Call Me Daddy

On the first day of the new student orientation, the school invited the parents to attend. However, there were situations where some parents were too busy to make it. In these cases, the students’ grandparents would usually attend in their place.

In Class Rocket One, there were four or five students in this situation. Therefore, it wasn’t unusual for Su Yixing to be accompanied by her grandmother. On the other hand, it was quite rare for Zhu Xining to be there without her parents or any other relatives.

(T/N: Rocket class = an accelerated special class.)

According to her, both her parents were businesspeople who were often away on business trips. Her grandparents and maternal grandmother had all passed away, and her only living maternal grandfather had long been taken abroad by her uncle’s family to live together.

Now, she was only taken care of by a nanny, so she had to attend the opening ceremony alone.

It was clear that Zhu Xining’s family was well-off, but with her parents always busy and her grandparents who raised her having passed away, living alone in a big villa with only a nanny, whether she was happy or lonely was something only she knew.

Since it was the beginning of the school year, the teachers didn’t plan on changing seats, so Su Yixing ended up sitting with Zhu Xining. Under Zhu Xining’s friendly approach, the two gradually became good friends.

They studied together, ate in the cafeteria together, and during their daily interactions, Su Yixing discovered many shared hobbies and habits with Zhu Xining.

For example, neither of them liked eating foods with strong flavors, such as cilantro, green onions, ginger, or green peppers.

However, because Su Yixing grew up in an orphanage, even though she didn’t like these foods, she would still frown and eat them. After all, it was hard for the cafeteria to cater to everyone’s taste, and when cooking meat dishes, green onions and ginger were almost always added to remove the fishy smell. When making soup, green onions were also used to enhance the flavor.

For some reason, the cafeteria chef seemed to particularly like green peppers. The selection of dishes in the high school cafeteria was already limited, and most of them were made with green peppers.

Stir-fried shredded pork with green peppers, tiger-skin green peppers, stuffed green peppers, sautéed three delicacies with green peppers… Sometimes, when there was really no other choice, they had to order a dish with green peppers and then eat it with a frown.

In this regard, Zhu Xining was very similar to her. Even though she didn’t like it, she would still finish the dish cleanly to avoid wasting food, not at all like a spoiled rich girl.

Besides that, they both liked to mix water with their rice, a bad habit that Su Yixing developed when she was little.

When they didn’t like the dishes of the day, they would pour water into their rice bowls and mix it up. This way, they didn’t need to chew much and could “drink” the rice in just a few gulps.

This way of eating was actually bad for the stomach, and if the orphanage director’s wife saw it, she would surely scold her. But after Su Yixing got used to eating like this, she found that the rice with water tasted better. If she had the means, she would use soup instead of water, which tasted even better.

Now, No. 2 High School loaded 800 yuan onto her meal card every month, and if she didn’t use it all within the month, she couldn’t withdraw the remaining money. The high school meals were quite affordable, so Su Yixing became more generous with her food spending, almost always getting a bowl of soup to pour over her rice. This way, she could save some time on eating and have more time to do her exercises.

At the beginning, Zhu Xining tried to persuade her. She echoed the director’s wife, saying that this way of eating was bad for the stomach. She added that while she might not notice it now, when she eventually developed stomach ulcers or experienced gastric bleeding, she would surely regret her indulgence today.

Su Yixing knew that Zhu Xining meant well, but she didn’t fully grasp the severity of the issue. She merely told Zhu Xining that during these 3 years of high school, she wanted to save every possible moment to get into a good university. She promised that once she was in college, she would correct this bad eating habit.

Zhu Xining hesitated for a moment. Not long after, whether influenced by Su Yixing or not, she also started occasionally soaking her rice in soup.

Su Yixing found her quite amusing, holding a bowl of soup with a conflicted expression—wanting to eat this way but feeling it was wrong, unwilling to let herself do it.

Then there was the way they took notes.

Su Yixing had a bit of a perfectionist streak; she didn’t like making notes in her textbooks. She preferred to keep her books clean and tidy. So, for each course, she would prepare an extra notebook. It didn’t have to be expensive; the 50-cent notebooks sold at the school’s convenience store were good enough. She would record every lesson, every page, and every key point in these notebooks.

Zhu Xining had the same habit. The only difference was that her better financial situation allowed her to buy higher-quality notebooks.

…

…

Aside from these, they shared many other similar hobbies and habits. If it weren’t for the fact that Zhu Xining had a completely different face, Su Yixing might have thought she was looking at another version of herself.

The first time this thought crossed her mind, Su Yixing even laughed at her own wild imagination. Had she been influenced by the currently popular time-travel palace dramas? Could it be that time travel and reincarnation really existed in this world?

Was Zhu Xining her future self, who had traveled back to this time and inhabited someone else’s body?

Don’t be silly. People can be similar, and those habits and hobbies weren’t unique to her. Instead of believing in such an unrealistic notion, Su Yixing was more inclined to think this was fate.

Fate had led her to meet a girl who shared similar interests and habits, and this girl just so happened to become her desk mate. Su Yixing believed that she and Zhu Xining were destined to become very, very good friends.

***

“We retired workers already get one physical exam a year. Why did you buy me another check-up package? This is such a waste of money.”

Dean Mother Ji was dragged to the hospital by Su Aobai. She complained several times about the expensive check-up package. But seeing the corners of her mouth twitching upwards and the slight redness in her eyes, it was clear she was happy inside.

Her joy didn’t come from getting a benefit or a good deal, but from knowing that the child she had raised still cared for her deeply. It made her feel that her life was truly worthwhile.

However, even though she was happy, she still complained.

As a retired employee, she had the opportunity for a physical examination every year. However, the exams provided by her workplace were not very detailed, covering only routine checks on a few areas where problems were more likely to occur.

The health check-up package that Su Aobai bought was different, encompassing various aspects. It would take almost 2 days to complete all the tests. Of course, even with some costs reimbursed by medical insurance, each full package still required spending 2 to 3,000 yuan.

The old lady felt this money was wasted. She was healthy, without any ailments, and believed that the workplace’s examination was already sufficient for safety. There was no need to squander her children’s hard-earned money.

But Su Aobai was even more stubborn than she was, always retorting that the money had already been paid and couldn’t be refunded. He would rather let the examination card expire and the money go to waste, which shut down her complaints.

Since Su Aobai was released from prison, the old lady had been brought for a physical exam without fail every year for several years. Many minor issues had been found, but no major problems, which made her believe that she was in robust health. In recent years, she had become increasingly resistant to these exams.

Some of the procedures weren’t only costly but also quite torturous, like the colonoscopy she was about to undergo. Even though Su Aobai had scheduled her for a painless colonoscopy with anesthesia, the preparation for it was already enough to make her suffer.

First, she couldn’t eat the night before. The next morning, she had to wake up early to take laxatives and keep going until her bowel movements were clear. During this time, she had to keep drinking water until her stomach felt like it was about to explode.