[Dear teacher]
[I have something that troubles me these days]
"Ah, my head hurts!"
Although the letter used only very simple words, and it was impossible for him not to understand it,
Song Yunshen's eyes swam whenever he saw English. He hurriedly pulled out his phone and summoned the almighty Great Emperor Doubao, taking a photo and asking her to translate it.
Before long, the translation came fresh out of the oven-
[Dear teacher]
[Something has been troubling me lately]
[My family isn't well-off, so I try to save as much money as I can]
[My mom works very hard. She works two odd jobs and doesn't come home until late at night]
[I told Mom I wanted to find a part-time job over summer vacation, but she wouldn't agree]
[I don't know what to do: should I respect Mom's wishes and give up the idea of working, or secretly find a job to help shoulder the family's burden?]
"Hmm..." Song Yunshen looked at the letter and fell into thought for a moment.
It was normal for the letter to address the teacher from the start. After all, Teacher Jiang answered most of the English mailbox letters herself, so the girl had naturally written it for her to read.
But was the letter actually about a summer part-time job?
At that thought, Song Yunshen immediately unlocked the drawer beside him and placed the Future Diary on the desk.
After turning to the page he was looking for, Song Yunshen quickly found what he wanted to see.
[Summer vacation is almost here. I wonder if I can find a suitable part-time job. It would be great if I could help take some of the pressure off Mom]
It matched!
It really matched!
Song Yunshen felt a little exhilarated.
It had been about half a month since the Future Diary appeared, and he had finally taken a step closer to the truth!
With this, he could pretty much narrow down who the owner of the Future Diary was.
He just didn't know which girl on the English Club's sign-in sheet it was.
Maybe when he went to school for evening self-study tomorrow, he should just search class by class?
There were only thirty-three girls anyway. Song Yunshen opened the photo in his gallery and counted; he would probably have to visit more than twenty classrooms.
Forget it. There was no rush. He should think about how to reply first.
If he could get her to come to him of her own accord through his reply, he wouldn't have to run all over the school looking for her.
Just as Song Yunshen was thinking about what to write, someone knocked on his bedroom door.
"Shenshen?"
"What is it?"
"I'll come in and talk."
"Come in."
Song Mingyuan pushed the door open, sat down on the edge of the bed, and asked Song Yunshen, "Did you go over to the rental today?"
"Yeah, I only got back a little while ago."
"You postponed the rent?"
"Yeah." Song Yunshen nodded. "You only said I couldn't reduce or waive it. You didn't say I couldn't postpone it."
"All right." Song Mingyuan nodded noncommittally. "You're the landlord now, so it's your call. But not every tenant is necessarily honest. You'll have to learn to tell the difference in the future."
"You're saying Auntie Yan was lying?"
"That's not what I mean." Song Mingyuan shook his head. "Our family owns more than just that one place. You'll meet more tenants in the future."
"All right." Song Yunshen didn't give it much thought. His mind turned to summer vacation and part-time work, and his eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh, Dad."
"What is it?"
"Didn't you say last night you were going to find me an English teacher for summer tutoring?"
"Yeah." Song Mingyuan chuckled. "If you can score over a hundred in English, I won't find you one. How about that?"
"No, you should find one. I think I do need some help with my English." Completely abandoning his firm refusal from yesterday, Song Yunshen said with a straight face, "But I don't think getting a teacher is quite right for me."
"Since it's one-on-one tutoring, I'd definitely be too nervous facing a teacher directly, and the lessons wouldn't be as effective."
"So..."
"Just say what you want." Song Mingyuan could tell the boy was up to no good and urged him to get on with it.
"Ahem... I think it'd be better to find a student who's pretty good at English to come tutor me at home."
Song Mingyuan shot him a sidelong glance and hit the nail on the head. "A boy or a girl?"
"That hasn't been decided yet." Song Yunshen coughed to cover up his guilty conscience.
"If it really is for tutoring, it's not out of the question, but I need to make sure." Song Mingyuan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "You'll have to study where the cameras can see you. I'll be watching."
"Uh..." Song Yunshen hesitated when he heard that.
He wanted to invite his future girlfriend over, after all. Wouldn't it be a little awkward with his dad watching like that?
But on second thought, Song Yunshen was such an upright gentleman. He wasn't actually going to do anything.
If Dad wanted to watch, he could watch.
Song Yunshen was just curious about what his future girlfriend was like.
If he could get to know her in advance this way, that would be perfect.
"All right." Having thought it through, Song Yunshen nodded in agreement, but then he added, "But I don't have that much money. You'll really have to pay for the tutoring."
"You've got so many little schemes." Song Mingyuan clicked his tongue, pulled out his phone, and shared a contact with Song Yunshen on WeChat. "Add them."
"Who's this?"
"Waterside Homes, near Intime City," Song Mingyuan said. "There's a 120-square-meter apartment there. The monthly rent is 3,600 yuan, enough to cover your tutoring fees."
"Oh, you really are Lao Song. So generous!" Song Yunshen immediately beamed and hurriedly added the person on WeChat.
"You little brat, who are you calling Lao Song? Show some respect for your elders," Song Mingyuan said irritably. "But let's be clear first: the student you find has to rank at least in the top fifty in the whole school for English, or I won't agree."
"If the person you find doesn't meet that requirement, I'll find you an English teacher."
"Did you hear me?"
"Huh?" Song Yunshen's heart skipped a beat. "Why do you have so many requirements?"
"That's not such a high requirement, is it?" Song Mingyuan said with a chuckle. "If they can't even rank in the school's top fifty in that subject, what business do they have tutoring you?"
"All right, fine..." Song Yunshen reluctantly agreed.
He didn't know how his future girlfriend's grades were.
But judging by how fluently this letter was written, surely her English grades couldn't be too bad, right?
After their brief chat, Song Mingyuan went out.
Song Yunshen also began planning what to write in his reply.
But just then, he suddenly noticed that another entry had appeared in the Future Diary-
[August 5, 2025]
[I finally got my first paycheck]
[3,000 yuan in total]
[I felt happy and uneasy, and gave all the money to Mom when I got home]
[I'd been working at a milk tea shop without telling Mom, lying to her every day that I was going to the library to study]
[But I wanted to spend the 3,000 yuan on Mom and my little sister, so I couldn't keep it from her anymore]
[Mom wasn't angry and didn't scold me, but she held me and cried for a long time]
[I said we could go out for a nice meal, but Mom wouldn't agree. She wanted to put the 3,000 yuan away for me]
[I wanted to change something, but it seems I couldn't change anything at all]
[I want to grow up faster]