novelinnhs Chapter 4: The Prodigal Son's Head is Worth More Than Gold
Chapter 4: The Prodigal Son's Head is Worth More Than Gold
The next day, just as dawn was breaking and the fog in Changsha had not yet dissipated, Liu Yu woke up.
It's not the alarm clock that's ringing, it's my biological clock.
I served in the army for two years, waking up at six o'clock every day without fail. This thing is more effective than any alarm clock, and it can't be erased even after I'm discharged.
He got out of bed, pulled a gray tracksuit from the closet, put it on, and went downstairs.
The air in the courtyard was damp, carrying the crispness unique to an early winter morning.
The leaves of several old camphor trees rustled in the wind, and the fallen leaves on the ground had not yet been swept clean.
Several elderly people who got up early were already stretching their muscles by the flower bed. Some were practicing Tai Chi, some were swinging their arms and legs, and two old ladies were chatting together.
Liu Yu walked to the open space in the center of the courtyard, stood firm, took a deep breath, and then performed a set of military boxing.
The first move was "bow stance punch", the second move was "throat-piercing kick"... His movements were crisp and clean, each punch carrying the wind.
Two years of muscle memory are etched into my bones; I can't forget them even if I wanted to.
As he practiced his boxing, he thought to himself: "Luckily there are no security cameras in this compound, otherwise the neighborhood group chat would be flooded with memes tomorrow."
.....
Several elderly men nearby were stunned.
"Hey, whose kid is that?" Grandpa Zhang, who was practicing Tai Chi, stopped and squinted at him for a long time.
"Isn't that Liu Jianhui's son?" Aunt Li, who was stretching her legs, recognized him. "The one who used to climb on the roof and remove tiles, the notorious troublemaker in our neighborhood, the one who was later sent to join the army."
"Oh my, it really is him! He's grown so tall! He used to be as skinny as a monkey, but now he's got such a great build..." Grandpa Zhang looked him up and down, clicking his tongue in amazement.
Liu Yu stopped punching, turned around, and flashed a standard "good socialist youth" smile: "Hello Grandpa Zhang! Hello Aunt Li! Hello Grandma Wang! Long time no see!"
He greeted everyone one by one, without missing a single one.
He had caused these people a lot of trouble in his past life.
They stole grapes from Grandma Wang's balcony, stuffed firecrackers into Grandpa Zhang's bicycle tires, and even drew maps on Aunt Li's bed sheets.
I was eight or nine years old then, and I was practically the bully of the neighborhood. Even the dogs would avoid me.
"Oh my, Xiaoyu's back!" Aunt Li was the first to come over and look him up and down. "You're so different after coming back from the army! Look at how smart you are! You used to be all hunched over."
"Aunt Li, you still look so young, I almost didn't recognize you," Liu Yu said with a smile. "Your skin is even better than my mom's."
Aunt Li was taken aback for a moment, then beamed from ear to ear: "You silly child, how come you've become so sweet-talking? You used to only cause trouble, when did you learn to praise people?"
Liu Yu thought to himself: Auntie, in the twenty years I was in business, I praised at least eighty or a hundred people every day. This is nothing.
"Grandpa Zhang," Liu Yu turned to the still dazed Grandpa Zhang, "your Tai Chi is getting better and better. I just secretly learned a couple of moves."
Grandpa Zhang blushed deeply at the praise: "You little rascal, stop flattering me! I haven't even settled the score with you for smashing my window before!"
"I was so naive back then." Liu Yu quickly pulled out a cigarette. "Grandpa Zhang, want one?"
"I won't smoke anymore, I've quit." Grandpa Zhang waved his hand, but the wrinkles on his face had clearly smoothed out a lot.
"Your willpower is truly impressive. I couldn't quit smoking even after two years in the army." Liu Yu lit his own cigarette. "Quitting smoking is something only tough people can do."
Grandpa Zhang unconsciously straightened his back a bit.
Grandma Wang, leaning on her cane, came over and asked, "Xiaoyu, I heard you went to XJ to join the army? Is that place particularly tough?"
"It was really tough. In winter, it was minus thirty degrees Celsius, and even pee would freeze into an icicle." Liu Yu gestured. "But it also toughened me up. Look at me now, I can eat three bowls of rice in one meal, and I'm in great shape."
"Minus thirty degrees Celsius!" Grandma Wang gasped. "How many layers of clothing would I need to wear?"
"No matter how many layers you wear, it's useless; the wind will see right through you. When I'm on night watch, frost can even form on my eyelashes."
Liu Yu paused, then lowered his voice, "But the hardest thing wasn't the cold, it was the hunger when I was on guard duty at night. Back then, my biggest dream was to be able to eat a bowl of rice noodles made by Grandma Wang."
Grandma Wang smiled broadly, her face crinkling into crescents: "Oh dear, you little rascal, wanting rice noodles is easy enough! Come to Grandma's tomorrow, I'll make some for you!"
"That's a deal!"
Liu Yu chatted with everyone, from Grandpa Zhang's high blood pressure to Aunt Li's grandson's exam results, from Grandma Wang's knee pain to the recent activities of the stray cat in the yard.
He felt very close to everyone, and he could remember everyone's topics.
This is the wisdom of a car salesman who has been selling cars for twenty years. He can find out exactly how many people are in a customer's family, what jobs they do, where their children go to school, and what illnesses their elderly relatives have in just one meal.
By the time he finished chatting in the yard and went upstairs, forty minutes had passed since he left.
Zhang Yan stood at the kitchen doorway, holding a bowl of noodles, looking at him with a complicated expression.
"What's so interesting about chatting with those old men and women for so long?"
"They're all old neighbors, just say hello." Liu Yu took the bowl of noodles. "Mom, guess what Aunt Li just said to me? She said you lost eighty yuan playing mahjong last weekend and wouldn't admit it."
Zhang Yan's expression changed: "That Li Da Zui! How many times have I told her off..."
"Mom, the noodles are cold."
……
At 9:30 a.m., Liu Yu changed into clean clothes and left home for school.
He refused Zhang Yan's offer to accompany him, saying, "I'm a 20-year-old man. If my mother takes me to school to register, how will I face people?"
Zhang Yan thought about it and felt it made sense, so she reminded him eighteen times, "Call me when you arrive."
Huangxing North Road, Zhou Nan Experimental Middle School.
Liu Yu stood at the school gate, looking up at the familiar school sign, his heart filled with mixed emotions.
In his previous life, he spent less than three years at this school, skipping classes by climbing over the wall more often than attending them.
He changed schools three times from junior high to high school, but eventually dropped out.
At that time, he felt that studying was useless and that it was better to go out and make a living. Later, when his business grew, he realized that he had suffered just as much from being uneducated.
If you can't understand a contract, you need to consult a lawyer; if you can't understand a financial statement, you need to consult an accountant; when negotiating with someone, you get confused by their technical jargon and have to pretend you understand.
He will fill this hole in his lifetime.
The old man at the school gate's gatehouse poked his head out: "Who are you looking for?"
"Hello sir, I'm a transfer student here to register for the new class. I'm looking for Mr. Chen, the teacher for the senior year humanities class."
"A transfer student? It's almost the second semester of senior year, and there are still transfer students?" The old man looked him up and down. "You're not a repeat student, are you?"
Liu Yu's lips twitched: "No, I'm... someone who came back after being discharged from the army."
"Oh! You're back from the army!" The old man's attitude changed immediately. He pulled a registration book from a drawer. "Come on, register. Being a soldier is good, being a soldier is honorable. My son was a soldier too..."
.......
Liu Yu registered and followed the old man's directions to the third floor, where he found "Chen Meizhen's" workstation nameplate at the entrance of the teachers' office.
He knocked on the door.
"Please come in."
Chen Meizhen was a female teacher in her fifties, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and with her hair neatly styled.
Liu Yu had a deep impression of her. In his previous life, he had been punished by her to stand in the corner countless times. The worst time was when he had to stand in the corridor for two whole classes until his legs went numb.
"Hello, Teacher Chen, I am Liu Yu."
Chen Meizhen raised her head, pushed up her glasses, and stared at him for a full five seconds.
"Liu Yu?" Her tone held a hint of confusion, as if the name sounded familiar. "Which Liu Yu?"
"It's... Liu Yu, the one who left this school in 2000." Liu Yu tried his best to make his expression look innocent. "He was in the class of '97."
Chen Meizhen frowned, then slowly relaxed, and then her eyes widened; she clearly remembered.
"You're that Liu Yu?!"
"Yes."
"That Liu Yu who skipped classes, got into fights, dated, and made the teacher so angry she threw her lesson plan down?"
"……yes."
"Liu Yu, the one who said he hadn't finished copying his self-criticism halfway through the flag-raising ceremony?"
Liu Yu wanted to disappear into the ground: "Teacher Chen, that was two years ago."
Chen Meizhen leaned back in her chair, looking him up and down with an expression as if she were scrutinizing a wild monkey that had just been captured from the zoo, to see if it had been domesticated.
"How are you doing in the military?"
"That's great, he even got a third-class merit award."
"A third-class merit?" Chen Meizhen's expression softened slightly. "What did you receive it for?"
"I wrote a short skit, and the troupe thought it was alright."
Chen Meizhen looked at him for two more seconds, then nodded: "Okay, a prodigal son returning home is more precious than gold. But let me make this clear first, you're transferring in now, and there's less than half a year left before the college entrance exam. Your classmates are already sophomores, so you're two years behind them. I've looked at your file; your previous grades..."
She paused, seemingly thinking about how to phrase it more tactfully.
Liu Yu said it for her: "It's terrible."
"...It's certainly not ideal." Chen Meizhen cleared her throat. "But since you've served in the military, you should know what discipline is. In my class, the first rule was: no lateness, no leaving early, no skipping class. Can you do that?"
"able."
"Second rule: No playing games during class."
"Teacher Chen, I don't have a Little Tyrant (a popular Chinese game console)."
Chen Meizhen was taken aback: "You didn't?"
"Soldiers don't need it." Liu Yu pulled a brand new Nokia 3310 out of his pocket. "But I bought one last week. It can only make calls and send text messages; you can't do much else."
Chen Meizhen glanced at the "magic tool" that was supposedly able to crack walnuts and nodded: "The third point, and the most important one, is: if you don't understand, ask. Don't be afraid of embarrassment. You're two or three years older than your classmates, so you should be more thick-skinned than them."
Liu Yu laughed: "Don't worry, Teacher Chen, I do have a thick skin."
……
Chen Meizhen arranged a seat for him in the last row of the classroom, by the window.
In her words, "You're the tallest now, so sitting in front will block the view of the students behind you."
Liu Yu knew the real reason. Having a twenty-year-old veteran sit among a group of seventeen or eighteen-year-old boys and girls was already conspicuous enough; to put him in the front row would be like public execution.
"Class, quiet down." Chen Meizhen clapped her hands as she stood on the podium. "This is our new transfer student, Liu Yu. He served in the army and just came back. He'll be part of our class from now on. Let's welcome him."
Sparse applause rang out in the classroom, interspersed with low whispers.
"At such an old age, still in the final year of high school?"
"A veteran? He's so handsome!"
"Wow, he's so tall..."
Liu Yu sat down in the last row with a blank expression and opened his textbook.
A bespectacled guy next to him leaned over and whispered, "Dude, you were really in the army?"
"Um."
"Where did you get the job?"
"XJ".
"Wow, is it a mess over there?"
"It's not chaotic, it's just that the weather isn't great." Liu Yu opened his math textbook, found the chapter the teacher was explaining, and said, "Winter is freezing cold, summer is unbearably hot, spring brings sandstorms, and autumn is alright."
The bespectacled boy looked at him with admiration: "Have you ever fired a gun?"
"I've fought with them."
"A real gun?"
"Real guns."
"Wow, that's amazing!" The boy's eyes lit up. "Can you teach me martial arts?"
Liu Yu turned to look at him with the look of someone who'd been there for a while, looking at a naive kid: "Finish your homework first."