Chapter 866: Rise and Fall
Nobody else could say anything, as the mini poodle belonged to Zhang Zian. Nobody could have said anything about whether he decided to sell it or not. Forcing the deal by imposing a moral standard was not an honorable thing to do.
Zhang Zian didn’t hesitate at all, as the mini poodle was rescued from Love Lovely Pets Breeding Base by Old Time Tea and Famous and it didn’t belong to him; it owed its life to Old Time Tea and Famous. Had it not been for their heroic and chivalrous act, then it would have died under Zhang Wanguo’s needles.
After going through so much, the mini poodle might have finally found a suitable owner.
He took the mini Poodle on his arms, put it in front of the female customer, and pressed on it gently so it could not run away. He asked, “How is it? Are you interested in getting a dog?” He sounded calm, as if the dog was no different from the other dogs.
The female customer could hardly believe it and asked, “You can… Sell it to me?”
“Of course I can,” Zhang Zian replied. “As long as you are confident enough to treat it well.”
“I…” She hesitated. She had lost confidence in her own life. How could she be confident in being a good dog owner?
Masanori Suzuhara encouraged her, “Don’t rush into owning a pet. You can take your time to think about it. This shop is right here; it won’t fly away… But for you, do you need us to notify anyone? You parents? Or… Boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend…” She smiled sadly. “How can a person like me have a boyfriend… As for my parents, I don’t want them to know about it.”
Masanori Suzuhara frowned. The girl seemed to have gone through really tough times. She seemed so pessimistic and depressed. Could it be the diabetes?
Zhang Zian stood aside without saying anything. Maybe it was wiser to let a girl talk to another girl. He asked Wang Qian to go out and check if the ambulance had arrived.
Masanori Suzuhara asked again in her gentle voice, “Are you sure we don’t need to notify anyone?”
“I’m sure… really.” She shook her head slowly.
Her name was Chu Manhua. She came from another city to Binhai University to study. The four year university life had made her accustomed to the peace and quietness of Binhai. The salaries were not as high as other big cities, but the slow-paced lifestyle was nice. Therefore, she found a job after graduation, then bought a house under her family’s financial assistance to settle there permanently.
A few years passed by quickly. As she grew older, important life events were right in front of her: finding a boyfriend, getting married, then having babies.
Society was not tolerant to single ladies. Her family grew anxious and pushed her constantly to find someone to marry. Her colleagues and friends also set her up on dates. Some of the boys were very nice.
Chu Manhua didn’t want to be single all her life––he fancied about love––but she never met anyone she truly loved. She didn’t want to settle with someone she didn’t love, therefore, she stayed single.
On a random occasion, she felt that she might meet her Mr. Right.
The boy was also working in Binhai City, with medium to high level salary. He made more money than her, which was enough to support a family. She was satisfied with his height and looks. He was not as handsome as a celebrity, but was comfortable to look at. He didn’t have any bad qualities, he liked traveling, and he knew a lot. He was funny, had a lot in common with her, and made her look good in front of her friends. Most importantly, he was very good to her, cared about her, and always helped her out whenever she encountered difficulties in life or at work without being asked. He made her heart warm.
He was also a man who listened to reasoning. She felt that she could not ask for more in a boyfriend. Sometimes, she even feared that she was not good enough for him, as she was a little chubby and ordinary-looking. Her family was not very rich, either.
To strengthen the precious love relationship that she had waited for a long time, she tried her best to improve herself in every way.
It was fine to be ordinary looking. She didn’t want to get plastic surgery, but she was constantly reading fashion magazines and learning how to apply make up. After some careful makeovers, she might get six or seven points in most people’s eyes.
Her family was not rich. She could not choose the family that she was born into, but she could make an effort to make things better. Therefore, she studied in her spare time, and submitted her resume to another local company that paid a higher salary.
It was fine to be chubby. She studied all kinds of weight loss tricks, and devoted 120 percent of herself into the cause of losing weight…
As the story developed to that point, Chu Manhua’s life path was not much different from others. The only difference was the fact that she had met someone that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with––it made her work even harder.
Good news came one after another.
She had passed the written test and the interview with the better company. Weight loss seemed so easy––it was not as hard as the others described it to be on the internet. She became skinner and skinner very quickly.
As she lost weight too fast, the skin on her neck, tummy, and shoulders were not elastic enough and became wrinkled. Her old clothes became baggy; her face became skinny with a pointy chin. Her colleagues and friends envied her so much that they asked what her secret was. They even asked if she had been taking some secret prescription from an old, traditional, Chinese medicine doctor…
The greatest news was that her boyfriend finally proposed to her in a very romantic way!
The day he proposed, Chu Manhua thanked all the Gods and Buddhas she ever knew, thanking them for blessing her with such a happy life.
However, something unexpected happened.
Slowly, she started feeling tired and she was always thirsty. Even after drinking a few glasses of water, she still felt thirsty.
Suddenly, one day, she was rushed to the hospital after she developed a sudden fever. In the hospital, she was diagnosed with Ketoacidosis and the doctors confirmed that she had Type One Diabetes.
The news struck her like a lightning bolt on a sunny day. She would never forget the doctor’s face when he spoke to her.
She searched for information in the hospital and realized that Type One Diabetes was incurable under the current medicinal level. She could only sustain her quality of life by injecting insulin for the rest of her life. Worse than that, if the blood sugar in Type One Diabetes patients was not well controlled, they might develop serious complications within a few years, such as amputation, blindness, and death…
The diabetic complication photos she found online were so shocking. She didn’t want to look at them, but she could not help herself from looking.
She also found out that diabetic patients might not conceive easily. The babies they bore might also be prone to diabetes.
She fell into a great pain after she learned the information. How could she live the rest of her life after getting such a chronic, deadly disease at such a young age?
It was too unfair!
She had already worked so hard. The heavens gave her everything she had wished for, but then they took them all back.
She could not hide the news from her boyfriend. Chu Manhua waited for an appropriate time and told him everything honestly.
While she spoke, she still had some hope in her heart, thinking that their relationship might survive. Their future life would be hard, but nothing would be too hard as long as they both walked together. As for having babies, she would try her best.
However, her boyfriend, who had always been sweet to her, didn’t give her a warm hug as she had expected, nor did he tell her not to worry and that everything would be fine. He acknowledged the news coldly, then found an excuse and left.
Chu Manhua’s heart turned cold.
As she expected, on the third day, her boyfriend broke up with her officially. He told her bluntly that her illness had made him lose faith for their future, and his family insisted that they should stop seeing each other. He didn’t even bother telling her face-to-face, but messaged her on WeChat. He then transferred her some money as compensation for the breakup.
She seemed very calm back then––so calm that it scared her. She didn’t take the money. Instead, she messaged him back and said, “I got it. Wish you all the best.”
After that, she deleted him from her contact list and cried herself to sleep. She didn’t step out of her house for days.
She hated everything, and hated herself. Why did she have to get such a deadly illness?
To make matters worse, during the medical exam before she started at the new company, she could not hide her illness. The new company declined her candidateship politely; yet, before she had found out about her illness, she had already been resigned at her previous company.
She lost both her love and her career at the same time and became a zombie. She spent hours every day looking into the distance without doing anything, and without knowing the purpose of her life.
The threats of severe complications hung over her head like the Sword of Damocles, which could cut down at any moment.
She didn’t bother looking for a new job, and lived on her old savings.
Afraid of making her parents sad and worried, she didn’t tell her parents about her sickness.
As for future relationships… Her ex-boyfriend was right. She’d better not burden or harm anyone else.
She spent her life in limbo for a long time. One day, she suddenly wanted a pet.
Chu Manhua always liked pets––both cats and dogs––but she never had a chance due to various reasons and restrictions. She had been raising a pet on the cloud.
She once imagined that if she had two kids in the future, a boy and a girl, and had two pets, a cat and a dog, then life would truly be perfect.
Too bad her ex-boyfriend was not interested in pets. He didn’t object up front, but he didn’t support her. Sometimes he even forwarded her news in which pets injured the owners.
Anyway, she didn’t have a boyfriend anymore… As soon as the pet idea popped into her mid, she could no longer stop it from growing stronger.
She did some research and learned that cats and dogs had a life expectancy of around ten years, which was perhaps around as long as the life that she had left… If she had pets, that would not count as burden and harm, would it?
Therefore, she searched for pet shops online, and visited a random one that she had picked. As for the reason she picked it… it was maybe that the name “Amazing Fate” had somehow touched her.
Just like that, she was there.
When Zhang Zian asked her if she liked outdoor activities, she said she would try to like being outdoors because the doctors told her so. If she wanted to stay healthy and avoid complications, she had to be careful with her diet, take walks outside, or jog more often.
She used to be a real Otaku. Now that she had lost both her love and her career, she still had her parents. She didn’t want to die before her parents and make them devastated. As a result, she decided to follow the doctor’s advice.