Chapter 649: Chapter 649 This is Too Much of a Coincidence Chapter 649: Chapter 649 This is Too Much of a Coincidence The two of them stood there, unsure of what to do, when a middle-aged man needed to pass by and spoke, “Excuse me, please make way.”
They hurried to clear the path, but just then, the train swayed from changing tracks, and the elderly lady nearly fell over. The middle-aged man suggested, “Which bunk are you? It might be better to sit down first.”
Seeing them stand still, the man thought they didn’t know how to find their places, so he glanced at their tickets. To his surprise, he was taken aback; who had bought these tickets for them, and how was the elderly lady supposed to get up to the upper bunk?
Unable to help, he simply raised his voice and said, “Old lady, why did you buy an upper bunk ticket? It’s too high for you to climb up, isn’t it?”
He deliberately spoke loudly with the intention of letting those on the surrounding bunks hear, hoping some kind-hearted person would offer to swap places. Luo Qiao was almost asleep, but upon hearing voices, she peered down.
She saw an old person and a middle-aged woman standing below, and now, many heads popped out from their bunks to look over, but no one volunteered to vacate a lower bunk.
The atmosphere turned somewhat awkward.
Luo Qiao was willing to give up her place, but she had a middle bunk, which would still be inconvenient for the elderly lady.
The gaze of the crowd fell on a young man lying on the lower bunk, who, being the last to realize the situation, said, “Don’t look at me, yeah? I’ve injured my foot, so it’s not easy to climb up.”
To prove his point, he even stretched out his foot, which was indeed bandaged.
Then, everyone’s eyes shifted to another lower bunk, where a girl seemed to be sleeping soundly, laying facing inwards.
The woman in the adjacent lower bunk, fearing that she would become the target, spoke up, “I really can’t swap since I’m managing a child. How about waking that girl up? Let her exchange places with the elderly lady.”
The woman got down from her bunk, came over, and nudged the deeply asleep girl, who groggily opened her eyes and asked, turning her head, “Have we arrived?”
“Young lady, I have a proposition for a swap,” said the woman. “Would you mind exchanging your lower bunk with this elderly lady, and you move to the upper bunk?”
The girl sat up, looked at the people in the aisle, and once a bit more awake, asked, “What were you saying just now?”
Luo Qiao recognized the voice and looked carefully; it was not just familiar; this was uncanny, the third time she’d run into this girl, and every time there was trouble.
Luo Qiao suddenly laughed and called out to the lower bunk, “Shen Juan.”
Shen Juan, hearing her name, naturally followed the voice and saw who it was, and she too started to smile, “Luo Qiao, what brings you on this trip too?”
“Yeah,” Luo Qiao responded, “I went to visit my grandma’s grave during the break.”
The woman who had awakened Shen Juan interjected, ��Young lady, please switch with the old lady to the lower bunk, and you take the top.”
Shen Juan, looking at the woman, asked, “Who are you? Why should I move for you?”
The woman was momentarily taken aback but then smiled, “When you’re out and about, nobody has it easy, and you, a young lady, are nimble. Consider it an act of kindness.”
“Doing a kind deed is fine,” Shen Juan replied, “but then you should make up the price difference for me.”
The woman’s mood soured at once, “Young lady, don’t be so petty; every bunk is for sleeping, isn’t it?”
The neighboring young man chuckled at this remark, “Big sister, what a funny thing to say. You’re asking her to switch bunks, did she say no?
No, she didn’t. That’s because she’s kind-hearted, but being kind doesn’t mean she should incur a loss.
It’s not that we shouldn’t help the elderly, but she’s not wrong either. You can’t expect her to do you a favor and then pay for it too. Who are you to her, to make such decisions on her behalf?”
The woman could barely save face at this point, turning back to the two still standing in the aisle, “You all sort it out amongst yourselves, I won’t interfere further.”
With that, she returned to her own bunk. Once she left, the middle-aged man from before said, “Paying the difference is only fair.”
The middle-aged woman behind the elderly lady concurred, “Alright, I’ll make up the two yuan difference for you.”
Luo Qiao burst out laughing; this middle-aged woman was too shrewd, only accounting for the price difference for that one stop. But then again, she wasn’t wrong.