This Ink Marker Has a Bad Temper! It Hit Me!

Regardless of whether Little Ink Marker had a good temper, it was alive now, and he could neither kill it again nor stuff it into the stove. Shen Le sighed, comforting himself:

At any rate, this Little Ink Marker was hitting him with the Devil's Work Ball, not stabbing him with the pointed end of the Lead Weight.

The former just left a mark that could be rubbed away, barely even painful; the latter, the latter would truly be life-threatening...

And speaking of which, what exactly do you want?

Give me a sign!

Little Ink Marker remained silent and motionless, even the Lead Weight drooping down to lie quietly on the table.

Shen Le took a step back, silently circulating his energy to look with his Spirit Eye. One glance, and he took another step back:

From the lion-shaped body of the ink marker to the spool wrapped in Silk Thread, and down to the Lead Weight and Devil's Work Ball at the end, the aura visible only to the Spirit Eye was dancing wildly, boiling, wave after wave.

Not only was the aura on the ink marker boiling, but the aura of the box nearby—the one containing woodworking tools—and the aged tools inside were all boiling along with it.

Although those auras were very faint, completely incomparable to the ink marker, the dozens of tools placed together resonated with it, creating the spectacle of a hundred demons dancing in chaos!

"You wouldn't all have come to life, would you? If you all come to life, I'm afraid this house of mine won't be able to afford to keep you..."

Ah, woodworking tools don't need to eat, nor do they need to buy clothes, and the house is my own, so I don't have to pay rent for them.

That's fine then...

Shen Le's mind wandered, and for a moment, he lost focus, forgetting to guard against Little Ink Marker. With a snap, the Devil's Work Ball flew up and struck him right on the forehead again.

Shen Le let out a soft cry, covering his forehead once more:

Damn it, he had forgotten! The Silk Thread of this ink marker was eighteen meters long, which meant that unless he hid more than eighteen meters away, it was absolutely impossible to escape the precise strikes of Little Ink Marker!

"What on earth do you want me to do? Just say it!"

Little Ink Marker did not speak, nor did it attempt to manipulate the ink line to form any words; it simply flew the Lead Weight up and smashed it against Shen Le's forehead once again.

Shen Le retreated, leaned back, dodged left and right, and waved his hands frantically. Alas, his agility stat was still insufficient; after dodging twice, he was ultimately struck on the forehead by the Devil's Work Ball:

"Ouch!"

Once, twice, but not a third time!

If you keep this up, I'm going to smash your Devil's Work Ball!

Shen Le was furious. Before his thought could even finish, the world went black before his eyes, followed by a loud shout:

"You want to be a carpenter? No! Absolutely not!"

Ah, this must be the final memory, right?

Little Ink Marker had been completely repaired; it was time to tell him what it wanted him to do, wasn't it?

Shen Le looked around. The scene he saw this time was much more recent than the previous ones; at the very least, the television in the room was an LCD screen, not one of those old, bulky CRT sets.

However, apart from that, the furnishings in the room remained old and worn:

On the wooden headboard, plum branches stretched out on both sides, with magpies spreading their wings to surround a large Peony cluster in the center. That low-relief floral pattern was exactly the same as the bed in the silver-haired old lady's home;

The two bedside tables had three or four cracks of varying sizes on their front panels, clearly weathered by decades of time, and were covered with crocheted dust covers;

On the side of the wardrobe against the wall, there were dozens of parallel lines drawn with a ballpoint pen. The lines at the bottom were spaced further apart, while those at the top were closer together, clearly recording every stage of a child's growth from infancy to adulthood...

But the child on whom the parents pinned their hopes, the child whose height had been recorded time and time again, was currently curled up on a small stool in the corner, holding that familiar old ink marker in his hands, saying nothing.

In front of the child, the father looked grave, pacing back and forth, back and forth, until he finally made up his mind:

"The sponsorship fee must be paid! Pay forty thousand yuan to get into Yucai Middle School; we are not going to vocational school!"

"No!" The sound of chopping in the kitchen intensified immediately. The sound of the kitchen knife hitting the cutting board could not drown out the woman's high-pitched voice:

"Zheng Xiaohua! That money is for your medical treatment! High school or vocational school, it's all studying; why can't he go there!"

"Vocational school is absolutely out of the question!" The father rushed into the kitchen to argue with his wife:

"What good prospects are there in vocational school now?

Go learn to be a chef, standing in smoke and fire all day, standing from morning till night?

Or learn auto repair, crawling under cars every day, covered in grease?

Or learn mechanics and go to a factory, only to have your fingers cut off by a machine one day?!"

"And what's the point of going to high school?" The mother did not show any weakness:

"His grades are four points below the cutoff line. Even if we pay the sponsorship fee to get him in, it will be the worst high school. And then what? Can he get into a top university?

—He'll still end up having to go to a junior college or a technical school! Why go through all that trouble and spend so much money for nothing?"

Uh... that was actually true... If he couldn't even pass the high school entrance exam score, it would indeed be too difficult to change his fate through high school...

By now, Shen Le had recognized them. This couple was the same pair he had seen several times in reality, the ones who had sold him the ink marker and the entire set of woodworking tools.

He had witnessed them arguing to the point of divorce in reality; he hadn't expected to witness them arguing again in the ink marker's memory. Fortunately, before the argument could escalate, the man's tone softened slightly:

"The child is young now and doesn't understand anything. If he finishes high school and then goes to junior college, at least he'll be a bit more mature." He whispered, trying to persuade her:

"The vocational schools nowadays are a complete mess; it's all fighting or chasing girls every day. We have to wait until he has some self-discipline. As parents, we have to be responsible for our child..."

"That doesn't mean you can just throw money away!" The mother's tone softened slightly, but it quickly hardened again.

"Your back is in bad shape. The doctor has told you several times that you need surgery, but we never had the money... That disc surgery, the minimally invasive one, costs over thirty thousand out of pocket. If you spend the money now, what will you do if your back starts hurting again?"

At the mention of back pain, the man instinctively reached back to hammer at his lower spine, a flash of agony crossing his face.

Years of squatting, stooping, and hunching over while working had caused his lumbar vertebrae to fail him early on. He had to sleep on a hard board bed year-round, and he was constantly applying medicated plasters and heat packs.

If it were just pain, he could endure it, but when the flare-ups hit, he would be left lying in bed, unable to move an inch, let alone go out to work.

If he couldn't work, there was no income, and not only would there be no money, but he would also become a burden on the person at home who had to take care of him...

"I can have the major surgery," the man said, his voice heavy.

"The major surgery only costs a few thousand, and health insurance covers part of it. There's no need for that minimally invasive one!"

"There is a need!" The wife's voice rose another octave.

"With the minimally invasive surgery, you don't have to suffer. You can get out of bed the same day and walk out of the hospital in a week.

If you have the major surgery, you won't be able to get out of bed for a week, you'll be hospitalized for at least half a month, there's more blood loss, and the recovery is slower.

This money cannot be saved; you absolutely must have the minimally invasive one..."