Thanks to the snowy day, today is another day where I don’t have to go to evening self-study.
Qin Yu had long legs and was the first to walk out of the classroom. He went straight to the east stairs.
Yesterday was his first day at the school. He went through the wrong gate and after walking for a long time he arrived at the North Gate. He found that there was no apartment where he lived across the road, so he had to go back through the campus to the East Gate.
He didn't go through the wrong gate today, and he was probably the first person in the class to rush out of the school.
"Qin Yu!"
Suddenly someone shouted from behind.
Lu Bosheng caught up quickly. He looked at his watch and said, "You're already at the gate three minutes after class. I don't usually see you being so active in class."
"I'm in a hurry to go home and study English."
“Stop it!”
Qin Yu shrugged, meaning, if you don’t believe it, what can I do
Lu Bosheng couldn't stand the way he behaved, but since this was at school and he was a teacher, he refrained from kicking him.
He asked, "Is your mother home?"
Qin Yu casually said, "No, he rarely comes back before ten o'clock."
My mother and father opened a law firm together, and even after all these years of divorce, they have continued to work together. They both put profit above all else and are a perfect match.
After nearly twenty years of hard work, Shuoyu Law Firm is now one of the most powerful law firms in the industry. His parents did not have time to come up with a name for him, so they picked a character from the name of the law firm.
Shuoyu Law Firm is headquartered in Beijing, and has a total of 15 branches across the country. My mother was originally in charge of the Shanghai branch, but then something happened and she is now in charge of the Suzhou branch.
Suzhou is not far from Shanghai, so my mother also takes care of the projects in Shanghai.
"How are you going to have dinner? Did you invite an aunt to your home?" Lu Baisheng asked with concern.
Qin Yu: "No, I don't like outsiders in my house." He raised his chin towards the alley across the street, "There are snack bars in there, so you won't starve to death."
Lu Bosheng lives alone and learned to cook for himself after living in Suzhou for a year and a half.
He said to Qin Yu, "Let's go to my house for dinner."
Qin Yu looked at him with an expression that said, "Am I crazy? I have to go to my homeroom teacher's house after school."
Lu Bosheng said: "Don't worry, we'll just eat and not talk about studying."
Only a fool would believe that.
Lu Bosheng was helpless and finally decided: "Let's eat outside so I don't have to cook."
Qin Yu reluctantly agreed, and his attention returned to him, asking him, "Can you cook?"
Lu Baisheng said "hmm".
"How strange."
Lu Baisheng changed the subject: "Brother He called me at noon and talked about your academic performance. He must have heard from your mother that I was your class teacher."
The second brother He mentioned by Lu Baisheng is his biological father, He Junshuo. He took his mother's surname Qin. After his parents divorced, he grew up in his grandmother's house.
Outsiders who were not aware of the situation thought that when they divorced, the mother relied on the Qin family's background to bully the father, took custody of him, and changed his surname to Qin.
But it is not.
There is no issue of his parents fighting over his custody. They are too busy making money to waste time on a child, so they call it joint custody.
From the time he was four years old to now when he is sixteen, he has been taken care of by his grandparents. His grandparents live abroad, and he spends his summer vacation there.
The time and energy his parents have spent on him over the years is not as much as what they would have spent on one of their big clients.
When he was in elementary school, his teacher asked him what his ideal was. He answered without thinking: to become the richest person so that he could buy all his parents' working time to accompany him.
"Teacher Lu, can we talk about something happy?"
As they were talking, the two crossed the road.
Lu Bosheng asked him back: "What happy thing do you want to talk about?"
Qin Yu: "For example, playing games..."
He was interrupted by Lu Bosheng in the middle of his words: "Just give up on playing games."
Qin Yu said "Haha", he really thought he wanted to take him to play games.
Not far into the alley, some students on bicycles overtook us from behind. They were students from Class 9, both boys and girls.
"Teacher Lu." They all greeted Lu Baisheng.
Lu Bosheng is humorous when teaching and has a good relationship with his students in private.
One of the girls said, "Teacher Lu, we will buy some oden for you and the new students."
Inviting Lu Baisheng was just a cover, the main purpose was to invite Qin Yu, so as to get familiar with him.
They rode their bikes slowly, deliberately slowing down to wait for Lu Baisheng and Qin Yu.
Lu Baisheng turned around and asked Qin Yu: "Do you want to eat oden?"
Normally, Qin Yu doesn't like to eat these, but today is an exception. He doesn't want to eat with Lu Bosheng. It's possible that during the meal, he will talk about all kinds of life truths.
If you don't agree, there's no need to talk too much.
If he packed a portion of oden, he could part ways with Lu Bosheng in the shortest possible time.
"Okay, I love to eat this." Qin Yu said hypocritically.
Lu Bosheng went with a few students to a small roadside shop selling oden. He would not let the students treat them, so he gave the owner two hundred yuan and let them choose for themselves.
"Pick out what you like to eat, and I'll pay for it if it's not enough."
"It's enough. We can't finish it. We are all on a diet."
Pu Chen saw several people gathered together from afar. There was her most familiar teacher Lu, and Qin Yu. However, she has always been out of place in such a lively atmosphere.
The oden shop was on the right side of the road, and she walked along the left side of the road without anyone noticing her.
A few meters ahead is their family's auto repair shop, where dad is busy.
As usual, Pu Chen wiped the whiteboard at the door clean, refilled his father's thermos with hot water, and carried the thermos home to do his homework.
As I walked to the door, a person came towards me.
"Teacher Lu."
She smiled and mouthed it.
Lu Bosheng handed over a portion of oden in his hand and said, "I just treated those kids to a meal and packed a portion for you. I don't know what you like, so I took a little bit of everything."
"Thank you, Teacher Lu." Pu Chen still said it silently with his mouth.
For Pu Chen, Lu Bosheng's visit to the store was considered a home visit. She was grateful to Lu Bosheng for caring about her and respecting her father so much.
Pu Chen took the bag of packaged oden home, leaving the two of them chatting in the store.
Pu Wanli saw his daughter's head teacher coming over, so he put down his work, took off his gloves and started making tea. The tea was newly bought, specially prepared for Lu Baisheng.
Lu Bosheng often came over, and no matter whether it was Pu Chen or Pu Wanli, even the neighbors were used to it. They said Pu Chen was lucky to have met such a responsible and good teacher.
When Pu Chen was in the fourth grade of elementary school, her family was in a car accident. She was also in the car at the time. Her mother died, her father lost half his life, and she was also seriously injured.
Later, Pu Chen suffered from vocal cord disease which could not be cured and he has been unable to speak since then.
Due to the successive blows, Pu Chen was basically in a state of self-isolation in those years. Except for her father and aunt, she did not communicate with anyone.
In the past six months, Pu Chen's personality has become much more cheerful and there is a smile on his face. Although he still has a hard time studying, he has made great progress and is willing to take the initiative to learn. A large part of the credit goes to Lu Baisheng.
Pu Wanli was unable to express his gratitude to Lu Baisheng. Every time Lu Baisheng came over, he could only make a cup of tea to show his gratitude.
Lu Baisheng sat by the door with a cup of hot tea on a movable low table. He motioned Pu Wanli to continue.
He can communicate in simple sign language, which he learned from Pu Wanli in the past six months.
Not long before New Year's Day, Lu Baisheng and Pu Wanli talked about Pu Chen's monthly exam and asked Pu Chen what plans he had for the New Year's Day holiday.
Pu Wanli: There probably aren’t any plans. She doesn’t like crowds.
Lu Bosheng had no plans to return to Beijing. He didn't want to go back to the Lu family, so he would just make up an excuse to deal with his family, saying that he was discussing a project abroad and had no time to go back.
He told Pu Wanli: I'm in Suzhou during the holidays. If Pu Chen is free, I can ask her to video chat with me for extra lessons.
Lu Bosheng often tutors Pu Chen. Not only English, but mathematics, physics and chemistry are also Lu Bosheng's strengths.
Pu Wanli didn't feel comfortable disturbing her during the holidays. Lu Baisheng couldn't understand the complicated sign language, so he wrote on the whiteboard: You should have a good rest during the holidays. Wenxin might come back too. She had good grades when she was in school. If Chenchen doesn't know something, ask her. I can't bother you all the time.
Lu Baisheng kept looking at the two words "Wen Xin" on the whiteboard, his thoughts drifting away.
After Pu Wanli finished writing, he looked at the whiteboard again and found something wrong. He drew a line under the two words "Wenxin" and explained: Wenxin is Chenchen's aunt.
Lu Baisheng came back to his senses and nodded.
It wasn't until it got dark outside that Lu Baisheng stood up and said goodbye.
The alley was bustling with activity, traffic and crowds of people, making it extremely congested.
Pu Chen opened a window on the balcony, and lay on the windowsill to eat oden, concentrating on watching the lively street market downstairs. When she was a child, she loved standing here and looking out, but she was not tall enough at that time, so she had to stand on a stool.
Every night she stood at the window waiting for her mother to come home from work. She could always spot her mother among so many people and cheer loudly, "Mom!"
Her mother stood downstairs and looked up at her, her voice always so gentle: "Guess what delicious food Mom bought for Chen Bao today?"
She said, "Candy!"
Mom said, "No, that's not right. Mom bought oden for Chen Bao."
After finishing a cup of oden, Pu Chen came back to his senses, wiped his tears, closed the window and did his homework.
There wasn't much homework today, and I finished it all before ten o'clock.
Dad hasn't come back yet.
Today's temperature is one degree lower than yesterday, minus nine degrees Celsius. Suzhou has never been so cold.
Pu Chen put on a thick coat and went to the store to pick up his father from get off work.
Pu Wanli was moving the whiteboard into the house and was about to close the door and go home when he saw his daughter appear in front of him. He asked her why she came downstairs in such a cold day.
Pu Chen said he wasn't cold and helped his father pack all the car repair tools into the house.
Dad closed the shutter door and locked it. She stood at the door and accidentally glanced at the barbecue restaurant across the street. What a coincidence, she saw Qin Yu's tall figure, who was waiting for the barbecue to be packed.
It seemed that one portion of oden was not enough for him, so he went out to look for food again.
I don't know whether he has finished his homework.
Pu Wanli patted his daughter on the shoulder and asked her if she wanted to eat barbecue.
Pu Chen hurriedly shook his head and said that it was good to just smell the flavor. Eating barbecue too late would make you fat.
She walked home arm in arm with her father.
Under the street light, the shadows, one long and one short, snuggled closely together.
Pu Chen looked straight ahead and said to the air, "The head teacher's office is on the third floor, the second room." However, there was no sound, only a cloud of white mist.
The mist quickly melted into the boundless night.
It would be great if she could speak, even if she could only say a few words.