allonlinenovel Chapter 296 Obedient and Clingy Younger Brother (7)
Chapter 296 Obedient and Clingy Younger Brother (7)
The road wasn't long to begin with. When the two entered the building, the dim yellow light on the first floor came on, but Lu Liruan on the second floor stomped her feet several times, and the light still didn't come on.
"The one on the second floor is broken."
Jin Shuhe moved closer, worried that she might not be familiar with the stairs.
When I got to my floor, the motion-activated light turned a stark white again. I have no idea how it was installed.
The arguing that started when we came out has now stopped; I wonder what's going on inside.
Jin Shuhe stopped and took out his bread from the plastic bag he was carrying: "Thank you, I'll pay you back next time."
Lu Liruan didn't say no. After spending some time together, Jin Shuhe's shy and timid boyishness was very obvious, making Lu Liruan clearly feel: no matter how tall he is, he's still really a child...
"Here, have something sweet to cheer you up!" Lu Liruan nodded, took the plastic bag, and handed over a chocolate bar.
“From now on, we’ll be neighbors. If you need my help, just knock on my door.” Lu Liruan said earnestly, indicating that she wasn’t just being polite.
Jin Shuhe was surprised to hear her say that, and without thinking, he took the chocolate bar.
Then he saw his neighbor take out a key with a pink plush rabbit keychain attached, click open the door, walk inside, then peek out and wave at him with a smile.
With a soft "bang," the door closed, shutting out the little bit of warm light that was shining through.
Jin Shuhe was still standing in the corridor when the motion-sensor lights went out. He unconsciously squeezed the chocolate in his hand.
It's that same smell again.
A warm, sweet scent, the smell of his neighbor, seeped out from the house in that different world... and seeped into his world.
Heavy footsteps came from some floor downstairs, causing the motion-activated lights on this floor to turn on again.
Jin Shuhe finally came to her senses and opened the door.
The room was a mess, with dark stains on the floor, as if something had broken and spilled there.
Aunt Chun, wearing pajamas with torn sleeves, leaned against the bathroom door, puffing on her cigarette, while the man she had just argued with was nowhere to be seen.
When he returned, Aunt Chun didn't even glance at him. She smoothed her messy hair and went back to her room on her own.
Jin Shuhe went into the kitchen, took a rag, wet it, squeezed on some detergent, squatted down, and carefully wiped the room clean, bit by bit. There seemed to be invisible shards of glass mixed in with the mess, which stung his fingers...
Jin Shuhe straightened the overturned chair and re-laid the torn tablecloth, doing all this expressionlessly and methodically.
He's so skilled at it that he's lost count of how many times he's done it.
He opened the kitchen window to ventilate the room, and only after all the unpleasant smells had dissipated did he wash his hands and return to his room.
Jin Shuhe sat at his desk, tore open the bread bag, and ate it in a few bites, but didn't feel full after finishing it.
How can a boy his age have his stomach filled with just one loaf of bread?
He threw away the packaging bag, sat there for a while, then bent down, opened the drawer, took out a smartphone, plugged it in, and waited for it to turn on.
This old, no-name brand phone was one that Aunt Chun didn't want anymore, so she gave it to him to use. The case was a cheap and ridiculous dark pink.
Unless absolutely necessary, Jin Shuhe usually leaves it at home because after a while, the battery will run out in just a few hours.
Based on his memory, he slowly downloaded the software that his deskmate had been using at the time from the app store.
After clicking on the colorful homepage, Jin Shuhe realized that he didn't know what to search for or what the channel was called.
He tried hard to recall the name he had seen on his classmate's phone.
li...pear? ...Which character is it?
He thought for a moment, then typed "pear" into the search box and selected to search for bloggers.
Then he carefully read through them one by one, starting from the beginning.
Fortunately, Lu Liruan has a large number of followers, so she is usually listed at the top of the default search list. Even if you only search for one word, after a while, Jin Shuhe found the blogger's signed account, "Sugar Pear".
After clicking in, you'll see the colorful cover created by Lu Liruan.
Lu Liruan's choice of video cover aesthetics is just like her bedroom—colorful, cute, and you can feel the cuteness even before you click to watch the video.
Jin Shuhe scrolled down and clicked on a video.
At the beginning, Lu Liruan, with her long, messy hair, sleepily greeted the camera with a "Good morning."
"It's another energetic Monday!"
The screen was filled with a dense barrage of comments: "You're talking nonsense!"
Lu Liruan, her steps unsteady, made herself a cup of coffee: "The feeling of waking up early is like someone tearing open my body bag..."
"I feel that just by living, I have already done my part, even if I haven't made any great contributions."
Amidst Lu Liruan's incessant complaining, the scene shifts to the company.
"The atmosphere in the company on Monday was so resentful it felt like it could feed a hell. I wasn't wearing makeup today, and when the operations colleague came to tell me about the meeting, she seemed to glance at me a few times."
"I wonder if she noticed the new lividity on my body..."
After the meeting, my colleague downstairs rushed up in a panic: "Xiao Li, come and help me right away!"
The camera pans to a dressing room, which appears to be somewhere else entirely.
"Sis, may I take a picture?"
"Take photos freely."
As the angle was adjusted, Lu Liruan's "sparkling" face appeared in the picture.
Comments flooded the screen: "I've been watching for so long, I've forgotten the streamer is beautiful..."
"I knew language and temperament could affect a person's appearance!"
"When she said, 'What's wrong? What's troubling you?' her expression changed..."
Lu Liruan blinked: "Today is my first day as a female celebrity!"
"It's fake. The company needs a hostess, and we're short a model. The boss said who could fill in, and that today's work could be done by a colleague, so I came. This is what they call 'a generous reward will surely bring forth brave men'!"
The scene shifts again to Lu Liruan, who has returned home. Jin Shuhe looks at the layout of her room and realizes that it's not in this building.
She must have just gotten off work; her makeup was a little smudged, but she didn't care about her image at all as she leaned closer to the camera: "This foundation is terrible; it made all the pores on my face look like they were there..."
"When I got there in the afternoon, wow! All the other models were 1.7 meters tall, and I, who was wearing shoes and insisted on lying about my height being 1.65 meters, stood there looking completely out of place!"
“But the school uniform requires everyone to be of average height. Others wear six centimeters, but I wear twelve centimeters… Goodness, I’m practically standing on my feet, you know!” she said, while vividly gesturing a right angle with her hand.
A comment floated across the screen: "I told you before, don't force yourself into circles you can't fit into."
"You've gone from being a quail to a peacock's nest!"
Lu Liruan sighed: "After standing there for two hours, my mental state was such that I didn't care whether I lived or died."
"That's enough for today. I'm going to take a shower and go back to my body bag."
Before the comments had even finished scrolling, the video, true to Lu Liruan's style, ended abruptly.
When the screen went black, Jin Shuhe noticed that the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned.
He initially intended to tap on another video, but hesitated and closed the app instead.
He didn't know why he did it, but he felt that if he continued watching, he and the vivid, interesting neighbor in the video, who seemed so distant from him, would never cross paths again.
The neighbor just heard a noise coming from their house, but didn't ask why.
Jin Shuhe breathed a sigh of relief. Young people are always concerned about their image, especially when it comes to things that can't be changed and are etched into their family of origin, which always makes it difficult for them to talk about.
Lu Liruan didn't ask anything, which made him feel relieved all the way, glad that he didn't have to face the awkward situation of explaining complicated matters.
But for some reason, without even realizing it himself, a sense of inexplicable loss welled up in his heart.
This shouldn't be the case; they've only met once and exchanged a few words... Perhaps, the stark contrast between their worlds, separated only by a wall, and his dark corner, inevitably led him to have some wild imaginations.
As Jin Shuhe lay in bed, the front door slammed shut with a loud bang.
He turned over and went to sleep as usual, and woke up the next day as usual.
As usual, I went to school every day.
School life remained unchanged. Jin Shuhe had little interest in studying, but he didn't hate it either, because school was a place where he could make his own decisions and felt no different from his peers.
When the lunch bell rang, Jin Shuhe closed the English textbook that he had been using as a pillow under his arm to sleep and put it in his desk.
A voice came from ahead: "Jin Shuhe, aren't you going to the cafeteria for lunch today?"
He looked up and saw the girl with bangs in the seat in front of him turning around, leaning on the chair, and asking him in a low voice.
Jin Shuhe could tell that her bangs were a little shorter than last week, so she must have gotten them trimmed over the weekend.
"Ah."
Jin Shuhe casually replied and capped his pen. He hadn't noticed while dozing off in class that the pen tip had touched his sleeve, leaving a black stain.
"you……"
Before the girl could finish speaking, a hand landed on Jin Shuhe's shoulder: "Didn't you say you were going to buy something outside of school today? Hurry up, it'll get crowded soon!" The owner of the hand interrupted the girl abruptly.
"Let's go, let's go!"
The boy, whose school uniform zipper was open and who was wearing a white crew-neck T-shirt underneath, grabbed Jin Shuhe from his seat.
"Sigh, Jin Shuhe—"
The girl in the front seat tried to call out but couldn't.
"Why does she always try to make conversation?" Wen Bei clicked his tongue as they left the classroom.
He and Jin Shuhe attended the same primary school. At that time... Jin Shuhe's mother was still alive.
He was young at the time, and he only remembered that one day, Jin Shuhe, who he played with well, suddenly stopped coming to school.
He initially thought Jin Shuhe was sick, but after several days of absence, he couldn't help but ask his homeroom teacher. The teacher told him that Jin Shuhe had moved and might not be attending school here anymore.
Children quickly make new playmates and don't remember things from the past as much.
The last time he thought of Jin Shuhe was after he entered junior high school. His parents stopped talking behind the backs of boys his age, and he learned from them what had happened to Jin Shuhe's family back then.
"That poor kid... I heard he kept running to the police station back then, it was really scary... Back then, I wouldn't let you play outside after dark, and you were always unhappy about it, have you forgotten?" His mother said casually at the dinner table.
Wen Bei was surprised at the time, but he never expected that he would see Jin Shuhe again one day. When he entered high school, he saw Jin Shuhe's name on his class roster.
He attended a private high school where admission was based on money. The total score for the high school entrance exam was 750, while this lousy school only required 300 points to get in.
If the money is right, it doesn't matter if the score is a little lower.
He wasn't good at studying and planned to pursue a career as a sports student. But he remembered that when he was a child, Jin Shuhe had excellent grades. In the provincial math Olympiad, he, a third grader, won second prize among the fifth and sixth graders.
How come you're now attending the same school as me?
Later he learned that this lousy school knew what kind of students it recruited, and in order to maintain its college entrance examination pass rate and prevent the number of students admitted to top-tier and second-tier universities from being completely wiped out, it came up with an idea.
Anyone who scores over 700 on the high school entrance exam and is willing to come to their school will have all their tuition, accommodation, and other expenses waived for three years, plus a monthly food allowance of 200 yuan.
Therefore, some high-scoring students who applied to prestigious universities but failed the high school entrance exam will choose this school.
In their year, they recruited a total of thirty such outstanding students.
He quickly became familiar with Jin Shuhe again, but Jin Shuhe was completely different from before. However, Wen Bei was carefree and didn't care. With such a big deal, who wouldn't change in their situation?
He still treated Jin Shuhe like a buddy.
Anyone with eyes can see that Jin Shuhe is poor.
Their young, enthusiastic homeroom teacher, who had just graduated and started working, even considered calling on the school's students to donate money to Jin Shuhe after learning about the situation.
That was the first time Wen Bei had seen Jin Shuhe blush to the point of almost bleeding. He stood in the office and said stiffly, "Teacher, thank you for your kindness, but I really don't need it."
Wen Bei peeked through the crack in the office door, feeling indignant for Jin Shuhe: Who wants others to know they can't afford to eat? He felt he could completely understand Jin Shuhe's feelings…
But the truth can't be hidden forever, and what happened to Jin Shuhe eventually came to light.
High school is a time of confusion and restlessness. Even the fact that a boy and a girl from the next class were caught by the moral education department talking alone in a corner of the playground could be a topic of conversation, let alone what happened to Jin Shuhe.
There were always people watching Jin Shuhe openly and secretly, pointing fingers and gossiping behind his back.
Someone was making fun of Jin Shuhe's poverty behind his back, and Wen Bei overheard it. The boy, who had just finished playing basketball and was covered in sweat, cursed, "Fuck your grandpa!" and rushed over and punched the person in the back...