Who Didn't Have a Childhood Sweetheart?

After the second semester of their junior year, perhaps because they had grown up a little, their relationship had mellowed considerably.

Now, in the blink of an eye, they were seniors, though they still didn't quite get along.

"Are you nuts, Jiang Nian?" The girl planted her hands on her hips and glared at him, her cheeks puffed with anger. "Why are you knocking in broad daylight? I'm telling Auntie Li so she'll give you a beating!"

Jiang Nian stared at Xu Qianqian-or, more precisely, at the pale blue, translucent panel in front of him.

Sure enough, he was the only one who could see it.

[Reestablish contact with Xu Qianqian, your unmarried childhood sweetheart whom you fell out with. Reward: 300 RMB (completed).]

Huh, had the money arrived?

Xu Qianqian had been furiously chewing Jiang Nian out when she suddenly realized he seemed to be staring at her in a daze. Her hair stood on end, and she covered her ample chest as she took a step back.

"W-why are you looking at me like that?"

Then she watched Jiang Nian ignore her completely, pull his phone from his trouser pocket, and glance at it. His face lit up with delight, and he ran off with a gleeful "Hee-hee!"

Watching Jiang Nian disappear back into the apartment across the hall, Xu Qianqian curled her lip.

"What a weirdo."

In the living room.

Jiang Nian kept checking his phone, overjoyed.

Three hundred yuan really had appeared in his account out of nowhere. His balance had gone from 305.23 to 605.23, and the transfer note read "Game tester compensation."

At that moment, the panel appeared again.

[At thirty-eight, you are strapped for cash, unemployed, and divorced. Having lost almost everything you own, you can only survive on financial help from your parents.

Quest: An urgent need.

Now that you have received your first reward, pay off the overdue water, electricity, and gas bills for your rental home. Reward: 500 RMB.]

He figured this had to be a beginner quest and opened an app to pay the bills. He wasn't renting anywhere, but paying the gas, water, and electricity bills for his own home should count, right?

At the same time, he couldn't help feeling wistful. Was his future self really that much of a failure?

Buzz! Five hundred yuan arrived.

So far, the system's quests had been fairly easy. Jiang Nian checked his bank balance. He had spent a little over a hundred and seventy on the bills, leaving him with 935.45.

He was a practical person, and once the five hundred arrived, he gradually calmed down.

Even two five-hundred-yuan payments were peanuts. As long as the daily total didn't exceed five thousand, nobody would care. But if it went over that later, things could get troublesome.

Not only might his bank account be frozen, but a large transfer could even get him investigated.

The sender was listed as Skyglow Games Co., Ltd. Jiang Nian looked it up and discovered that not only did the company exist, it was publicly listed, and it had exactly one "game tester."

Of course, Jiang Nian wasn't stupid enough to believe this tailor-made position really existed. For one thing, current technology was nowhere near capable of producing a panel that followed him around.

Besides, he wasn't any chief game tester. The system had simply patched a hole in reality.

In other words, the money came from a legitimate, legal source.

Awesome.

He had just finished checking when the system panel appeared again with another beginner quest.

[By the time you wish to care for your parents, they may no longer be there. At thirty-eight, you realize your parents have grown old. Looking back on half a lifetime already gone, you resolutely set out for home, yet feel increasingly apprehensive as you draw nearer.

Quest: Make your parents a sumptuous dinner.

Reward: 800 RMB.]

Reading the quest requirements, Jiang Nian rubbed his chin.

It was afternoon, so he had time to prepare dinner. Otherwise, he would have to wait until tomorrow. They had these two days off for the school's anniversary celebration, but he had to return tomorrow night for evening study.

Cooking wasn't a problem. Almost everyone in the Jiang Family knew how to cook.

His grandfather had worked as a chef in a restaurant in Guangzhou when he was young, and his father and uncles all knew at least a few dishes. The taste left something to be desired, though, and when it came to his own dad...

As his grandfather put it, he was a pig with scallions stuck in its nostrils, pretending to be an elephant.

Jiang Nian was an exception. His grades were average, but he had found another path and showed a little talent for cooking. The pastry work and savory dishes others found difficult didn't seem hard to him.

Every summer vacation, without fail, he holed up at his grandfather's house, enjoying good food while learning several elaborate dishes here and there. They turned out pretty respectable, too.

Since the dinner had to be sumptuous, the ingredients naturally had to be as fresh as possible.

That afternoon, Jiang Nian made a trip to the wet market and returned disappointed. He had forgotten there were hardly any fresh vegetables in the afternoon. Seeing how young he was, a bunch of middle-aged vendors had tried to pass inferior goods off as quality produce, raising their prices before offering him a discount.

Sure enough, every merchant's a crook. Bastards. There was a reason young people preferred supermarkets. Those wet-market vendors sized up customers before deciding what to charge. They deserved their poor sales.

By the time he had gathered the ingredients and returned home, it was already four.

A deboned, chopped Yangshan Chicken sat on the kitchen's quartz countertop. It was a famous Guangdong specialty that cost a little over thirty yuan per jin there, but the markup in Zhen Nan brought it to forty.

The meat was springy and satisfying, rich without being greasy. It really was worth the price.

He planned to make lotus-leaf steamed chicken. With meat this tender and firm-not to mention expensive-it ought to qualify as sumptuous, right?

He would put less effort into the rest: a plate of stir-fried seasonal vegetables, stir-fried beef, smashed cucumber, peanuts, and a pot of pork rib soup.

The cost instantly shot up. The ingredients alone came to almost four hundred yuan for a single meal.

Normally, a family of three could never finish all those dishes. But Jiang Nian had taken Xu Qianqian next door into account. In a sense, they really were childhood sweethearts.

Xu Qianqian came from a single-parent household. Her mother had passed away a few years earlier.

Her father, Director Xu, was a renowned specialist in reproductive medicine and andrology at the county hospital. He had removed testicles and treated impotence alike. He usually wore rimless glasses and greeted everyone with a gentle smile.

He had never really recovered from his wife's death and spent his days numbing himself with work.

The Jiang Family had struggled these past few years, and Old Xu had quietly helped them out a great deal. The two families were very close.

So even though Jiang Nian's parents had been busy working to pay off their debts these past few years, whenever they had something good to eat, they always invited Xu Qianqian over. Even when they cut up a melon, they had to give her the sweetest part.

Jiang Nian was used to it and had instinctively included portions for Old Xu and Xu Qianqian. The amount was just right for five people: a lavish spread, but not wasteful when divided among them.

That afternoon, Li Hongmei hurried home from work, tied on an apron, and headed for the kitchen.

"Dinner will be ready soon. Read a book for a while instead of always playing on your phone. You're almost a senior. I'm telling you, the college entrance exam is like thousands of troops trying to cross a single narrow bridge."

Jiang Nian was lying on the sofa with an ice pop in his mouth, playing on his phone. He didn't even lift his eyebrows.

"Yeah, got it, Mom."

"Honestly, you." Li Hongmei wiped her hands on her apron, only to freeze as she stepped into the kitchen. She looked at the dishes being kept warm, then turned to glance at Jiang Nian.

"Who cooked all this?"

"I did. What do you think?"

At his words,

Li Hongmei's expression instantly became quite a sight. It wasn't that she doubted Jiang Nian's cooking. His grandfather doted on him and would have loved nothing more than to teach his precious grandson every skill he had learned in his lifetime.

"Where did you get the money? This meal... Yangshan Chicken, beef-it must have cost at least several hundred, right?"

"Well, didn't I make some money playing that game?" Feeling a little guilty, Jiang Nian rubbed his face, then held perfectly still, holding his breath as he watched his mother, Li Hongmei.

Li Hongmei frowned, and the atmosphere in the kitchen instantly froze.