Chapter 12 012 My older cousin isn't in class

Uncle Hu didn't ask any further questions, and chuckled sheepishly, "Alright, I'll take you to the town primary school gate first. But I need to go to Dahe Commune after I buy the things, your family will come to pick you up, right?"

"Yes, yes, I've already talked to my family." Song Shiyi said with an air of seriousness.

But only Song Xiaoli knew that her cousin was lying the moment he opened his mouth. She frowned in distress, torn between exposing her cousin and becoming a traitor in his eyes, a man she had worked so hard to win over, and remaining silent and pretending to know nothing. In the end, she chose to say nothing.

She wanted to see her older cousin and check on his current situation.

After letting out a barely perceptible sigh, Song Xiaoli climbed onto the wooden cart, put down the basket that was too heavy for her, and was about to stuff the lunchbox in as well. But when she lifted the lid, oh dear, it was full of rice husks.

Generally speaking, carrying rice husks when going out is basically associated with carrying eggs.

Song Xiaoli reached inside and pulled out a raw egg.

She looked at her younger cousin, who was also sitting on the wooden cart, with a confused expression.

At this moment, Uncle Hu was focused on riding his bike and didn't have time to look back at the two children he was carrying. Song Shiyi leaned close to his sister's ear, made a "shh" gesture, and then whispered, "Chicken eggs keep better than wild duck eggs, so I brought almost all the eggs I had at home. We can't eat eggs every day at home until we're sick of them, and then my older brother has to eat in the school cafeteria, right?"

That makes sense, but, "You didn't tell your family!" Song Xiaoli replied in a low voice.

“It’s alright, we have plenty of eggs at home right now. It doesn’t matter if we eat chicken eggs, duck eggs, or wild duck eggs. Wild duck eggs don’t keep very well. I’ll bring raw chicken eggs and leave a lunchbox for my older brother. He can crack a few eggs and steam them for himself every day at noon.”

As a brother, Song Shiyi genuinely cared for his elder brother.

Song Xiaoli thought this was good, as it meant there would be enough eggs to eat every day, and her older cousin could get enough nutrition while he was at school.

"So what's in your basket? My mom will be able to go back to work in another two weeks. My older brother will be eating at home and bringing his own lunch, so you don't need to bring too many eggs, right?"

Song Xiaoli's basket of eggs alone must contain forty to fifty eggs, which should be enough for her older cousin to eat for half a month.

Even on the bumpy ride, Song Shiyi straightened his back and said smugly to Song Xiaoli, "I counted fifty eggs and put them in yours. I had too many here. I secretly boiled twenty salted duck eggs, ten chicken eggs, and ten wild duck eggs, and put them separately in a cloth bag at the bottom. Then I put twenty-five raw eggs on top. My older brother likes to save money, so I told him that the boiled ones would spoil easily, and he had no choice but to eat them."

Song Xiaoli, who was not good at expressing her feelings in her previous life, was very impressed that a five-year-old boy could think so much.

Logically speaking, such a good cousin should have become an excellent man in the future, at most with a bad temper. But in his previous life, his relationship with his family was very strained. He could only speak properly to his older brother. He didn't have a proper job outside. Later, when he was in his thirties, he got involved in a fight between gangsters and was seriously injured and died unexpectedly.

This time, Song Xiaoli felt she had to keep a close eye on her younger cousin, making sure he didn't become too unruly and that he would study hard when he went to school instead of always hanging out with his gang. If her words didn't carry enough weight, she would try to get her older cousin to her side as well, since her younger cousin always listened to his older brother.

As I was thinking about these things, the wooden cart began to bump along, pulled by a modified tricycle ahead, leaving Songshan Commune, passing through two other communes, and covering one-third of the distance.

The road from Songshan Commune to the town is not in good condition, but with a car, it only takes about forty minutes to get there.

When Song Xiaoli went out with her cousin, it was probably a little after eight in the morning. When they arrived at the town's primary school, it was not yet nine-thirty.

The town's primary school wasn't large, and there was only one gatekeeper, the principal's nephew, who was under thirty and had a kind and honest appearance. When he saw someone pushing open the gate, he peeked out of the window and said, "Whose kids are you? Don't cause trouble at school, or the teacher will spank you."

Upon seeing that they were two children, the security guard smiled and didn't say anything harsh, gently coaxing them to leave.

This man, capable of guarding the gate, knew all the school's teachers and their children inside perfectly, and was familiar with most of the students as well. He recognized young children like Song Shiyi and Song Xiaoli; they were clearly not teachers' children, nor were they students.

Song Xiaoli blinked and lied, "We are Song Shijia's younger brother and sister. Our parents just dropped us off and asked us to bring some things for our brother. Our parents will come to pick us up in a little while."

The gatekeeper remembered Song Shiyi because he was the nephew of the beautiful female teacher, Song Wanxia.

While the gatekeeper hesitated to let the child in, Song Xiaoli remembered that her mother was a teacher there, and quickly added, "My name is Song Xiaoli, and I'm the child that Song Wanxia just adopted; this is Song Shiyi, my uncle's youngest son, and Song Shijia's younger brother. Uncle, we're so tired from carrying all this stuff, can you let us go find our brother quickly?"

The child recited Song Wanxia's name, and the rest of the information was mostly correct, so the gatekeeper let them in, adding, "Your brother is in fifth grade and is in class right now. You two shouldn't disturb him. Wait for him outside the classroom until he finishes."

"Okay, we're very good, thank you, Uncle." Song Shiyi skillfully took two boiled wild duck eggs from his pocket and stuffed them into the gatekeeper's hand.

He did the same thing when he thanked Uncle Hu, but back then he gave Uncle Hu six hard-boiled wild duck eggs. No wonder he specially wore this shirt with the big bellyband today; he probably had it full of hard-boiled wild duck eggs inside, just to bring them out as a favor.

The gatekeeper held the small boiled egg, initially surprised, then found it quite amusing. He went back inside, peeled the egg, and ate it. His impression of the two children deepened as he ate the wild duck egg.

After making his little trick, Song Shiyi, the mischievous boy, carried the lunchbox in one hand and held Song Xiaoli's hand in the other, and walked inside.

The town's primary school has only two buildings, both two stories high. One is the teaching building, which houses grades one through five, as well as teachers' offices and the principal's office. The other is the dormitory building, with the boys' dormitory on the second floor and the girls' dormitory and canteen on the first floor.

Song Xiaoli used the system to scan and saw that the fifth graders were on the second floor, so she tugged at her little cousin's hand and climbed upstairs.

However, when they arrived at the fifth grade entrance, Song Shiyi and Song Xiaoli stood on tiptoe and looked through the window, but they couldn't see their older brother.

“Strange, the sign says fifth grade…” Song Shiyi assumed his sister was just looking around blindly, since he thought Song Xiaoli didn’t know what her older brother looked like. But he himself knew his brother best; he could recognize him from just a back view or the back of his head. However, he searched the classroom for a long time but couldn’t find his older brother. Instead, he saw a familiar-looking cousin or another student from the commune.

The two had no choice but to sit down at the classroom door, their baskets touching the ground, to rest for a while. After about ten minutes, the gatekeeper rang the bell for the end of class, and they eagerly stood up.

The first person to leave was a male teacher, about forty years old. Judging from what was written on the blackboard, he was a math teacher.

Song Xiaoli tugged at her cousin's sleeve.

Song Shiyi licked his lips, suppressing his natural fear of the stern-looking teacher, and quickly stepped forward to ask, "Hello, teacher. Um... I'm Song Shijia's younger brother. I'm here to deliver something to him. Why isn't he in class?"

The teacher pushed up his glasses, and his serious expression softened when he looked at the little child. He squatted down and looked at Song Shiyi carefully, and saw that the child did look quite similar to Song Shijia. Then he looked at Song Xiaoli and was charmed by the little girl.

He replied gently, "Your brother just happened to take the day off today. His roommates said he has a cold and a headache and needs to rest for a day."

Song Shijia was a well-known model student at school, always ranking first in exams; all the teachers knew him. When such a good student asked for leave due to illness, the teachers wouldn't even need to confirm.

"Then, where is our older brother's dormitory? Can we go see him?" Song Xiaoli felt a little flustered at this moment. Her older cousin was such a studious person, he would definitely not ask for leave unless he was really feeling unwell.

"Okay, I'll take you there." This teacher's personality was nothing like her fierce appearance. Feeling that it was not easy for the children to come and deliver things, she took the initiative to lead the way and even offered to help carry the baskets.

However, Song Shiyi refused, as he had a natural wariness of people he didn't know well.