if raw radish was really as good as Lin Xinyan made it out to be.
She went to the kitchen and took a bite out of the other half of the radish. It wasn’t as spicy as most radishes. Although it didn’t taste very good, it didn’t taste awful either. Qin Ya walked back to the living room and asked, “If you didn’t buy it, who did?”
A sudden realization dawned on Lin Xinyan. Gazing up at Qin Ya, she said, “You were the only person I told about my radish craving. Who else did you tell, I wonder?”
Qin Ya looked a little sheepish.
Pulling a chair towards her and sitting down in it, Qin Ya smiled awkwardly and said, “I guess your husband is really caring towards you, huh.”
Zong Jinghao was the only person she told about Lin Xinyan’s wild desire for radish. He must have sent this box of radishes over.
The man’s gesture was heartwarming.
He treated his wife really well.
“Although he isn’t here with you, he’s obviously still thinking of you,” Qin Ya said, smiling.
Lin Xinyan couldn’t find it in herself to be happy. It wasn’t because she was upset that Zong Jinghao had sent her the radishes, but because of everything that had happened earlier that day.
“Have you passed the thing to him?” she asked.
Qin Ya shook her head. “Nope. He said he’ll be coming over. I don’t think he’s in B City at all.”
She would’ve mailed it over to him if he had been in B City. However, he told her to keep it at her place until he came over to collect it himself.
Lin Xinyan frowned. Where were Zong Jinghao and the kids, if they weren’t in B City? Were they in some sort of danger?
Logically speaking, Wen Qing’s incident had resolved itself very quickly. Nothing should have happened to them.
“Is something wrong?” Qin Ya asked worriedly. “You’ve been looking pretty bad since you got that delivery this afternoon. What was in that envelope?”
Although Lin Xinyan had handed the envelope to her, Qin Ya didn’t dare to peek at its contents without her permission.
“You can look at it for yourself.” Lin Xinyan couldn’t help but feel depressed whenever she thought about those photographs. Although she knew they could be fake, those photos looked way too real to be photoshopped. It was as though those things had really happened.
She was a woman, after all. Those pictures had unnerve her immensely.
If they didn’t, it would mean that she didn’t really love Zong Jinghao. Which woman could remain perfectly calm after seeing explicit pictures of her husband going to bed with another woman?
She was a woman, after all. A normal woman.
Lin Xinyan felt very tired. She stood up and said, “I’m going to take a walk outside.”
Qin Ya said, “Come back earlier. And don’t go beyond our neighborhood.”
After promising her, Lin Xinyan changed into her shoes and prepared to go out. Just then, her phone started to ring. Instead of a name, the caller ID was a string of numbers.
She had changed her number soon after arriving in C City. There were only a few people who knew her number, and she had saved all of them as contacts in her phone. Sometimes, she received calls from an unknown caller, but they had all turned out to be telemarketers. She stuffed her phone back into her pocket, but it started to ring again. She was already in a bad mood to begin with, so her tone was rather unpleasant as she spoke into the phone.
“What do you want?”
“It’s me.”
