Socially Anxious Girl Starts Hoarding Before the Apocalypse-Chapter 2: Pearls on the Hairpin

Many elderly people do not know how to use smartphones, but still use their children's payment codes for business, and the money may not necessarily end up back in the elderly people's hands in the end.

The elderly still prefer cash a bit more. Phone payments are convenient but Wen Qian still prepares some cash.

After buying some little things, Wen Qian puts her earphones back on and happily walks down the overpass.

The place Wen Qian rents is on the 4th ring road in An City, so going anywhere with lots of people takes a lot of time.

But it doesn’t matter, she won’t go to too many places anyway, because she hates spending money.

Back home she goes into the kitchen, takes the food she prepared out of the fridge, stir fries 3 dishes and puts them on the table.

Her roommates have gradually come back, they either eat out and come back, or order takeout. Cooking takes too much time for them.

The apartment Wen Qian rents now was two of the landlord’s apartments combined by him into one. There are 3 big rooms and 1 small room total.

The 3 rooms all have floor-to-ceiling windows with ample light.

Only the room Wen Qian rents, on the 2nd floor, is the smallest with a small window facing the stairs, no sunlight, needing the lights on even during the day.

Of course it also has the cheapest rent, 500 RMB.

Downstairs there is a shared living room, dining room and kitchen. If needing sunlight, just go downstairs.

Anyway most of the time the roommates who share the apartment don’t come out of their rooms much.

The other 3 roommates are all girls, Wen Qian doesn’t mind wearing pajamas and walking around downstairs.

In a sense, Wen Qian gets to enjoy a pretty nice rental situation for the cheapest price.

There is a fridge, washing machine, gas stove, much better than her previous village-in-the-city place.

To save money, Wen Qian buys cheap buns or pancakes to store in the fridge, going to the market to buy fish or meat twice a week.

She washes and cuts up all the ingredients to have handy, then stir fries them at night. She eats some for dinner and also brings leftovers for lunch the next day.

To balance nutrition, she tries to vary the dishes, making each portion a bit smaller.

After eating, she washes up and sits on the 1st floor sofa to play on her phone, read or exercise until laying down to sleep before 10 pm. Wen Qian’s schedule is very regular.

She gets up at 6:20 am, goes downstairs to take some custard buns out of the fridge to steam in the egg steamer, and washes up in the bathroom.

After breakfast is ready she takes it and her lunch box and is out the door before 7 am.

Work starts at 8:30 am, but she needs to transfer buses in the middle to get to the office. Her company is kind of out of the way, and the 2nd bus only comes every 20 min, so she takes an earlier bus to wait for the 2nd one.

The radio is playing in her earphones while Wen Qian uses a bus app to see where her bus is.

If she misses it she’ll have to take a taxi, not worth it.

Wen Qian works as an office clerk. This is her 2nd company after working at the first company for 1 year after graduating.

In this company with high turnover, she is considered an “old staff”, always very busy.

But this year is a bit better, some new people joined the company, and it’s not peak season, so she still has fairly regular work hours coming and going.

When it’s almost time to get off work, the Boss comes back to the office with 2 clients in tow, so Wen Qian ends up mooching a free meal.

The Boss is a woman in her 50s, and Wen Qian is familiar with the clients, so it’s not awkward.

Wen Qian rides in the Boss’s car with the clients to their regular restaurant for dinner.

Since she can mooch a free meal, Wen Qian doesn’t feel like it’s a waste of her after work time.

The Boss says she would just eat alone at home after work anyway, might as well eat out lively together.

What Wen Qian needs to do is order food and pay the bill after they order, not things the Boss would do herself.

While they chat Wen Qian just focuses on the food, but also remembers to listen attentively to their conversation.

Afterwards, Wen Qian can take home leftovers for lunch the next day, saving herself the trouble.

After the meal the Boss drops Wen Qian off at a bus stop partway, and Wen Qian takes the bus home herself from there.

Because there is road construction near her home, the road is very narrow. After getting off the bus Wen Qian has to walk a bit farther.

Just as Wen Qian is complaining to herself about how they're pointlessly tearing up the perfectly good sidewalk to relay bricks.

"Boom!”

A huge noise comes from behind and Wen Qian reflexively hunches her shoulders, covering her ears with her hands.

Looking back, it’s a white sedan that has crashed into the pile of paving stones at the roadside.

These things were going to be used to relay the curb and sidewalk. Half this road is cordoned off but the stones still got crashed into.

The front of the car is dented in, the A pillar also damaged, and there’s no movement inside the car.

Wen Qian hurriedly puts down her things and runs over to check out the situation.

People eating BBQ across the way also come over.

Wen Qian can’t open the back door so reaches in the shattered front window to open the front door.

In the front seats are a man and woman, still seeming dizzy. In the back seat is a child in a safety seat, less injured than the front seat people and starting to cry loudly.

Many people have come to help. A strong man helps pull the adults out. Everyone helps move the adults to level ground.

Wen Qian takes the child out of the car.

It doesn’t take long before before everyone’s eyes the front of the car suddenly catches fire. People nearby start using fire extinguishers.

Wen Qian is holding the child who was just frightened, not injured thanks to the safety seat. The child clings tightly to her.

The group moves the people to the BBQ shop entrance. By now the car is completely engulfed in raging flames.

The car is unsalvageable but the family made it out alive.

After Wen Qian hands the child to the traffic police she leaves. By the time she goes back to get her food she realizes her own hand is injured.

There is a small cut on her right palm that is bleeding, probably from inside the car.

Because she just helped save people she is in great spirits, and the minor cut doesn’t warrant too much concern, so she happily heads home.

After putting the food on the table Wen Qian goes to the bathroom to wash her hands and sees herself in the mirror still wearing a pearl hairclip. She reaches up to take it off with her injured right hand.

As soon as her hand touches the hairclip, Wen Qian feels a sudden sharp pain in her palm, so painful her entire body breaks out in a cold sweat.

Wen Qian crouches down. The pain only lasted a moment before quickly disappearing.

She thought her hand just accidentally poked the hairclip, but it shouldn’t hurt that badly, right?

It felt like the pain coursed through her whole body.

She opens her hand, wanting to see if the cut got worse, and discovers the cut has disappeared.

Yes, disappeared.

Wen Qian repeatedly examines both hands but finds them completely uninjured without any cuts or wounds.

But there was definitely bleeding on the way home.

She looks up at the mirror. The hair clip is still on her head. She takes it off and sees one pearl is missing from the hairclip. There are bloodstains on one of the two remaining pearls.

Fresh bloodstains, proving her wound really existed.

Also, the middle pink pearl on the hairclip is gone. Just before, all 3 pearls were there.

It seems the wound touched the hairclip.

The pearl and wound disappeared together?