A young man named Liu Nan decided to rent a shop in the city and open a small supermarket. His life in the city and his business were going smoothly until something unfortunate happened to his frail old neighbor.
His neighbor was an elderly lady of about seventy years old and she had the habit of wandering around the neighborhood. People felt bad for her but didn’t go out of their way to interact with her. One day, she was strolling past Liu Nan’s home when she slipped in a puddle of motor oil where Liu Nan was tinkering with his car a day earlier.
He saw the incident and immediately rushed her to the hospital.
Her bones were brittle and she suffered from a fractured right arm as well as a sprained ankle. The doctors said her arm would need time to heal so they put it in a cast. When the old woman regained her senses, she was hardly worried about her injuries as she said anxiously, “This cannot happen. Get this thing off me! I need to use my arm!”
Liu Nan asked her if she had any children who could take care of her but the woman simply shook her head. He sent her home and helped her settle down. It was also the first time Liu Nan entered the woman’s home. He noticed everything was well-organized but they looked antique.
The old woman took a deep breath and sighed at her situation, she didn’t know how she can manage with her injuries.
Liu Nan took pity in his elderly neighbor and he also felt partly responsible for causing the accident. He told her not to worry and that he’d send her meals throughout the day. In the evening he came back with a steamy bowl of chicken soup for the woman. She teared up as she ate because she felt extremely grateful. She started telling Liu Nan about her past.
Apparently, the old woman had a son once but he passed away at the age of thirty due to liver cancer. She had been living with her husband in that house until he died five years ago and she was left to fend for herself. She has been relying on a senior citizens welfare allowance ever since then.
Liu Nan pities the old woman but they had one thing in common, they had no family left in this world. Liu Nan’s parents died when he was nearly thirty.
He made sure to bring three meals a day for the old woman and took notice of the things she liked to eat and things she didn’t. She tried to pay Liu Nan for the meals but he would not hear any of it. Years passed in this manner and soon a decade had gone by.
In that time, Liu Nan met and married a kind-hearted woman who was a great cook. Everything she made tasted absolutely amazing and she took over bringing meals to the old woman. She had become a part of their family.
Last month however, the old woman drew her last breath at the age of 84. Liu Nan and his wife arranged the funeral and settle the proceedings. Two days after the funeral, a lawyer knocked on their door saying he had come to read the will of the old woman.
They were shocked to know that the old woman had left her home and everything in it to Liu Nan and his wife.
The next day they went over and started cleaning out her things. There were numerous antiques around her home but one stood out, a yellowed painting that hung in her bedroom. Liu Nan decided to get it appraised and his heart skipped a beat when he found what that painting was actually worth. It dated back to the Qing dynasty and was worth nearly 1.5 million dollars.
He decided to donate the antiques and only kept the old woman’s house. He didn’t feel right to take such a fortune from the elderly woman.
