Goods Blocked the Hallway, and the Landlord Came Knocking!

At ten Tuesday morning, Lin Fan sat at his desk reviewing the merchants' submissions. He had handed yesterday's shipping-origin data to Zhou Bin, who was presenting it in the meeting room now. As for how it went and whose head it would fall on, he could not be bothered to care. He was happy to enjoy the peace.

The phone in his pocket buzzed.

A text from Ma Le: The goods are here. Six sacks, each taller than a person. You call this one batch of goods?

One message followed another.

Where are you? The driver needs a signature, so I signed.

I paid Old Wang, the scrap collector, to haul them upstairs. Three yuan per sack, eighteen total. Reimburse me.

Sixth floor, no elevator. Brother, you owe me a big meal.

Your room couldn't fit it all. There are still three sacks left, so I stacked them against the wall in the hallway. Figure it out when you get back.

At the word "hallway," Lin Fan's fingers paused.

The corridors in old apartment buildings were narrow to begin with. Three person-height sacks planted there would block half the passage, forcing anyone going upstairs or downstairs to turn sideways. Nothing annoyed neighbors more than that.

But he had no choice right now. He could not skip work, and he could not move the goods. All he could do was hope the neighbors would be understanding and put up with it for the day. He would deal with it when he got home that evening.

He texted back: Stack them tight against the wall. Don't block the stairway. I'll deal with it tonight.

He spent the rest of the day distracted. The moment six o'clock hit, he grabbed his bag and rushed home.

Before he even entered the building, he sensed something was wrong. Someone was speaking loudly in the hallway, their voice carrying down floor after floor.

When he reached the sixth floor, the three sacks were still standing against the wall. Auntie Chen from across the hall stood in the corridor with her hands on her hips. Ma Le hung his head outside his apartment door. His mother had arrived too—a woman in her fifties whose voice was even louder than Auntie Chen's—and she was poking Ma Le in the forehead.

"I knew it! The moment I left you in charge of collecting rent, something was bound to happen sooner or later!"

"Mom, listen to me."

"Listen to what?" Ma Le's mother slapped a sack. "Auntie Chen's elderly mother was coming downstairs at dusk. It was pitch-black, and she nearly tripped over this thing! What if she'd fallen and gotten hurt? Could you afford to pay for that?"

Auntie Chen chimed in from the side. "Exactly! The passage is completely blocked. What if there's a fire or smoke? Where are people supposed to run? We're only thinking of everyone's safety."

Lin Fan stood at the stairwell entrance with his bag in hand, not daring to say a word.

The goods had spilled out from his room. As the real culprit, he stood outside the crowd like he had nothing to do with it. It did not feel good. But he knew even more clearly that if he said one extra word right now, he would only make more trouble for Ma Le.

After she had scolded enough, Ma Le's mother shoved open the door to the rented room, intending to see exactly what was piled inside.

The moment the door opened, half the room full of woven sacks and neatly stacked parcels was exposed.

"What... what is all this?" She turned and glared at Lin Fan. "Lin, why is your room piled up like this? What are you up to?"

Just as Lin Fan was about to speak, Ma Le squeezed in from behind.

"Mom, the goods are mine!"

Everyone in the room turned to look at him.

"I've been running an online store lately and brought in a batch of autumn goods." Ma Le stiffened his neck. "Lin's room is spacious, so I borrowed it to store them for a couple of days. It has nothing to do with him."

"You?" His mother looked him up and down as though she were seeing this son for the first time. "You run an online store? You're too lazy to even wash your own socks, and you run an online store?"

"Don't underestimate me." Ma Le perked up. "I get dozens of orders a day. Ask Lin if you don't believe me."

Lin Fan nodded from the side. "Business is pretty good. I help him out after work."

Dozens of orders a day—Ma Le had blurted out a boast, not even realizing it was completely true.

Ma Le's mother was half-convinced and half-skeptical. She squeezed the sacks in the room, then opened one to look inside. They were all neatly folded leggings, nothing shady or suspicious. Her expression softened by half.

"Doing business is a good thing, but you can't block the hallway." Her voice lowered, though her finger was still jabbing as she spoke. "The bicycle storage room downstairs has your father's junk taking up more than half of it. I'll give you the key tomorrow. Clear out the junk and move all these goods downstairs. If the neighbors complain again, I'll break your legs."

"Got it!"

Then Ma Le turned to Auntie Chen with an apologetic smile and pulled two packs of socks from the room, stuffing them into her hands.

"Auntie, these are pure cotton socks shipped directly from the factory. Take them home and wear them. I'll move these three sacks out tonight. It was my fault for getting in your mother's way."

"Oh, you sure know how to handle things." Auntie Chen sounded dismissive, but her hands accepted the socks. "All right, all right. It's not easy for young people trying to do something. Just don't let it happen again."

As Ma Le saw his mother downstairs, she stopped at the stairway landing and turned back to glance at Lin Fan.

"Lin, if that useless son of mine makes you work without paying you, tell Auntie. Auntie will straighten him out."

"He won't. Take care, Auntie."

Once everyone had left, the hallway fell quiet. Ma Le leaned against the wall and let out a long breath, then slowly slid down it.

"That scared me to death. The way my mom looked at me, it was like she was interrogating a criminal."

"Hard work, Boss Ma."

"Cut it out." Ma Le rolled his eyes and lowered his voice. "I took the hit for you. With those stupid rules at your company, if I let even one word slip, wouldn't you be finished?"

"More or less."

"Tsk." Ma Le clicked his tongue but did not ask further. He crouched and grabbed a sack. "Come on, let's move them. Before my mom changes her mind. Half that storage room is way better than your place."

The two of them dragged the sacks downstairs one by one. Six flights of stairs later, by the time they finished the last sack, both of them were drenched in sweat.

They pulled open the storage-room door and switched on the bare bulb. After shoving Ma Le's father's old bicycles and broken cardboard boxes to one side, they cleared half a room of concrete floor. The six sacks were lined up solidly against the wall.

Standing beneath the light bulb, Lin Fan looked at the row of goods and replayed the entire day in his mind.

Today had truly been dangerous. If Ma Le had casually said the goods belonged to Lin, gossip in an old neighborhood like this could spread through the entire building in three days. He had no idea whether anyone in the building had anything to do with Taobao.

Luckily, Ma Le had not overthought it. He had opened his mouth and taken the hit. Usually, the guy was so lazy he could barely be bothered to lift his eyelids, but when it mattered, he did not hesitate.

He could not accept that favor for nothing.

"Next month, the name-lending fee goes up to five hundred." Lin Fan patted a sack. "And that big dinner tonight is on me too."

"Five hundred?" Ma Le's eyes lit up, then he waved his hand. "No, don't. Raising it that fast makes me feel guilty. I only moved some goods."

"What you took the hit for today wasn't the goods."

Ma Le scratched his head and did not refuse again. "All right, then. Let's get barbecue. I want two extra kidneys."

Looking back, this scare had actually turned into a gain.

Now that they had the storage room, they would have space even if they doubled the goods. It was ten times better than the cramped rental. With Ma Le's mother on board, everyone in the building would know that the Ma family's son was doing business whenever goods came in or out. It was aboveboard, and no one would give it a second look. They had practically gained a layer of cover for free.

Even Ma Le had changed. After knocking back a small glass of baijiu at the barbecue stall, he pounded his chest and declared that he would handle all future deliveries and hauling. He was idle anyway, and when his mother had said, "You run an online store?" today, it had been the quietest she had spoken to him in years.

When they returned home at ten that night, another row of red notification dots had piled up on Wangwang.

Twenty-six orders today.

Lin Fan crouched down to unpack the sacks and sort the orders. Ma Le leaned over, copying him as he tore tape and wrapped parcels crookedly. After finishing one, he looked rather pleased with himself.

"Hey, this is weirdly stress-relieving." Ma Le weighed a parcel in his hand. "Say, with all this stuff in your storage room, how long will it take to sell it all? Until the Year of the Monkey?"

"Soon."

Lin Fan stacked the packed parcels by the door and glanced out the window.

"Once the weather turns cool."