OBS Chapter 1032: Can’t Afford to Die
Chapter 1032: Can’t Afford to Die
Chapter 1032: Can’t Afford to Die
At the same time, Na Wei was making a phone call in a nearby coffee shop. The main reason he didn't go home was that he didn't want his mother to see him being humble and begging for help.
"Hello, Mr. Wu, this is my boss... Okay, you go ahead and do your work. We'll have dinner together another day."
"Mr. Li, how come you can't even recognize my voice? Mr. Na, yes, yes, yes, we're in a meeting. OK, let's talk later."
Na Wei sat in the chair somewhat dejectedly and made more than a dozen phone calls. The bosses who had been polite to him before now all changed their attitudes.
At this moment, Na Wei deeply understood what his younger brother Na Jun once said: Is your success brought to you by your own ability or by the platform?
Core competitiveness. He is already this age, what core competitiveness does he have?
Loyalty? It turns out that's worthless.
Just when Na Wei was confused, his cell phone suddenly rang. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Shen Lin calling.
"Hey, OK, I'm right next to your company and will pick you up right away."
When Na Wei and Shen Lin rushed to the hospital, Shen Lei was leaning against the bed with a sad face.
The bed was covered with a white sheet; Mother Xie had passed away.
"Where's Xie Meilan? Why are you here alone?"
Shen Lei covered his face and said painfully: "She just went to the company and is on her way here now."
"Why does she still go to work when her mother is in such a state? Doesn't she always say that she is very filial?" Shen Lin was speechless.
As they were talking, Xie Meilan ran in, lifted the white cloth covering the body, and burst into tears while hugging the cold body.
"Wife, don't be too sad. The doctor said that if we continue to delay like this, our mother will only suffer more..."
Before he could finish his words, Xie Meilan pushed him away roughly.
Xie Meilan stared at Shen Lei with red eyes: "My mother is dead, so we don't have to spend money anymore. You are happy now."
Shen Lei looked at Xie Meilan in disbelief, but Shen Lin couldn't bear to see her brother being bullied like this, so she said to Xie Meilan.
"Your mother just passed away. It's understandable that you're sad, but you can't blame everything on Shen Lei, right? Didn't Shen Lei spend money on your mother's treatment? He borrowed 200,000 from us alone."
Na Wei secretly tugged at Shen Lin's sleeve, trying to smooth things over. After all, quarreling in the hospital was not a good look.
Shen Lin couldn't bear it any longer, so she shook off Na Wei's hand and pointed at Shen Lei: "As far as I know, Shen Lei has been taking good care of your mother during the past few months in the hospital. He didn't even go home during the Chinese New Year and stayed by her bedside. What about you? How many days did you take care of your mother wholeheartedly?"
"Look at Shen Lei, he looks haggard and unkempt, and then look at you, you look bright and radiant. I'm confused, is the person lying on the bed your mother or his mother?"
Xie Meilan was so overwhelmed that she was about to rush towards Shen Lin. Na Wei and Shen Lei quickly separated the two.
Fortunately, the nurse came with the doctor at this time.
"Stop arguing, this is a hospital. If you continue to make trouble, I will call the police."
Xie Meilan glared at Shen Lin fiercely, then turned around and threw herself on the hospital bed and cried bitterly.
Seeing this, Shen Lin called her brother Shen Lei out of the ward.
"You can handle the rest by yourself. If you have anything, please go to your brother-in-law. I'm going back to work now."
Shen Lei also knew that his sister and Xie Meilan had fallen out and didn't want to get involved any further.
"It's okay, sister, you and brother-in-law should go and do your own things. I was just a little panicked just now, so you didn't have to make the trip."
Na Wei said, "I'll stay. I have nothing to do anyway. Your sister can go back."
After Shen Lin left, Shen Lei asked doubtfully: "Brother-in-law, you just said you had nothing to do..."
"I leave every day and resign." Na Wei forced out a smile that was uglier than crying.
Shen Lei didn't know how to comfort Na Wei for a moment, but Na Wei patted him on the shoulder and said, "That's enough. Your brother-in-law has been through a lot over the years. If you lose your job, just find another one. Besides, I got options before I left, so it should be no problem to maintain my life for the time being."
"That's fine, that's fine."
For the rest of the day, Na Wei was busy with Shen Lei's arrangements for Xie Meilan's mother's funeral. Shen Lei was not good at communicating with others, and in recent months, he had to work and take care of his mother-in-law at the same time. He was severely sleep-deprived and his head was numb.
Xie Meilan looked distraught and was completely unable to handle anything. Na Wei had no choice but to run around and spent more than 20,000 yuan to send Xie's mother's body to the funeral home.
It was already dark when Na Wei finished his work. When he returned home, Shen Lin had already gone home from get off work.
"What's wrong? Is my brother okay?" Shen Lin asked with concern.
Na Wei took off his coat, sat down at the dining table, and sighed, "What can happen to him? But I can't say for Xie Meilan."
"Hmph, what can happen to her? I think she's in good condition." Shen Lin said unhappily.
Na Wei took a few bites of food and waved his chopsticks: "That's not what I'm talking about. What I mean is that she has a lot of complaints about your brother. If we don't resolve it, it will be a big problem."
Shen Lin was unhappy when she heard this: "She still has complaints? They say that there is no filial son by the bedside of a long-term patient. My brother takes care of her mother while working, and the chicken soup never stops. After doing so much, what else does she want? She is so filial, why don't you see her staying up late every day to take care of her mother?"
Na Wei swallowed his food and analyzed: "You think so, but Xie Meilan doesn't think so."
"She will only think that it is your brother who is useless and cannot make money, which caused her mother to not be able to afford targeted drugs and eventually die in pain."
Shen Lin said angrily: "My brother has tried his best. All his savings over the years have been emptied. We also borrowed more than 200,000 yuan from him. Besides, there is no medicine for advanced lung cancer. The longer it is delayed, the more his mother will suffer."
"The problem now is that Xie Meilan is not as rational as you. She may have accumulated a lot of dissatisfaction with your brother, and it just exploded through her mother's incident."
After hearing what Na Wei said, Shen Lin was a little confused: "If you say so, it seems to be true. Since we bought this house, Xie Meilan's attitude has been very cold every time she comes. I thought that was her personality. Now it seems that she is jealous of us and dislikes my brother for not having money to buy a house?"
Na Wei nodded and analyzed, "Wife, think about it, where does Xie Meilan work? She works in a financial institution. Although her monthly salary is only 20,000, what kind of people does she come into contact with? She chats and laughs with those rich people every day. After a long time, she will inevitably feel that she is in the same class as those rich people. When she goes home and sees your brother, although he has a stable job as a civil servant, he can't even make enough for the down payment on a house. What will she think?"
Shen Lin's face was filled with melancholy. "I remember when Xie Meilan first got together with my brother, she was a very cheerful and optimistic person. She rented a house with my brother and got married for so many years, and he had no complaints. He even thought she was pretty good and always advised my brother to treat her better. How did she become like this now?"
"It is said that there are three things men should not marry: nurses, teachers, and women in finance. Environment is the most effective way to change people."
After hearing what Na Wei said, Shen Lin couldn't help but become nervous.
"So, Xie Meilan wants to divorce my brother?"
"It's very likely that she will. And given Xie Meilan's personality, she will most likely blame all the mistakes on your brother. You know your brother's personality, he tends to get stuck in a rut..."
The more Shen Lin listened, the more frightened she became: "Husband, why don't you stop looking for a job for now? Look after Shen Lei for me these days. Don't let anything happen to him, otherwise my parents..."
"Don't worry, honey. I will take care of Shen Lei. Don't be too anxious. After all, this is just our guess. Maybe the situation is not as bad as we think?" Na Wei comforted.
……
However, the situation was actually worse than Na Wei had imagined. After Xie Meilan and Shen Lei returned home, Xie Meilan lay down on the bed holding her mother's portrait, not saying a word, and looked like she had lost her soul.
Shen Lei asked about Xie's health, but there was no response. In addition, Xie's mother's condition had been recurring in recent days, which made him very tired. He didn't even take a shower and fell asleep immediately.
Xie Meilan became more and more dissatisfied as she listened to Shen Lei's slight snoring.
In the blink of an eye, it was daybreak and Shen Lei was woken up by Xie Meilan.
As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw Xie Meilan holding the portrait and quickly got up.
Xie Meilan walked out without saying a word, and Shen Lei followed her without even bothering to wash up or put on his glasses.
We arrived at the funeral home. Since Xie's mother lost her husband early and had no relatives at home, there was no need to hold a memorial service. They could just cremate the body.
After the cremation, the staff of the funeral home began to sell urns of various prices, ranging from five hundred to five thousand.
Shen Lei originally preferred the urn worth one thousand yuan, but Xie Meilan directly picked up the most expensive one.
After choosing the urn, the funeral home staff asked again.
"Are you planning to return home for burial or stay in the capital?"
Without even thinking about it, Xie Meilan said firmly, "Of course I will stay in the capital."
"Yes, stay in Beijing. We are all in Beijing, so it will be convenient for us to come and worship in the future." Shen Lei quickly agreed.
As a result, the funeral home staff kindly reminded: "Since both your cremation and urn are handled in our funeral home, we have a special service. If you don't plan to buy a cemetery, you can store the urn with us. The fee for one year is only 50 yuan."
Shen Lei was somewhat tempted, but before he could hesitate, Xie Meilan directly refused: "No, let's buy a cemetery."
"I can't let my mother die without even a place to be buried."
The corners of Shen Lei's mouth twitched, but he finally swallowed back the words that were about to come out of his mouth.
Just as the two were about to go to see the cemetery, Na Wei rushed over.
"Brother-in-law, why are you here?"
"Hey, I quit my job anyway, so I came to see if there's anything I can do to help."
Before Shen Lei could say something, Xie Meilan was already walking out holding the portrait.
Not long after, Na Wei drove the two of them to the cemetery. When Shen Lei asked about the price, he was dumbfounded.
"We have two types of cemeteries here. One is hillside burial, and the prices are 16.88 yuan, 26.88 yuan, and 36.88 yuan respectively..."
Na Wei was also shocked when he heard this. He had never known about the price of a cemetery before. He did not expect that this thing would be so expensive. It was almost the same as an apartment in a small county town.
Shen Lei also quickly asked: "What about the other one?"
"The other is ecological burial, which includes 3.8 flowerbed burials that retain ashes and 1.68 tree burials that do not leave ashes."
Shen Lei looked at Xie Meilan and whispered, "Wife, how about we buy this flower bed burial? What do you think?"
As soon as she finished speaking, Xie Meilan turned around and walked out. Shen Lei was a little confused, and it was Na Wei who reminded him to catch up with her.
"Wife, if you don't like it, we can buy something more expensive. Don't leave so quickly."
Xie Meilan said in a sarcastic tone: "You even haggle over my mother's grave and weigh the pros and cons. You really know how to live."
"Wife, I just think it was more important when our mother was alive..."
Before Shen Lei could finish his words, Xie Meilan interrupted him rudely: "When my mother was alive, did she ever have a good day? I want to bring her to Beijing to live, do we have a place for her to stay? If we had brought my mother here earlier, her minor illness would not have been delayed into a terminal illness."
Shen Lei felt as if there was a breath stuck in his chest and he couldn't relieve it unless he vented it out.
"Is it because I don't want our mother to come to Beijing? I told her a long time ago to come over. We can rent a bigger house. It was you who said that our mother was used to living in her hometown and didn't want to come over..."
Xie Meilan sneered: "Renting a house, is that a home? Shen Lei, have you ever thought about it? We have been in Beijing for so many years, why do other people live in big houses, but we can only rent a house, and live in fear all day long that the landlord will evict us one day."
Facing Xie Meilan's questioning, Shen Lei felt guilty: "Wife, I know I have wronged you by letting you rent a house with me all these years. I will listen to you, whether it is 26 or 8, I will listen to you."
Xie Meilan said sarcastically: "If you had taken out the money earlier, my mother would have used the targeted drug a long time ago."
"Shen Lei, I can't live happily with you, and I can't die happily either."
Shen Lei stood there in a daze, and only came to his senses and explained after Xie Meilan had taken several steps.
"You know how much money our family has. We've spent it all. We're broke. We still owe my sister two hundred thousand."
Xie Meilan left the cemetery without looking back.
Na Wei patted Shen Lei on the shoulder from behind. Shen Lei asked at a loss: "Brother-in-law, did I really do something wrong?"
"Shen Lei, we are all mortals. Who can avoid making mistakes? But in this matter, I think the fundamental problem is not whether you made a mistake or not, but whether your wife wants to blame all the mistakes on you."
Shen Lei didn't understand for a moment: "Brother-in-law, I..."
"Haven't you noticed that your wife has changed?"
Shen Lei's mind was filled with pictures of his life. When he and Xie Meilan had just gotten together, they rode bicycles and Xie Meilan sat on the back seat with a happy smile on her face. But since when, Xie Meilan never smiled again when she sat on the back seat of an electric scooter.