CHAPTER 50

After Shen Hui finished his exam, Li Xia drove them home. The child has grown into a young man, 1.85 meters tall. Sitting in the passenger seat, the mother and son began to chat.

“Mom, Yiyi is ranked first in the grade again in the initial test.”

“Really? That brat didn’t say that.”

“He’s used to it, so he doesn’t bother to talk about it.”

Li Xia looked back at her eldest son. Shen Hui leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I wanted to suggest that someone else come to the physics competition this time. But it’s all Shen Ruyi’s fault.”

This statement seemed to be made in anger, but in fact it was full of complaints. Without waiting for Li Xia to say anything, he continued.

“Our teacher said: Shen Hui, Shen Ruyi, who skipped a grade in high school, is your younger brother. Your younger brother ranked first in the grade. Isn’t it unreasonable for you not to win a place for our class in the physics competition?”

Li Xia smiled, knowing that the child was just complaining, not hating Yi Yi. Every time the teacher compared him with Yi Yi, he would complain. This child is much more cheerful than in previous years. He would joke with her and complain about her own son without any scruples. He treated her as his own mother, and there was no barrier between them when dealing with things.

“You are the top student in physics in the class. If the teacher doesn’t let you participate, who else can? And you still blame Yiyi for this?”

Shen Hui smiled, knowing that his mother was teasing him. But every time he was told about his younger brother, who skipped a grade, he was helpless and had nothing to say. He was very competitive and had been studying hard. But with Yiyi chasing after him, he felt more urgent and would complain every time. It seemed like he was releasing pressure in this way.

“Mom, I heard there’s a Sichuan hotpot restaurant on Xihu Road. How about we go there someday?”

“Okay, today is fine too.”

“Then let’s go home and pick them up, and then go find dad at his workplace.”

“Okay. You go to the hot pot restaurant and reserve a seat first. I’ll go get them.”

After driving to the hot pot restaurant and dropping him off to reserve a seat, Li Xia drove home. After entering, she went to the backyard first, where the old man was leisurely drinking tea. The tea soup was so light that you couldn’t see the color, but with two leaves of tea, it was considered a tea tasting and satisfied her craving.

“Dad, Huihui said we should go eat Sichuan hotpot. Let’s go; I’ll help you.”

The old man raised his head and waved his hand: “You guys go by yourselves; I’m not going.”

“Why? Sichuan hotpot tastes different from northern hotpot. It’s spicy, fresh, and delicious. If you have a sore throat and don’t like spicy food, then we can have a shabu-shabu pot.”

The old man smiled. “Do they have sesame paste?”

“Last time I had it dipped in oil, Well, isn’t this just a change of taste? Why do you want sesame sauce? If you insist on sesame sauce, then next time we’ll have northern-style braised lamb with plenty of sesame sauce.”

“Then wait until next time.”

“dad,”

The old man waved his hand and said, “I really won’t go. I’ll just stay at home.”

He has been less and less active recently. Qin Mu’s meals are to his liking, so he eats more than when he was abroad, and he has gained weight in the past few years. Li Xia wanted him to move around, but maybe he really had a heart problem, so she didn’t dare to force him.

“Okay, we will go out to eat then.”

“Go ahead, go ahead. Ask Qin Mu to go with you. I can eat at home by myself.”

She went to the front yard to call the others. In the west room, her daughter was sitting in front of a painting frame, her face calm and gentle. Her daughter’s appearance in this life has not changed, but her temperament and knowledge are incomparable to those in the previous life.

She called her daughter to change her clothes and went out to the kitchen. “Qin Mu, get everything ready for the old man. Let’s go eat hot pot. The old man asked you to come with us.”

Qin Mu made egg custard, millet pumpkin porridge, minced meat and eggplant, and mushroom tofu for the old man. At this time, it was basically ready.

“No, I’ll stay at home with the old man.”

“Your meal is ready, and the old man wants you to come with us.”

Qin Mu refused. She knew what she was doing in this family. They had been getting along well for so many years, and they knew the right balance between the two. “No, you go by yourselves.”

“Then I’ll bring you your favorite cake when I come back.”

Qin Mu is very considerate of the elderly. She was so considerate when taking care of her parents-in-law before, and now she is also so kind to the old man. The old man has nothing to give back; he just has a lot of money. Usually the salary is very high, and he gives big red envelopes whenever he gets the chance during festivals and birthdays.

After the old man said this, Qin Mu felt that she had to take better care of him. With two good things, the relationship would naturally become closer and closer. She was also very polite to Qin Mu and gave her enough respect.

She drove to Shen Haiyang’s workplace. As soon as he got off work, he saw his car, so he didn’t ride his bike but walked over and got in the passenger seat.

“Any plans for today?”

“Huihui said there’s a new Sichuan hotpot restaurant, so let’s go eat together. He’s already gone to reserve a seat.”

“Sichuan hotpot is very spicy and numbing. Can you get used to it?”

“You can have a shabu-shabu hotpot.”

Yiyi chimed in from the back: “A classmate of mine is from Sichuan, and he said the hotpot there is better than the lamb hotpot in the north.”

“Okay, let’s try it.”

A family of five went to eat hot pot. When they got off the bus, a girl was kneeling on the roadside opposite the restaurant. She was wearing a shirt that was so old that it turned white, and her pants were patched at the hips. In front of her was a large piece of cloth with words written on it.

The family of four were all attracted by the scene. Instead of entering the restaurant, they came closer to take a closer look at what was going on.

“My name is Wang Fang. I grew up with my mother for many years because my parents divorced. My mother is sick and in the hospital and urgently needs” As she got closer, she heard someone next to her reading the words above in a low voice.

A single-parent family asked for help. Li Xia didn’t know whether it was true or not. She has been doing charity work over the years and has donated a lot of money every year, much of which was used to help students. This girl has good handwriting, and her head is lowered but her back is straight. If it is true, she needs to be helped.

“Mom and Dad, why don’t you go in now that you’re here?”

There were several people surrounding them, but Shen Hui saw Shen Haiyang and Li Xia at a glance when he came out of the hot pot restaurant. He asked curiously, walked in and saw the girl surrounded in the middle, and then fixed his eyes on her.

Li Xia looked back at him with a look of shock. Could it be that they knew each other? The girl kept her head down because of the gazes of others. There were a few cents of change in the small bowl in front of her.

Without figuring out what was going on, Li Xia did nothing. She reached out and pulled the father and son into the store, and Huihua and Yiyi quickly followed. They sat down in the store and ordered food, and Shen Hui was a little absent-minded during this time.

Handing the menu to the waiter, she asked, “Do you know her?”

The child nodded at her and said, ” She was in the same grade as mine, a classmate from Class 8.”

“Then do you know about her family situation?”

“I don’t know. I saw that her clothes were very old. I heard that she dropped out of school when school started this year. Her classmates said that her family was not well off, and her mother was a sanitation worker sweeping the streets. I heard from her classmates that once they saw her accompanying her mother to sweep the streets.”

“So it seems to be true?”

Yiyi nodded. “So she is quite pitiful. Mom, shall we help her?”

Li Xia picked up the teacup and took a sip of water. “How do you want to help?”

“You mean you don’t care and let me figure it out on my own?”

Li Xia rolled her eyes at him: “What else? You said you wanted to help, but if you don’t care, do you want me to care? Should I help or you?”

“I’ll find a way if I can.”

The brat made a bold statement. Li Xia and Shen Haiyang looked at each other and smiled, waiting for the result. The hot pot was served soon. Today, they ordered a slightly spicy hot pot, which Li Xia really enjoyed after tasting.

“Why didn’t Aunt Mu and Grandpa come?” Shen Hui came back to his senses from the scene of his classmates kneeling on the ground, begging for help, and asked.

“Grandpa said he doesn’t like to go out. Next time we eat mutton at home, he wants sesame sauce, fermented bean curd, and chives.”

Yiyi took a bite of the tripe and slurped it up because it was so spicy. “Grandpa is also strange. His stomach hasn’t changed after so many years abroad. He still likes things like mutton and donkey meat hot pot.”

Huihua said, “People’s tastes are determined when they are young. They like what they have been used to eating since childhood.”

Yiyi refuted her: “No, I won’t. I want to eat all over the world, whatever is delicious.”

The three children chatted while they ate. When the meal was over, Li Xia paid the bill, and the girl was still kneeling there when the family left. The money in the teacup was all small-denomination bills, and there wasn’t much.

Shen Hui looked at her and seemed very touched. When they got home, Shen Haiyang patted him. The child saw concern in his father’s eyes and then smiled and spoke.

“I just feel that children from single-parent families are pitiful. If she had a father, even a stepfather, she wouldn’t have to be so humble now.”

He couldn’t say the rest of the words; Shen Haiyang knew he was talking about begging. In the 1990s, people’s living standards had improved a lot, and motorcycles and other things could be seen everywhere in the provincial capital. But this child was able to be admitted to No. 1 Middle School but dropped out of school because his mother was sick.

“Fate is sometimes strange, as if it is deliberately testing us. We must believe that after darkness comes dawn.”

Li Xia didn’t ask her son how he would help. She planned to watch quietly. The next day, she went to work and got up very early in the morning. When she washed up, she saw that the watch on Shen Haiyang’s wrist was missing. She pointed at his wrist and asked silently.

Shen Haiyang smiled helplessly and said, “I was robbed.”

“What?”

“Yi Yi, he asked me to donate money to help that sister yesterday. I casually said that I had no money, and he set his eyes on my watch.”

“Who else did he rob?”

“The old man, Shen Hui, Huihua, none of them were spared.”

Huihua heard her father talking about her brother’s behavior outside the door and quickly complained to her mother. “Not only did Shen Ruyi take my pocket money, he also took away several of my hairpins.”

Li Xia asked, “What about Shen Hui? What was taken away from you?”

Shen Hui replied in the courtyard, “Pocket money and my model.”

“No.” Li Xia looked up at the sky in silence and said, “Don’t you have hands? You just let him take it. I don’t know when our family members became so easy to talk to.”

Shen Haiyang spoke first: “He said he would buy me a Rolex when he works part-time in college.”

Shen Hui: “Next year, he will save money to buy me the latest airplane model.”

Huihua: “He said to buy me the latest accessories; the ones I have are all old.”

Li Xia burst out laughing and said, “He is just trying to appease you with some words. It seems that you are taking these words seriously.”