Chapter 21 Drifting Bottle
Liu Xingquan saw the car on the side of the road at a glance.
In front of a row of dilapidated old public housing, this luxury car was too out of place. Passers-by would invariably stare at the car for a few seconds, showing curiosity or admiration. Liu Xingquan knew who the owner of the car was, which surprised him a little.
"Aunt An..."
Before Liu Xingquan approached the car, the car started moving.
He vaguely saw the blurry figure of Aunt An Yuan behind the car window, and then the car went away and he could no longer see anything clearly.
In Liu Xingquan's heart, the best mother in the world is his mother Luo Qingxi, and the second one is Aunt An Yuan. It can only be her.
Liu Xingquan has always liked Aunt An Yuan. An Yuan is already a mother of two children, but she still retains the innocent heart of her teenage years. When he was a child, Liu's father would often take him to the Yan family to keep Yan Zhen company. An Yuan would often join their games, and her cheerful laughter at that time has always remained in Liu Xingquan's memory. She was very good to him, so much so that her attitude affected those around the Yan family couple, causing Liu Xingquan to have the illusion that he was a young master like Yan Zhen for a while.
In his most ignorant childhood, he thought that the world in Yan Zhen's eyes was the same as what he saw. At that time, he had a happy sense of pride. His academic performance was always better than Yan Zhen's. He was very well behaved, and he received more praise than Yan Zhen, both at school and outside.
When they were in elementary school, their children would play football after school. At that time, there was a team of senior students who always took their court. After a few times, the senior students clashed with them. That's how children fight, yelling at each other, then hugging each other and pushing each other. A stone scraped Liu Xingquan's forehead and his head bled. Yan Zhen stared at his forehead, then rushed towards the senior students angrily. He wanted to hold him back, but it was too late.
The fight between the children became more and more intense. Several children fell to the ground crying. In the end, they were taken away by teachers and school security. In the chaos, one child broke his arm. The situation began to get out of control. The parents of the child with a broken arm had a certain influence in the local area and even went to the Education Bureau.
He handed the self-review to his class teacher. His primary school class teacher took his self-review and remained silent for a long time . Liu Xingquan looked at the class teacher anxiously and asked softly: "Will Yan Zhen and I be punished?"
"Think about yourself first." The head teacher sighed.
“…”
"Liu Xingquan, do you know the meaning of the word class?"
"I know the English word for this is class."
"Liu Xingquan, you are a very good child. I know you don't want to be just a driver like your father." The head teacher said, "Class means that the son of a driver can only drive, and the son of a boss is still a boss. There is a saying that a phoenix gives birth to a phoenix, a dragon gives birth to a dragon, and a mouse's son will dig holes."
“…”
The head teacher said: "Yan Zhen, he has many choices. But Liu Xingquan, you have fewer opportunities than him. I know you don't understand now. But if you want to have a better future, there are some things you can't fool around with."
He listened to the teacher's words in bewilderment. That was the only time that the head teacher, who had always praised him, had a heart-to-heart talk with him. Later, the fight was resolved with the intervention of some parents. The two leading children were given a serious warning, and three children were given a warning. Neither he nor Yan Zhen was punished.
Later, the kid who had been punished for a serious offense got into trouble again and was expelled from school. I heard that he became a vagrant after that.
From then on, some pressure from reality gripped the boy tightly. He gradually began to realize that he was different from Yan Zhen. The world was not as bright and brilliant as he thought, allowing him to fly forward without hesitation. Yan Zhen was not someone he could compare himself with in terms of learning. From the very beginning, they started from different starting lines.
With a father like Yan An and a mother like Aunt An, Liu Xingquan always suspected that Yan Zhen had saved the world in his previous life. In his imaginary world, Yan Zhen was always in a bright and shining light, which made people feel dazzling and envious. Sometimes he couldn't help but imagine that if the Yan couple were his parents, he would live in that beautiful big house, but he would often only fantasize for a few seconds before he would angrily scold himself.
Aunt An's car had already driven completely off the street.
This was not just passing by, she had just been to my home, that small, dilapidated home huddled in an old public housing estate.
He stepped into the alley and saw neighbors crowded downstairs, arguing. One neighbor turned around and saw him, and shouted loudly: "Liu Xingquan! Your grandmother is going to be taken away by the police!"
Liu Xingquan ran up the stairs. Two policemen were looking helplessly at his grandmother rolling on the ground. His grandmother covered her chest and shouted, "Murder, murder!" His second uncle stood by, persuading his grandmother and speaking kindly to the police.
Where is mom?
Liu Xingquan rushed into the house, which was in a mess. Luo Qingxi sat there with a pale face, and several neighborhood aunts chattered around her. "Oh! Quanquan is back!" "Your son is back!" Amid the noise of the neighbors, Liu Xingquan silently grabbed his mother's hand, his heart filled with regret for not coming back earlier.
"Your grandma is still making a fuss outside," said a neighbor.
“She’s not my grandma.”
"Liu Xingquan." Luo Qingxi looked at the ground and said, "After all, she is your father's mother and your elder."
“……” Liu Xingquan gritted his teeth.
With the efforts of the two policemen, his second uncle finally persuaded Old Lady Liu to take her away. Everyone shook their heads and sighed at this kind of shameless mother-in-law who only wanted money. Several women said that Luo Qingxi was really too miserable. After a discussion, people finally summarized it into one sentence: "When your Xiaoquan grows up and starts a family, your hard days will be over."
Liu Xingquan remained silent.
He hates his grandmother.
As far as he can remember, his grandmother is the embodiment of all unreasonable and absurd things. His grandfather died early, and his father took on everything in the family early on. His father is a filial son, and no matter what his grandmother asks, he will agree to do his best to meet it. His father is the eldest son of the Liu family, so all his dedication is justified.
Ever since my father became Uncle Yan An's full-time driver, my grandmother has become more and more convinced that my father has hooked up with a gold mine and will have endless benefits from now on.
Whenever someone from my hometown came to pick me up, my father would drive Uncle Yan An's car. As soon as the car drove out, my grandmother's face lit up, as if the car belonged to their family. Whenever there was anything going on in my hometown, from building a new house to my aunt going to college, my father would always contribute money and effort. My grandmother had long been accustomed to this. If my father was unable to do anything, in her eyes, it would be as unfilial as if the sky had fallen.
Once, he and Yan Zhen were playing football and skipping back home, and they happened to see grandma angry because his father didn't take the time to send his aunt off. Her words were loud and shrill, and her father just bowed his head and nodded.
Liu Xingquan immediately looked at Yan Zhen behind him in panic. He thought, "We've been seen." This was the worst and most unbearable scene in his home, and it was seen by his friend.
Yan Zhen still had that nonchalant smile on his face. He stared at Liu Xingquan with his dark eyes and said softly, "Your father is so pitiful."
He will never forget the look on Yan Zhen's face at that time. At that moment, Liu Xingquan felt suffocated and could not breathe. Even if Yan Zhen used his usual laughter to mock his father, it would be better than this word of sympathy.
Yan Zhen is gentle. But for Liu Xingquan, this gentleness is like a sharp knife piercing his heart.
Several neighbors finally left his home. Luo Qingxi told him that the money that grandma gave to his uncle for investment was lost because of fraud. In addition to grandma's original capital, a lot of it was borrowed by grandma. Now creditors come to his hometown every day to collect debts.
"Uncle San was cheated of money, what does it have to do with us!" said Liu Xingquan.
"Second uncle said he would find a way to persuade your grandmother."
"She has been like this for so many years."
"Liu Xingquan, that's your grandma."
"I really wish she wasn't!" Liu Xingquan recalled last year's Chinese New Year. It was clearly his cousin who stole his grandmother's red envelope, but his grandmother insisted that he did it, causing the whole family to be in turmoil. His grandmother said lightly that as long as he admitted his mistake, it would be as if nothing had happened. He was unwilling to admit his mistake, and his father even threatened to beat him with a feather duster, but he was stubborn and refused to bow his head. In the end, someone said that they saw the children of his third uncle's family using large bills to buy snacks outside and spend lavishly, so they stopped forcing him to apologize. But afterwards, his grandmother blamed his father for not teaching his children well, not respecting the elders, and not knowing the importance of advancing and retreating, which embarrassed all the relatives.
"Xingquan..."
Now I just hope that everyone on grandma’s side can explode and go to heaven together, Liu Xingquan thought.
That night, Liu Xingquan opened his schoolbag and took out a bottle from it. This was a bottle he found while cleaning the school. Inside the bottle was written the only spiritual comfort that Liu Xingquan had found in recent days.
He uncorked the bottle, pulled out a piece of paper, and unfolded it.
The content of the letter is as follows:
[Hello, anonymous believer:]
[I never thought that the drifting bottle could be received by anyone. Because I heard that most drifting bottles would be thrown into a desolate uninhabited planet or caught in a void storm.]
[I am surprised that my hopeless venting could actually fall into a civilized world. I have a request, at least for now, please don't tell me your race and world, leave me more room for fantasy (maybe in the future I will ask you to tell me). ]
[Anonymous foreign believer, let me tell you about my daily life today. 】
【Today I went with my friend Titta to pick the root of fortune. Last night I found a group of roots of fortune in the third floor sewer, but they were not fully developed at that time, so I marked them. When we went down today, all the roots of fortune ran away. You probably don't know what the root of fortune is. It is a kind of fungus in our sewer. Eating it after cooking it in a special way can keep me from eating for three days and nights. They like to run away to avoid pickers like us. 】
[Luckily, the mark I put on it was still sending me a signal, so we followed the signal and turned left and right in the sewer. We stopped at a narrow passage and I saw my lucky roots. They couldn't run away now. But they fell into the hands of a large group of zombie slaves. These stupid zombie slaves regarded my lucky roots as stains and corrosion on the passage, and destroyed them all with electric shovels and disinfectant sprays.]
[What a bunch of idiots! These roots of fortune are enough for us to eat for a month. But now they are destroyed by these zombie slaves. My friend Tita and I shouted at them angrily. ]
【Then the supervisor of the zombie slaves came out. He was standing on the electric shovel. He glared at us. When I saw his uniform, my friend Tita and I retreated wisely. He was a supervisor, not someone we could challenge.】
[If he is willing and rubs his fingers, Tita and I will be caught and implanted with chips to become zombie slaves and become members of the sewer cleaning team. ]
[We left the sewers. Tita was very depressed, and so was I. After all, such a large group of fortune roots is very rare. Tita said that he had had enough of the sewers and everything that happened in the bottom cave. He longed to leave here and climb to the upper world.]
[I looked up and saw thick photochemical smog and endless buildings above us. Ashes and electric arcs floated in the air. Countless ships passed through the dark clouds. Would the scenery of the next world be different?]
…
Liu Xingquan finished reading the letter. He was sure that someone was using this bottle to update science fiction novels from time to time, and he was probably the only reader. The content of this letter was completely different from the last one, but it was quite interesting.
He thought about it and wrote a simple reply:
[1. This weird zombie setting doesn't really fit your background, it's not classical at all.]
【2. I really want to know what the root of fortune tastes like. 】
He put the reply letter into the bottle. Tomorrow he will put the bottle under a hedge somewhere in the school garden. In just a few days, a new letter will appear in the bottle.
He looks forward to the future development of this novel that doesn't seem very sci-fi.
