“Kid, time’s up, it’s already nine past five.”
The female owner had a cigarette in her mouth, leaning against the door.
In fact, she didn’t smoke.
The cigarette in her mouth was a kind of snack called Mo Shuang Yan.
Many kids, in order to look cool, would eat this candy and then get a good scolding from their parents when they got home.
“Ah, I know.”
Chen Qiao finally came to his senses.
He hadn’t been this focused on writing for a long time.
His fingers were slightly trembling.
After finishing the detailed outline of the first two volumes, he immediately wrote the first chapter.
In one go, Chen Qiao experienced for the first time what it was like to have his typing speed keep up with his brain, which was exhilarating.
Of course, it was also related to the fact that there were not so many distractions from the outside world.
He couldn’t chat idly, as the functions of QQ groups were not yet complete, and there were no lewd pictures.
As for playing games, Chen Qiao couldn’t calm down to enjoy them now.
Perhaps he would have the mood for these things after achieving financial freedom and overcoming difficulties.
After saving the document, Chen Qiao compressed and encrypted it and placed it in an inconspicuous folder.
He planned to upload it this weekend.
He still had ample time, but he couldn’t guarantee that there wouldn’t be any mishaps in the middle.
He wanted to get his first pot of gold as soon as possible to lay out his business plan.
Chen Qiao turned off the computer, walked out of the partition, and the female owner’s daughter was still doing her homework, already very sleepy.
She was dozing off like a chick pecking at rice, and her homework paper was marked with several irregular lines.
She had changed out of her school uniform and was wearing a common pink strawberry-printed pajama.
After two hours, the homework still wasn’t finished?
Her efficiency was really too poor.
But that’s how kids are.
They easily get distracted.
They sit for a long time, seeming to be serious, but actually haven’t written a word.
Their minds have long flown to the ends of the earth.
Plus, eating some snacks and watching TV.
Parents these days also don’t have the ability to tutor their children’s studies.
When this group of people, who have experienced nine years of compulsory education, became parents, they were also subjected to various anxiety marketing.
Schools began to reduce the burden, and parents had to take on part of the educational responsibility.
Although there were many who slipped through the net of nine years of compulsory education.
More often, it was like his father, who dropped out of school for various reasons.
After finishing elementary school, they thought that being able to read and do arithmetic was enough, and there were many people who didn’t continue their education.
In some families with a preference for boys over girls, girls were not even sent to school.
His mother, after finishing junior high school, her family was not that wealthy either.
They planned to support the younger uncle to continue his education.
The fact that his mother was able to study for so long was already a very commendable result.
She did a lot of work for the family in her spare time from studying, and her family just wanted her to get married.
After his mother and father got to know each other through a matchmaker, his mother expressed that she wanted to continue her studies and get married after graduation.
His father, who had dropped out of school halfway and couldn’t read many words, knew better than anyone the importance of education.
His mother went to high school with the dowry money, and his father also sent her money for living expenses during this period.
After his mother finished her undergraduate internship and returned to the town health center and got married to his father, she then had his sister and then him, Chen Qiao.
This led to a significant age gap between him and his sister and their cousins.
His grandmother and maternal grandmother were not very close to their family, which was also related to his parents’ bold actions back then.
However, it was the end of the strictest period of family planning, otherwise not only would he not have had the chance to be born, but if his mother had been forcibly sterilized after having a second child, having a younger sister would be like a pipe dream.
The vasectomy reversal surgery at that time was not mature and had a low success rate.
His mother, with her personality, would definitely be too lazy to go through with it.
It could be considered a blessing in disguise.
It was also because of his mother’s education that she could easily switch jobs to the city hospital.
Now she is the only rural deputy senior professional title in the town health center.
Many doctors and nurses, after finishing their internship, would leave.
At least they would apply for the county hospital.
Everyone is climbing up, and there are even some nurses with bad temper and poor skills.
Chen Qiao remembered one year when he was getting an IV, the nurse missed the vein several times.
It was really bad.
“Let the kid go to bed early. If the homework is not finished, it’s still in time to get up early tomorrow morning and catch up,” Chen Qiao suggested.
“You’re just a kid too, talking like an old man. Hurry up and go home to sleep, or your parents will catch you. Mengjia, go brush your teeth and go to bed.”
“Okay.”
The girl called Mengjia, with sleepy eyes, got up, rubbed her eyes, and walked in big slippers that didn’t fit her feet, making a clapping sound.
She walked with her head down, and then her left foot stepped on the heel of her right foot, and she stumbled forward.
“Be careful.”
Chen Qiao, with quick eyes and hands, stepped to the side and blocked the little girl in front of her, and she bumped into his arms.
Chen Qiao held the thin shoulders of the little girl and steadied her.
She was startled and became more alert.
Her body trembled and her eyes widened.
The female owner was also startled by the unexpected situation and scolded loudly, “Fang Mengjia, you child, don’t you watch the road when you walk!”
It was a subconscious behavior of parents in this era to scold the child first when encountering a problem.
“Don’t scold the child, boss. It’s normal to be unstable when walking while sleepy, and these shoes don’t fit either.”
The female owner didn’t dare to let her daughter walk anymore and directly carried her to the back bathroom to brush her teeth.
Fang Mengjia’s chin rested on the female owner’s shoulder, looking at Chen Qiao, and said belatedly, “Thank you.”
“Kid, be careful when walking at night and watch the road well,” the female owner admonished.
“I know, don’t treat me like an ordinary child.”
Chen Qiao used to come to the shop just to play computer games and didn’t talk much with the female owner.
When she called him off the machine, he just wanted to delay a few more minutes to play longer.
There was no internet cafe system, and it was all manual to call people off the machine.
Not to mention her daughter, who didn’t know if the boasts he made in the live broadcast would come true, let the little girl sit beside him and watch him play the computer.
There is a chance, isn’t the meaning of being reborn here?
This mother and daughter were very mysterious.
The surname Fang was rare in town.
It was not known what their background was.
It was too tactless to directly investigate other people’s secrets.
It was also not told to outsiders, but it was possible to gradually build a good relationship and wait for them to confess voluntarily.
At least when the female owner wanted to transfer the shop, Chen Qiao had a plan to take it over.
It was a place that carried many of his memories, and he would create more memories here in the future.
The last part of the way home had no streetlights.
There were occasional barking dogs, meowing cats, and the croaking of frogs in the fields.
The stars in the night sky were also visible.
The house was quiet, and the lights were not even on.
His mother was on duty tonight and would stay overnight at the hospital.
His father had not come home yet and should be drinking tea and chatting with friends.
So-called connections naturally accumulated through daily efforts.
Usually, these days when he was home alone were the happiest for Chen Qiao.
He took out the Little game machine, connected it to the color TV, and played to his heart’s content.
His Little game machine had been smashed by his father several times.
There was a saying at that time that playing games would reduce the life of the TV.
If he was found out, he would be scolded even worse.
Chen Qiao used to play on that old black-and-white
Now that there wasn’t a single person at home, Chen Qiao felt an emptiness in his heart, coupled with a sense of loss and loneliness.
His sister still had another forty minutes before she could return home.
It was going to be a tough wait.
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