Chapter 13 Have You Gotten a Boyfriend?

• When she heard that, memories of the fire suddenly flooded her mind, she remembered how warm it felt during the middle of her sleep, and the smoke woke her up with a cough. When she realized what was happening and ran outside, the entire apartment was already besieged by fire. No matter how much she wanted to run outside, there was no way out. Hence, she took a shirt and waved through the window, screaming for help and hoping that someone would save her, but no one arrived.
• Amidst the billows of smoke, she soon felt dizzy from the fear and the smoke before passing out.
• When she was barely conscious, she vaguely remembered a man running into the apartment with a coat over his head, and he carried her out on his back.
• It was only then that she remembered him as her life savior.
• "Do you know how old you are now? Why are you still acting like a kid who keeps defying her parents? We have no intentions to hurt you, you know!"
• "Alright, alright. You start biting her head off as soon as she wakes up. It's already very fortunate that she can wake up, so stop yelling at her." Tilly's mother quickly interrupted her husband's reprimands. Then, she suddenly asked, "Tilly, have you gotten a boyfriend?"
• "What? Mom, what are you talking about?"
• "In that case, what's the deal with this?" With that, she took out a diamond ring from her bag.
• "Whose is this? Why are you showing me this ring?" Tilly had no clue what was going on.
• "Stop hiding. The nurse found this in your clothes when she changed for you. How is this not yours?"
• "Mom, it doesn't belong to me, honestly. Since when have you seen me wearing a ring?"
• "How could it be another person's ring when we found it in your clothes?"
• Tilly paid no attention to her mother after that. She sank into deep thoughts as she held the ring.
• On the other hand, after Ben left the hospital, he took the public bus back to his apartment in a slum. Then, he biked to the market to buy a ton of ingredients needed for his skewer business. After he got home, he started getting busy preparing in his simple apartment – washing the vegetables, marinating the meat, and putting them on the skewers. By the time he was done, it was already five in the evening. Seeing that it was about time, he straightened his back that got so sore from all the work and prepared to open his stall.
• This was his daily life. It was not that tough, but it was very tiring.
• The street behind the university was a busy one. As soon as evening arrived, the crowd began to gather, and all the stalls started operating on the streets. As long as the food was decent, they had pretty good business, and barbeque skewer stalls were among the most popular. However, Ben's stall was right at the end of the street. Geographically, it was not a good spot. He had no other options, as the rest of the stalls had been here before he started his business. It was already good that he could secure a spot seeing how new he was.
• Even though the spot was not strategic, his business had been doing quite well because his price was reasonable, and his portion was big enough. On top of that, the skewers tasted nice, so the students loved them. The people who frequented his stall were usually regulars.
• Being the only person working there, he could earn around ten thousand a month. When business was booming, he could get around fifteen thousand. The fact that his selling price was lower yet his portion was bigger meant that his margins for profit were lower, but his business had been doing well.
• This also meant that he was pretty busy every day. As soon as he opened up business for the day, he had no time to rest. He would be busy from five in the evening until two in the early hours of midnight. By the end of the day, he would be exhausted, as though his skeleton was about to break into pieces. If another person were in his shoes, they would not be able to handle such work, but he was already used to it. To him, this was life – it was easy to be born, yet it was not easy at all to live.
• As usual, around two in the morning, he was on his way home with his skewers rack and supplies, as well as the desk and chairs that were bundled up together behind his tricycle. He took the same route that was completely void of street lights. Just when he had almost reached home, his phone suddenly rang.
• He stopped cycling and took it out, curious about who might have rung him in the dead of night.
• When he saw the caller id, he was surprised to see that it was the BMW woman, Vincy Shaw.
• "Hello, what's up?"
• "I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, but can you come to the hospital?" she asked apologetically.
• "What happened?"
• "She has a fever again, and the doctors need to treat her. But she is unwilling to behave, crying and wailing that she wants to see you. Can you come to the hospital? I'm sorry for the trouble," Vincy explained anxiously.
• "Alright, I'll be right there, but you might need to wait for a while. I just finished working, and I'm on the way back. I need to get home first before taking a cab there."
• "I'll pick you up. Send me your address."
• "Okay." Ben genuinely liked Annie, Vincy's daughter, and he also felt sorry for her.
• She's so little and so cute, yet she has to endure the torments that kids her age shouldn't have to face. With that thought in mind, he just wanted to do everything he could for her.
• He parked the tricycle at his place and tied it to a tree outside. After placing everything back in his place, he heard a car approaching. To the residents there, almost no car would arrive, especially at this hour. Hence, he knew immediately that it was Vincy without any doubt. He walked out to look, and sure enough – it was her. However, when she got out of the car, she looked at the surroundings with a frown.
• "Give me a moment. I'm going to move everything in, and I'll be ready in no time. If I leave it outside, people might steal my stuff." As he greeted Vincy, he took the remaining supplies in his tricycle back into his place.