50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 778 Fire Alarm in the Basement
When Sun Zhiwei saw his daughter rushing over like the wind, he quickly stretched out a hand to block Sun Hongying's forehead from hitting him.

"Why are you running so fast, you little brat? You're so jumpy. What if you bump into the table?"

Sun Hongying stopped with a smile: "Dad, when did you come back? I missed you and Mom so much, I think about them every day."

Sun Zhiwei rolled his eyes at her. This girl had just gotten married, and the young couple was in the honeymoon phase. Why was she thinking about her parents?

Haha, who would believe that?

Anyway, Sun Zhiwei didn't believe it. He discovered last night that the girl had even taken the slippers from the room in the old courtyard, so she had no intention of coming back to live there.

"Tell me, what gift do you want, or what favor do you want Daddy to do?"

"Dad, I really miss you."

Seeing that his daughter was still pretending, he didn't expose her. Instead, he nodded in agreement and said, "Yes, yes, you're really Daddy's little darling."

"Dad, you're only staying here for a few days this time. Why don't you come stay at my place? The old courtyard has been uninhabited for months, and we haven't prepared many things."

His daughter was right. It was too late last night, and he didn't want to disturb her, so he stayed in the old courtyard for the night.

His daughter formally invited him today, so naturally he's going to stay at her house.

Her courtyard has dozens of rooms, fully furnished with furniture and appliances, and Yang Guihua helps with cooking, making it much more comfortable than the old courtyard now.

He's not a masochist who has to make himself look like an empty-nest elderly person, forcing himself to suffer if he doesn't have to.

The father and daughter chatted for a while before Sun Zhiwei learned that after he came out of Xu Yimin's place, he was seen by a former colleague who then went to tell Sun Hongying.

In recent years, Sun Hongying has been living a very comfortable life at her workplace, with the powerful Xu Yimin above her and the former colleagues and apprentices of Sun Zhiwei below her.

She has now been promoted to team leader and can lead a team on missions independently. She is now considered a leader, which is why someone would tip her off.

The two chatted for a while until it was lunchtime and time to get off work.

Some of my colleagues who aren't too busy, and who live in or near the diplomatic compound, go home for meals.

Because home-cooked meals are more in line with personal eating habits, and you can save on lunch allowances, plus you can lie down at home for a while after the meal.

If comrades have too much to do and can't take a lunch break, they will eat at the canteen of the ministry's private guesthouse.

The Ministry's exclusive guesthouse is the former Six Nations Hotel. Since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs moved after the last earthquake, the Six Nations Hotel has become the Ministry's internal guesthouse.

Some comrades who are stationed abroad year-round stay there when they temporarily return to Beijing, and they are also responsible for providing meals in the canteen for comrades who work overtime in the diplomatic building.

Sun Hongying usually eats out with Xiao Qihang, but today Sun Zhiwei came back, and her daughter said she wanted to keep her elderly father company, so she wanted to take Sun Zhiwei out to eat with her.

Now, individual businesses and private restaurants are springing up like mushrooms after rain, and there are quite a few private restaurants in the back alley of the diplomatic building.

Many employees in the department eat lunch at these private restaurants, because, of course, the food in the canteen is expensive and unpalatable.

If you encounter some bigwigs hosting banquets for guests, you can even sign the bill directly at these private restaurants.

That's how it is these days. If your restaurant doesn't accept signed bills, you won't get any catering services. Without catering services, you can't make much money just from casual customers.

But Sun Zhiwei knew that signing too many bills was not a good thing. Many private restaurants near his workplace would eventually go out of business and close down because they had too many bills to settle and couldn't get paid.

His daughter wanted to treat everyone, but Sun Zhiwei wasn't stupid. The young couple had a small get-together every noon, and he was just asking for trouble by going there as a third wheel.

So he flatly refused: "You two go eat lunch, and call back this afternoon to ask Aunt Yang to cook a proper meal for us tonight."

After seeing Sun Hongying off, Sun Zhiwei put away the documents, then took some meal tickets from the iron box in his spatial storage, and slowly walked towards the guesthouse canteen.

He wasn't going to eat at the staff canteen on the first floor of the guesthouse, and he knew the food there wasn't good.

He was going to the small canteen on the second floor. The food there was much better, and it was mainly for senior leaders or ordinary employees who lived upstairs to have a treat when they wanted to eat meat.

Upon arriving at the Six Nations Hotel, he went straight to the escalator in the center of the lobby. The small dining hall was located on the south side of the second floor.

He stopped abruptly as soon as he stepped onto the quaint wooden staircase.

He thought he smelled a faint burnt smell, but it couldn't have come from far away.

He hadn't opened his spatial dimension after relaxing at home, but now that he'd discovered something amiss, he naturally opened it to check the situation.

Once the space opens up, it becomes a sphere centered on him, and all areas within its range are places he can explore in detail.

He quickly searched the guesthouse, but found nothing unusual from the first floor to the roof. After thinking for a moment, he turned his attention to the ground beneath his feet.

He remembered that the Six Nations Hotel used to have a basement, but he had never paid attention to this place before.

When he explored the basement, he discovered what was inside.

At this moment, the basement door was closed, but the basement was filled with thick smoke.

Several workers dressed in construction team uniforms lay dead on the basement floor, and a raging fire was burning in one corner of the basement.

He immediately stopped walking uphill and turned around to the reception desk at the main entrance to report the situation to the female staff member on duty behind the counter.

"Comrade, I just smelled something burning on the stairs. You should call your manager to send someone over to check it out. There must be a fire somewhere."

The woman on duty was busy knitting and completely ignored him. It was unclear whether she had heard what Sun Zhiwei said.

Normally, Sun Zhiwei might not have bothered with it, since it wasn't his business anyway. But there were several people lying in the basement, and if they had waited any longer, someone might have died.

So, seeing that the duty officer didn't seem to care at all, he immediately got angry.

Sun Zhiwei immediately straightened his back, his expression turned serious, and he slammed his left hand heavily on the counter.

Before he could finish speaking, the woman behind the counter exploded.

She slammed the yarn she was holding onto the table with a bang, and blurted out, "You're the woman! Your whole family are women! Can't you speak properly?"

Sun Zhiwei was taken aback by her sudden outburst, but he quickly realized that this woman looked to be a bit older than he was, and wondered if she was still a single young woman.

Otherwise, why would she be so sensitive to the word "women"?

(End of this chapter)