Chapter 52: Flicking Her Forehead, Eating Seriously
No one knew how much time had passed, but Qin Mochen finished reading the documents for the day. He glanced down at his watch—9:20 p.m.
“Kid.” Qin Mochen suddenly called out to her.
“Huh, Uncle, what is it?” Su Keke’s pen didn’t stop, scratch scratch scratch, as she wrote out calculation formulas.
“It’s time to sleep.” The man’s voice sounded especially low and pleasant in the quiet of the night.
“Let me finish this problem first, I’ll be done right away. Uncle, you go to sleep first.”
Qin Mochen didn’t leave. Instead, he moved a little closer to her.
On the floor, the man’s shadow overlapped with the girl’s, their heads seeming to stick together.
“You missed a zero here.” The man’s long, good-looking finger landed on a spot on the page.
“Huh? You’re right! No wonder I couldn’t figure it out no matter how long I calculated.”
“In the future, if something seems wrong, check from the beginning. Don’t try to save time—sometimes the mistake is right at the start.”
“I understand, Uncle.”
“And also, many problems have more than one solution, like the one you’re working on now. Try every method, compare the pros and cons. It helps broaden your thinking.”
Qin Mochen wrote out two other solution methods beside her work and explained, “The one you used is the most common method, but the two I wrote are more concise. Look here…”
By the time Qin Mochen finished analyzing the problem, Su Keke was looking at him like he was some kind of immortal master.
Qin Mochen found it amusing—it was just third- or fourth-grade elementary math.
After summarizing everything, and with Qin Mochen urging her on, Su Keke finally left the study reluctantly.
“Good night, Uncle.” Before closing the door, Su Keke waved her small hand at him.
Qin Mochen raised his hand in response.
He had just turned around when the bedroom door that had just been closed suddenly opened again from the inside, and a small head peeked out.
“Uncle,” the little head called him.
Qin Mochen turned back. “Mm? What is it?”
“I want to buy a smartphone. Can you take me to buy one tomorrow night?” Su Keke blinked her pitch-black eyes.
Qin Mochen let out an “Oh?” “What, not afraid it’ll distract you anymore?”
The man’s voice was as even as ever, but if one listened closely, there was a rare hint of teasing in it.
Su Keke stuck out her tongue at him. “All that talk about ‘playing with things ruining your ambitions’ is just my master’s nonsense to fool me. He can’t use a smartphone himself—something always goes wrong when he does—so he doesn’t want me using one. I felt sorry for the old man, so I pretended to believe him.”
As she spoke, she let out a hee-hee laugh. “But now my master isn’t here, so even if I use one he won’t know. Besides, I’m not using it to play. Qin Xing said there are lots of learning apps on smartphones. If I want to self-study, I really need those apps—especially for English. I can learn phonetics and pronunciation with them. There’s so much to study, I can’t possibly trouble Uncle to teach me everything, right?”
Qin Mochen thought for a moment. “The day after tomorrow then. It’s Saturday, and didn’t you also want to buy a few other things? We can get everything together.”
Su Keke nodded rapidly, smiling so hard her face looked even rounder. “Okay, Uncle!”
“Oh right, Uncle, there’s one more thing I want to ask you. That—” Toward the end, Su Keke’s voice grew softer, her face showing a hint of embarrassment.
Qin Mochen usually disliked people who spoke only halfway and had neither the time nor patience to wait. But with Su Keke, his patience seemed much better.
Probably because she was still a child, his standards naturally lowered.
“If you have something to say, just say it.”
“Uncle, um… about the money for these past two days—when are you going to pay it?” Su Keke muttered. “We agreed on daily settlement.”
Qin Mochen, who had thought she was about to bring up something important: …
Qin Mochen’s throat tickled and he couldn’t help coughing lightly.
“…When you switch to a smartphone, I’ll just transfer it directly to you.”
Su Keke nodded hard. “Okay, okay. Uncle, living at your place is really great. You take me to school and even advance my tuition. Uncle, remember to deduct the tuition and living expenses before transferring me the money.”
Qin Mochen responded with a faint “Mm.”
Though he agreed verbally, he was thinking to himself: after deducting tuition and living expenses, would there even be anything left?
That night, Su Keke dreamed of nothing but problems—she was practically possessed by studying.
The next morning, the little girl got up very early. As soon as she woke, she stood by the window reciting texts and formulas. Even while washing up, she kept muttering, and when she sat down at the dining table, she was still mumbling.
Qin Mochen glanced at her and reminded, “Eat properly.”
Su Keke answered with a string of “Mm-hm, mm-hm,” but her mind was clearly elsewhere.
Qin Mochen suddenly stretched out his long arm and flicked her on the forehead. The force was strong enough to make an audible pop.
“Ow!” Su Keke snapped back to attention at once, clutching her forehead in pain and looking at the man across from her with watery eyes. “Uncle, why did you flick my forehead?”
Qin Mochen had already withdrawn his hand and was calmly eating his breakfast, as if the person who had just flicked someone’s forehead wasn’t him at all.
“Focus on eating,” Qin Mochen said lightly.
Su Keke pouted. “Got it.”
There was still a glass of milk left. Su Keke gulped it down, leaving a ring of milk on her upper lip. She simply stuck out her tongue and licked it clean in one go.
After finishing, she even showed her uncle the bottom of the cup to prove she’d drunk every last drop.
Qin Mochen put on his suit jacket and glanced back at her. “Let’s go. I’ll take you.”
“Uncle, I feel kind of embarrassed making you take me. Qin Xing takes the subway to and from school every day—I can take the subway too.”
Qin Mochen paused. “Do you know how to take it?”
Su Keke said indignantly, “Uncle, you’re looking down on me again. Even though I’m a country bumpkin, I’ve taken it before when I went out with my master, okay!”
Qin Mochen couldn’t help laughing. “Alright, Uncle apologizes. Then tell me—what line do you take from here to your school, and how many stops?”
Su Keke’s eyes darted around before she answered at once, “Even if I don’t know right now, I’ll know once I get to the station and look at the map.”
Qin Mochen gave her a look, then quietly searched the route on his phone and showed it to her. “Remember it?”
“Remembered, remembered!”
Su Keke felt that Uncle Qin was a very open-minded “guardian.” Whatever she wanted to do, he let her do it, only pointing out what was inappropriate afterward. Hmph—not like her master, who insisted on having everything his way.
And her master was really unreliable. He’d been gone for days now and hadn’t even replied to her messages—didn’t he miss her at all?
Su Keke entered the subway station and went to the window to get a transit card.
After confirming she had the right direction, she stood there waiting for the train.
For a little country bumpkin who had only taken the subway once with her master years ago, Su Keke felt a bit excited. Watching the flowing and gathering crowds, she marveled at the volume of people.
Suddenly, the little bumpkin who had been looking around spotted something, and her expression stiffened.
On a row of waiting seats inside the station sat a full line of people. At the very end sat a man in his thirties.
That man’s physiognomy…
