Not Much of a Gap

An ordinary old man's passing had caused ripples, but in the face of life's immense momentum, they soon subsided.

The village returned to its usual rhythm.

Only after meals did people occasionally bring it up as a topic of conversation, sighing and offering a few words of reflection.

At the Qing family's dinner table, the family sat together on the kang around a small, low table, eating their meal.

The simple home-cooked food led to ordinary family chatter.

Many elders taught children from an early age not to speak while eating or talking in bed, hoping to mold their descendants into what they considered polite.

Unfortunately, few elders could manage it themselves.

Role models and society carved children into the shapes they were meant to take.

Qing He Miao was different, though. He had simply never paid the rule any mind.

As they chatted, Qing Mu's conversation unwittingly circled back to what had happened a few days ago.

"Isn't that the truth? Look how fragile a person's life is. One moment they're here, the next they're gone. Never mind how grand their life might have been, in the end, death is just like that."

She picked up a bite of food with her chopsticks, turned her gaze to her son, and spoke in that unappealing tone parents often used:

"So from now on, our family is counting on you to make something of yourself. You have to work hard, study well, and get into a good university. Once you've made something of yourself and have a good life, you can bring honor to your grandparents and us, and let us enjoy some blessings too."

"Mom, what you're saying... actually sounds pretty strange. A lot of those conditions don't follow from one another. There's no cause and effect there..."

It sounded even stranger to Qing He Miao, who had transmigrated from the future.

He stopped picking through his food, raised his head, and counted on his fingers as he corrected her:

"Studying hard mainly brings you emotional value, and that only lasts until I get into university. If you still want to enjoy it, you'll have to make the most of the next couple of years.

"And the 'good life' you're talking about is another matter. That takes other abilities. Luckily, I'm not lacking in that department either. Just not in the way you imagine. If you want to keep getting emotional value from normal society, I'm afraid you'll have to work at it yourself."

"You can't do anything else, but you sure know how to talk back!"

Qing Mu scoffed, still holding fast to her own truth:

"If you study hard and get an education, won't that give you abilities? Why worry about not making money and having a good life?"

"In the future, the key to having even the most basic good life is money."

Qing He Miao smiled freely and explained without the slightest impatience:

"Studying hard, meanwhile, mainly affects your studies. Those are two separate tracks; one doesn't prove the other."

"At your age, all you ever talk about is money."

Qing Mu was getting worked up. She stuck to the older generation's tactics, starting by slapping a label on him:

"Once you graduate from university and find a job sitting in an office, won't you have an easier time earning money than we do?"

That way of talking was bad for raising children.

But it wasn't Qing Mu's fault.

People were creatures influenced by their surroundings.

They had seen such conversations, lived in such surroundings, and witnessed how well that way of speaking worked, so naturally they imitated it.

"First of all, earning money sitting in an office isn't easy either. Everyone has their own hardships. Second, when people have tasted bitterness, they should find a way to taste some sweetness, not compare which kind of bitterness tastes better."

Qing He Miao was well qualified to speak on that point.

In his previous life, before the economic downturn, he hadn't noticed anything wrong with those words either, apart from finding them uncomfortable.

Now, he pointed at himself and went on:

"Besides, the kind of social leap from the countryside to the city you're talking about doesn't actually require you to have a son like me. You only need a filial son or grandson who isn't too much of a beast. Following the normal path upward in society today, as long as he gets into university and doesn't pick up any messy habits, he can basically achieve it.

"That's the 'changing your fate' you often talk about. But that level of social advancement falls far short of the good life you imagine. Hmm... how about this? I'll give you the most straightforward example of the gap. Do you know about instant mini steamed buns?"

Persuading others to accept your worldview was addictive.

As Qing He Miao spoke, he grew interested and decided to give some concrete examples.

After all, his personality meant that he would surely be held back by ties of blood in the future, but he didn't want to be bound by those ties at present.

If he could broaden his family's horizons, and ideally change their thinking ahead of time, things would be a little easier for him in the future.

"What are those?"

His mother asked curiously. Clearly, she had never eaten them.

"They're little steamed buns made in a factory, with refined flour. They're especially soft and fluffy. They might have milk or something added too, so they smell nice and milky. They're usually about the size of your palm."

Qing He Miao described them as specifically as he could:

"They're kept frozen. When you want to eat them, you put them in a steamer, and they're ready in five or six minutes. Very convenient. There are about a dozen in a bag, and they cost around thirty yuan."

"Oh! I thought it was going to be something special!"

His mother had been a little nervous, but relaxed at once after hearing that:

"Aren't they just little steamed buns? What's so special about them? If you want some, we can grind the flour finer next time and add milk too. We can make them ourselves!"

"There's nothing special about them."

Qing He Miao nodded in agreement, then changed tack:

"But did you know they already exist right now? Some people have already made them a normal part of their diet because they're convenient for breakfast before school or work.

"Never mind whether anyone in our village has eaten them. Even the supermarkets in town hardly stock them. Only supermarkets in some real cities sell them as ordinary merchandise."

He sighed, looking over his parents and grandparents around the table, doing his best to sketch out a part of the world for them.

"The gap isn't just about thirty yuan. It's a gap in awareness and what people can afford to bear.

"As conditions have gradually improved over the past few years, even our family could actually afford to make them a normal part of our diet."

Qing He Miao snapped his fingers and summed it up:

"But to you, spending extra money on something you can make yourselves, trading time and taste for the savings, is wasteful.

"Never mind wanting to buy them, you'd have to go out of your way to find them. Even if I really bought some home one day, you'd only try them as a novelty, and feel bad because I'd wasted money."

Chapter 42: Not Much of a Gap

"And the negative feelings this would inevitably cause would rob the family atmosphere of emotional value. That isn't worth a family's insistence on food."

Qing He Miao wagged a finger as he spoke at length:

"Families who can naturally afford that kind of spending without any mental strain belong to one of the social classes that can be reached through education.

"For our family to reach that point, we'll have to count on society developing for another eight or nine years, until things like that are available everywhere and you've gotten used to them, and wait until I acquire an official place in society. That's the gap."

He offered a final conclusion:

"The even bigger gap is that the people you imagine as truly living a good life aren't even eating little steamed buns like these. They're just as comfortable eating shark fin, abalone, imported steak, and other things you've probably only heard of. A leap to that level isn't something you can achieve through education—or rather, only a very few can achieve it through education."

"Wouldn't that still count as climbing one floor higher? What else do you want to do?"

Qing Mu couldn't tell right from wrong in his long spiel and could only respond irritably.

Perhaps his family had understood some of it, but the scope of what he had discussed was beyond their power to do anything about, so they pretended they hadn't fully understood.

They also cared about saving face and didn't want to end the conversation by admitting defeat.

So she simply used the reproachful, judgmental tone of a parent to put an end to the chat.

Qing He Miao's explanation and analysis, given from a future vantage point that who knew how many people longed for, had basically been a waste of breath.

In fact, it had only been casual conversation, meant to broaden his family's horizons.

That way, when he did certain things in the future, he wouldn't be held back by his family.

He had therefore been prepared for this and wasn't disappointed. He picked up a bite of food, calmly changed the subject, and kept chatting:

"Well, I'm planning to... maybe move back to the village after I graduate from university."

"Move back to the village?"

Qing Mu simply thought her son was young and talking nonsense again.

Who would go through all the trouble of testing their way out, only to come running back in the end?

She then scoffed:

"That's all the ambition you've got! The whole family is counting on you to make something of yourself and go out into the world, and take us out to see it too! At this rate, if we can count on you to give us a peaceful 'send-off,' you'll have done your filial duty!"

It was the same old-school tactic. Now she had started using filial piety to pressure him.

"Mom, infrastructure will be well developed in the future. As long as you have money, you can enjoy it anywhere."

Qing He Miao smiled helplessly and put down his chopsticks:

"And as long as I have value to others, people will send me money even if I do nothing at all. You've watched TV dramas too. With your son's talent, if I lived in ancient times, I'd be at least on the same level as Zhang Jue, Zhuge Liang, Yuan Tiangang, Xu Shilin, and Liu Bowen.

"Even if I can't achieve Ascension, I'll definitely be the next Outcast a few decades from now. By then, never mind all the abilities I'll have in life, I won't suffer even if I farm for the rest of my days. And if the day really comes when I pass on, I reckon the procession will be fit for a grandmaster: Qingfeng Mingyue leading the way, Wuchang seeing me off, Ox-Head and Horse-Face in two ranks, and the Five Immortals attending my funeral! I might be more glorious dead than alive!"

Those were the sort of words he could only say while he was young and his parents were even-tempered.

If he were a little older, or had ended up in a family with a violent temper and a tendency toward domestic abuse, he couldn't have spoken so freely without getting a beating.

So everyone at the table was uncomfortable listening to him.

But they treated it as nothing more than a child speaking without restraint.

Qing Mu was about to seize the chance to scold him and tell him not to talk nonsense.

She would also use that to declare her victory.

Just then, Grandpa Qing, who had been eating in silence, suddenly asked with some curiosity:

"Little Miao, that world you mentioned just now... what's it like after we're gone? Or is there really a procession like that?"

"Don't talk nonsense."

Qing Fu raised his head after hearing that and rebuked Grandpa Qing, then glanced at Qing He Miao.

Unlike his utterly uninhibited manner earlier, Qing He Miao now found himself afraid to speak. He smiled shyly:

"I was just talking nonsense off the top of my head. Even I can't say how far I'll get in the future."

Grandpa Qing didn't press him. Qing He Miao hurriedly shoveled down the last few bites of rice in his bowl, put down his bowl and chopsticks, and said to his parents:

"I'm done. I still have to go up the mountain to train today, so I'm heading out."

With that, he rose hurriedly, put on his coat, and left the table.

That brought the transmigrator's casual disclosure of the future to an end.

As it turned out, it was just as he had said when teasing his classmates at school.

Even if someone really could foresee the future,

getting ordinary people to believe it was no easy task.