Chapter 63: My Brother Is Probably Crazy for Money

Chapter 63: Chapter 63: My Brother Is Probably Crazy for Money

After sharing the beautiful but lackluster "Enchanted by the Aegean Sea," Chen Jingle shooed Chen Qiyun out. He hadn’t prepared a dinner for two today.

After completing his practical class, the system’s reward took him somewhat by surprise.

[Awesome job, baby! You have successfully completed the practical learning task. Reward: Correction of the ingrown toenail on your left big toe.]

"..." Chen Jingle was speechless. "Hold on, why didn’t I know I had an ingrown toenail?"

[Your ingrown toenail isn’t too serious yet, baby. However, if you maintain your current poor shoe-wearing and nail-clipping habits, the condition will only worsen, and it will be troublesome then. I’m correcting it for you now, but in the future, remember not to cut your nails too close to the flesh! Also, you can cut a V-shape at the front of the nail so it won’t grow into the sides. Got it?]

"..." Chen Jingle sighed. "Got it."

He cursed inwardly, feeling ridiculous that a thirty-year-old man needed to be taught how to properly trim his toenails. He didn’t even know where to begin complaining about it.

Late-stage ingrown toenails were indeed serious. No matter how tough a macho man was, if he had one and someone stomped on his big toe, his face would twist in agony, and his combat power would instantly halve. It was just like how the men’s soccer team was Dongda’s ingrown toenail—whenever it was attacked, the armor-piercing true damage was maxed out.

"But why did it only correct one side?" he wondered aloud. "Don’t tell me it’s saving the other side to use as a reward for the next task?"

That would be way too absurd!

After a moment’s thought, Chen Jingle decided to heed the system’s advice. He grabbed a pair of nail clippers and snipped a V-shape into both of his big toenails. Inspecting them closely, he realized the nail on his right big toe really was digging into the skin on both sides.

"Damn it!" he muttered.

During his third-period free activity class, he did his usual bodyweight workout at home. The final reward was a 0.1-kilogram increase in strength and a 0.1-centimeter increase in height. What was worth mentioning, however, was that after simply eating a bowl of hot-oil noodles for dinner, the system rewarded him with another 0.1 centimeters in height.

He felt like he was one step closer to reaching 1.8 meters. Excellent!

After feeding the cat, Chen Jingle played with the fat feline for a while—though it was mostly him unilaterally squishing it. After all, who wouldn’t love roughhousing with a chubby kitty? He thoroughly watered the bougainvillea, which had been basking in the sun all day, before heading back inside to take a shower.

He had a rescheduled class tonight and actually needed to study; it wouldn’t offer the same high degree of freedom as his usual after-class reading sessions.

Meanwhile, Chen Qiyun was messaging Li Beixing.

"Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, Teacher Li! Have you eaten any mooncakes yet?"

"Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you too. I did, but I only had a small piece of lotus seed paste," Li Beixing replied. She was currently having dinner with her family in a private room at a hotel.

The food hadn’t arrived yet, and everyone was busy chatting. Seeing the notification on her phone, she took a moment to reply, which went unnoticed by the others.

Chen Qiyun: "Why not a mixed nut one?"

Li Beixing: "Because I don’t like them."

"Oh." Chen Qiyun noted that Teacher Li didn’t like mixed nut mooncakes. What a coincidence—she didn’t like them either.

Chen Qiyun sent another message: "My brother made a lot of delicious food again today. When I went over to his place this afternoon, he made a super beautiful dessert. It’s a shame I was so focused on eating that I forgot to take a picture for you."

Li Beixing: "...There’s no need for pictures, thank you."

Remembering how Chen Qiyun had spammed her with food pictures in the middle of the night last time made her grit her teeth in annoyance. Was that something a decent human being would do?

Besides, she was no stranger to beautiful desserts. She had seen the most exquisite ones out there. Whether from Michelin-starred restaurants or exclusive private kitchens, she had tried them all. But the quality was always inconsistent; most were just relying on gimmicks. She might be wealthy, but she wasn’t an idiot. Over time, she had lost the desire to try novelties unless a friend strongly recommended them.

"My brother said it could sell for 588 Yuan a plate," Chen Qiyun added, quietly complaining.

"Oh? Really?"

"I don’t know. I mean, it really did look gorgeous, but 588 Yuan is way too expensive. My brother must be crazy for money."

"..."

Li Beixing smiled faintly. 588 Yuan wasn’t actually that expensive, but it depended entirely on the quality. If it truly looked that beautiful, there would be people willing to pay for its aesthetic appeal, even if the taste was only average.

At the end of the day, there were just too many rich people out there. Take the hotel her family was dining at right now, for instance. It wasn’t uncommon to see desserts priced over a hundred Yuan here, and Jiangbei was only a small city.

Just then, Li Beixing heard her uncle ask, "How are you liking No. 8 Middle School, Beixing? Is it alright?"

Everyone’s eyes instantly shifted to her.

Li Beixing put away her phone and smiled. "It’s pretty good. My colleagues are easy to get along with, and the students are eager to learn."

Her uncle, who sported slicked-back hair, chuckled. "We told you earlier to have your dad put in a word with Director Zhang so you could be placed in No. 1 Middle School, but you wouldn’t listen. You just had to take the exam yourself. It’s a good thing you managed to test into a city school. If you had ended up in some rural town, you’d be miserable right now."

"Exactly! No. 1 Middle School is so much better than No. 8 Middle School. It carries a lot more prestige, too," her older cousin and his wife chimed in from the side.

Li Beixing merely maintained her smile. "No. 8 Middle School is pretty good too."

Securing a permanent teaching position wasn’t so simple these days. Her uncle made it sound effortless, but he completely ignored the mountain of favors her parents would have had to pull behind the scenes. Since she was perfectly capable of passing the exam on her own merit, why should she force her parents to beg for favors? There was no need. It was just a teaching position, after all.

Speaking of which, it was only because her father’s business had taken off a few years ago that her uncle had been able to ride his coattails. He had used her father’s connections to get in touch with a certain leader, which eventually earned him a promotion to deputy director of some city department right before his retirement—and even then, he was near the bottom of the hierarchy.

He might be retired now, but he certainly hadn’t lost his arrogant airs.

"Beixing, you’ve been out of college for a few years now. Have you found a boyfriend yet?" her aunt asked.

"You’re not getting any younger. It’s time to start thinking about it. If anyone here knows a good match, you should introduce him to Beixing.

"Even though our family doesn’t lack money, it’s best to find someone of equal social standing. Don’t just act on impulse and find someone from a terrible background who amounts to nothing. At the end of the day, your parents will be the ones worrying."

"..."

Her uncle’s family endlessly chimed in, talking over one another. What else could Li Beixing do but offer a polite, hollow laugh?

Her father was quite respectful toward his older brother, but her mother was fiercely protective of her daughter and had zero patience for this kind of talk.

She spoke up, "Beixing has a mind of her own. She naturally knows what’s best for her and what isn’t. As parents and elders, the most we can do is offer our perspective, but ultimately, it’s her choice. As long as she’s happy, that’s all that matters. Our family isn’t exactly relying on a bride price to survive. The custom here in Jiangbei has always been to settle things for twenty or thirty thousand Yuan, anyway. Just because our family has a bit of money doesn’t mean we have to demand anything crazy. And even if her future husband comes from a poor background, as long as he has two working hands and feet, they won’t starve."

"That may be true, but I’m just worried that she’s too innocent and might get taken advantage of," her aunt said with feigned concern.

Li Beixing’s mother smiled. "A match introduced by parents and relatives isn’t inherently good, just like a partner she finds on her own isn’t inherently bad. At the end of the day, it all depends on the person’s character. It’s better to take her time, screen her options, and observe carefully. She’s in no rush to get married and have children anyway—at least not for another two or three years. She can take her time looking."

Li Beixing’s father finally interjected, cutting the conversation short. "The food is here. Let’s eat."

Seeing this, the rest of the family dropped the subject.

After being interrogated so relentlessly by her uncle’s family, Li Beixing’s mood was predictably sour. She hardly had any appetite for the rest of the dinner.

On the other side of town, for his first knowledge-learning class of the evening, Chen Jingle once again chose to study history.