Xiaosi Garden is located at the southernmost edge of the city, already close to the outskirts. The long walking route on the phone’s map directly shattered Yang Chaoyu’s plans to walk there.
To prevent herself from freezing into a miserable mess like last time, she had deliberately put on a fleece-lined little alt account.
But she could not stand the heat halfway there and took off the little alt account.
Qiao Qiao followed behind her and burst out laughing.
“I told you it wouldn’t help, but you insisted on bringing it.”
Yang Chaoyu glanced over Qiao Qiao’s shorts and T-shirt and said, “It’s not like I’m as tough as you.”
Qiao Qiao’s outfit when she appeared was exactly the same as the one on the card. According to her, the photo had been taken ten years ago. At the time, that fluffy dress had been extremely popular, but a style from ten years ago was far too outdated to wear now, so she insisted on changing into something currently fashionable.
Yang Chaoyu had been utterly shocked and said, “You can actually change outfits? Aren’t you a card?”
Qiao Qiao said, “Don’t card games often have outfit changes too? They’re called character skins or something. Different character skins even give characters different enhancements. I’m the same, so you have to buy me one!”
Yang Chaoyu: I actually believed this little alt account’s nonsense.
The little princess threw a tantrum and pestered Yang Chaoyu for half an hour.
With no other choice, Yang Chaoyu exchanged 50 merit points and bought the little girl an outfit of children’s clothing.
A child star really was different. She had an innate aura; even an ordinary outfit from a department store had the air of a luxury brand. Now, dressed in this completely ordinary outfit, she walked behind Yang Chaoyu with an imposing presence.
If it had not been the middle of the night, many people would probably have turned to look.
Qiao Qiao quickened her pace and moved beside Yang Chaoyu. “But you should know that physical armor can’t withstand magical damage.”
Yang Chaoyu said, “That analogy is far too apt.”
But they had already come out. Could she really go back just to put away a little alt account?
No. Yang Chaoyu was lazy and would rather carry it.
Qiao Qiao shook her head at the sight, wondering if she had made the wrong choice and should not have come out of Room 1302.
Yang Chaoyu reached the entrance, and her cheek suddenly hurt.
She was somewhat annoyed and was just about to ask Qiao Qiao whether she knew how to make an invisible wound disappear when someone called out to her.
“Young lady, why are you out again in the middle of the night?”
It was actually the same taxi driver she had encountered in the early hours of the previous day.
Perhaps because he had watched her go upstairs the previous day, she did not assume the worst of him. Besides, with Qiao Qiao there, she was not afraid of anyone trying to harm her.
Just as she was thinking this, she turned around and called to him, “Qiao...”
There was no one behind her—or rather... no card?
“What are you looking at?” the taxi driver asked.
“I...” Yang Chaoyu lied with practiced ease. “I was saying, look, it’s so late. It’s really dangerous for me to be alone.”
She gave an awkward laugh twice.
The taxi driver probably thought she suspected him of having bad intentions and hurriedly said, “I’m a night-shift driver. I get sleepy in the early hours, so I come here to rest for a while and wake myself up. There are surveillance cameras along this road, and there are surveillance cameras at the entrance to the residential complex too. My home is also in this residential complex. My wife is a full-time homemaker, and we have a three-year-old child. The whole family depends on me. I wouldn’t do anything foolish, so don’t worry.”
Yang Chaoyu felt a little embarrassed and said, “I was actually hoping you could drive me there.”
As she spoke, she got into the car.
She discreetly surveyed her surroundings but could not find Qiao Qiao anywhere. Then she felt around in her trouser pocket.
All right, the card was in her pocket.
She felt reassured.
“Where to?”
“Xiaosi Garden.”
She remembered that during her debut, this driver had provided some information. Although it had not been particularly accurate, the important thing was that the information had been free.
The driver glanced at her through the rearview mirror, his expression becoming extremely complicated.
“You’re going there?”
“Is there a problem with that?” she asked, pretending not to care.
The driver looked at her through the rearview mirror and said, “It’s not really a problem, but... why are you always going out in the middle of the night, young lady? Last time it was an interview. Is it the same this time?”
“No, I found a job. I’m on my way to work now.”
After she finished speaking, silence filled the air.
Yang Chaoyu realized that when a young woman worked at night... she was either accompanying clients for drinks or possibly involved in some illegal business.
“I...”
She had just wanted to explain when the driver nodded knowingly. “Did your company make you work overtime again? You young people should work hard, but you also need to take care of your health.”
He actually had not jumped to any strange conclusions? This master driver was truly something. Yang Chaoyu sighed inwardly.
She said casually, “master driver, working the night shift isn’t exactly good for your health either, is it?”
“Ah, my situation is special.” Master driver became more talkative. “My son is still young, but my wife says raising a child has to start early, so she insisted on enrolling him in some international kindergarten—maybe it was a bilingual kindergarten. The tuition is incredibly expensive. I told her that we didn’t have any of that when we were young, and we still grew up fine. She wouldn’t listen and insisted that I earn more.”
“When all is said and done, you’re still working overtime.”
“You don’t understand. You’re being forced to do it; you can’t go home until the work is finished. I’m different. I’m actually staging a self-injury scheme.” The driver winked at her through the rearview mirror. “If I turn my schedule upside down for a few days and start feeling unwell, my wife will notice. Then she’ll feel sorry for me and won’t let me work alternating shifts anymore.”
The driver spoke with a smug, self-satisfied air.
Yang Chaoyu: Fine, you’re turning the tables on them and adding a self-injury scheme—defeating them without bloodshed while striking straight at their hearts. Master driver, you’re incredible!
Then she silently complained, “No dog food, please.”
The driver did not hear her clearly. “What?”
“This is educational rat racing,” Yang Chaoyu said. “The way children are taught actually reflects their parents’ desires. The stronger the parents’ desires, the harder the children suffer. They say it’s for the children, but really, it is merely to reassure themselves. Perhaps children do not even know what they want, and they probably do not want to explore the world through their parents’ eyes. Can this kind of forced, premature education really have no negative effects?”
When she said this, she was thinking of Wen Shaoqiao’s life.
What had been injected into Wen Shaoqiao’s body was not a suppressant injection; what she had been made to wear was not revealing clothing, but her parents’ ambitions. Those ambitions had eroded her, deformed her body, and left her to be watched by perverts.
What was frightening was that she was only one of countless children being controlled.
She was the one who could be seen.
And in the unseen corners, how many other children were enduring this man-eating ambition?
The more Yang Chaoyu thought about it, the more miserable she felt.
What troubled her most were the final few lines of Wen Shaoqiao’s confession: Were academic results linked to a person’s character? Just because he got good grades, did that make him a good child?!
“Whether a child can become successful cannot truly be achieved simply by piling on educational resources. Doing well academically doesn’t mean having good character,” she said with a sigh.
The driver nodded and said, “How does that saying go? Thugs aren’t frightening; what’s frightening is when thugs are educated. In the past, thieves were craftsmen. One slash with a razor, and your wallet and phone would be gone. Now that education levels have risen, they’ve become ‘programmers’ and ‘performers.’ They can impersonate anyone and trick you in all sorts of ways. Before you know it, your bank account is empty, and you might even be buried under a mountain of debt.”
“Ah, life really is difficult.”
As she said this, Yang Chaoyu remembered how nervous she had been while shopping with Qiao Qiao during the day—afraid that Qiao Qiao would empty her wallet. She suddenly understood how difficult raising a child was and joined the driver in trading complaints back and forth.
The card in her trouser pocket moved and jabbed her with one of its sharp corners.
Yang Chaoyu hissed.
The driver asked what was wrong. When she shook her head, he returned to the original topic and said, “Speaking of which, you’re working overtime at Xiaosi Garden? What kind of work is there to do at that place?”
There was a hint of something else in his tone.
Because he had not questioned Yang Chaoyu’s line of work, she did not feel that he was looking down on that place.
She began lying with practiced familiarity. “Because my new job is as a reporter. They said it was some kind of temporary interview.”
“I see. That makes sense, then.” The driver looked ahead, seemingly lost in his memories. “Those five women... none of them were simple.”