Chapter 4: Beware of Cavities
“Do you understand now?” Chen Qiao licked his lips and asked, his mouth dry; he had just had a nosebleed and there was a metallic taste in his mouth.
“No, it’s best to give up. I’m too stupid.”
Lin Na stole a glance at Chen Qiao with her small eyes, afraid that her foolishness might annoy him.
“Um…”
Chen Qiao felt he had explained everything in detail, to the level of breaking it down and feeding it to someone. He had worked part-time at a tutoring center in college, teaching primary school students. It didn’t require much skill; it just needed patience and tenderness. If he got easily angered, it could shorten his lifespan, and being scolded by parents was a common occurrence.
“Don’t rush into these difficult application problems; you probably haven’t solidified the basics from before.”
They had just started a review, and the teacher asked all students to bring their textbooks from grades one to six to school. Chen Qiao’s books were tossed everywhere; he hadn’t taken care of his old textbooks, and some book covers had fallen off. The books were dirty and yellowed, with some even moldy. Only the main subject books for that semester were wrapped neatly with the help of his sister.
Fortunately, he and his sister used the same set of teaching materials, so he could just borrow hers.
His sister’s textbooks were wrapped in newspaper, the handwriting was neat, filled with important notes, making them visually pleasing.
Chen Qiao pulled out the fifth-grade math book to test Lin Na’s current math level.
“But the teacher said we have to turn in our math homework first thing tomorrow morning. If I submit the correct answer, they’ll know I copied it, but if I write the wrong answer…”
It was uncomfortable to turn in a wrong answer, knowing it would be marked with a red pen.
“Let it be wrong. First, focus on understanding the basic knowledge; then you’ll be able to solve these application problems on your own.”
“Shh, the teacher is coming.” Lin Na whispered.
“It’s fine; we’re not chatting; we’re discussing learning.”
However, when Yang Fang walked past them, they instinctively closed their mouths.
Unknowingly, the school bell rang, followed by the classic school farewell song, “Going Home.”
Students at the back door of the classroom were eager to escape, but until Yang Fang spoke, no one dared to leave, as that would result in being punished, and in more severe cases, the whole class would suffer.
“Class dismissed.”
“Stand up.”
“Thank you for your hard work, Teacher.”
Only after this routine was completed did they truly consider it dismissal.
The number of people in the classroom immediately decreased by more than half.
The students assigned for cleanup began tidying up, and since last year, sixth graders had canceled evening self-study. Only the boarding students would have self-study in the canteen. It was unclear whether this was due to the small number of students or for their safety. When Chen Qiao’s grade moved to junior high, even military training was canceled and only resumed after a few years when a new principal took over.
They could clean the classroom more easily tomorrow morning, as it would be crowded with people, full of dust. The students on duty placed the chairs on the tables for easier cleanup.
“Chen Qiao, thank you today. I’ll review the fifth-grade math book more at home.” Lin Na thanked Chen Qiao with her large pink backpack, her thin shoulders stooping slightly under the weight. Her drawer was empty, as she took all her books home to avoid losing them.
Chen Qiao initially wanted to go home empty-handed, but after some thought, he stuffed his sister’s textbooks into his Agumon backpack.
He walked slowly down the teaching building and saw Lin Na walking beside a short-haired girl who was a head shorter than her. That must be her younger sister, who would fall ill in the future, but she looked healthy now, full of energy, with her backpack’s books and pencil case clattering.
Chen Qiao wasn’t in a hurry to return home, where he would find no one. His sister still had fifteen minutes left of class, and riding his bicycle back would take at least twenty minutes. His mom would be off work in an hour, and if his dad was out driving, when he would return was uncertain.
Chen Qiao walked along the familiar street. The residential area in the town hadn’t started construction, still in planning, set to be built near the middle school to attract parents from remote villages to buy houses for their children’s schooling. The property boom was affecting the town.
Chen Qiao’s Shuitou Village was only separated from Lanhhe Town by a river, and his home was right by the riverside. Last year’s Dragon Boat Festival floods lasted almost a month, with the river water overflowing the banks and flooding into their home, waking Chen Qiao up at midnight to help his sister bail out the water.
The village still retained some earthen buildings and old houses with blue walls and gray tiles, characterized by phoenix-shaped eaves. In a few years, these would decrease as they were replaced with small Western-style houses and large villas. It wasn’t until the government instituted a conservation policy that a small portion of the ancient houses survived. However, this had caused Lanhhe Town to lag behind other towns in the competition for ancient village and model town designations, with little public funding or benefits.
Some unusual shops were still operating, like a gift shop. Although online shopping existed through Taobao, the logistics and internet weren’t as developed yet, making it hard for residents in town to purchase items, as many families still had no computers, and Android smartphones had just recently appeared. The most fashionable and widely held phones were still Nokias.
There was potential for a purchasing agent business.
The Golden Key Bookstore was the only bookstore in town; besides selling tutoring books and exercise workbooks, it also rented out novels and comics. The novels were all low-quality, poorly made, and had a similar feel to toilet paper. They marked Chen Qiao’s initiation into novels, and he realized during high school that these were pirated copies of web novels, with irrelevant titles. Searching for the protagonists often led to the original stories, which evoked a myriad of emotions.
The following year, the bookstore would start a big sale, with novels priced at five yuan and pocket comics at two yuan. These comics were about Pokémon, Wu Long Yuan, and Dragon Ball, albeit an incomplete selection; in fact, going to a black internet café to read novels was much cheaper than renting books.
Speaking of internet cafés, there were five black internet cafés in town, one legitimate internet café, and a rundown arcade. These days, they didn’t check IDs. The legitimate internet café was just slightly more expensive than the black ones, with better machines, but parents and teachers would immediately go to catch students at the black internet cafés near the middle school.
There was also a newly opened secret base black internet café, the place Chen Qiao had just streamed from before his rebirth, which hadn’t yet turned into an umbrella factory. The young shop owner was resting her chin in her hands, looking drowsy, yawning lazily as her daughter ran in with her backpack, shouting “Mom!”
He would come back to this black internet café to go online at night!
As Chen Qiao crossed the stone arch bridge connecting the town to the village, he could already see his home—a two-story brick house, with a shed on the rooftop and a drying rack set up. In front of the door was a row of pigpens.
Their brick house was built early, in the year 2000, on government-planned land. The neighbors around were similar—rectangular plots, one of the few orderly houses in the village. Back then, they didn’t build indoor toilets; instead, they constructed them in conjunction with the pigpen and erected a long row of pigpens in front of the house, which had a rather strong odor. Even though they planted an osmanthus tree, it could only mitigate the smell a little.
From a distance, Chen Qiao saw a little girl playing in a sandpile, and it was none other than Xin Yu. She was wearing a pair of jeans that were so washed out they were almost white, rolled up at the cuffs since they were too long. The lettering on her t-shirt had faded, leaving only an outline, and she was wearing green rubber sandals, which had been repaired with a soldering iron because the buttons were broken.
Most of her clothes were hand-me-downs from his sister, with no new ones; when she was younger, she even wore some of Chen Qiao’s.
“Xin Yu.” Chen Qiao called out.
“Uncle!” Chen Xinyu turned around, running towards him with a smile, her cheeks dirty and her hands covered in sand.
“Call me Brother.”
“Brother? But isn’t Uncle still an uncle?”
“It’s fine as long as you call me Brother. If you call me Brother, I’ll buy you candy.” Chen Qiao held Chen Xinyu’s small hand and helped her brush away the sand, suddenly feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt for deceiving a little girl.
“Uncle, you can’t waste money; earning it is hard.”
Chen Xinyu spoke maturely in her tender voice, and Chen Qiao didn’t expect to be lectured by a child right after his rebirth.
“I don’t want candy; I’ll get cavities.” Chen Xinyu showed her white teeth, revealing that her front teeth were just replaced, letting the air through.
Because she didn’t have candy to eat or AD calcium milk to drink, she didn’t have cavities at all, which was a question of whether to be happy or sad.
“Then do you want to eat candy?”
“I want…” Chen Xinyu quickly changed her answer, “I don’t want to.”
“Can I eat candy instead?” Chen Qiao picked up Chen Xinyu, smiling. She was so light, her arms and legs were thin; if he lifted her shirt, he’d probably see her ribs.
“Beware of cavities.” Chen Xinyu poked Chen Qiao’s cheek.
“No matter how sweet it is, I’m not afraid because I’m already bitter enough.”
