Chapter 82 – A Long, Long Time

Su Zhifu goes to school early and is close to home, so she is able to go to school and home by herself, or if it rains, her grandfather picks her up.

When she usually goes to school, she walks slowly and it takes her fifteen minutes to get to school, if it’s after school she uses it to run and she’s home in five minutes.

The first thing I did when I got home was to drop my school bag and take out my workbook and run to Shen Yu’s house to do my homework.

Auntie Wang is very pleased and feels that her daughter has become more understanding.

In the afternoon, Shen Yu went to class and Asaba Rika stayed home by himself to look after the house.

” Bai Xiaomeng are you home?”

The gate to the courtyard opened and Su Zhifu came running in, shouting before Bai Xiaomeng came bounding over to her and threw his big head under her chin.

“Hee hee ……”

Su Zhifu enters the room with Bai Xiaomeng in her arms and takes out her workbook to repeat the trick.

” Xiaomeng I, Xiaomeng I!”

“You’re out of school so early, huh?”

Su Zhifu whispered, “So, is brother Shen Yu home?”

“He’s gone to class and hasn’t come back yet.”

” Xiaomeng I, I’m the best with you, do you know how much 8+9 equals?”

“I know.”

“And how much does that equal?”

” Shen Yu said I couldn’t tell Puffs if she was the one asking me these questions, so I can’t tell you.”

Su Zhifu was struck by a bolt from the blue and climbed up on a chair, leaned over the table and looked at Xiaomeng I on the screen in her maid’s outfit and asked her, “Why can’t you tell me that I’m best with you!”

Xiaomeng I said, “But I’m best with Shen Yu.”

Su Zhifu was dumbfounded, he hadn’t come to do his homework for two days over the weekend and thought he would make up for it today, Monday, but Xiaomeng I defected.

“How can you be like that! I won’t go with you!”

Su Zhifu grunted, clasped his hands to his chest, his mouth turned up in the air, and sat down on his chair on his short legs to sulk.

Bai Xiaomeng then leaps from the table into her arms, a cat lunges and the pulley chair slides backwards.

Xiaomeng I added, “It’s okay, I’m only good with Shen Yu, I’m best with him.”

“I’m the best with Shen Yu’s brother!”

Su Zhifu tells Xiaomeng I super loudly, and repeats it dozens of times.

She climbed out of her chair, pushed it back into place and leaned over the table again and asked, ” Xiaomeng One, so what would it take for you to tell me what 8+9 equals?”

Xiaomeng I said, ” Shen Yu said that when you learn to add and subtract within twenty, I can tell you what 8+9 equals.”

Su Zhifu hastened to say, “I will!”

Xiaomeng I asked, “So what does 17 – 8 equal?”

Su Zhifu then counted on her fingers and toes together and told her excitedly, “It’s nine!”

“You got it right, how clever!”

” Brother Shen Yu is the smartest person in the world and I am the second smartest person in the world.”

Su Zhifu was very pleased with herself and asked her again, “So 8+9 equals what?”

Xiaomeng I: “……”

Xiaomeng I has no heartbeat, but I can’t help but feel a little tired at this point.

Su Zhifu and Xiaomeng I asked each other questions and after a lot of hard work, they finally finished their maths homework for the day.

Su Zhifu I don’t know what the problem is either, why do I always feel as tired as if I’ve done twice as much homework ……

“So tired! Meow ……”

Su Zhifu meowed and nuzzled Bai Xiaomeng, who was sleeping on her homework book, and rested on her cat for a while before running out into the yard to water the sweet potatoes, garlic and spring onions she had planted.

After watering her own small vegetable garden and carefully pulling up some weeds, she dragged a long hose to water Asaba Rika’s flowers before Shen Yu returned.

Finally the long hose is pulled back to its original position, coiled in a circle, and sits at the entrance to the courtyard holding a small face in awe.

……

Asaba Rika is upstairs revising the script. As a teenage comic book artist, she’s super into abuse, but unfortunately Shen Yu doesn’t like it and tells her to redo the ending so that Lance and Arya live happily ever after and have three children.

“Three so many!”

“Is it a lot? Other families have five of them.”

Each of them has their own point of view, and after some discussion, it was decided to make two endings, depending on which ending line the player will trigger when interacting with the AI.

This makes it all the more playable when you think about it.

Rika was busy until 5:30 when he came downstairs to water the flowers and then saw Su Zhifu sitting in the doorway holding Bai Xiaomeng.

“Huh? Puffs, you’re here?”

” Sister Rika, when will brother Shen Yu be back?”

Asaba Rika crouched down beside her and asked her curiously, “Is there something you’re waiting for him for?”

“I have to tell him that I’m better off with him because last time I told Shen Yu’s brother that I wasn’t going to be with him and then now I’m with him again and I have to tell him to do that.” Su Zhifu said seriously.

Asaba Rika was amused by her, it was seriousness that belonged to Puffs, so he told her, ” Shen Yu is now off to buy food, we will make dumplings for dinner tonight, do you want to eat with us?”

“Yes, yes! I have lots of dumpling skins at home, all made by my Mum herself, I’ll get them!”

After saying this, Su Zhifu ran home again in a huff.

Asaba Rika looked at her tiny figure and thought to herself are children so full of energy, she rarely seems to see Puffs walking slowly, she must be used to run whenever she wants to go somewhere.

Soon Su Zhifu came over with a bag of dumpling skins, about sixty or seventy of them.

“So much!”

“I told Mum I wouldn’t be home for dinner tonight and she asked me to bring more in case there wasn’t enough food in your house.”

“Much better, I’ll talk to Shen Yu so he doesn’t have to buy dumpling skins ……”

Asaba Rika took out his mobile phone and sent a WeChat to Shen Yu.

Shen Yu, who was shopping for groceries at the supermarket, saw the message and replied back with a full stop, indicating that she was aware of it.

He was thinking of going out for dinner, but Rika wanted to cook for herself and said it would be too much trouble for him to come back and take her out for groceries, so Shen Yu simply went shopping herself.

It turned out that I thought so, but when I went to the grocery store by myself, I found that I was dizzy just looking at the vast array of meat and vegetables in the large fresh produce supermarket, and instead of being faster, I was much slower.

The point is that there are always girls shopping for groceries who give him slightly flirtatious glances, thinking that Shen Yu can cook and is tall and handsome, so they look at him.

After buying small onions, prawns, pork, fresh mushrooms, corn and carrots, Shen Yu puts the vegetables in the basket of his electric car and rushes to leave this place where he doesn’t belong.

The electric car had barely reached the entrance to the alley when he was met by Su Zhifu, who had ambushed him on the side of the road and jumped out from the side cold, startling him.

Shen Yu braked the bike, put his feet on the ground and pulled up his helmet visor to look at her, the little girl was dumb.

“What are you doing here, why don’t you go home and do your homework?”

“I’m waiting for you!”

“Look at you, have you finished your homework? If you don’t come home for dinner tonight, won’t your Mum beat you up?”

“I’ve finished! I told Mum that you asked me to come home for dumplings, so Mum wouldn’t beat me up!”

“I’ll beat you up when you get home. …… Get in the car.”

“Hee hee ……”

Su Zhifu climbed onto the back of the electric car on his hands and knees, hugging Shen Yu’s waist and hanging onto his back like a wombat, looking from afar like a tortoise with a shell.

Shen Yu then drove her home with her on her motorbike.

” Brother Shen Yu, I’m the best with you!”

“It’s not like I don’t care.”

“I’m scarce!”

“You say no to me two hundred times a year and then you do it again, where’s the rarity?”

“It’s only not two hundred times!”

“Do you know how much two hundred is?”

“I don’t know.”

“So far from your last New Year’s Eve.”

“That much. ……”

Su Zhifu froze, the day of a child is long, the year is even longer, she used up all the energy in her brain to think, but she could not reach the day she grew up, even looking forward to the New Year, it took a long time to look forward to.

It seems that for as long as she can remember, Shen Yu’s brother was an adult, and then she grew as tall as she could, only reaching the height of his thighs.

“So, Shen Yu, how long have we known each other?”

“I’ve known you for six years.”

“What about me knowing you?”

“Who knows you.”

When Shen Yu thought about it, the name Su Zhifu had been a part of his life for a third of his life since she was born.

“Then I must outlast you!”

Su Zhifu said with certainty, “Because Shen Yu was there when I started to remember things! For as long as I’ve been growing up!”

Dad, mum, beaten little bamboo strips, the family’s little noodle shop, the alleyway’s stone pavement, the aroma of snacks in the air, and the neighbour’s big brother ……

It is the memory of Su Zhifu’s entire childhood.