"Don’t just stand there foolishly." The middle-aged woman looked panicked, pointing to a corner of the balcony: "I saw the cockroach run over there, go kill it."
As she spoke, she hid behind Tang Li, pulling on Tang Li’s sleeve: "If it gets into the bedroom, I won’t be able to sleep tonight!"
Seeing how terrified the middle-aged woman was, Tang Li could only walk towards the spot she had pointed to.
In the corner, there was a pot of Clivia.
The middle-aged woman stood still, craning her neck to look this way.
Tang Li squatted down, looking behind the potted plant, and indeed there was a cockroach that seemed ready to scurry away at any louder sound.
"Are you capable or not?" A skeptical voice came from behind.
Tang Li turned her head and handed the book back: "Why don’t you do it yourself?"
The middle-aged woman slightly pursed her lips with displeasure, continuing to direct her with hand gestures: "You also need to guard the left side to prevent it from escaping this way." She then muttered to herself, complaining, "I told them to buy Dichlorvos to exterminate cockroaches, that stubborn old man wouldn’t listen to me, now see, cockroaches are starting to run upstairs."
Before she could finish speaking, a loud "snap" sounded on the balcony.
It scared her so much that she jolted.
Tang Li stood up, moved the potted plant aside, and the book was already lying on the ground.
As Tang Li bent down to pick up the book, the middle-aged woman looked at the "flattened specimen" cockroach with a conflicted expression: "Such a rough action for a young lady."
Tang Li took two tissues, wiped the book cover clean and set it aside.
Then she wrapped the cockroach in a tissue and threw it in the trash can.
Seeing Tang Li was about to go downstairs, the middle-aged woman called out to stop her.
Tang Li asked, "Do you need anything else?"
The middle-aged woman adjusted her glasses slightly, her face losing its previous pallor, cleared her throat, and restored her initial intellectual and elegant demeanor, then glanced at Tang Li, lifted her chin towards the flowers on the ground: "You killed the cockroach, but what about these flowers?"
These... didn’t seem like they were spilled by her.
Thinking of Song Jingtian downstairs, Tang Li didn’t want to keep wasting time here: "Aunty, you—"
"Quite quick at currying favor." The middle-aged woman rolled her eyes surreptitiously.
Even guessing that the woman was the lady of the house, Tang Li didn’t continue to let her have her way: "I call you auntie because if my mother were still alive, she would be your age too, nothing more. As for these flowers, whoever knocked them over should pick them up."
After hearing her words, the middle-aged woman quickly took advantage: "You also said I’m about your mom’s age, so why do you still talk to me in that tone?"
Tang Li was at a loss for words.
She remembered someone once said, never mess with intellectuals.
It seemed there was some truth to it now.
Tang Li quickly picked up the roses, lilies, African chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, and irises from the ground and put them on the long table: "Is this okay now?"
"Then you might as well arrange the flowers too."
Seeing the girl not responding, Gao Wenlan hummed: "If you don’t want to arrange them, never mind. I don’t like to impose on people. But you just mentioned that you brought a child to use the bathroom in my house."
She gave Tang Li a meaningful look, then slowly spoke: "My old man is no ordinary person either, occasionally he brings home classified documents, and his favorite thing to do is to read them while sitting on the toilet. If your child accidentally uses those documents as toilet paper, what then?"