2 Chapter 1

◎Screw you, who celebrates foreign holidays? ◎

Li Yingqiao had always felt that Uncle Yu next door had some mental issues. The biggest problem was his name.

Finally, one day, she saw Uncle Yu's figure coming towards her family's grocery store from afar. This guy was quite tall, but his son, Yu Miaomiao, looked like a genetically mutated short cat, and looked a lot like him and Aunt Tang Xiang.

Aunt Tang Xiang is also the height of a fashion model, at least 1.75 meters, yet Yu Miaomiao is still not as tall as her. Li Yingqiao thinks he looks like a Napoleon, the short-legged type.

Just as Yu Renjie stepped across the threshold, about to pull his foot back, he caught a glimpse of Li Yingqiao, her hair in two pigtails, half-leaning against the glass counter, staring intently at him as he walked in. Yu Renjie was all too familiar with that kind of childish, eager gaze. Tang Xiang said all the neighborhood kids praised his cool name.

Sure enough, before he could even get close, the little brat, like a squirrel that had discovered a giant pine cone, craned his neck and couldn't help but ask curiously, "Uncle, is your name really 'April Fool's Day'?"

Over the past few years, Yu Renjie has passed by here and watched Li Yingqiao grow up to be as tall as the counter. She skillfully serves cigarettes and gives change to adults, and he has never seen her make a mistake. It is clear that she has been learning business from adults since she was a child and has learned it quite well.

He politely declined to speak to such a cunning person, especially since the grocery store was owned by Li Shuli, the eldest sister of the Li family.

The feud between their two families, which had lasted for over twenty years, was a deep-seated, intractable problem. To him, Li Wusheng, or rather the entire Li family, seemed to be like the collateral ligament on the inside of his knee joint, also known as the knee-jerk reflex—meaningless except for proving that he could still breathe.

After the town was demolished, both families moved here. The location was remote, and Yu Renjie originally wanted some peace and quiet. However, last year this land was designated as a scenic area called Little Painting City. Just like there's no wife in a wife cake, there are no paintings in Little Painting City. He suspects that very few people there can read; it's all just a bunch of chattering little brats. Wasn't there supposed to be a one-child policy? Where did the policy go?

He didn't bother explaining to the little kid why he had that name. If it weren't for his craving for a cigarette, he would normally walk a few blocks outside the scenic area to buy one. Spending money here was like a grandfather offering incense to his grandson—a complete reversal of the natural order.

Yu Renjie ignored her and, with the mindset of letting them earn as little as possible, threw out five yuan: "Give me the cheapest pack."

Li Yingqiao watched him being pretentious and stingy, picking through the bills for ages as if each one had a name written on it, making it even more difficult than finding her exam paper. In the end, she pulled out the smallest denomination bill from her wallet.

So she loudly told him, "Uncle! The profit margin on each pack of cigarettes we sell is the same, there's no difference between the cheap and the expensive ones. You can take whichever you want to smoke."

"Really? Your mom told you?" He asked immediately, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Yes, this is a written regulation of the Tobacco Bureau, and it’s not something we can decide on our own,” Li Yingqiao nodded solemnly.

Yu Renjie thought for a moment that a six or seven-year-old kid probably couldn't come up with such a professional lie, so he put the five yuan back into his wallet and readily asked her for a pack of Black Li cigarettes that he usually smoked.

Li Yingqiao was quick and efficient. She immediately took the last pack of black Liqun cigarettes from the shelf, stood on the small stool on the counter, and handed the cigarettes over. After a moment's hesitation, she still didn't let him off the hook: "Uncle, are you really called 'April Fool's Day'?"

Yu Renjie: "..."

Although the pronunciation sounded exactly the same, he knew she was asking about that holiday; kids were always curious about those. Without hesitation, he grabbed a cigarette and stormed off, throwing down the words, "Screw you, who celebrates foreign holidays?"

Li Yingqiao wasn't angry; after all, she didn't have an uncle. But she was certain this uncle was really easy to fool.

The profit margin on cigarettes wasn't high to begin with. She'd calculated it the first time she helped her mother sell cigarettes; her mother said that selling a carton of cigarettes was equivalent to making the profit on a pack, meaning a 10% profit margin. With just one sentence, she earned an extra 9.5 yuan today. She was thinking of asking her mother to add a chicken leg to her lunch tomorrow, but she was afraid her mother would slaughter the chicken she raised herself.

Sometimes she felt that her mother seemed exceptionally cold; her first reaction to any living creature in the world was, "It can't be eaten, so why buy it?" But other times she felt that Ms. Li Shuli was truly the gentlest woman in the world.

Li Yingqiao lay on her small bed at night, her mind filled with thoughts. While racking her brains, she unconsciously kicked her legs and stomped on the bed board. Li Shuli, who was settling the bill for cigarettes, heard her, turned around and glared at her, then turned her gaze to the shelves to scan and take inventory: "Be quiet, don't disturb Grandma next door."

After saying that, her gaze fell on an empty shelf in the cigarette display case. "Qiaoqiao, did someone come to buy Black Liqun cigarettes today?"

Li Yingqiao was like the captain of a little bee guard team, diligent and always on standby. When she heard her name called, she immediately sat up in bed with a jolt and nodded emphatically to her "boss": "Yes!"

Her small bed was sandwiched between two shelves in the grocery store. It was stored away in the warehouse during the day and only brought out and set up at night. It wasn't too narrow or too wide, just enough to fill the aisle between the shelves. Sometimes, if she turned over too much, the wooden bed would creak, and the shelves would shake. Then, like Doraemon's pocket tilting, packets of snacks would fall from above. Then, when Ms. Li Shuli wasn't looking, she would quietly hide a packet under the covers. Once Ms. Li Shuli was sound asleep, she would stealthily open the packet of snacks under the covers as a reward for herself that day.

Li Shuli asked in confusion, "Who is it? Is the big boss visiting Little Painting City today?"

At that time, the scenic area had few visitors and very few outsiders. The residents were mostly old acquaintances who had moved from the town when it was demolished. The Li family had a reputation for being bullies and hooligans in the town, which affected Li Shuli's small shop. People preferred to walk a little further to buy things outside the scenic area rather than buy from her.

Li Yingqiao truthfully replied, "Yu Miaomiao's father."

Li Shuli didn't reply. She took out the money for tomorrow's breakfast from the cabinet and gave it to Li Yingqiao. She locked the remaining cash and ledger in the cabinet and then prepared to pull up the roller shutter.

As soon as Li Yingqiao took the money, she sensed Li Shuli's next move and her eyes lit up instantly.

As the roller shutter rattled and creaked, Li Yingqiao seized the opportunity to tell her about her anxious day: "The teacher wants you to go to the office tomorrow."

The small town was very quiet. The loudest noise of the day was probably the farting sound of Grandpa Miaojia when he exercised, which sounded like a bugle call, and the sound of the roller shutter door of her own general store being pulled down. She couldn't pinpoint exactly when Grandpa Miaojia would fart, but she could keep an eye on the closing time of the general store every day. So she held back all day, waiting for the critical moment when Ms. Li Shuli would close the roller shutter door.

If she didn't hear it, then you can't blame her for not saying it. However, her mother is often hard of hearing too; for example, she just asked if the price of breakfast could be increased by two yuan tomorrow, and her mother didn't hear her.

"You got into another fight at school?"

It often works when it shouldn't.

“No,” Li Yingqiao got off the bed, using her slippers as sleds, trying to let her mother see the sincere expression on her face that she wanted to frame every word. “It was Yu Miaomiao. He insisted on giving me his jelly during class. I said no, no, who eats that stuff? When we were pushing each other, I hit his nose and it bled.”

"Is the person still alive?"

Li Yingqiao thought for a moment and said, "He was still alive when school ended."

Li Shuli squatted down, pondered for a moment, and then skillfully locked the roller shutter door while turning back to ask, "Are you sure they came to buy cigarettes on that holiday? Didn't they say anything else?"

Li Yingqiao shook her head firmly, "He didn't say anything else."

"Then tomorrow, bring some Mimi Shrimp Chips to that little holiday, two packs should be enough. Then you two shake hands and make up, and have the teacher take a picture of it for me."

Li Yingqiao: "..."

“I don’t have time to go to school. Tell your teacher to go find Yu Renjie. Why give so much money to a kid for no reason?” Li Shuli was already tidying up the merchandise that customers had messed up during the day. She gave an ultimatum, “Also, you two are making such a fuss during class. I’ve asked the teacher to move your seats.”

Yu Renjie is the big boss of several toy factories in the county. Although this Teacher Hu treats all children equally, he is still somewhat opportunistic towards the parents. He doesn't make things difficult for Yu Miaomiao's father, but he always makes her mother, who runs a grocery store and drives a long-distance truck, run to the school.

Li Yingqiao vowed never to speak to Yu Miaomiao, that rascal, again. She returned to her small bed, sat on the edge, and swung her legs, asking Li Shuli, "Mommy, are you going out to drive the big truck again? How long will you be gone this time? Will Auntie come to visit me? You'll be back before my birthday, right?"

Li Shuli had been divorced twice. After her second divorce, she never remarried. In addition, Li Yingqiao was about to start school, so she chose to return to Fengtan Xiaohua City and open a small but complete general store. For a long time, she did not drive long-distance trucks anymore.

In those days, it was always inconvenient for a single woman to drive a truck with a child. Although outsiders saw her as having a straightforward and outspoken personality, it was precisely this kind of personality that attracted so much attention.

Li Shuli herself wasn't afraid, but she was worried that Qiaoqiao would be targeted. Human trafficking was rampant during those years.

Li Yingqiao was clearly cut from the same cloth as her, and she herself was also very bold. She loved to drive long-distance trucks with Li Shuli and live a "nomadic" life, saying that she wanted to be a mother and daughter "on the run".

Touched, Li Shuli couldn't help but want to sew her daughter's mouth shut. She realized after becoming a mother that sometimes, after talking too much with a child, it's hard to fall asleep without medication. She decided not to answer her daughter's machine-gun-like barrage of questions; after all, a strip of tranquilizers cost four yuan, and she needed connections to get a prescription. So, she casually coaxed her, "Baby, go to sleep."

Seeing that her mother ignored her, Li Yingqiao snorted and, with the speed of a mudfish diving into a lotus pond, immediately darted into her small bed, covering herself with the blanket until the surroundings were completely plunged into darkness and silence.

Li Shuli pretended to be asleep, deliberately making heavy breathing sounds. Until, from a corner, or more precisely, from under the covers, came the careful yet crisp "crunch-crunch" sound of chewing potato chips.

[Author's Note]

Here it comes!

Happy reading. See you the day after tomorrow.

Tonight, I'll be giving out red envelopes to two hundred more kids.

We're celebrating for three days now.