Yesterday, at No. 260 Qiaobei Village in Jiangbei, cleaning worker Aunt Chang stood at the place inside the building corridor where she had picked up the money and told the story - photographed by reporter Hu Jian of our newspaper.
According to the news report from our newspaper (intern reporter Zhang Xiaochao): 43-year-old Chang Xiurong is a cleaning worker who, after doing this job for so many years, encountered something mysterious the other night: a female homeowner was throwing books, paper, pots, pans, plates, old quilt covers... out into the hallway one by one. Not only were there ten thousand yuan in cash, but also property deeds and ID cards. Was it carelessness or intentional? Aunt Chang was confused.
She specifically asked the female homeowner if she still needed the items.
At 9:30 PM the other night, Aunt Chang started collecting household waste from each family. She was responsible for the entire building at No. 260 Qiaobei Village in Jiangbei.
When she reached the 14th floor, she saw the female homeowner of apartment 14-4 clearing things out of her door: books, paper, pots, pans, plates, old quilt covers... Aunt Chang said that homeowners usually pack their garbage in plastic bags, tie them up, and place them at the staircase entrance. The items cleared out by this family were all scattered, extending from her doorstep all the way to the staircase entrance, forming a large pile. Aunt Chang even specifically asked the female homeowner: "Do you still need these things?" The response she received was that they were not needed anymore and could be taken away.
The quilt cover wrapped a bag containing ten thousand yuan.
To make it easier to clean up, Aunt Chang used the old quilt cover to bundle up the scattered waste together, took the elevator downstairs, and prepared to send it to the garbage station. Inside the elevator, she discovered a bag wrapped in the quilt cover.
"Such a new bag, how could it be thrown away?" Aunt Chang felt strange, took out the bag, opened the zipper, and a thick stack of hundred-yuan bills appeared right before her eyes, "It scared me half to death. I've never seen so much cash before, and I didn't dare count how much there was."
Aunt Chang took the bag to the neighborhood security guard. "This stack of money looked like it had just been withdrawn from the bank, neatly bundled together. We counted it, and it was ten thousand yuan." Security guard Zhang Chenmin accompanied Aunt Chang upstairs and returned the money together to the female homeowner.
Important documents were also lost, and some were recovered.
"At around midnight on that day, the male homeowner of apartment 14-4 came back and said that many important documents such as the property deed had gone missing," said Zhang Chenmin. Subsequently, the male homeowner found Aunt Chang and searched through the garbage she had collected, but did not find anything.
Aunt Chang said that since she couldn't read, she didn't know which pieces of paper were important when collecting the garbage. However, she usually sorted the garbage and collected the waste paper separately to sell when there was enough. The next morning, the male homeowner searched again through the waste paper collected by Aunt Chang.
Yesterday, the male homeowner told reporters that he had already retrieved some important documents from the discarded items, "Insurance policies, bank cards, ID cards, etc., and the exact list of what was lost and what has been recovered is still being sorted out."
What exactly happened to the female homeowner?
■ Cleaning Worker: She said she threw the money because she was too hurried.
"How could you be so careless and throw away the money?" Aunt Chang said she asked the female homeowner when returning the money, and the homeowner replied that it was because she was too hurried.
"On the evening of the 29th, this family also threw out a lot of clothes." Aunt Chang said, "Most of them were old summer clothes. I bundled them into three large packages and finally sent them to the garbage station with the rest of the garbage."
Some neighbors in the neighborhood said they weren't very familiar with the homeowner who threw the money, as the owners were usually very low-key and rarely spoke to anyone.
■ Daughter: Mom has a cold.
Yesterday afternoon, when reporters went to the homeowner's house to inquire, the daughter of the female homeowner just came back. When the reporter proposed an interview, she politely declined, saying her mom had a cold and was sleeping.
■ Husband: Her mind was a bit disoriented.
Later, a middle-aged man opened the door. He expressed his gratitude to Aunt Chang for returning the ten thousand yuan in full. The man introduced himself as Mr. Wang, with his wife's surname being Chen. Mr. Wang said that it was his wife who was clearing out the items at home, but now she was sick and resting, "Her mind has been a bit disoriented these past few days, which is why she threw away the money."
Cleaning Worker: Not mine, I don't want a single cent.
Aunt Chang is from Lishui, Sichuan, and has been working as a cleaning worker in Chongqing for six or seven years. Usually timid, she said this was the first time she had encountered such a big event.
Aunt Chang said that her monthly salary is 680 yuan, and her husband also works, with their combined monthly income not exceeding 2000 yuan. They have to support their son who is currently in the third year of high school and take care of their elderly parents. "Not mine, I don't want a single cent. What I earn through hard work, I will strive for every cent."