"So if I understand what you"re trying to say....it simply means you want us all to throw a party for your grandmother?" His uncle Li Han asked in obvious surprise.
Muchen nodded in agreement. He looked at his parents and Minde"s parents. They all have similar expression on their faces.
"I would really like all of you to put in your best and help with whatever you can."
"I don"t understand. Where did this idea suddenly pop out from?" His mother asked.
His father didn"t bother to say anything and only looked proudly at his son.
Muchen scratched his head and literally bit his tongue to stop himself from saying "it was my girlfriend"s idea"
He smiled at his mother before asking gently. "You"ll help out right?" He turned to also look at his Aunt, letting her know the question was also for her.
They all thought it was a bad idea. No one knew how Li Sun was going to react to the sudden idea of a birthday party. But since Muchen of all people was raising it, they had to have faith in whatever he was planning. So they all agreed.
On Christmas eve, they were going to throw Li Sun a suprise birthday party for her. The problem now was, no one knew what she liked so it would be difficult when choosing a gift.
It was the first time Sara was seeing their new apartment. It wasn"t as bad as she had expected considering the fact that the rent wasn"t very expensive unlike most other buildings inside of town.
It made her wonder why someone hadn"t rented the apartment before them or were they just lucky?
She concluded it was probably because the place functioned more as a business centre which was actually a good thing for them because since the two-storey building was located in a rather busy area, the entire first storey served as stores for businesspeople. There were four large stores which sold wines, knockoff wears, cosmetics and the last one that had been rented by Jianjun to serve as his new restaurant.
She hadn"t checked out the store yet but she was able to deduce that it was quite bigger than his former restaurant.
Thankfully, he had saved much to get some chairs, tables and whatever was needed to start up a small-scale restaurant.
She really liked the fact that her father wouldn"t be returning late from the restaurant since it was just downstairs.
She perfectly understood what was wrong with the place when she noticed the place didn"t have an elevator and so, she had to take the flight of stairs to get to the first floor.
She thanked her body that was used to things like this but began to think twice since Joreen and her father were both going to be subjected to this on a daily basis.
Taking it as a little exercise, she got to the first floor in a few minutes."So much stairs. They could build a house with it" She grumbled.
There were four rooms on each row directly facing each other.
She sighed at the thought of having seven neighbours.
She stopped in front of the "401" sign on the second door by her left and used the doork.n.o.b to gently open the door, knowing it was not going to be locked.
"You"re here"
Sara first heard Cixi"s voice and bowed with a smile to greet her aunt who was busy mopping the floor. "Yes"
Sara ran her eyes around the two bedroom apartment. The sitting room was wide and s.p.a.cious. Painted plainly in white and nude.
She could vaguely guess the bedrooms were also s.p.a.cious also.
There was a medium sized window were you could see the busy street outside. Even right now, they could hear cars honking and people"s loud voices.
But in all, this was going to be their home. And she didn"t mind.
"Big sis come see our room. It"s so large" Joreen said excitedly before taking her hand to lead her to the room.
"You should be resting " Jianjun dropped the little cleaning rag he was holding and said to Sara when they got closer to him since he was on their path to the bedroom.
Sara smiled at him. She gently pulled her hand out of Joreen"s hand and hugged her father. "I only worked out. I wasn"t involved in an accident" She said sarcastically.
He was startled by the sudden hug and began to wonder whether Mr Li had broken up with her. But then, he remembered she wasn"t looking sad and....didn"t have blood on her hands—The blood of whoever he was dumping her for.
He knew this wasn"t the time of Weiyoung and Jinyong. This was Li Muchen!
He hugged her back and asked softly "What"s wrong? Are you okay?"
"Can"t I hug my father again?" Sara asked back.
"I"m sure he"s wondering why you"re suddenly showing him too much affection since you"ve been giving it all to your Mr Li" Cixi summarised with a laugh.
It also made Jianjun and Sara laugh. "My Mr Li? I like the sound of that" She sent a discreet thumbs up at Cixi"s direction since she couldn"t even see her.
"Daddy...." Sara called like a little girl.
"Yes daughter?" He answered with a short laugh.
"I"ll go for the manners and etiquette cla.s.s...I"ll also learn how to cook and do whatever you want me to do. I promise."
"Hmm?..." He said skeptically. "What"s come over you all of a sudden?"
Sara shook her head. "I don"t want to be a bad daughter. I love you Jianjun w.a.n.g"
He laughed when he heard her call him that. He remembered how she used to call him that when she was younger. She said she preferred calling him Jianjun w.a.n.g because he was young and didn"t look like her father but like an older brother instead. She had even told people that she was going to marry him when she grew up. It had taken him a great deal of effort and lectures to let her know why she couldn"t marry him.
"I love you too Sara w.a.n.g"
"Geez... How cheesy.. Sweetheart let"s go clean the kitchen before they ruin our eyes" Cixi rolled her eyes at them before grabbing Joreen"s little hand.
When Sara had carried the box earlier, she had thought half of her questions would be answered by checking out the contents but to her surprise, the box had a lock. And not the "key" type of lock but the "combination" type of lock where you had to wind four numbers to get it to open.
It really frustrated her. When she got a glimpse of it earlier, she hadn"t expected the little box to be that complex. Despite looking old, it looked obviously expensive.
From the four Zeros default which it was set, she tried to open it with four different number combination she could come up with: Her Father"s birthday, her mother"s, hers, her aunt"s, and even Joreen"s but none of them worked out.
No matter what, she was never going to give up. She was going to find it all out and help her father live well and she was never going to blame him. Because.....he was Jianjun w.a.n.g!