Chapter 39: Song Yao

Xu Shouyun pointed to the cabinet beside him, “Qingzhou, bring out the blue-and-white Fen wine from the second shelf.”

“This is good wine,” Xu Qingzhou murmured, tasting the air; all the liquor on this shelf was decent, used for festive social exchanges.

Xu Shouyun uncorked the bottle and poured two taels each for them.

Wang Xiaping stared beside them, “He’s drinking alcohol for the first time—pour less.”

“Mom, it’s only two taels,” Xu Qingzhou laughed, shaking his head.

The family of three began eating.

After drinking two taels, Wang Xiaping refused to let him drink more: “Young people don’t drink alcohol every day.”

“He doesn’t even have a girlfriend yet—you’re already thinking about marriage and kids? You’re thinking too far ahead,” Xu Shouyun chuckled, unconcerned about his son’s romantic life. “Speaking of girlfriends, I think Song Yao’s daughter is quite good.”

Read!

The meal went well. After eating, they symbolically ate cake; Xu Shouyun and Wang Xiaping came from the countryside, where in the past they’d celebrate birthdays with just two eggs.

Song Yao rested her chin on her hand, gazing at the boy across from her. Lately, she’d read some advanced math books and grew more convinced that Xu Qingzhou was a freak—he was just like her, a new incoming freshman, yet seemed to know everything.

He began imagining the future: “Next, I just wait for him to find a girlfriend, get married, have a child for us to raise—then his life will be complete.”

At nine p.m., Xu Qingzhou volunteered to wash the dishes.

“That’s still in the future. Alcohol and tobacco harm the body,” Wang Xiaping disagreed. “Here, eat more vegetables—you’re still growing.”

Xu Shouyun, however, took it lightly and smiled: “A little wine is fine—it’ll be useful someday.”

Library.

！。

By this time, all admission results were out, and large-scale class reunions followed; Xu Qingzhou declined nearly all of them. Their circumstances had improved, but the Xu family still had no tradition of singing birthday songs—just eating cake.

“She’s good, sure, but I don’t think the two kids have any feelings for each other. Last time they ate together, they barely seemed to know each other.”

Another week passed; the scholarship from Chengnan High School arrived. Xu Qingzhou spent over ten thousand yuan on a computer and began typing his papers.

“Before we knew it, this brat has grown up.”

July 21: Xu Qingzhou and Song Yao received their admission letters from Jingda.

“Mom, that’s enough—I’ve already had three bowls of rice.”

Basic geometric properties include curvature, normal vectors, tangent vectors, area, etc., so we can first express the surface area as a double integral.

Listening to the clinking of porcelain bowls in the kitchen, Wang Xiaping suddenly felt a sense of release: raising a child from babbling infancy through elementary, middle, and now university had demanded immense financial and emotional sacrifice.

“They’ll get familiar if they keep spending time together.”

Before Xu Qingzhou lay a thick stack of draft paper; he was working on nonlinear integral equations to describe the basic geometric properties of surfaces.

July 30: Xu Qingzhou successfully obtained his driver’s license.

Sensing someone watching him, Xu Qingzhou looked up. “What is it?”

“When will you finish?” Song Yao rubbed her stomach.

Xu Qingzhou checked the time and realized it was already ten. “It’s late—we should go. Want to grab something to eat first?”

Song Yao packed her things while nodding. This was their routine: every night they ate together. They’d become faithful dinner partners.

(End of Chapter)