The dark and thin boy looked like a good runner and a noisy guy. As he chased her all the way, the distance between them was getting closer and closer. His loud and angry voice also scared all the neighbors on the floor and made them come out.
"What's wrong? What's wrong?"
"Jia Ju is chasing and beating Su Su. It looks like the two kids are having a fight."
"No, don't Susu and the Wang brothers always play together like Tang Fengdou? How can they still fight!"
"That's what the little boy is like. One moment he's like sugar, and the next he's a gutter!"
"Su Su just recovered from his illness, he can't run away like this, Zhuzi, catch him!"
In this era, the households in the housing estates were not like those in later high-rise buildings where people did not know each other when they opened the door. Instead, they were more like a big, lively family living together. As soon as the adults saw the children fighting, they immediately called the older children to break up the fight.
"What's going on? Jiaju, you are a boy, and older than Susu, how could you hit her?" The boy called Zhuzi by the adults couldn't stand this scene, so he grabbed the thin and dark boy when he passed by and gave him a lecture.
"I didn't hit her!" Hearing Zhu Zai calling him by his full name instead of his nickname, Wang Jiaju suddenly became anxious and waved the small paper bag in his hand at Zhu Zai. "I had a quarrel with Su Su before and she got caught in the rain and got sick. Today I heard from Grandma Su that she was fine, so I went out to buy some eggs and planned to apologize to her!"
"Oh, where's the egg?" Zhu Zai looked suspiciously at the empty paper bag in Wang Jiaju's hand.
Nowadays, everyone is poor, and children are naturally poorer. Eggettes, a sweet snack sold by pushcart vendors, have been popular among children for many years because of their cheap, convenient, crispy and delicious taste.
If a child had some pocket money to buy a bag of eggettes, once he returned to the housing estate, the sweet fragrance that filled his body would attract the envious looks of a large group of other children.
If you are more generous, you can pay extra money and ask the vendor to add some crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, coconut shreds, red beans, etc. to the egg waffles. This will definitely make the children on the floors above and below follow you eagerly and beg for a bite.
"Oh no, maybe I was running too fast just now and didn't notice that the bag was torn!" Wang Jiaju followed Zhu Zi's gaze to look at the small paper bag in his hand and immediately found a hole underneath.
However, good fortune never comes alone, and misfortune never comes alone. Before Wang Jiaju had time to regret the loss of the bag of eggettes, Granny Zhu's voice rang out from behind.
“Jia Ju, you’re such a pain in the ass! Look what you’ve done to our new bed sheets!” Granny Zhu was shaking a bed sheet that was stained with large amounts of oil, her face almost wrinkled like a wind-dried orange.
Seeing the bed sheet in his grandmother's hand that was stained with oil spots, Zhu Zi quickly pushed Wang Jiaju and signaled him to go first: It seems that Jiaju really did not lie. Looking at the oil stains and peanut and sesame crumbs on the bed sheet, this bag of eggs probably spent all his little money.
Although Grandma Zhu is his biological grandmother, her stingy and thrifty style is deeply rooted in everyone's mind. If Wang Jiaju is caught by her, he will be sent back to Wang's parents and beaten again.
"You should go and apologize to Su Su. It's rare that you admit your mistakes and correct them. I'll take the blame for you this round!" After Zhu Zai said this, he immediately took the initiative to go up to her and start speaking nice things to Wang Jiaju in a coquettish manner.
In Cantonese, grandparents are addressed as "grandfather, grandma" and "grandparents-in-law" respectively, and the ending tones of the latter two titles are naturally light, as if they naturally carry a slightly rising tone with a bit of coquettishness.
But when such a sturdy young man called out to me, my hair stood on end...
Wang Jiaxiang, the chubby boy who had informed Su Yun earlier, crossed his arms with trembling teeth, and carefully walked through the activity area to continue chasing after his second brother.
All that was left was a pile of envious and jealous children.
"Hei Zai is really generous this time. He gave me a bag of egg dumplings with stuffing. I really want to eat them!" These kids usually go to the activity area on the upper floor or run to the mountain behind the housing estate. None of them are very white, but one is always darker than the other. Therefore, Wang Jiaju, who is the darkest, unsurprisingly got the nickname "Hei Zai", which matches his brother Wang Jiaxiang's nickname "Fatty" very well.
"Of course, the three of them grew up together and are neighbors. The two families often sleep with each other and gossip about each other. The two brothers Jiaju often slept at Susu's house before, and Aunt Wang treats Susu as her own daughter. How can she not be generous?" The aunties who were playing mahjong nearby said in unison.
At that time, families with many people often had insufficient sleep at night, so they would always let the older children sleep on the folding beds at the door. If there was space in the neighboring house and the two families had a good relationship, they would invite the unlucky child who had to sleep on the folding bed at the door to sleep there. As a result, the Su family at No. 387 and the Wang family at No. 388 naturally became close friends.
On this side of the room, Wang Jiaju finally used his height and speed advantage to block Su Yun at the staircase entrance on the other side: "Why are you running? Didn't we make it clear before?!"
Seeing Wang Jiaju's appearance clearly from a close distance, in a flash, Su Yun finally got back the memory that was rather vague due to the illness.
Some time ago, Wang Jiaju fell in love with a young girl from Shanghai who lived temporarily on the upper floors of the building. He was particularly smart and asked Su Yun, who lived next door, to help him send things to please her.
The relationship between boys and girls of this age is very contradictory. They want to be close to each other but also dislike each other. Except for Su Yun and a few other carefree girls who hang out together regardless of gender, the other girls whose families are strict and known for being quiet and well-behaved are unwilling to hang out with boys and run around and play crazy.
It turns out that little Su Yun appears to be a carefree girl, and acts like a tomboy, being on good terms with the Wang brothers. But in fact, she secretly likes Wang Jiaju, the older brother. So she replied that the girl from Shanghai likes Wang Jiaju's mortal enemy, and personally caused the destruction of Wang Jiaju's "first love".
Later, no one knew which loudmouthed kid let it slip that Wang Jia suddenly knew about the end of his first love. It turned out that it was Su Yun, the "evil female supporting role", who was behind it.
In fact, the girl from Shanghai City did not like Wang Jiaju's mortal enemy, nor did she like Wang Jiaju, a black guy whom she had only met a few times. Moreover, after the summer vacation this year, she would go back to Luzhou with her parents who were transferred for work. She had no intention of dating a childish boyfriend in Hong Kong.
Upon hearing the news, Su Yun was happy, but at the same time she was afraid that Wang Jiaju would be sad, so she made up a lie in order to make Wang Jiaju give up.
After Wang Jiaju knew the "truth" of the matter, he angrily blocked Su Yun at the school gate after class. The two old friends had a big quarrel. In the end, Su Yun was so angry that she didn't want the umbrella that Wang Jiaju handed her, ran home in the rain, and had a high fever that night.
Little Su Yun's health was too poor and as a child, her body could not withstand the torture of a high fever. Even though Grandma Su tried her best to take care of her, she managed to hold on for more than a month, but she finally passed away.
Then, the person who woke up was Su Yun.
Not to mention that these children were so "precocious" to talk about love issues at such a young age, in short, the result of this quarrel between elementary school students was a tragedy.
If you think about it carefully, both of them deserve fifty lashes - Wang Jiaju and little Su Yun quarreled, but Wang Jiaju still took good care of her. The three of them were in the same school. When it rained, Wang Jiaju, who was in the sixth grade class, took his brother and Su Yun, who were in the fourth grade, home with an umbrella. As a result, little Su Yun ran away in anger and he could not catch up. He and his brother searched for her for a long time. Only after hearing the news that Su Yun had returned to the Su family did he feel relieved to go home.
After this hidden memory was restored, the system told her that when little Su Yun left, she had let go of her obsession and only hoped that the person who replaced her could help her take good care of Grandma Su.
In other words, the little grudge between the Su family and the Wang family also passed with the passing of little Su Yun.
You can go with peace of mind. Since I have been given the opportunity to be reborn because of you, I will do my best to fulfill your requests.
Su Yun closed her eyes and silently blessed the little girl who had the same name as her.
"What's wrong? Are your eyes uncomfortable again?" Seeing Su Yun suddenly close her eyes, Wang Jiaju and Wang Jiaxiang, who knew that she had some minor eye problems, asked with concern.
"It's okay. After this illness, I feel better. It can be considered a blessing in disguise." The system explained to her about the eyes. Little Su Yun couldn't survive the high fever because of premature birth and congenital deficiencies and poor physical foundation. After the system took over, it has adjusted to the health level of a normal person.
Children with ocular albinism generally have normal skin and hair, but their vision is severely impaired, just like ordinary albinism. Although the system has restored her vision, the eye color that has already changed cannot be restored to normal color.
Su Yun has a very good attitude and will accept things that cannot be changed calmly: Fortunately, the change in eye color is not very obvious, and the gray-purple color is also okay. In the future, when I work in the entertainment industry, I will try to turn defects into features, which will make me more recognizable.
"Are you really not angry anymore?" Su Yun looked at Wang Jiaju. Restoring the friendship with the Wang brothers was another little wish that Su Yun left for her.
"What? A mere woman, how can she separate the relationship between the three of us brothers!" Wang Jiaju waved his hand carelessly, "Today's egg rolls were accidentally dropped. I'll treat you to egg rolls in a few days when I get the money."
This is a daily routine for the Wang brothers: the summer in Hong Kong is extremely hot, so the two of them often go through the drawers and cabinets to conduct a carpet search when no one is at home, just to find the change scattered in the corners.
Now a swimming pool ticket costs 30 cents, but these two black guys can only find 20 cents, which is not even enough for one person's ticket...
One can imagine how much thought and energy he put into getting that bag of eggs.
"Don't talk about Egg Boy, the more you talk about it, the more distressed I feel..." Wang Jiaxiang bit his finger with a sad face, and suddenly seemed to remember something, and turned to look at Su Yun, "Oh, Su Su, I almost forgot to tell you, Zheng Sir asked me to ask you if you still want to participate in the inter-school knowledge competition for primary school students in the 18 districts of Hong Kong during the summer vacation. If you don't participate, he will sign up for someone else."
The male teachers here are all called Sir and the female teachers are called Miss. The Sir Zheng mentioned by Wang Jiaxiang is the head teacher of Su Yun and Wang Jiaxiang's class.
Su Yun took the wrinkled flyer from Wang Jiaxiang's hand with doubt. When she saw the item "Chinese Quiz Contest" among the densely packed traditional Chinese characters, her heart skipped a beat: "I'm not well yet, so I won't participate. Please turn down the invitation for me when you see the teacher tomorrow at school."
Although the champions of the Chinese, technology and music categories of this competition each receive a scholarship of 5,000 yuan, and those who win three prizes in a row will receive another 5,000 yuan, a total of 20,000 yuan, this is already a sky-high price considering the average wage level of a few hundred yuan per person. However, given Su Yun's self-awareness that she has not yet fully recognized traditional Chinese characters, there is no need for her to humiliate herself.
As an IT programmer, if personal computer technology advances and enters China in a few years, she may be able to join in the fun and see if she can earn the 5,000 yuan from the technology project. But now... the best she can do is to be a garbage collector in Yaliao Street, collecting cheap garbage or picking up a bunch of foreign garbage and then building a real computer that can only perform simple calculations.
But plans never keep up with changes. When the Wang couple got home from get off work that night, they were obviously much later than usual.
"Mom and Dad, what are we having for dinner tonight? I'm so hungry." Wang Jiaxiang quickly grabbed his mother, Mrs. Wang's hand.
It's quite magical. Among the Wang family couple, the father, Wang, is dark and thin, while the mother, Wang, is fair and slightly plump. However, the dark and thin Wang Jiaju looks like his mother, while the fair and slightly plump Wang Jiaxiang looks like his father. It's just the opposite.
"Mom doesn't have time to buy groceries tonight, so let my sister cook first and then fry some eggs." The Wang family has five children, but the first three have grown up. Wang Jiaju and Wang Jiaxiang are the two younger sons that the Wang couple had when they were in their thirties.
On weekdays, when the Wang couple are not free, they take care of the two younger brothers as the older siblings.
The two older sisters, Wang Xiaoting and Wang Xiaoyi, responded and went into the kitchen obediently. As for their eldest brother, Wang Jiawei, he followed his parents' eyes and used his rights as the eldest brother to take his two younger brothers away.
"Su Su, come with us to the hospital." After settling the children at home, Grandma Wang turned and looked at Su Yun.
"What happened?" The adult's sudden cheerful expression must mean something has happened.
Seeing Su Yun's calm yet determined expression, Aunt Wang sighed inwardly: Children without a mother have to grow up early, and Su Su has been smart and loves to study since she was young, so this matter must not be hidden from her.
"Your mother-in-law suddenly collapsed in the back alley while collecting cardboard this afternoon. It was the owner of a nearby coffee shop who found her and notified us to go to the hospital to see her." Aunt Wang paused before continuing, "The medical examination report should be out tonight. You are a grown woman, so you should be mentally prepared."
"Don't be afraid, we are all here with you."
Su Yun hummed softly in response: "I understand. Let's go to the hospital right now."