Why did Mom need to find another job again?
Something similar had happened before.
That time, Zhang Meiting had been caught working as a shelf-stocker at the neighborhood supermarket, and the two of them had a huge fight over it.
Zhang Meiting had never been one to sit still. The moment she felt she had some strength back, she wanted to earn money to help with the household.
Who would have thought that when Li Tangli found out, she reacted completely out of character—tears streaming down her face in anger, wiping them away with one hand while refusing to budge with the other, insisting that no matter what, her mother was not allowed to drag her sick body out to work again.
In reality, before her mother was diagnosed with cancer at the hospital, she had already sensed something wrong with her body. But to earn money, she’d kept enduring it, never letting it show in front of her daughter.
In the end, the truth couldn’t stay hidden. Seeing the woman lying unconscious in the hospital bed was like a bolt from the clear sky, jolting Li Tangli awake all at once.
She tossed and turned deep into the night, losing count of how many times she blamed herself.
If she’d noticed sooner. If she’d paid a little more attention to her mother. If her mother hadn’t had to work herself so hard—would the illness not have worsened so quickly?
But in the end, none of it mattered. These regrets gradually became a lasting ache in Li Tangli’s heart.
Perhaps seeing how firm her attitude was, Zhang Meiting finally bowed her head and gave in. To appease her, she even signed a written pledge, swearing she wouldn’t go out to work again until she’d fully recovered.
They’d clearly agreed on this before—why go back on her word again? Her complexion hadn’t looked good today. Was it because she’d overworked herself?
Lying in bed, tossing and turning, she couldn’t make sense of it no matter how hard she tried, and couldn’t sleep the whole night through.
The next day at work she was distracted too. Li Tangli specifically took leave that evening and got home early, at six. Zhang Meiting was nowhere to be found again. Looking around the room, she saw that yesterday’s bag was gone too—her mother had taken it with her.
Li Tangli gripped the doorknob tightly. She didn’t go inside. Instead, she turned and knocked on their neighbor Auntie Chen’s door.
“Who is it?”
“Auntie Chen, it’s me. I wanted to ask you something.”
Auntie Chen had been cooking. She wiped her wet hands on her apron and opened the door. “Little Li, come in and talk.”
“I won’t come in, Auntie Chen. I wanted to ask—do you know anything about my mom taking a job recently?”
“This…” Auntie Chen faltered. “I haven’t heard anything about it, Little Li. I really don’t know.”
Li Tangli’s fingers, resting on the doorframe, tightened for a moment, then loosened. “Sorry to bother you. I’ll go ask someone else.”
As she turned away, a heavy layer of dusk settled over her solitary shoulders, carrying a stubbornness that refused to let the truth stay buried.
Auntie Chen sighed and called her back. “Don’t go asking anyone else. Little Li—Sister Zhang got introduced through someone she knows, and she’s working as a cleaner at a domestic services company.”
Li Tangli stopped in her tracks.
So she’d guessed right after all.
Zhang Meiting had clearly felt her workload was too much these past two days.
Especially yesterday. Normally, on Li Tangli’s days off, she wouldn’t take any jobs, afraid of being found out by her daughter.
But Li Tangli had said she was going out in the afternoon, and had even told her in advance that she might not be back until the next morning.
After her daughter left, she seized the opportunity and took on an urgent temporary moving job. | Black Lotus novel Novel Reading — BLACK LOTUS NOVEL
The client had booked two hours. When Zhang Meiting arrived, she found the place was over two hundred square meters, with many rooms, and dust covering the floors. She went twenty minutes over time and barely managed to finish cleaning.
She’d also been caught coming back from outside by Li Tangli, who’d returned early, and had to make up some nonsense excuse to get through it.
This morning when she got up, the exhaustion hadn’t eased at all—if anything, it was worse. She lay in bed resting for a while in the morning, and in the afternoon only took one job. Less than ten minutes in, she felt soreness all over her body and had to stop and rest.
Her progress was painfully slow. She nearly got reported by the client for slacking off, and only after much pleading did they agree to let it go.
Holding her aching back, she walked up to her building, and looking up, saw that the lights in her apartment were on.
Her heart gave a lurch. She fumbled slowly for her keys and opened the door. Just as she’d feared, Li Tangli was sitting inside, clearly waiting for her.
Li Tangli looked at her. “Mom, let’s talk. Why are you sneaking off to work behind my back again?” So it hadn’t been hidden after all.
Zhang Meiting tried to bluff her way through. “Tangtang, what are you talking about…?”
Li Tangli cut her off. “Don’t lie to me anymore. Someone already told me you’re doing cleaning work. Chunxia Domestic Services, right?”
Zhang Meiting froze and said nothing.
Seeing that unwilling-to-talk look on her mother’s face again, the anger and worry Li Tangli had been holding back all day burst out like floodwaters through a broken dam.
Once her emotions got worked up, they rushed straight to her face—her eyes burned, and tears welled up.
“Didn’t we already agree on this? I work hard and earn the money, and you’re not well, so you don’t need to go out. And cleaning work is so exhausting—what if something happens to you while you’re working? I can’t, I can’t, hic—”
I can’t lose you again.
Zhang Meiting pulled out a couple of tissues and pressed them against her daughter’s face, wiping her tears in circles the way you’d wash a child’s face, coaxing her. “Okay, okay, don’t cry. Mom was wrong.”
“Mmph, mmph,” Li Tangli’s face stung a little from the wiping, but she didn’t dare say so.
She sniffled, snatched the tissue from her mother’s hand, and said through choked sobs, “Then quit.”
Another silence.
Li Tangli clutched the crumpled ball of tissue and lowered her head, upset. “Why? Would you really not care about your own health, just to earn money?”
Right—even if she couldn’t sit still, she should at least wait until she was feeling better.
Anyone with eyes could see she wasn’t well right now. Even so, why keep pushing herself to the limit?
In a flash, she ran back through the second female lead’s memories and murmured, “Could it be because of gambling debts?”
Seeing her mother’s expression shift, Li Tangli instantly knew she’d hit the mark. “Weren’t the gambling debts already paid off? Are they not?”
This time Zhang Meiting truly refused to say another word about it. She hurriedly turned away and went to the kitchen to wash her hands.
Li Tangli followed anxiously behind her. “How much is left? A few thousand or tens of thousands?”
The faucet ran noisily. Zhang Meiting sighed. “Listen to me, don’t get involved in this mess. Stop asking.”
Li Tangli insisted, “Tell me how much, and I’ll scrape the money together for you. As long as you don’t go out to work, I’ll do anything.”
The moment those words left her mouth, Zhang Meiting slammed the faucet shut and rounded on her in anger.
“A hundred thousand. It’s a hundred thousand. You make a few thousand a month—where are you going to conjure up a hundred thousand from? You won’t listen no matter what I say. I already told you, you don’t need to worry about it! Why are you so stubborn!”
No wonder she’d been working herself to the bone like this. So it was a hundred thousand—a full hundred thousand yuan.
“Don’t think about this anymore,” after her outburst, seeing her daughter’s eyes red as a rabbit’s, she softened her voice again. “Listen to me. I’ll pay off the gambling debt slowly, bit by bit. There’ll come a day when it’s settled. You’re still young—whatever you do, don’t do anything foolish.”
Li Tangli stood quietly for a moment. The tear tracks had dried on her face, and when she tugged at the corner of her mouth, it pulled with a tight, stinging ache.
Her emotions had been running high a moment ago, but now that she’d calmed down and thought it over, that group must have been using strong-arm tactics to collect the debt—otherwise her mother wouldn’t be risking her health like this just to earn money.
Among the people she knew, the vast majority genuinely couldn’t come up with a hundred thousand yuan on short notice. Even if she asked everyone she could possibly borrow from, one by one, she’d scrape together maybe ten or twenty thousand at most.
Except for one person.
That night, Li Tangli opened her chat window with Ji Jiayu. The last time he’d replied to her had been the week before last.
She weighed her words carefully and typed out the details of the loan. She sat in silence for a moment, not pressing send right away—a hundred thousand yuan was, after all, no small sum.
Besides, she’d never actually brought up money with Ji Jiayu before on her own initiative. It was always him, feeling it was beneath him to discuss, who simply transferred money straight to her card and told her to go buy some presentable clothes and jewelry.
Asking to borrow this much all at once—there was an inevitable mental hurdle before the words would come out.
She idly opened his social media feed, only to discover, unexpectedly, that Ji Jiayu, who never posted anything, had updated with a photo the day before yesterday.
It was a shot of the seaside at dusk. The sky was dyed a fierce orange-red, and the setting sun scattered flecks of broken gold across the shimmering water.
The only figure intruding on this gorgeous scene was a girl in the sea.
Though she was in the lower right corner of the photo, her presence was unmistakably strong. The girl wore a skimpy swimsuit, her back to the camera, her features unclear, the sunset tracing the soft curves of her figure—alluring and lovely.
Had it been taken without him noticing?
Uneasy, Li Tangli zoomed in on the details. Some sixth sense told her that this girl and Ji Jiayu must know each other.
She knew Ji Jiayu’s personality reasonably well. In all the time they’d been together, he had never once posted so much as a single word related to her. | BLACK LOTUS Reading | black lotus novel
She held the phone up to her chin, hesitating for a moment. Seeing it wasn’t too late yet, Li Tangli slipped into the bathroom and made a call.
The ringing went on for a good while before it was picked up, unhurried.
But it was a woman’s voice that answered. “Hello?”
Her heart leapt into her throat. Li Tangli gripped the phone tightly. “Who is this?”
Ji Jiayu’s voice came faintly through the background noise: “Give me the phone.”
He took the phone. “You called me—what’s up?”
“Jiayu, did you go somewhere to have fun?”
Ji Jiayu paused for a beat before catching on. “Checking up on me? Yeah, out with some friends for a couple days.”
Going on a trip, and not even a word to her beforehand?
The bathroom light was glaringly white. Li Tangli stared at the tips of her shoes. “I saw the photo on your feed.”
“Mm,” Ji Jiayu shot a glance at Shu Ran, who was smiling beside him. “Lost a game earlier, posted it as a joke.”
“…Did you go with that girl in the photo?”
Two seconds of silence, then his voice on the other end turned cold. “Li Tangli, are you accusing me of something?”
Li Tangli had no idea why he’d suddenly gotten angry, and hurried to explain. “It’s just that I rarely see you post anything, so I wanted to ask. Jiayu, I’m not accusing you of anything.”
Ji Jiayu had already caught her meaning. He gave a scornful laugh and simply admitted it outright. “Yeah, I went with her. So what?” It wasn’t like it was just the two of them, anyway.
Beside him, Shu Ran’s smile faded, replaced by an anxious expression.
She mouthed the words: “Having a fight?”
Ji Jiayu didn’t answer her.
He waited, but on the other end, Li Tangli had gone silent.
He was instantly furious, though his voice, against character, went flat and cool. “Forget it. Think whatever you want. Since you don’t trust me, let’s just break up. Don’t bother calling back.”
“Wait—!”
The call cut off abruptly, without warning.
Li Tangli, caught off guard, didn’t know what to do.
She immediately called back.
Her mind was a tangled mess. How had this suddenly escalated to breaking up? Her original intention had just been to ask him a question.
Was it because she hadn’t replied to him in time earlier? But finding out Ji Jiayu had gone traveling with that girl—it was genuinely hard for her not to care.
The person who’d answered the phone just now—had that been her too?
On the other end, Ji Jiayu slammed the phone down hard, his emotions in turmoil.
Shu Ran leaned over, her expression full of guilt. “Is your girlfriend upset because of that photo?”
That day, playing truth or dare, Ji Jiayu had lost, and the punishment was to keep that photo of her from behind up on his social media feed for three days.
She said, awkward and troubled, “Why don’t you just delete it. If this joke ends up breaking you two up, I’d feel terrible.”
Her saying this only made it seem like Li Tangli was making a big deal out of nothing.
Ji Jiayu thought so too. “It’s not your fault. She’s the one who overstepped.” black lotus novel Novel | black lotus novel
Li Tangli could believe what she wanted.
In truth, from the very start, theirs had never been a normal, healthy relationship. In the early days, Ji Jiayu had always treated her like a kept woman.
If Li Tangli hadn’t liked him so much, he never would have later acknowledged her as his girlfriend at all.
So in the scales of this relationship, things had never once been balanced.
Li Tangli never had the power to decide anything. Ji Jiayu could give her the cold shoulder, ignore her messages, go traveling with other girls.
But the moment Li Tangli tried to turn the tables and interfere with him, even with the slightest hint of suspicion, that precariously maintained false balance would shatter completely.
The group of them were in a private room at a club, singing. Seeing Ji Jiayu was in a bad mood, the others tactfully switched to a few slow, sentimental love songs.
Just from what Ji Jiayu had said moments ago, even the listener could tell how heartless he’d sounded toward her.
But out of the corner of her eye, Shu Ran noticed Ji Jiayu had put his phone back down right in front of him, within easy sight.
Call after call came in. By the third one, whoever it was seemed to realize he wasn’t going to pick up, and stopped calling, switching to WeChat messages instead.
Ji Jiayu lowered his eyes, singing along absentmindedly. But his gaze kept drifting to the screen, watching it light up and go dark, over and over.
Three calls, a few messages. He answered none of them.
If he said he didn’t care, then why leave the phone out on the table like that, as if waiting for her to message him? If he said he did care, then he really was just coldly watching Li Tangli grow anxious, without saying a word.
Shu Ran gave a small laugh, thinking back to that timid-looking girl at the restaurant.
She asked, “She called three times, and you’re not answering?”
Ji Jiayu looked away. “Let her stew for a few days first.”
