Mother and Daughter (Revised)

Liu Chang'an returned late and had already eaten dinner. Zhou Shuling invited him over for a late-night snack because Liu Chang'an had sold all the dog meat that morning, leaving only the piece he was taking back to Zhou Dongdong.

Zhou Dongdong started wailing and crying, then stopped, worried that if she hadn't reminded Brother Chang'an, he would have sold all the dog meat. Only after Brother Chang'an had saved some did Zhou Dongdong start crying with relief, condemning Brother Chang'an for killing another dog.

Zhou Shuling is slightly older than Qin Yanan, and her cooking skills are not as good as Qin Yanan's. However, there are far too many people who are not as good as Qin Yanan, so Liu Chang'an can still accept Zhou Shuling's cooking skills. Otherwise, Liu Chang'an would not bother to eat the crayfish and pig's feet that she makes for late-night snacks.

Liu Chang'an lay back in his chair watching TV, with dog meat on the small table beside him. Zhou Shuling grabbed a bottle of beer, opened it, and handed it to Liu Chang'an.

Zhou Dongdong had finished her homework and was sitting next to Liu Chang'an, watching him drink beer and eat dog meat.

Because her mother said it was for her brother Chang'an, Zhou Dongdong that night, didn't steal any.

Even if she doesn't eat it herself, Zhou Dongdong feels happy just watching her brother Chang'an eat delicious food, because delicious food and her brother Chang'an are both essential and beautiful things in Zhou Dongdong's life, just like her mother's.

Liu Chang'an would still occasionally pick up a piece of food and feed it to Zhou Dongdong.

"You're still feeding her? Look at your belly!" Zhou Shuling scolded Liu Chang'an and Zhou Dongdong at the same time.

Zhou Dongdong reached out and touched Liu Chang'an's stomach. Liu Chang'an sucked his stomach in and it swelled up again. Zhou Dongdong giggled, while Zhou Shuling rolled her eyes at him.

"I'll feed her some saliva," Liu Chang'an said, since the chopsticks were inevitably covered in saliva.

"YI (pronounced with a drawn-out second tone)..." Zhou Shuling said with a disgusted sound, but she didn't really have any objections or say anything about it being unhygienic.

After Liu Chang'an finished eating, Zhou Shuling cleared the table and cleaned up the dishes. Zhou Dongdong laboriously lifted Liu Chang'an's legs and put them together, then lay down on them.

Liu Chang'an was watching "Boonie Bears." This animated series is really well-made. Zhou Dongdong lay down like she was swimming, waving her arms and kicking her little feet, which were wearing socks with airplane patterns. She slowly rubbed herself up and lay on Liu Chang'an. She turned her head to look at her brother Chang'an, twisted her body, and then turned back to comfortably watch the cartoon.

Zhou Shuling sat on a small stool with Zhou Dongdong's homework table in front of her. She had an abacus, but she was actually using the calculator on her phone. She was calculating the total income and expenditure since opening the store in Baolong Center.

After finishing the calculation, Zhou Shuling showed it to Liu Chang'an glanced at it and then looked away, saying, "You're good at math, right?"

"Of course, I was pretty good at math when I was in school, so I can tutor Zhou Dongdong in math in the future," Zhou Shuling said confidently, which was the source of her parental authority.

"Then I'll give you an easy question to solve." Liu Chang'an handed over paper and a pen.

"Then it has to be integer problems, not too many decimal points or anything like square roots or functions." Zhou Shuling looked at Liu Chang'an with a guilty conscience. This guy was really cunning; he'd even give Zhou Dongdong addition and subtraction problems within five!

"Okay." Liu Chang'an gave him a problem to solve for positive integers.

Given a/(b+c)+b/(a+c)+c/(a+b)=4, what are the positive integer solutions for a, b, and c?

Zhou Dongdong also turned her head to take a look. She couldn't understand it at all and wasn't interested at all, but she was certain that Brother Chang'an was bullying her mother again.

Zhou Dongdong would get very angry if others bullied her mother, but now Zhou Dongdong's not angry at all, and is watching her mother with her brother Chang'an.

Zhou Shuling felt a little nervous under the gazes of the two people. She lowered her head to look at the question and couldn't help but feel guilty, wondering why she had been doing this kind of thing with Liu Chang'an.

Zhou Shuling glanced at the abacus and the calculator, feeling completely lost. After biting her pen for a while, she simply tossed the problem aside and said irritably, "I don't know how to do this. What kind of stupid problem is this?"

"Do you know how to do it?" Zhou Dongdong asked Liu Chang'an.

"A=154476802108746166441951315019919837485664325669565431700026634898253202035277999... b=... c=..."

"You're crazy!" Zhou Shuling laughed angrily. "Who would make this?!"

Zhou Dongdong frowned, feeling that this was a question she would never be able to answer. Why was studying so terrifying?

"Did you figure that out in your head?" Despite her anger, Zhou Shuling still had to admire him and asked.

"No, I just write down any interesting questions I see, and then I'll use them to tease you guys when you and Zhou Dongdong are expressing your confidence," Liu Chang'an said frankly.

"How annoying!" Zhou Shuling slapped Liu Chang'an, and seeing Zhou Dongdong laughing beside her, she slapped her back.

Even Zhou Shuling couldn't match such memorization ability. Looking at her daughter lying in Liu Chang'an's arms, touching her face, she couldn't help but sigh, "How can there be such a huge difference in people's intelligence?"

Zhou Shuling brewed some tea for Liu Chang'an to soothe his stomach. After drinking it, Liu Chang'an went downstairs to continue his carpentry work.

The next morning, Liu Chang'an drank the soy milk that Zhou Dongdong brought him and steamed meat buns that he made himself. He didn't go downstairs to see if Shangguan Dandan had made breakfast, and Shangguan Dandan didn't send him a text message to invite him to breakfast, so she probably gave up on the idea.

This morning we have a physical exam. Generally, physical exams require you to skip breakfast on an empty stomach, but Liu Chang'an didn't care, especially since Qin Yanan had already made arrangements.

He took out a white shirt, which felt slightly tight, but it wasn't a problem. He loosened the collar and wrist buttons, rolled up the sleeves, and then changed his pants. It was a bit troublesome when he was changing his pants. He hadn't worn long pants in a long time, and because he had grown taller recently, the pants were a bit short. But it didn't matter; he could just roll them up and wear them as cropped pants. Anyway, young people wear them like that even in winter, risking gout, rheumatism, and vascular necrosis later in life. So Liu Chang'an didn't bother to make a fuss about his pants pressing down on his ankles.

The physical exam was in the morning, and there was no military training in the afternoon. With a day off tomorrow, this will be the first holiday after the start of university.

After the physical examination, Liu Chang'an and Qin Yanan met at a coffee shop near the school.

Liu Chang'an ordered a latte and added a lot of sugar, while Qin Yanan drank black tea and watched Liu Chang'an stir the sugar cubes.

Liu Chang'an's drinking habits are very casual, unrefined, and unhealthy, but considering his constitution, it doesn't really matter whether they're healthy or not.

The coffee shop was mostly filled with students or faculty from several universities at the foot of Mount Lu. Qin Yanan's arrival was quite eye-catching; the development of social media makes it easier for people to become famous and broad-minded.

Sensing some prying eyes, Qin Yanan pulled up her skirt to cover the edge of her stockings, so as not to reveal her fair and soft skin that was like foam.

"I always thought you were just teasing Zhu Juntang when you said you knew Qin Shi Huang." Qin Yanan's eyes shone brightly in the dimly lit coffee shop.

"You're really good at holding back." Liu Chang'an knew that Qin Yanan Liu Chang'an questions for him since they returned from the Bow Family Realm, and she had been waiting for so long, so she was quite patient and calm.

Qin Yanan simply looked at him. She had thought that what she had experienced was already miraculous enough. She was mentally prepared to live next to a superhuman who was over a hundred years old, eternally youthful, and immortal. However, she did not expect that he would accompany her through history and show a touch of gentleness and immense power in front of her.

"I've made plans to have dinner with An Nuan later, and we're going to see a movie this afternoon," Liu Chang'an reminded her to speak quickly if she had something to say.

"I only recently understood why you said you couldn't accept it because I look like Ye Sijin... It's indeed hard to accept that your fiancée looks exactly like your most beloved younger sister." Qin Yanan wasn't entirely sure if she simply wanted to bring up this topic or if she wanted to use Ye Sijin to contrast with An Nuan... She didn't objectively feel any aversion to An Nuan, but it was understandable that her subjective actions and words were out of control.

"Actually, whether it's the Ye Family, the Qin Family, or the Su Family, their ancestors were originally managing my business. It's just that the Ye Family suffered a disaster at that time, and Ye Sijin was the cutest, so I came to the Ye Family." Liu Chang'an smiled, reached out and patted Qin Yanan's head. She's quite pretty now, but she has a very mature, modern woman vibe, which is different from what I remembered.

Qin Yanan was slightly shy, but not resistant. Even in a relatively public setting, she lowered her head and looked docile.

As for his talk about property and the ancestors of the three families, she could understand. Liu Chang'an didn't care about any wealth; it was just a tool to him. He squandered his fortune when the country was in crisis.

"Did you have the same mindset during the Qin and Han dynasties?" Qin Yanan's question wasn't very practical; rather, it stemmed from a thirst for knowledge about life, history, and philosophy, hoping to understand the mindset of such an elder.

"At first, I supported a branch of the King Zhou of Shang's descendants, hoping they could unify the world. I didn't have the foresight to think that the Qin state would inevitably conquer the Central Plains. After all, at that time, many heroes rose up, and kings vied for supremacy. From time to time, someone would show the talent and ambition of a true king..." Liu Chang'an thought carefully for a moment, "Later, it was Zhao Zheng who accomplished this. I felt a bit bored, and then I met Liu Bang. This man believed that Zhao Zheng's search for me and his subsequent actions after unifying the world were because I had mastered the secret of Longevity. At that time, I was too lazy to walk, so he arrested me. I had nowhere to go, so I stayed in the prison."

"That's wonderful... I also want to meet those dragon-like figures." Qin Yanan couldn't help but think about it.

"It's nothing. Your great-grandfather was one, and you've seen plenty of others like him. You don't necessarily have to reach the pinnacle to be a dragon-like figure. Whenever you pass by the square, you see that towering monument; it embodies the spirit and energy of those people—everyone is like a dragon." Liu Chang'an took a sip of coffee and calmly looked at Qin Yanan.

Qin Yanan couldn't help but feel ashamed. When it came to intellectual level and awareness, she was still far behind her senior.

Besides, Qin Yanan didn't see Liu Chang'an's gaze and couldn't pay attention to it.

--

--

I recommend a book called Rebirth of the Dominator, a new book by the author of Low-Dimensional Games. It's a mind-bending story about an urban mastermind who guides the revival of spiritual energy to create a supernatural system. It's an invincible protagonist story, so it's not too stressful to read. It's already over 600,000 words long. If you're interested, you can check it out.