Ignoring Yu Nan, who was still sprawled on the floor, Yu's mother pulled up Zhu Yao, who was standing in the corner, and looked at her with particular fondness. "What a beautiful little girl! Unlike Yu Nan, who dyed her hair white and looked like a grumpy old woman, you'd think she was a granny if you didn't know better..."
"Mom!" Yu Nan covered her bottom and cried out in embarrassment on the ground.
What's wrong with dyeing your hair? What's wrong with dyeing your hair white?
"Tell me, did you trip over your workbook? How could you fall in your own room? I told you to sell your books for scrap after the college entrance exam, but you insisted on keeping them because you worked so hard on them..."
The two happened to be standing next to that stack of supplementary textbooks. Yu Nan had just fallen and knocked the bundle of books to the ground, but fortunately, the hemp rope held them in place and prevented them from scattering.
"Sell! I'll sell it right away!"
The college entrance examination has been over for a long time, and Yu Nan has long since stopped being attached to those "textbooks".
"Sure, I can use the money to buy drinks for Xiao Zhu... Where is Xiao Zhu from? Does he drink alcohol? My family has a lot of wine, homemade, and the grapes are grown by ourselves... Don't worry, he can drink it..."
"How long have you two been here? Sigh, you didn't even tell me you were coming back. I hadn't prepared any food yet..." Mother Yu wiped her hands on her trouser leg.
"Mom, we just arrived and came up to put our luggage down."
"Okay, why don't you take Xiao Zhu out for a stroll first, and then buy a Qingjiang fish? I'll show off my cooking skills to Xiao Zhu..."
Author's Note:
Back in the day, my workbook was so clean that I sold it as a secondhand book, hahaha.
Chapter 50 The Top Student Can't Ride a Bicycle
Yu Nan tried to carry the stack of exercise books downstairs, but after gritting her teeth, she couldn't budge it.
Mother Yu: "You're such a useless piece of trash. I'd be better off raising a piece of barbecued pork than you."
Yu Nan: "..."
In the end, Zhu Yao and Yu Nan's mother carried the books downstairs. Yu Nan's mother also gave Yu Nan some money and told her to take Zhu Yao to have fun around the area.
Yu Nan: "...Mom, I have money, besides, our new house was built with my own savings..."
Yu's mother tapped Yu Nan on the head: "You don't even want the money your mother offers you? You think you're all grown up now?"
Yu Nan: Waaah, I dare not.
There is a small garage behind the house. In addition to Yu Nan's parents' private car, there is also a light blue electric car with Hello Kitty stickers.
The electric vehicle was plugged in, the key was in the ignition, and Yu Nan turned it – it was fully charged.
Yu Nan placed the stack of books on the footrest of the electric scooter, got on, turned the key, and the headlights flashed, indicating that everything was normal.
She nimbly rode the bike out of the garage, turned around and patted the back seat of the electric scooter, "Come on, sis, let's go for a ride!"
Zhu Yao was a little scared; she had never ridden in this kind of vehicle before, whether it was an electric scooter or a bicycle.
The two wheels were in a straight line, which scared her a little…
Yu Nan noticed Zhu Yao's subtle resistance and teased her, tilting her head, "You're not scared, are you?"
Zhu Yao nodded: "I've never ridden one before, it feels very dangerous."
"You didn't ride a bicycle in college? I've heard the legends about your school. The campus is huge; it takes two hours to walk from the dorm to the classroom without a bike. Some people even ride their bikes while coding, and some professors ride bicycles all over campus..."
Zhu Yao quickly interrupted Yu Nan: "That's Dihua. Dihua's campus is big, our school is small. It's no problem to walk a few steps."
Besides, even for a top university like Dihua, it wouldn't take two hours to walk around the campus...
"But I heard that your school's students are going to live in the Old Summer Palace."
"That's the Yuanmingyuan campus... We don't need to go to the Yanyuan campus... Anyway, we don't need to ride bikes!"
"I thought... riding a bicycle was an essential skill for everyone when they were kids."
"Uh... I'm from Qingdao."
Yu Nan understood that the island city was high in the east and low in the west and north and south, with a low-lying area in the middle. There were very few flat areas in the urban area, so there were very few people riding bicycles.
Many people from Qingdao never learn to ride a bicycle from childhood to adulthood.
Zhu Yao sat nervously in the back, while Yu Nan laughed heartily, "If you're scared later, just hug my waist and close your eyes."
Yu Nan put the only safety helmet on Zhu Yao and then twisted and turned out of the alley-like residential area of single-story houses.
The traffic markings on the road were long faded, the white and yellow lines obscured by dust. There were few private cars on the street; mostly bicycles, electric bikes, and tricycles carrying goods. Occasionally, an elderly person would drive a horse-drawn carriage by…
Time here seems to have stood still in the last century.
"This is a small county town, and people don't usually drive. Some places are just a short walk away."
Yu Nan played a trick; she turned the electric scooter to the highest gear and carried Zhu Yao at top speed, weaving through the winding alleys.
"Slow down!"
Zhu Yao hugged Yu Nan tightly, resting her head against Yu Nan's back, almost pressing her entire body against her back.
"If you're scared, just hold me tight~"
When the speed is fast, the wind is also strong, and Yu Nan's voice is trembling with a strange, unnatural quality.
However, being too reckless will not end well. While crossing a bridge over a river, Yu Nan's right hand, which was controlling her speed, suddenly cramped up.
Oh no… Her hands often lack strength, and they twitch if she moves too much. She used too much force when turning the handlebars just now, and now the scar feels like it's being electrocuted, itchy and painful.
The car shook violently, and Yu Nan quickly let go of her hand and stuck out her foot. Fortunately, neither the car nor she fell to the ground.
However, the stack of books fell to the ground.
"Did you almost fall just now?"
"Well…"
Although there was no real danger, Yu Nan was afraid that her hand might cause further problems, so she slowed down, and the two of them strolled leisurely through the streets and alleys.
As the speed slowed down, Zhu Yao opened her eyes and curiously looked around.
The houses in this town are predominantly white, with gray-white wall panels and white paint, but you can see the red bricks inside through the gaps.
Flags of all sizes hang beside the houses, with burgundy cloth embroidered with yellow characters such as "alcohol," "cigarettes," and "grain and oil," replacing the neon signs in the city.
Some businesses have put up signs in front of their stores, such as "Boxed meals for 10 yuan, all you can eat" and "Milk tea and ice cream".
Yu Nan stopped in front of a large courtyard with a sign that read "Scrap Collection". There was no one at the gate. The two of them opened the unlocked iron gate and found a mountain of bottles, cans and books inside. A man in military uniform was squatting on the ground with his back to them, gently counting the scraps.
"Oh, isn't this Xiao Yu? You're home? Is your brother back yet?"
"Brother Dajun? Uh, my brother isn't back... I'm here to buy scrap."
The man Yu Nan called Dajun had dark skin, a ruddy complexion (as if from high altitude), and a sharpened pencil stub tucked behind his ear. He was staring intently at them.
"Wow, you brought it all the way here? You can just give me a call and I'll come pick it up."
"I was just out for a stroll and decided to deliver it on my way."
"There are only a few books, so I won't charge you. Oh, why are they college entrance exam study guides? Did someone in your family just finish their exams?"
Dajun didn't stand on ceremony with them, readily paid the money, wrote down the bill with the pencil stub on his ear, gave Yu Nan a few coins and a few banknotes, and then continued to bury himself in sorting through the mountain of scrap.
Stepping out of the junkyard, Yu Nan held the few coins in her hand with a curious expression. "I haven't touched physical currency in ages. What's this stuff called? Coins and paper money?"
"It's paper money!" Zhu Yao said helplessly. Isn't paper money for the dead?
There happened to be a convenience store next to the scrap yard, and Yu Nan used the money from selling scrap to buy two popsicles.
In this small town, small shops are not called "convenience stores" or "grocery stores," but "warehouses."
"Ice cream is getting more and more expensive these days."
Yu Nan sighed, "They used to cost 50 cents each, but now the more expensive ones cost 20 or 30 cents... But we can afford them, we can eat whatever we want at home!"
Yu Nan, the "local tycoon," waved his hand with great arrogance.
Zhu Yao stared at the popsicle in her hand, speechless. When she went to the "warehouse" earlier, the old lady didn't have a WeChat QR code, so she had to use the "paper money" she had just received to buy the cheapest popsicle.
The popsicle was called "Ba Ba Liang," which was made of sugar water frozen into a white cylinder that was faintly translucent. When you took a bite, your mouth was full of ice shards.
Yu Nan, with a popsicle in her mouth, rode her bike back home with Zhu Yao on the back.
"Ugh, ah! Ah (cool)!"
The popsicle was so cold that Yu Nan's teeth felt like they were going to fall off, and her cheeks started to hurt. Zhu Yao quickly took the popsicle from her.
"Let's find a place to finish our ice cream first."
It was summer, and the weather was a bit hot, so the sugar water dissolved and dripped onto Zhu Yao's hands.
Yu Nan parked in the shade of a tree, got out of the car and took the popsicle from Zhu Yao's hand. She subconsciously put her fingers, which were covered in sugar water, into her mouth.
Zhu Yao quickly withdrew her hand and flicked Yu Nan's forehead with her clean hand. "What do you want to do?"
"Aren't we together?" Yu Nan looked at Zhu Yao with a pitiful expression.
Zhu Yao felt a cross-shaped vein appear on her forehead. She took a deep breath and forced a smile tinged with anger. "Don't you find it dirty?"
"Uh... but I didn't bring any toilet paper... Shall we go to the river to wash up?"
A river flows through the middle of the town, and it's not far from here.
The riverbank was blocked off with iron posts and chains painted red, seemingly to prevent someone from accidentally falling into the water…
However, there was no fence on the shallows, and the clear river water revealed pebbles on the sand under the sunlight, with a few fish and shrimp swimming around occasionally.
"Now the water is polluted. When I was a child, there were so many shrimp this season, and there were also small crabs under the pebbles. We would scoop up a bucketful and have my mom fry them. She would coat them with flour, egg white, and breadcrumbs, and the neighbor's kids would be drooling with envy!"
Yu Nan happily played in the shallow water, while Zhu Yao, who had just washed her hands, watched Yu Nan play happily from the side.
So it turns out... Yu Nan wasn't born a homebody.
"Oh no! I caught it! Sister, come quick!"
Yu Nan clasped her hands together, holding something as she stood up. Zhu Yao walked over and discovered it was a translucent shrimp, hopping around in Yu Nan's hands.
"These are the small, translucent shrimp; they make a wonderfully fragrant soup!"
The moment Yu Nan opened her hand, the shrimp jumped back into the river.
"My shrimp!" Yu Nan cried out, and crawled back onto the shallows to look for the transparent shrimp.
Zhu Yao suddenly understood why Li Yue and Lang Xi always said that Yu Nan was like a primary school student. Indeed, she was like a child who never grew up, always innocent and carefree, and always warm and welcoming to others.