When Qian Fei returned home, she saw Gui Lili sitting on the living room sofa, with her phone and laptop screens turned to maximum brightness. The two eerie lights cast on her face gave Qian Fei a chill.
Seeing her return, Gui Lili rushed towards her with tears in her eyes, like a poor person from the old society seeing the Communist Party.
“Qian Fei, you’re finally back! I was wondering what I’d do if my computer and phone ran out of battery!”
Qian Fei couldn’t help but roll her eyes.
She had already checked when she came upstairs – theirs was the only apartment without power in the entire building. So she said –
“This isn’t a power outage. The fuse must have blown,” Qian Fei told Gui Lili.
Gui Lili lifted her pretty face, looking at her with a puzzled expression.
Qian Fei sighed. It seemed impossible to expect her to figure it out on her own.
“Did you use several high-power appliances at the same time?” she asked Gui Lili directly.
Gui Lili’s expression changed, and she immediately denied it: “You suspect I blew the fuse? How is that possible? I didn’t use several appliances at once, Qian Fei!”
Qian Fei’s eyelid twitched. She gave up arguing with Gui Lili, went to her room to take off her coat, and then, using a flashlight, went to the kitchen to find the toolbox.
While looking for the toolbox, she noticed something in the kitchen’s waste basket. She shone the flashlight on it and saw it was a small, thin booklet. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was the instruction manual for a 2000-watt electric heater. Inside was a receipt showing it had been purchased a month ago.
Holding these items, she suddenly understood why the electricity bill had skyrocketed this month. She had previously thought there was a problem with the electric meter and was planning to schedule an appointment with the power company to have it checked.
She looked at the manual in her hand, thinking and hesitating about whether to discuss this with Gui Lili.
At that moment, she heard the front door open – Li Yifei had returned.
She heard Li Yifei ask Gui Lili, “What’s going on? Is the power out?”
Gui Lili responded with a soft, coquettish “Mm-hmm.”
Hearing that “Mm-hmm,” Qian Fei suddenly felt a bit irritated.
Li Yifei went to the bedroom to change clothes. Qian Fei went to the living room, holding the manual and receipt, and said to Gui Lili, “Gui Lili, you’ve been using the electric heater, right? You can’t keep it on all the time. Using it for too long can cause a short circuit. That’s probably why the fuse blew tonight. Also, this thing uses a lot of electricity. The electricity bill this month is much higher than usual. How about we split the bill this month?”
Gui Lili tilted her head, facing Qian Fei with her delicate, pretty face, “But Qian Fei, we agreed in the contract that you’d cover the electricity, water, and internet bills!”
Qian Fei felt annoyed, and she wasn’t sure if she was mimicking Gui Lili’s tone when she said, “But you’ve been using a high-power appliance!”
Gui Lili blinked her big eyes and said, “But you didn’t say in the contract that we couldn’t use them! It’s so cold, using an electric heater is normal. We can’t risk getting sick just to save on electricity, can we?”
Qian Fei was suddenly at a loss for words.
She felt a throbbing pain in her temples.
At this moment, Li Yifei came out of the room, having changed his clothes.
“We’ll pay for this month’s electricity bill,” he suddenly said.
Gui Lili immediately jumped up from the sofa and yelled at Li Yifei, “Li Yifei, are you crazy? I was alone in the dark, scared out of my wits, and you come back late at night only to side against me? What’s your problem?”
Li Yifei also lost his temper, “Don’t you know how much electricity you’ve been using every day? Are you taking advantage of her? Have you no shame? She’s poorer than us, can’t you see that?” He pointed at Qian Fei while shouting at Gui Lili.
Qian Fei listened from the side, feeling incredibly conflicted.
To be pointed at and called poor right to her face… Didn’t Li Yifei understand the concept of not rubbing salt in the wound?
They started arguing again, neither willing to back down. Qian Fei, enduring their flying spittle, opened the door and went downstairs to buy a new fuse.
She deliberately went to a hardware store far away, one that stayed open late. After buying the fuse, she lingered outside the apartment for a while, waiting until the voices inside had quieted down before entering.
She saw Li Yifei sitting on the living room sofa, with their bedroom door closed.
She asked Li Yifei, “Everything okay?”
Li Yifei glanced at her, “It’s fine. She’s cried herself to sleep.”
She responded with an “Oh.”
Li Yifei told her, “I’ll take half a day off tomorrow and have the property management come to replace the fuse.”
Qian Fei thought for a moment and said, “How about I try first?”
Li Yifei frowned, “You?”
Qian Fei handed him a flashlight, “I’ve already bought the fuse! Come on, let’s go to the corridor. You can hold the flashlight for me, and I’ll try to replace it. If I can do it myself, neither of us will have to miss work tomorrow!”
Li Yifei had a “don’t be ridiculous” expression on his face and asked her, “Do you want to write your will first? What if you get electrocuted?”
Qian Fei gave him a fierce glare, “No wonder they say Beijing young masters have sharp tongues! Can’t you say something more positive?”
Li Yifei shrugged, took the flashlight, and followed Qian Fei to the corridor.
For the next few minutes, he held the flashlight and watched in amazement as Qian Fei swiftly replaced the fuse.
“How do you know how to do this? Are you even a woman?” he couldn’t help but exclaim.
Qian Fei scoffed, “My dad was the electrician in their unit. I grew up watching him replace fuses at home!”
Li Yifei clicked his tongue and said, “Can’t your family buy some higher-quality fuses? Changing them every other day… Are the good ones too expensive?”
Qian Fei couldn’t help but roll her eyes, “Bro, that was just a figure of speech, okay?”
Li Yifei let out an “Ah” and then asked, “What else can you do?”
Seeing his friendly attitude, Qian Fei couldn’t resist showing off a bit more, “I can do lots of things! My specialty is soldering radios. Give me a bunch of components, and I can put together a multi-channel radio for you without even needing a circuit diagram!”