Ch 27

Lou Cheng picked up his dad at the airport. Lou Hongye flew over from Australia. He has a mines deposit in Western Australia that is active during the summer.

He didn’t have any luggage, so he boarded the plane only wearing his coat. He was blown away by the heavy snow as he exited the airport, which made him feel cool.

Stepping on the snow one foot deep immediately got his socks wet. Lou Cheng rolled down the car window and beeped at him twice: “Dad! Here.”

Before Lou Hongye got on the car, he saw Lou Cheng’s front cover rubbed off the paint and the bumpers were all crooked.

“Your car is broken and you still driving it?” He closed the door, turned over a blanket from the back seat, and wrapped it tightly around him. “Your father will buy you a new car tomorrow. What car do you want? Supercar? “

The wiper swept the solidified snow on the windshield.

“I don’t really like driving, forget it.” He likes motorcycles, but there are enough limited-edition motorcycles in his garage, and he bought everything he likes. Lou Cheng hasn’t fancy new ones yet.

“Then what do you want?” Lou Hongye lowered the seat and asked him while lying down.

Lou Cheng thought for a while and said, “The school cafeteria is too ugly, and the milk tea tastes bad.”

“Small things.” Lou Hongye began to call.

Lou Cheng knew that his father was an activist. Seeing that his phone had reached the principal, he added: “The school cafeteria is too expensive. It’s time to reduce the price.”

Lou Hongye gave him a puzzled look.

Cafeteria? Expensive? How expensive can it be that even Lou Cheng thinks it’s expensive?

Lou Cheng drove the car to the house. He lived alone in the neighborhood next to the school. His mother Yue Yun also lived alone. Like Lou Hongye, she traveled frequently and was very busy doing such a big business by herself.

When they got home, Yue Yun hadn’t come back yet and said on the phone that she was still in the company.

The family of three can’t cook. Yue Yun invited an aunt to cook on weekdays, but now it’s the Chinese New Year, the aunt has also gone home.

Lou Cheng ordered the New Year’s Eve dinner at 4 pm and delivered it to the door at 8 pm. Yue Yun happened to come back at 8 pm, She put down her things and Lou Cheng saw a big red small handbag: “Where did you get this candy?”

“A manager of the administration department got married and gave me an invitation wedding candy.”

Lou Cheng said “Oh”, and removed the ribbon on the candy box.

When Lou Hongye saw it, he said, “My son has delayed sugar teeth and he eats candy! Eat first.”

“Eat one and your teeth won’t rot.” He paid no attention and immediately peeled off the candy and shoved it into his mouth. It was a milk candy with a strawberry filling. When he bit into it, the milk-flavored hard candy on the outside shattered in half, allowing the soft filling to flow out and slowly melt in his mouth.

Lou Cheng lowered his head, placed the candy paper under his nose, and gently sniffed.

Lou Cheng’s sense of smell was eroded by the rich scent of milk mixed with strawberry scent, and he suddenly remembered something and raised his head.

“Dad,” he yelled abruptly, fiddling with the candy box in his hand, hoping to find another candy like that, “Do we have a candy factory?”

Ding Xuerun received a picture of a round white milk ball in Lou Cheng’s palm.

Ding Xuerun: “What is this?”

“Sandwich toffee.” Lou Cheng sent a text message this time, “Xiao Ding, don’t you think this looks like you?”

Ding Xuerun: “…”

“Where does it look like?”

Lou Cheng said: “It’s very similar!!!” 

The smell is very similar.

Because he had been a deskmate with Ding Xuerun for a long time, he thought it was strange not to talk for a long time.

Lou Hongye saw him chatting with people non-stop and laughing at the same time, too suspicious. He glanced at Lou Cheng’s mother, and Yue Yun said without raising his head: “It seems to be in love again.” She asked, “Is it your deskmate this time?”

Lou Cheng: “How do you know that it’s my deskmate?”

“I heard you mention it several times.”

Lou Cheng smiled: “My deskmate is a boy; do you mind if I bring home a male daughter-in-law?”

Yue Yun, who was eating elegantly, stopped when she heard this.

Lou Hongye also put down his chopsticks, his expression became a bit tangled for a moment, as if trying to digest this fact.

For a long time, Yue Yun squeezed her eyebrows: “Let it be a man,  as long as you like them.”

Lou Hongye didn’t say anything, but Lou Cheng matter had almost done. He suddenly sullen his face and said seriously: “I haven’t said anything yet.”

Yue Yun stared at him, thinking that he was going to announce another big news.

—— Lou Cheng couldn’t help but laughed out: “I just teased you guys, hahaha I don’t like men hahaha.”

Lou Hongye was furious, and got up and beat him: “What are you pretending to be gay for? Lou Cheng, come here! Let me see if I won’t kill you!”

Lou Cheng continued to laugh. He had no idea how many times he pretended to be during this time. The more he pretended, the better he got, and he was a little obsessed with this gay pretension.

Ding Xuerun’s family has many elder relatives, but none of them are particularly close. His grandfather has died, and his grandmother, who is now elderly and suffering from Alzheimer’s, lives with Ding Xuerun’s third uncle.

Ding Zhaowen has several brothers and sisters. He is the second child. The old man moved to the city more than ten years ago, and his sister also married out of town.

This year’s Chinese New Year also saw the return of Ding Zhaowen’s brothers and sisters. Wang Qianfan, the son of his sister-in-law family’s seems to be around the same age as Ding Xuerun. “Fanfan, you are the same age, and you play with the same things,” his sister-in-law said when he was asked to play with Ding Xuerun.

Wang Qianfan looked at Ding Xuerun who was wearing an old cotton coat and ignored his mother’s words.

The sister-in-law said awkwardly: “This kid, introverted.”

Their hometown is a small county, and once something bad happens, it spreads for a few days.

Ding Xuerun couldn’t hide the fact that he suddenly transferred to another school a few months ago.

Ding Zhaowen first explained to his old family, “Runrun went to a better high school. There are only one or two Tsinghua and Peking University students in our entire school. For the entire grade, his new school could have dozens of students. Runrun goes there for the sake of getting into a better university.”

Later, he didn’t know which relative with a broken mouth, went back to his hometown and said, “The boy from Teacher Ding’s family was transferred to another school after being expelled for a fight!” 

Everyone laughed at Ding Zhaowen as a teacher after the rumor spread. They claimed that he had no idea how to discipline children and that he had married a deaf-mute wife. The child must be a troublemaker: “Fighting and expulsion must be very serious! That kid’s grades aren’t great, aren’t they?”

He doesn’t know who said that Ding Xuerun didn’t transfer to another school, but instead dropped out and went to work in the northern cities.

Ding Zhaowen doesn’t come back very often because he married a deaf-mute and had a baby soon after. The old man believes the child was not born to him, and some people outside say, “Mr. Ding’s wife is a deaf-mute woman. Oh, and she’s as lovely as a fairy!”, “After only a few months of marriage, they had a child. Do you think there is something fishy going on?”

The old man felt it had disgraced the Ding family and refused to allow him to return for the Spring Festival. It wasn’t until Ding Xuerun’s Grandfather died that he began to return to his hometown and visit his relatives on a regular basis. The relatives were aware that he was a teacher and were enthralled by him, believing that there would always be a relationship for their children to attend high school in the future.

When the family got together for New Year’s Eve dinner, the younger generation was always asked about their studies.

Wang Qianfan went back to his hometown less often than Ding Xuerun. Everyone was very curious about him and asked, “Did Qianfan go to high school? How long is the college entrance examination? How was your grade?”

“It’s the third year in high school,” the sister-in-law answered for him. “It’s not going to be the college entrance examination soon. Qianfan is still working hard. He has always been in the top three in his class. He wants to take the exam for Xiamen University, but he is still not good enough.”

“Wow, the grades are so good? Does Qianfan like his hometown? Stay a few more days and give your sister make-up lessons. She is in her second year of high school.”

Wang Qianfan silently picked up the rice in the bowl. His mother answered for him again, “We will stay for a few more days. Dandan is free to ask her brother at any time.” She turned to face the girl in the conversation, her eldest brother’s daughter.

Dandan attends an international school in the city. Her grades are in the mid-range. The teacher enjoys posing difficult and creative thinking questions to the students.

She smiled shyly and said, “My teacher happens to have assigned a difficult physics problem, and no one in the class has done it yet.” Even when her classmates saw the problem, they were confused.

Wang Qianfan finally said: “I’ll take a look at it for you later.” 

The uncle also asked Ding Xuerun’s grades, “I heard that the grades before the transfer were okay, right? How about after the transfer? What university do you want to take the exam to?”

Ding Xuerun doesn’t like to speak on this kind of occasion, but he is not a dull gourd, and he replied, “Anything to get through a university entrance exam.”

Uncle assumed he couldn’t be any good and said: “Then you should learn more from Qianfan and play less mobile phones. You are nearsighted because you play with mobile phones so much. I saw Qianfan doing his homework there while you were playing with your phone in the afternoon.” “And so is Dandan,” he added. “Learn more from your brother and play with your phone less.”

After dinner, the adults watched TV, and some went to play cards. Dandan took out the exercise book from her schoolbag and went to find Wang Qianfan. This physics problem was not in the exercise book, nor was there any difficulty in the exercise book.

She has a very standard drawing style. An equilateral triangle is made up of nine connected straight lines. She requests three snails: A crawling toward B, B crawling toward C, and C crawling toward A. She stated the speed and inquired as to how many turns the snails had made, how many centimeters they had moved, and what the trajectory looked like when they finally met after a few minutes of movement.

Wang Qianfan took out his pen and didn’t care much when he saw the problem. As a result, he didn’t figure it out for a long time. Dandan stood beside him and ran away to see the Spring Festival Gala when he couldn’t figure it out. Wang Qianfan still hadn’t figured it out when she returned.

“Brother, is this problem difficult? None of the classmates know how to do it.”

“I’ll solve it soon, wait.” Wang Qianfan asked Dandan for more than ten minutes. “Did you copy the question wrong? Is it still possible? Or is your drawing wrong?”

“The question is not wrong, I copied it according to the teacher’s copy.”

Wang Qianfan insisted: “Impossible, there must be a mistake.” He was incredible, “You’re only a sophomore in high school, how can they give this kind of question for you? There is no such difficult question in the college entrance examination.”

Dandan was frightened by his tone, and said softly, “I copied it down according to the teacher. There’s nothing wrong with the question, but you can’t do it…”

She took the exercise book and ran away.

Ding Xuerun was sitting outside blowing the night breeze and saw Dandan running out with tears, and asked her what’s wrong.

Ding Xuerun said, “Let me see it.”

Ding Xuerun looked down for about half a minute and said, “There are six ways to solve this question.”

“The three snails always maintain an equilateral triangle during its movement. At the same time, the equilateral triangle shrinks while rotating, and when it shrinks to…” He started to explain to Dandan before he started to calculate, and at the same time quickly listed the formula with a pen. 

Dandan didn’t understand him at all, but she listened to it vaguely and didn’t cry anymore.

Ding Xuerun’s problem-solving speed was terrifying, and when the answer came out, he changed to the second, third, or even more problem-solving methods.

Dandan read the full text of the solution to the problem and was taken aback at the same time.

She then sent the answer to the teacher. The teacher was surprised because she did not expect students in their second year of high school to be able to do it. She arranged it in order to broaden the students’ thinking and asked them to consider the following question: “The answer to this question is not available on the internet. How did you solve it?”

Dandan said: “I didn’t do it myself, I asked someone.”

“Dad!” she exclaimed as she walked in with her exercise book, “The problem has been solved!” Her father was watching television and chatting with family members who are only seen during the holidays.

Seven or eight adults sat in the living room.

Hearing Dandan’s words, he raised his head and took the exercise book: “Is it done?”

Dandan nodded heavily. The uncle couldn’t understand even after looking at it, but it didn’t prevent him from complimenting: “Wow, six ways to solve the problem and it’s very well written.” He said sincerely, “Little sister, Qianfan from your family is very good at studying, I’m sure he is going to pass the Tsinghua University exam!” 

His sister was not clear what this was about, so she smiled and said, “It’s still a long way, but he studies very hard. Yes, there is still half a year left, and it is still possible to replenish.”

Just as Wang Qianfan appeared at the door, the sister-in-law continued: “I believe Qianfan is possible…”

“No, it’s not.” Dandan didn’t see Wang Qianfan, so she hurriedly explained, “This question is the elder brother of the second uncle’s family answered it! The elder brother of the aunt’s family has been doing it for a long time, and he has to say that something wrong in my…”

The smile on her aunt’s face froze suddenly, and she felt that the little girl was very ignorant.

However, Wang Qianfan was even less sensible. He strode in furiously: “Who solved it? Impossible, there’s something wrong with this question!”

Seeing that the atmosphere is not good, his mother quickly said: “Okay, okay, Qianfan, Come and sit down and watch TV, isn’t it just a question?”

“Impossible!” he roared.

The little girl stomped her feet with anger, and gave him the notebook: “Look for yourself, there is nothing wrong with my question! The teacher even praised me.”

Wang Qianfan took the notebook and looked at it. The more he looks at it, the more ugly his face becomes. —— Unexpectedly, Ding Xuerun really solved it?

Six ways to solve the problems?

This only needs a few minutes?

Adults like to show off their children and compare their grades the most. When this happened, the atmosphere was not very pleasant. His mother hurriedly grabbed him to sat down and warned him in a low voice: “Stop talking.”

Ding Xuerun was irritated when he heard the noise inside, so he took out his headphones and put them on to listen to the BBc broadcast downloaded from his mobile phone. He climbed to the roof and sat on the tile-piled ridge of the roof.

The air and weather in his hometown are very good. He can see thick and dim clouds, a bright moon, and a few stars at night.

Ding Zhaowen was playing cards and knew that his son would not run around, so he never know that Ding Xuerun was not in the house.

Other adults don’t care about where such a little child has gone, cause they will never get lost here.

Ding Xuerun sat for a moment before lying down on the roof ridge. He put his hands on the back of his head and was very quiet, staring out at the night like it was a river.

At about eleven o’clock in the evening, Ding Xuerun received a message from Lou Cheng: “I’ll add you to the group, and you’ll enter to get the red envelope.” 

Before he knew it, he was added to the group, which consisted of thirteen people.

They should all be Lou Cheng’s friends.

Lou Cheng: “My deskmate is first in grade. He received 16 points more than the second-place place in the exam, and he was an excellent thief.” 

There was an uproar in the group, and Ding Xuerun had to come out to respond, privately poking Lou Cheng: “I don’t grab the red envelope, I’ll return it.”

“You are stupid, don’t return it! They all send hundreds or thousands yuan and I will send fifty pieces with two hundred yuan in them later. I will tell you in advance when I want to send it. You should be quick or open a plug-in.”

Lou Cheng also said: “After you grab the last envelope, send one or two hundred and it’s done.”

Ding Xuerun thought for a while and said yes.

The red envelope game lasted for an hour. Ding Xuerun snatched thousands of yuan. At the end of the day, he sent out half of it, and the other half was sent to Lou Cheng separately, saying, “I robbed you a lot at night.”

Lou Cheng went back to Ding Xuerun, said he didn’t want it and scolded angrily: “I got you in so you can grab the red envelopes. What’s the point if you return them all to me… Do you have a brain?”

“Yeah better than yours.”

Lou Cheng can’t refute.

On New Year’s Day, at precisely midnight, fireworks burst into the night sky, and half of the town was lit up into daylight.

Lou Cheng’s voice seemed insignificant in the roar of the fireworks. Ding Xuerun heard it over and over again and heard him say: “Runrun, Happy New Year.”

He also sent a happy new year message.

Lou Cheng asked: “When are you coming back?” 

‘The candy factory is bought for you, so you need to call me a husband.’

Ding Xuerun was frostbitten on New Year’s Eve night, so he baked in the sun for a while. The next day, his hands were itchy, and frostbite set in within two days.

Ding Zhaowen went to the pharmacy and bought him frostbite ointment.

He took the train back to school on the fifth day. This was a bumpy journey. After more than 30 hours, his spirits became worse. He slept in the dormitory for more than ten hours and woke up cause he was hungry.

Since school has not yet started and the cafeteria has not yet opened, Ding Xuerun went outside to eat a bowl of clay pot rice. He ate very slowly, sitting on the seat facing the school gate, and seemed to be looking for something.

But in the end, he didn’t see Lou Cheng either.

Ding Xuerun returned to the dormitory, and soon received a call from Lou Cheng: “Ding Xuerun, your fucking donkey cart, you haven’t returned to school yet on the sixth day of the new year?”

“I’m back.”

“When? I told you to call me, your brother as soon as you got back!” Lou Cheng said in a stern tone.

Ding Xuerun was feeling a little tired: “I fell asleep because I was too tired. I just woke up not long ago.”

Lou Cheng calmed down and said worryingly: “Did you have a good rest?”

“Yeah. I have brought something for you. I will bring it to you later.”

“What is it?”

“Sweet-scented osmanthus golden candy.” He made it himself.

“Candy? What a coincidence! I also have one for you!” Lou Cheng said on the 30th day of the New Year that he would buy a candy factory. After a few days of tossing, he finally came down. This candy company is not big. It was originally called Xihaha, it mainly produces wedding candy and chocolate. Lou Cheng thought it was too tacky, so he copied it and changed the name to Wahaha with a big pen stroke.

Lou Hongye was particularly satisfied with the name, and exclaimed: “My son really didn’t read for nothing, he is much more educated.”

Lou Cheng was very happy because Ding Xuerun was coming over. He took a bath and opened his mouth in front of the mirror to check her decayed teeth.

He has been suffering from mild tooth decay. He was asked to eat less sugar before seeing the dentist, and he couldn’t control his mouth. Fortunately, he’s no longer a child, so even though his big teeth are a little decayed, it doesn’t affect his eating sugar.

Ding Xuerun entered his house. Lou Cheng was wearing pajamas with water dripping from his hair: “Where is the sweet-scented osmanthus candy?”

“I made a lot of it.” Ding Xuerun gave him the handbag, “You can eat slowly. Put it in the refrigerator when the weather got hot.”

“Did you make it yourself?” Lou Cheng was surprised and reached out to take the candy. At this point, he noticed Ding Xuerun’s fingers were covered in finger gloves. They were bright red with small red bumps. He couldn’t see his original lovely slender fingers.

He didn’t know it was frostbite. He was so scared that he doesn’t want to eat the candy anymore, and he pulled Ding Xuerun’s hand, very distressed: “Runrun, did you burn your hand when making osmanthus candy for your brother?”