A rope always snapped at its thinnest point; misfortune always sought out those who already suffered.]
"Uncle was a big boss back in the nineties?"
"Oh, wow," Lu Yuanqiu exclaimed.
How should he put it? Overalls Uncle really did have a certain distinctive air about him. If he didn't speak, you would never guess anything was wrong.
He was handsome, and although his clothes were a little old, they were actually very clean, carrying a faint, fresh scent of laundry detergent.
Lu Yuanqiu patted Overalls Uncle on the shoulder, his smile tinged with emotion and helplessness.
"Then how did he end up like this... Do you know, sir?"
Since he had nothing else to do, Lu Yuanqiu started asking out of curiosity.
The elderly street cleaner set his broom on the steps beside him, looked up at the sky, and began chatting. "Sure I do. He lives in the alleys over there, same as me."
Lu Yuanqiu looked toward the urban village he pointed at.
He had been there once before. The houses were shabby, the overhead wires twisted together like braided dough, and the winding alleys were no different from a maze.
Lu Yuanqiu remembered that sometime after 2016, that urban village had apparently been demolished and turned into a park.
"He used to own a big company, with hundreds of people working under him. His wife was a bal... what was it again? A dancer."
"A ballet dancer?" Lu Yuanqiu supplied.
The old man immediately nodded. "Right, right, a ballet dancer. Goodness, his wife looked like a movie star. So elegant. When they stood together, they were like wolves and tigers..."
"A talented man and a beautiful woman," Lu Yuanqiu corrected.
"Right, right. A talented man and a beautiful woman. A real pleasure to look at."
"What happened after that?" Lu Yuanqiu asked.
Watching Overalls Uncle suck on his lollipop with that simple, childlike look, Lu Yuanqiu knew there had to be a twist.
"Later, someone apparently set him up," the old man said. "His company went bankrupt, and he lost a lot of money. He sold the house and the car, and the whole family had to squeeze into a rundown rental."
"Ah... That really is awful."
"That's not all." The old man turned toward the teenager with a soft chuckle, though his weathered smile carried a trace of pity.
"He had a son and a daughter. The four of them were poor, sure, but they could still get by."
"Then one day, his wife fainted during a dance class. They ran some tests. Leukemia."
"Their world fell apart. They couldn't afford treatment. She held on for a year, then died... All her hair fell out. Such a beautiful woman, too. Ah."
Lu Yuanqiu fell silent.
The old man continued, "After his wife died, he carried on raising his son and daughter."
"A few more years went by, and damn it, Heaven had no mercy. A few nights before his son's high school entrance exams, a car hit him. The boy thought he was fine, took the 500 yuan the driver gave him, and limped home. He died that very night."
"Heh. Five hundred yuan for a life."
Lu Yuanqiu almost stopped breathing.
"How does that saying go again?" the old man asked. "Fate always picks..."
"A rope always snaps at its thinnest point; misfortune always seeks out those who already suffer," Lu Yuanqiu said quietly.
"Right, right, right!"
"And then?"
"Then all those blows were too much for him, and he lost his mind." The old man spread his hands, then sighed. "His life really has been too hard."
Hearing this, Lu Yuanqiu silently turned to look at Overalls Uncle, who was still eating his lollipop.
"Yummy! Yummy!"
He smiled innocently at Lu Yuanqiu, waving the lollipop in his hand as he happily stamped both feet.
Lu Yuanqiu suddenly looked up. "Didn't he still have a daughter...?"
At that, the old man shook his head with a bitter smile. "His daughter's the most pitiful of all. She was only three when the family went bankrupt. She hasn't had a good day since she was old enough to understand."
"Her brother died, and not long afterward, her father lost his mind. Such a little girl, only this tall, going to school while looking after her dad. And she takes such good care of him, too. What a remarkable child."
The old man raised a hand to indicate the girl's height.
Lu Yuanqiu couldn't help asking, "Sir, you... you're joking, right? How could anyone be that unlucky?"
The elderly street cleaner stood up and smiled at Lu Yuanqiu. "If you think I'm joking, that just means you've had a pretty happy life, young man."
"I'm off. Still got another street to sweep."
"Damn it, all that talking and not even a cigarette..." the elderly street cleaner muttered as he left.
Lu Yuanqiu sat quietly where he was and looked again at Overalls Uncle beside him.
The handsome man swayed his head like a child. "Yummy, so yummy! Lollipops are so yummy!"
Lu Yuanqiu didn't speak for a long time.
After sitting for a while, he went to the little shop, bought a large bag of bread, and brought it back, placing it in Overalls Uncle's arms.
When he stood up, he saw that Lu Yidong had come out through the school gates and was waving at him.
Lu Yuanqiu took out his prop, a little fake mustache.
Using his phone screen as a mirror, he stuck it above his upper lip, then practiced saying, "Watashi wa... I'm Lu Yidong's uncle..."
By the time Lu Yuanqiu finished the parent-teacher meeting and returned to Lucheng No. 7 Middle School, evening study hall had already begun.
Fortunately, Lu Yidong's Homeroom Teacher hadn't given him much trouble, and the meeting had gone fairly well. The Eighth-Grade Director, however, had nearly recognized him.
Only after the meeting did Lu Yuanqiu discover that when his sister said she hadn't made the top twenty in her class, she meant she was tenth from the bottom...
No wonder she had refused to tell their parents the truth this time.
When he reached the classroom door, Lu Yuanqiu spotted Bai Qingxia coming out of the office.
"Where did you go this afternoon?"
"What were you doing in the office?"
They looked at each other, stopping and asking their questions at almost exactly the same time.
The unexpected synchrony made Bai Qingxia lower her head in embarrassment.
Lu Yuanqiu smiled. "I went to my sister's parent-teacher meeting. What about you? What were you doing in the office?"
Bai Qingxia shook her head lightly. "Nothing."
She walked into the classroom without another word. Lu Yuanqiu didn't press her and followed her inside.
During evening study hall, everyone else worked on their homework, while Lu Yuanqiu focused solely on the theory in his textbooks. For now, he didn't plan to do any homework except English.
All his teachers had given up on him anyway.
After reading Mathematics Compulsory 1 from beginning to end, Lu Yuanqiu closed the textbook and looked toward the struggling students in the back rows.
There were fifty-three students in the class. That meant he had to beat eighteen of them to get into the top thirty-five.
Enter, Chu Qingqiu, far, Lu, but
Making the top thirty-five in his class was nowhere near his goal.
Lu Yuanqiu had absolute confidence in his English. He even believed he could leave the entire class in the dust. Bai Qingxia might not score as high as him.
But he really couldn't make any guarantees about the other subjects, especially mathematics and physics.
As he looked around, Lu Yuanqiu's gaze settled on Zheng Yifeng, who was sound asleep.
Zheng Yifeng's grades consistently placed him around tenth from the bottom, yet in Lu Yuanqiu's previous life, he had scored over 600 on the Gaokao.
He really was a legend.
The person who had inspired him to change completely was their English teacher, Su Miaomiao.
Later, Lu Yuanqiu had heard that he and Su Miaomiao had married and had a child. Their family of three lived a very happy life.
But it was only the first semester of their senior year now. Zheng Yifeng's turning point would come in the second semester.
For a woman, he had gone from tenth from the bottom in his class to scoring over 600 on the Gaokao in a single semester. In Lu Yuanqiu's eyes, Zheng Yifeng, the "Sleep God," was a true man.
Setting his book down, Lu Yuanqiu left the classroom to use the restroom.
When he came back, he suddenly noticed that Bai Qingxia was gone. Her schoolbag was gone, too.
"Where did Bai Qingxia go?"
Lu Yuanqiu caught the attention of the student in front of him and asked.
"No idea. She just left with her bag. The Homeroom Teacher didn't stop her, either."