Jiaozi: “…”
After a long while, how could five-year-old Jiaozi possibly be a match for the crafty Shen Yingying?
With just a little probing, he gave himself away. Stammering, he asked her, “Sister Yingying… are your ears really that amazing? You could hear from that far away…”
“Of course!” Shen Yingying replied with absolute certainty. “Otherwise how could they be called wind-hearing ears?”
Then she continued bluffing him. “As long as it’s something your Uncle Xie says, I can hear it all perfectly clearly…”
“Can you hear everyone else too?”
The childish voice carried a hint of caution. Shen Yingying could practically picture Jiaozi sitting on the back seat with a worried little expression, and she almost burst out laughing.
“Well, not really. I can only clearly hear what your Uncle Xie says. So now tell me what Uncle Xie told you, and let me see whether our Jiaozi has lied or not…”
“Alright…” Jiaozi sounded helpless as he obediently repeated Xie Fangzhu’s words in his childish voice.
“Uncle Xie said Sister Yingying’s brain isn’t very smart.”
“She always likes running around, and then she can’t find the way home, so he told me to keep an eye on you.”
“If you run off, I should hurry to the meat supply store and ask Dad for help…”
“Uncle Xie also said you’re very timid.”
“If you get lost and can’t find your way home, you’ll cry sadly.”
“He told me to be a little hero and make sure to protect you until you get home…”
Shen Yingying: “…”
From behind her, Jiaozi asked nervously, “Sister Yingying, is what I said the same as what you heard?”
Grinding her teeth, Shen Yingying replied, “…Exactly the same. Very good. Jiaozi is an honest little boy. Excellent!”
But in her mind, she had already whipped Xie Fangzhu eight hundred times over.
That damned Xie dog! She knew he hadn’t had good intentions!
No wonder he had suddenly acted weird today and invited her out for breakfast.
And even played the nice guy by asking her to take the kid home—completely inconsistent with his heartless-villain persona!
Turns out he was afraid she’d run away again after he went down into the mine, so he deliberately brought her to the cafeteria and arranged for her to take Jiaozi—the “mobile surveillance device”—home.
And fine, a “mobile surveillance device” was one thing, but he even told the kid she had a bad brain!
He made her sound like an idiot. Was that even morally acceptable?
And he seriously underestimated her too. If she really wanted to run away, could a little kid actually stop her?
Suddenly, her rebellious streak flared up.
Not that she really intended to run away. In this era, runaways would just be arrested as vagrants and dragged back anyway.
She just wanted to challenge Xie Fangzhu’s smug confidence.
So she said to Jiaozi, “Jiaozi, look, before this I always went to the cafeteria by myself and came home by myself. I never got lost again, right? Actually, Uncle Xie lied to you. He’s afraid I’ll secretly go to the department store to buy candy and ruin my teeth eating too much sugar…”
“Really?” Jiaozi’s voice still carried babyish innocence as he genuinely thought about her words. After a while, he said, “That does seem true… before, when I went home, I always saw Sister Yingying walking to the cafeteria alone…”
“See?” Shen Yingying smiled silently, her eyes darting mischievously. “Jiaozi, let’s make a deal. After I take you home, I’ll go to the department store and buy candy. Don’t tell your dad, okay? When I come back, I’ll share half with you.”
She had assumed this offer would tempt a little kid like Jiaozi. After all, candy was a rare treat for children—usually only available during holidays.
But unexpectedly, five-year-old Jiaozi was astonishingly firm.
The moment she finished speaking, he rejected her decisively.
“No!”
He said seriously, “Sister Yingying, even if you won’t get lost, I promised Uncle Xie that no matter what you say, I can’t let you run around.”
Shen Yingying: “…”
This kid was stubborn.
“What if I give you more? If I buy ten candies, I’ll take one and you can have nine?”
“Sorry, Sister Yingying, I can’t agree.” Jiaozi’s tone was unusually determined.
Shen Yingying thought to herself: this kid’s self-control is terrifying for his age. He’s definitely going to become someone important in the future.
So she raised the stakes.
“Then I’ll also buy you a can of lychee syrup. Those are delicious. Not only candy—I’ll buy you canned lychees too. They’re super tasty.”
Jiaozi had eaten canned lychees before, but only when he was sick. Normally, his mother couldn’t bear to spend money on them.
Just thinking about eating sweet canned lychees without needing to be ill made his eyes light up.
“Sister, then does that mean I get nine candies and one can of lychees altogether?”
“Of course! As long as you promise not to tell your dad, I’ll buy them for you.”
Shen Yingying raised an eyebrow, thinking smugly that children were still children—easy to coax.
But just as she thought that, Jiaozi’s voice rang out again.
“Sister Yingying promised me nine candies and two chocolates, so Uncle Xie has to give me double. Two nines plus two twos… equals…”
One of the little arms wrapped around her waist loosened. Apparently he had even freed up a hand to count on his fingers.
Shen Yingying suddenly realized something.
“…What exactly did your Uncle Xie promise you?”
Jiaozi answered innocently, “Uncle Xie said no matter what good things Sister gives me, I can’t agree to let you go anywhere else. Whatever Sister promises me, Uncle Xie will give me double when he comes back…”
Shen Yingying: “…”
In this battle where Xie Fangzhu never even appeared, Shen Yingying suffered a crushing defeat.
Indignantly, she thought: what’s the point of watching her on the road?
Once she got home, couldn’t she run away anytime she wanted?
That thought finally restored some balance to her mood.
But when they neared Jiaozi’s house, her expression collapsed again.
The front gate of Jiaozi’s home was tightly shut, and beside it, sitting on a bench, was a young girl.
She looked about the same age as Shen Yingying, around eighteen or nineteen years old, slightly chubby. She wore a plaid synthetic shirt and loose straight-legged pants, with two braids hanging down in front of her chest.
Her face was round, her eyebrows thick and dark, and beneath them were bright eyes. She was actually quite pretty, though there was something adorably foolish about her—like a simple-minded beauty.
When she saw Shen Yingying riding over on the bicycle, the girl immediately stood up with the support of a crutch leaning beside her.
As for this girl, many people had talked about her before, so the original owner of the body had heard quite a lot too.
She was Chen Wenxing’s daughter, named Chen Qingqing, eighteen years old. Two years ago, she had been sent to the countryside as an educated youth. After only a year there, she fell and broke her leg, then returned home on medical leave.
After coming back, because of her leg injury, no factory or work unit was willing to hire a disabled person like her. She had already been staying at home for over a year.
Perhaps because she had been indoors too long, Chen Qingqing’s eyes were bright yet timid.
Looking at Shen Yingying, she spoke in a tiny mosquito-like voice.
“Yingying… you’re back…”
The original owner had never interacted with Chen Qingqing before. They had never even spoken.
Yet now Chen Qingqing looked as though she had specifically been waiting here for her.
Suddenly, Shen Yingying remembered what she had overheard outside Chen Wenxing’s house that morning:
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep a very close eye on her.”
So this “keeping a close eye” was referring to Shen Yingying herself.
“…”
She surrendered.
Layer upon layer, Xie Fangzhu had arranged everything perfectly.