NH chapter 002

Chapter 02: Interest Class

Thirteen Middle School. Oh, so it’s the junior.

Is it just his illusion, or does Zhousheng Yi feel that Huo Ye’s expression has become even more indifferent, as if instead of being pleasantly surprised, it has instead stirred up some bad memories.

Walking out of the alleyway and turning down the winding path, this place is just the tip of the iceberg of the urban village area in Lanjing City.

The access control system on the ground floor is broken, and it hasn’t been fixed for a few days, so you can go up without swiping your card. You might as well not even think about the elevator. Huo Ye strides up, skipping three steps at a time, quickly reaching the fifth floor.

The stairwell of the residential building is narrow and cramped, stifling for someone tall and long-limbed like him.

But he has already gotten used to this living environment.

Using the key to unlock the door, he is greeted by a glossy, shining wooden dining table, on which a few practice books with densely written notes are spread out. Huo Yan is leaning on the table doing homework, and when she sees him, her eyes light up, and she shouts, “Brother! You’re back!”

“Did you do your homework properly, hmm?” Huo Ye casually places the plastic bag on the shoe cabinet, changing his shoes at the entrance while asking her.

“Of course!” Huo Yan runs over, tiptoeing to reach the plastic bag, “What did you bring back?” As she unwraps the Barbie doll from the box, her eyes shine brightly, and she says, “Brother, this is the one I’ve always wanted!”

Huo Ye changes his shoes and walks toward the kitchen, chuckling, “Only today do you call me ‘brother’ so sweetly. Aren’t you normally just saying Huo Ye so casually? You’re such a shallow child.”

Huo Yan, inheriting their family’s thick skin, shows no embarrassment at all. She turns around and runs back to her room, hugging the Barbie doll.

From the kitchen, the sound of cooking can be heard, probably to prevent the oil smoke from drifting into the house, the door is closed. Song Jianlan is sweating profusely, yet her hands and feet are busy, using a spatula to stir up the aroma of home.

Huo Ye pushes the door open, and a heat wave rushes to his face, making his nose break out in a fine sweat almost instantly, “Mom.”

“Back already? My little Seven,” Song Jianlan looks back for a moment amidst her busy preparations, appearing quite pleased, “What do you want to eat tonight?”

“Hmm, just some scrambled eggs with tomatoes will do.”

“Ah, you just love eating eggs, and you only want the eggs in the scrambled eggs with tomatoes, you don’t touch the tomatoes at all.”

She keeps mumbling but has already beaten the eggs.

Huo Ye just smiles upon hearing this, takes the black apron hanging on the door, and skillfully ties it around himself, outlining his slim, strong waist and hip line, finishing with a knot saying, “Is there anything left to do? Let me handle the rest; you go rest for a while.”

“Ah, look at me, it’s too hot today.” Song Jianlan wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, panting, “Remember to turn on the fan when you two eat, don’t get too hot.”

Huo Ye nods attentively, walks to the sink, washes a few tomatoes, and brings them to cut. His broad palm and long fingers make the kitchen knife seem like one of Huo Yan’s discarded toy kitchen tools, almost weightless in his hand.

The sharp blade strikes against the hard cutting board, producing a crisp sound that echoes as Huo Ye focuses, with half-lidded eyes, his movements smooth and precise, creating an impression that he’s not just cutting vegetables but cleaning a gun.

Song Jianlan pulls open the kitchen door, stepping out but suddenly hesitating, saying, “Your dad won’t be home for dinner tonight.”

Huo Ye’s speed in cutting tomatoes slows for just a moment but quickly returns to normal as he mumbles, “Mm.”

Because they both know this means Huo Lijun will surely come back drunk again, and the state of a drunken Huo Lijun is almost incomparable to his sober self.

Song Jianlan’s face shows worry, but she doesn’t continue, silently turning away to change clothes in her bedroom.

With the person usually seated at the main position missing, the daily meals will be a bit simpler, just two dishes with meat and one vegetarian dish, of which two are Huo Yan and Huo Ye’s favorites.

The fan above is whirring, and as Song Jianlan serves Huo Yan some fatty meat while eating the tomatoes from the scrambled eggs.

Huo Yan is also restless during the meal, insisting on turning on the TV and sitting in front to watch, coming back to eat for a while, then returning to the TV, repeating this cycle and ignoring every appeal; each bite of food needs to be urged on.

To put it plainly, she’s spoiled.

But today, surprisingly, Song Jianlan and Huo Ye let her be, and the mother and son sit across from each other with their chopsticks, clearly distracted.

Until the rice in their bowls is almost gone, Song Jianlan suddenly pinches her chopsticks and says something completely out of the blue.

“Your little sister is starting second grade this year.”

“Oh, right.” Huo Ye is pulled back to attention, “What’s up?”

“The teacher in their class mentioned in the group that they need to report for after-school interest classes when the school begins, to learn some dance or taekwondo, something with a skill. What do you think, should we sign her up for one?”

Song Jianlan’s eyes have wrinkles that droop slightly, needing to raise her head to see Huo Ye’s expression clearly. She speaks in a tone that seems like she’s asking for advice, cautiously saying, “I see that many of the students in her class have already signed up, and she’s the only one who hasn’t. I’m worried she might be isolated by her classmates in the future…”

Huo Ye pauses, and seeing Song Jianlan like this makes him feel suddenly uneasy.

Song Jianlan has only a junior high school diploma, left home to work in Shenzhen at seventeen, and married Huo Lijun when she was nearly thirty. In the early years of their marriage, she still had a job; she worked rotates shifts at the tourist center, earning about two thousand yuan a month.

Since they started dating, they often had small quarrels every three days and major ones every five days. When she was pregnant with Huo Ye for seven or eight months, she was so infuriated by Huo Lijun that she ran to the roadside crying in the middle of the night, unable to find anyone to console her, with nowhere to stay. After a while, she quietly slipped back home, only to find out that Huo Lijun had slept through the entire argument, never planning on coming out to look for her.

Later on, that tourist spot closed down, and other employers would not hire someone her age without a diploma, so Song Jianlan had no opportunity to work and had to become a housewife, facing Huo Lijun with even more patience.

And Huo Ye never expected that such a humble expression would appear in front of him one day. It seems that unbeknownst to him, Song Jianlan had already changed as he grew up.

“Of course we should sign her up. It’s just an interest class; other kids have it, so why shouldn’t my sister?”

Huo Ye says casually, as if this isn’t something worth considering, his brow arched, and he gives Song Jianlan an easy smile.

The tense string in her heart relaxes, and she smiles back.

“Well then, well then…”

“When’s the payment due?” Huo Ye asks.

As if already prepared, Song Jianlan quickly pulls out a leaflet from under the dining table, the cover ornate and flashy, and at the top in bright letters, it reads, “Every outstanding child has outstanding parents supporting them—”

Huo Ye sets down his bowl and chopsticks, takes it over, and amidst the colorful illustrations, finds the payment amount.

Five thousand eight hundred for one semester.

Fortunately, it’s not to the point where he needs to sell a kidney.

Although Huo Ye has just started his second year of high school, he is actually over eighteen according to his identification.

Since graduating from elementary school, he has been secretly looking for part-time work, even though no one in town is willing to hire child labor, but someone who knows his family’s situation might pity the child and let him help out in the kitchen, washing dishes, etc., managing to earn some pocket money.

At that time, Huo Ye was very clever; after finishing his own tasks, he didn’t rush to leave but purposely stayed behind to assist the chef. In just a few months, he mastered the skills of fire control and flipping the frying pan. The boss saw that he was diligent and could endure hardship, gradually shifting the workload of the small kitchen to him, and his pay significantly increased.

During middle school, Huo Ye often found time during lunch breaks and evening self-study sessions to work, staying until nine-thirty after school before walking home with classmates who were headed the same way. Most of the money he earned part-time went to secretly support Song Jianlan’s household expenses, while he saved some for his sister to buy treats and toys. The rest was for him to buy cigarettes.

Huo Lijun rarely cared about his life, only concerned with that white piece of paper with black and white grades on it, which is why he had not noticed for several years.

At first, Song Jianlan disagreed, believing it would affect his studies. Faced with her guilt and tears of self-reproach, Huo Ye secretly hid the cigarette butts under his feet. After a long silence, he said, “That bastard gives you a salary only enough to pay rent and utilities, not allowing you to go out and show your face; the things I want with my sister, you spare no expense buying, but you don’t dare to go to the hospital when you fall ill.”

Song Jianlan was speechless, stunned, and after a long while, she finally stopped saying any opposing words.

Before leaving, she stopped at the balcony door, clearly unable to envelop Huo Ye’s whole frame in her embrace anymore. She gazed at him, softly reminding him.

“My little Seven has grown up.” Song Jianlan says, both gratified and a little regretful, but what she lacks is blame.

“…Cigarettes are bad for your health, and you’re still young, so smoke less in the future. After you shower, go to bed early. I’ve warmed the milk on the table, remember to drink it. …Mom’s leaving.”

With a click, the door was quietly closed.

Huo Ye’s throat rolls slowly.

It turns out they all thought they hid it well.

Thus, it seemed tacitly accepted as some kind of unspoken agreement.

But over time, the paper cannot hold the fire. In the third year of middle school, when the high school entrance examination results came out, Huo Lijun asked around among his friends in a few recruitment offices and found no trace of his son’s name.

Huo Ye didn’t perform well and failed to be accepted.

These days, the threshold for prestigious high schools is getting higher and higher, filtering out not just those who work hard but also those with insufficient talent. With his current score, let alone prestigious schools, it’s difficult to even get into an average school.

Huo Lijun, proud and ambitious, always wanted his son to become a dragon, how could he accept this result? As he would put it, “How could I, Huo Lijun, suffer eight generations of misfortune and give birth to such a useless son like you!”

He lost face in front of his friends, furious, and while the dinner party was ending, he found a thick wooden stick by the roadside to take home.

That night, the entire building still remembers Song Jianlan’s wails, and the neighbor hurried over to mediate between the father and son, but in the end, only scared little Huo Yan was taken away.

Later, Huo Ye repeated a year in Thirteen Middle School, but still fell short of the municipal key high school’s admission line by several points. Huo Lijun insisted it was the school’s bad luck, so he transferred him to a private school in the town over ten kilometers away, and after back and forth, he repeated another year.

This was Huo Ye’s first time being so far away from home.

—Huo Lijun was very clever; this meant he would not see his mom or sister.

At that time, he was close to eighteen years old. If he couldn’t pass this time again, it meant Huo Ye would lose his last chance to enter this key high school forever.

Thus, Huo Ye eventually succeeded in the exam.

After dinner, Song Jianlan urged Huo Yan to do her homework; the first-grade math problems like “one plus one equals how much” she can still help with.

Huo Ye got up, tidied the bowls and chopsticks, stacking them before taking them to wash, and after finishing these chores, the clock indicated it was eight o’clock.

Now it is late July, summer vacation, and Huo Yan’s interest class start when school opens in September, which means he has a month to come up with these several thousand yuan. It’s not particularly urgent but limited nonetheless.

Song Jianlan is unaware that his bank balance is low and believes he has some spare money, enough for Huo Yan’s semester. After all, Huo Lijun only provides tuition fees, stubbornly thinking of his daughter as a financial burden, so naturally, he won’t ask him for it.

Thinking more carefully, what other jobs are there suitable for him that pay quickly aside from the part-time job he’s doing?

Huo Ye returns to his room and wearily rubs his brow.

They say children are a reflection of their parents. Just like when Song Jianlan never refused his requests as a child, swallowing endless awkwardness and difficulties down herself, today’s Huo Ye is also unwilling to show even a hint of vulnerability to anyone.

“Buzz.”

His phone lights up, and the lock screen shows someone sent him a WeChat message. Huo Ye initially doesn’t want to pay it any attention, but when it’s left unattended, soon, “Buzz buzz buzz buzz—”

Three, four, five, six messages come in a row, like an urgent call.

Huo Ye furrows his brows, picks up the phone to unlock it, and the sender of the message uses an image of that seemingly not very smart potato from Plants vs. Zombies as an avatar, and they are still bombarding him.

With that frequency, he doesn’t even need to think to know who it is.

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

Boss, are you there?

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

Are you there?

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

Are you there?

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

Are you there?

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

Don’t just read it and not reply.

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

I beg you, boss, I’m in a real jam!!

Xiong Ying, a student from Lanjing Private High School #2, the last in the first-year Class 18, is also his desk mate. He’s the type to help him climb over walls, steal chickens, keep watch, and charge into fights with only a backpack.

This idiot doesn’t have many flaws besides his intelligence, completely oblivious when used as a pawn by others.

Xiong Ying seems to be on fire while Huo Ye remains calm, leisurely taking out a cigarette, biting it and leaning against the window in his room to light it, taking a drag first.

Huo Ye always possesses a dangerous, mysterious allure that subconsciously draws people closer to him, as if everything he does is at a leisurely pace with a cool calmness. Even the simple act of smoking appears with an indescribable elegance.

The fragrance of lotus fills his mouth, white mist gradually spreads and swirls in the air, blurring his picturesque features. Huo Ye bites the cigarette while lowering his eyes, and only after a moment of hesitation does he begin to reply.

【007】:

How urgent is it? Did you forget to take paper to the toilet?

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

You finally replied!

【AAA Eagle-like Man】 sends a voice message lasting over ten seconds, “Ah, no, really, it’s urgent. I told you before that my mom applied for a housekeeping job a while ago, right? She was supposed to start work in a couple of days, but who knew my mom suddenly had a car accident after work tonight and accidentally broke her leg? The doctor said she’ll need to use a wheelchair for at least several dozen days; she can’t go for the time being.”

He speaks quickly, rattling off like a machine gun, mixed with a bit of a Cantonese accent.

Huo Ye squints, listening to it twice before finally getting the gist.

Before he could reply, more messages come in.

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

“At first, I wanted to let my mom just rest, but the contract is all signed. The housekeeping company said they can’t find anyone temporarily and insists we pay a penalty for breaking the contract—how can they not find anyone when they’re clearly trying to pocket this windfall, thinking we’re all fools!”

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

“Boss, this is a family matter for me; it really shouldn’t involve you. But my mom needs someone to care for her in the hospital, and hiring a nurse is just too expensive. Could I trouble you… hey, hey.”

【AAA Eagle-like Man】:

“But you rest assured, as long as you’re willing to go, everything you earn during that time is yours; our family won’t take a cent. How about it?”

Xiong Ying anxiously waits.

A few tens of seconds later, the other side simply replies with two words.

“Address.”