Chapter 66: I often think of my father
The guilt Jiang He initially felt about misunderstanding Xu Qing had now completely vanished.
This guy is so annoying.
Clenching her fists, Jiang He walked into the kitchen, planning to heat up so congee from last night. But she realized they had gone to Xu Qing’s parents’ house for dinner yesterday, and she’d forgotten to cook anything when they got back.
“Want so noodles?” she called out from the kitchen.
“No congee?”
“I didn’t make any last night.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to eat or not?!” After a few pointless exchanges, Jiang He was getting irritated. She rubbed her stomach, counted the days on her fingers, and reluctantly went back to her room.
“Aren’t you making noodles?”
Xu Qing was puzzled. What’s up with her?
“Later.”
Jiang He’s expression was sour, though she didn’t know exactly why she felt so annoyed.
A mont later, Xu Qing finished his stance training, standing for a whole minute longer than yesterday. He exhaled dramatically, pretending he was a martial arts master who needed to release bad energy after training.
Body stat 1.
Satisfied, he wrapped things up and went to wash up. Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he checked for any changes. He didn’t see anything different.
Of course there’s nothing to see... I’ve barely been doing this for a few days. Even the Sunflower Manual doesn’t work that fast.
“I’m making noodles for you.” Jiang He had cald down by the ti she ca out of her room.
“Pfft… cough, cough…”
Xu Qing, who was brushing his teeth, almost choked on the foam. “It’s called cooking noodles! Don’t say it like that.”
“Isn’t it the sa thing?”
“Just cook your noodles.”
Xu Qing didn’t want to explain, or dare to. Otherwise, she’d definitely get mad...
How did my mind go there? Damn internet s.
She cooked a whole pot of two-yuan noodles, adding two eggs. The egg whites and yolks had separated during cooking, and she used a spoon to reunite them in the bowl.
Xu Qing filled a third of his bowl, leaving the other two-thirds for Jiang He. Breakfast cost three yuan in total, which made Jiang He even more fond of cooking.
“Eating this every day would cost just over a hundred yuan a month.”
“If you just drink water, you won’t have to spend a cent.”
“...”
Jiang He ignored him.
“Wait, you can live for seven days without food if you only drink water. So, you could eat one al every seven days and spend less than ten yuan a month.” Xu Qing offered his “reasonable” suggestion.
This ancient girl needs to experience the iron fist of socialism... Seriously, it’s not like she’s a college student dating soone. Who eats noodles every day?
Oh wait, college students don’t eat noodles either; they eat buns.
After breakfast, Xu Qing hogged the computer to research movies and novels. Jiang He, confused by his work, sat on the couch with a hand warr, reading a book.
The books were ones Xu Qing had bought out of boredom—The Complete Sherlock Hols, Journey Under the Midnight Sun, Ordinary World, and so leftover economics textbooks from college. Jiang He could recognize the characters, but not the sentences. After finishing Five Thousand Years of Chinese History with the help of a simplified-traditional guide, she now struggled with novels.
Even though it was hard, she understood so things. Art reflects reality, and literature does so in a more representative way. Xu Qing once thought about borrowing primary school textbooks from Aunt Cheng’s granddaughter for her, but decided it was pointless.
Jiang He wasn’t lacking basic knowledge; she had her own thoughts and was smart. What she lacked was understanding of the modern world. Studying ancient poetry and essays wasn’t as helpful as learning about society through literature.
As for math? As long as she could do basic calculations, that was enough. Most people never touch calculus again after leaving school. Education is about improving one’s value for a better life. For Jiang He, mastering equations was just a waste of ti—unless she found it interesting.
“You’ll hurt your eyes reading like that. Put the book on the table.”
Stretching his back, Xu Qing turned to remind Jiang He.
“Nearsighted?”
“Yeah, it ans you can’t see clearly and need glasses. You know, those things people wear on their noses with glass fras.”
He pointed to his nose and suddenly got an idea. He ran to his room, found an old pair of fake glasses he’d bought to look cool, and handed them to Jiang He.
“Try these on.”
“Like this?”
Jiang He nestled into the couch, wearing the glasses and glancing around.
Snap.
Xu Qing secretly took a photo.
“What are you doing?” Jiang He sensed sothing was off.
“Sending it to you. You look good like this.” Xu Qing shalessly sent the photo via WeChat, then handed her a mirror.
“Look.”
“...It looks weird.”
She looked for a mont, then took the glasses off and sat up straight with her slippers on, continuing to read.
“Tsk... you remind of my dad,” Xu Qing sighed. Seeing her like this made his heart itch.
“Your dad?”
“Yeah... Did your Second Mom ever hug you?”
“We used to huddle together a lot. In winter, she’d hug tightly.”
“Oh.”
Xu Qing was disappointed, putting away the glasses and returning to the computer.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for movies and thinking about becoming a film critic.”
Why not give it a shot? Xu Qing’s philosophy was simple: if it works, great. If not, no harm done. That’s how he started his YouTube channel, after all.
“Film critic?”
“It’s too complicated to explain right now. It’s even a bit tricky for . I’ll just try it out.” Xu Qing shrugged. Wuxia was dead; recent martial arts movies were disappointing. Exploring new things couldn’t hurt.
The key was having taste—understanding what movies were really saying, instead of just laughing and forgetting about them. He had the basics; now it was ti to dig deeper.
“Smart people never go hungry. This is an age of brainpower. You need to get smarter and stop being so clueless...”
As he spoke, his phone buzzed. It was Wang Zijun.
“Where are you?”
“At ho... what’s up?”
“The part-ti job. That thing you ntioned—I looked into it, and it’s doable.”
“How do we set it up?”
“Let’s et and talk. I’m on my way. We need to sort out so details.”
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