[Dear teacher]
[I have something that troubles me these days]
"Ugh... headache!"
Although this letter used very simple vocabulary, it wasn’t exactly impossible for him to understand. But Song Yunshen got dizzy as soon as he looked at English. So, he quickly took out his phone, summoned the almighty Emperor Doubao, snapped a picture, and asked the AI to translate it.
Soon, the translated version was fresh out of the oven:
[Dear Teacher,]
[Recently, something has been bothering me.]
[My family is not well-off, so I try my best to save money daily.]
[My mom works extremely hard. She juggles two part-time jobs and comes home late every night.]
[So I told my mom I wanted to find a part-time job during the summer vacation, but she refused.]
[I don’t know what to do: should I be considerate of her feelings and drop the idea, or should I secretly find a job to help share the family’s burden?]
Hmm... Reading the contents of the letter, Song Yunshen fell deep in thought.
Addressing the teacher directly at the beginning was normal. After all, the English mailbox was primarily managed by Teacher Jiang herself, so this girl naturally assumed she was writing to the teacher. However, to think the contents of the letter were actually about a summer part-time job!
Thinking of this, Song Yunshen immediately opened the locked drawer beside him and placed the Future Diary on the desk. He flipped to the exact page he was looking for and quickly spotted the relevant entry.
[Summer vacation is coming up soon. I wonder if I can smoothly find a suitable part-time job. It would be great if I could help my mom share some of the pressure.]
It matched!
It was a perfect match!
Song Yunshen felt a surge of excitement. About half a month had passed since the Future Diary first appeared, and he was finally one step closer to the truth! With this, he could basically narrow down who the owner of this Future Diary was. He just didn’t know exactly which girl on the English Club’s sign-in sheet it was.
Should he just go class by class to look for her tomorrow evening during the self-study session?
There were only thirty-three girls anyway. Song Yunshen opened the photo album on his phone and counted; he would probably need to run to over twenty classrooms.
Forget it, there was no rush. He’d better think about how to reply to the letter first. If he could get her to approach him on her own initiative through his reply, he wouldn’t have to run all over the school like a madman looking for her.
Just as Song Yunshen was pondering what to write in his reply, someone knocked on his bedroom door.
"Yun Shen?"
"What is it?"
"I’m coming in to talk."
"Come in."
Song Mingyuan pushed the door open, sat on the edge of the bed, and asked, "Did you go to the rental property today?"
"Yeah, I haven’t been back long."
"Delayed rent?"
"Right," Song Yunshen nodded. "You only said I couldn’t reduce or waive it. You never said I couldn’t delay it."
"That works." Song Mingyuan nodded noncommittally. "You’re the landlord now, so what you say goes. But not every tenant is honest; you’ll have to learn to discern that in the future."
"Are you saying Aunt Yan is lying?"
"That’s not what I mean," Song Mingyuan shook his head. "Our family has more than just this one property. You’ll meet plenty of other tenants down the line."
"Alright." Song Yunshen didn’t dwell on it. His thoughts shifted to the summer vacation and the part-time job, and his eyes suddenly lit up. "By the way, Dad."
"What is it?"
"Didn’t you say last night that you were going to find an English teacher to tutor me during the summer?"
"Yeah." Song Mingyuan chuckled. "If you can score over 100 in English, I won’t find one for you, okay?"
"You have to, you have to! I think my English still needs some tutoring." Dropping his staunch refusal from yesterday, Song Yunshen spoke with utmost seriousness. "But I don’t think getting a proper teacher is suitable for me.
"After all, it’s one-on-one teaching. If I’m facing a teacher directly, I’ll definitely be too nervous, and the teaching effect will end up being counterproductive.
"So..."
"Just say what you want," Song Mingyuan urged, seeing right through the kid’s ulterior motives.
"Ahem... I think it’d be better to find a student with good grades in English to come to our house and tutor me."
Song Mingyuan gave him a sidelong glance, hitting the nail on the head. "Male or female?"
"Well, that hasn’t been decided yet." Song Yunshen coughed, trying to cover up his guilty conscience.
"If you really want to get tutored, it’s not impossible, but I need to set some ground rules." Song Mingyuan stroked his chin thoughtfully. "When the time comes, you have to have your lessons within the range of the security cameras. I’ll be keeping an eye on you."
"Uh..." Hearing this, Song Yunshen felt a bit hesitant.
After all, he was trying to invite his future girlfriend over to his house. Wasn’t it a bit awkward to be watched by his dad like that?
But on second thought, as an upright gentleman, he wasn’t really going to do anything inappropriate. If his dad wanted to watch, let him watch. Song Yunshen was merely curious about what kind of person his future girlfriend actually was. If he could get in touch with her ahead of time this way, that would be perfect.
"Okay." Having thought it through, Song Yunshen nodded in agreement. But he immediately added, "But I don’t have that much money. You really have to pay for the tutoring fees."
"You’re full of little schemes." Song Mingyuan clicked his tongue. He reached for his phone, forwarded a contact to Song Yunshen’s WeChat, and said, "Add this person."
"Who is this?"
"A tenant from Shuiting People’s House near Yintai City," Song Mingyuan said. "There’s a 120-square-meter apartment over there. The monthly rent is 3,600 yuan, which is enough to cover your tutoring fees."
"Oh wow! As expected of Old Song, always so generous with your money!" Upon hearing this, Song Yunshen instantly beamed with joy and hurriedly sent a WeChat friend request to the contact.
"Who are you calling Old Song, you brat? Have some respect for your elders," Song Mingyuan scolded good-naturedly. "Let me make this clear first: the classmate you find must rank in the top fifty of the whole school for their English score, at the very least. Otherwise, I won’t agree to it.
"If the person you find doesn’t meet the requirements, I’ll hire a professional English teacher for you.
"Did you hear me?"
"Huh?" Song Yunshen’s heart skipped a beat at those words. "Why are you making so many demands?"
"My demands aren’t exactly high, are they?" Song Mingyuan chuckled. "If they can’t even make the top fifty in the school for that single subject, what business do they have tutoring you?"
"Al... alright..." Song Yunshen reluctantly agreed.
He wondered how his future girlfriend’s academic performance was. But seeing how fluently this letter was written, her English grades couldn’t be too bad, right?
After their brief chat, Song Mingyuan left the room.
Song Yunshen began to outline the contents of his reply. But right at that moment, he suddenly realized that a new entry had appeared in the Future Diary:
[August 5, 2025]
[I finally received my first paycheck.]
[A total of 3,000 yuan.]
[I felt both happy and anxious. After returning home, I gave all the money to Mom.]
[I secretly worked at a milk tea shop behind Mom’s back, lying to her every day that I was going to the library to study.]
[But I wanted to spend this 3,000 yuan on Mom and my sister, so I definitely couldn’t hide it anymore.]
[Mom wasn’t angry and didn’t scold me, but she hugged me and cried for a long time.]
[I said we could go out and have a nice meal, but Mom disagreed and insisted on saving this 3,000 yuan for me.]
[I want to change something, but it feels like I haven’t been able to change anything at all.]
[I want to grow up faster.]