Chapter 314 Spare Me, Great Lord
Ren Xiaosu continued heading to the library as usual every day. In recent days, he discovered the library would already be open by the time he arrived, and An Yuqian would be snoring loudly in his chair at the entrance. It was clear that he had played mahjong all night again.
By rights, earning 500 yuan each day would be enough for An Yuqian to make a living. The monthly income for an average family of three in the stronghold was only 4,000 to 5,000 yuan. With a monthly salary of 15,000 yuan, he should be living a very comfortable life. But An Yuqian just had to use this money to play mahjong.
Even though Ren Xiaosu was footing all of the tuition, he had to get Wang Fugui to secretly trade a small amount of gold for cash. After all, they did not have any sources of income right now.
Fortunately, he still had quite a lot of gold left. Thinking of this, Ren Xiaosu hoped he could come across the ruins of another civilization again or something similar in the future. Human civilization before The Cataclysm was full of gems.
If it were really as Yang Xiaojin had said, any single item from a research laboratory could be exchanged for an inexhaustible amount of money. That would absolutely be a godsend.
It was no wonder Qing Zhen had spared no effort in trying to excavate that research laboratory in the Jing Mountains.
Cigarettes could go bad and wine could volatilize, but paper documents stored away in enclosed areas were simply priceless.
Of course, some people had found wine that hadn’t volatilized yet, but that was wine that had been stored in specially sealed packaging. If that were sold, the seller would earn a vast fortune overnight.
Ren Xiaosu knocked on the table in front of An Yuqian. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?”
“Huh?” An Yuqian looked at Ren Xiaosu and said sleepily, “Not yet. I was waiting for you to hand me the money for breakfast. When I passed by the stuffed bun shop this morning, the smell was heavenly.”
Ren Xiaosu slapped a ten-yuan bill onto the table and said peeved, “Go and eat breakfast, I’ll help you look after the library.”
“Haha.” An Yuqian pocketed the ten-yuan bill and said, “You’re such a good person!”
“Wait a minute.” Ren Xiaosu asked, “Why must you spend all your money on playing mahjong?”
In his opinion, An Yuqian was definitely not ordinary. How could someone who came up with a proper lesson plan in such a short time to teach math and physics in logical steps be an ordinary librarian?
The basic knowledge might seem very simple on its own, but to form them into a systematic lesson plan was a truly remarkable ability.
An Yuqian laughed and looked at Ren Xiaosu. “Then let me ask you: What can I do if I don’t play mahjong?”
Ren Xiaosu was stumped as he really could not come up with an answer.
As An Yuqian walked out of the library, he waved. “Since the world is so boring, isn’t it better to just play mahjong all day and sit around while we wait to die?”
Ren Xiaosu smiled. Well, sounded about right.
After a while, An Yuqian came back. He even had a bag of stuffed buns for Ren Xiaosu. “Try some. The buns from this shop are incredible. You don’t look like a local, so I bet you haven’t tried the buns from this shop before. You know, the proprietress of this bun shop is gorgeous. Her nickname is ‘Bun Beauty’!”
Ren Xiaosu curled his lips. After he saw Yang Xiaojin’s looks when she took off her cap, he felt he had already encountered what humans would define as true beauty.
As for that bun shop’s proprietress, Ren Xiaosu had seen her before. She was definitely not as beautiful as An Yuqian had claimed. It could also be because the Bun Beauty had chopped scallions sprinkled all over her face when he passed by the shop, leading him to subconsciously think she was not that pretty after all.
An Yuqian glanced at the book Ren Xiaosu was holding. “Oh, I’ve also read this novel titled Spare Me, Great Lord. It’s quite a good book, but unfortunately, only the first two volumes have been preserved after The Cataclysm. No one knows where the rest of the volumes are.”
Ren Xiaosu glanced at him. “I was just browsing.”
“The books you read are quite random.” An Yuqian said, recalling, “Each morning, you read a variety of different books before switching to reading textbooks in the afternoon. If I remember correctly, you’ve read books on economics, literature, history, science, geography, and even comics.”
“Mhm.” Ren Xiaosu nodded.
“So what do you really want to read?” An Yuqian asked, “There must be a purpose, right? I can divide reading into three categories. The first category is entertainment and is done purely because one simply likes reading books. The second category is information. For example, you can read a recipe if you want to learn how to cook. The third category is knowledge. For example, reading textbooks because you’re taking the entrance exams and doing problem sets.”
“Then I’m probably reading for entertainment,” Ren Xiaosu said with a smile.
“But what are you trying to find out from the books?” An Yuqian asked.
“I want to know what this world is really like.” Ren Xiaosu said in seriousness, “In the past, I didn’t have many opportunities to read books nor had the chance to systematically learn about the world. So I want to cherish the opportunities that I have now.”
“Oh.” An Yuqian nodded. “But there are still two types of books you haven’t read yet.”
“Which are they?” Ren Xiaosu was stunned. He had not really taken note before.
“You don’t read books on philosophy. I saw you take out a book the day before, but you placed it back after reading two pages,” An Yuqian said.
Ren Xiaosu was amused. He had not expected An Yuqian to be observing him so closely. “I just didn’t feel like reading it.”
“But it’s philosophy. It’s such an interesting topic.” An Yuqian lamented, “How can you not want to read it?”
“I didn’t want to torture myself,” Ren Xiaosu said and smiled.
This time, it was An Yuqian’s turn to be stunned. He fell silent for a while and then said with a smile, “You’re interesting. The meaning of philosophy is to understand the world through self-reflection, but they’re written based on the understanding of others, so it’s fine not to read it. But why didn’t you read political books?”
Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment and said, “Because the world itself is much more interesting than politics.”
“Alright then.” An Yuqian smacked his lips. “I suddenly feel like we might have a lot in common.”
Ren Xiaosu turned serious again and said, “I don’t think so.”
Just as An Yuqian was about to fly into a rage, a voice suddenly came from the entrance. “Hello, is anyone around? I’d like to enter the library to read.”
The voice was pleasant and melodious. When An Yuqian turned around to have a look, his eyes lit up. “Coming, coming.”
A charming woman was standing at the door with a head of wavy, long hair. Ren Xiaosu could just make out her earrings dangling down to her cheeks, as though they were secretly trying to seduce him.
The woman, wearing a pair of delicate high heels, waited for An Yuqian to check her library card. An Yuqian said, “You’re Ms. Zhou Yingxue, right?”
“Yes.” Zhou Yingxue nodded.
“OK, that’ll do.” An Yuqian followed the script. “You aren’t allowed to borrow any books out of this library. If there’s any damage to the books, please contact me immediately. I hope you take good care of the books here. After all, many of them can’t be found anywhere else anymore.”
“Mhm, thank you,” Zhou Yingxue said with a gentle smile.
An Yuqian was mesmerized by her. “Please let me know if you need anything.”
Zhou Yingxue slowly walked towards Ren Xiaosu and sat down across from him. She looked at Ren Xiaosu and said with a smile, “Hello.”
Ren Xiaosu looked up and said, “Hello, auntie.”
From his desk, An Yuqian got anxious when he heard that. How could the kid talk this way? ‘Even if Yue Lao[1] used rebar to unite your destinies, you would probably snap the bar with a response like that!’
[1] Yue Lao (Chinese: 月下老人; pinyin: Yuè Xià Lǎorén; literally: ‘old man under the moon’) is a god of marriage and love in Chinese mythology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Lao