Walking the Path of a Workaholic in Cliché Novels (QT) Chapter 101

An Yinong looked at the original owner in the mirror. In the reflection there was a childish and clean face, which looked very much like his mother, except for the mouth that resembled his playboy father.

“The original owner had a teardrop mole?” An Yinong wiped the mirror and confirmed the small teardrop mole under the corner of his eye. This was something that the original owner did not have in his memory. “Did it grow recently?”

He was not sure, but he did not care much about it. He quickly washed up and returned to his room. Communicating with animals was interesting, but the most important thing was to do homework.

He turned on the small lamp on the desk, and took out his homework. Then he tried the golden finger – he called out the shadow puppet. The shadow under his feet crawled up strangely. It was a flat black pattern that could flow like liquid. An Yinong felt that “he” was also flowing like liquid, which was very strange.

However, the main state of the shadow puppet was not liquid. Under An Yinong’s “control”, it became a three-dimensional shadow, the kind of figure in black whose eyes can only be seen. There was hair and clothes but everything was pitch black, the kind of darkness that didn’t reflect any light, showing only the whites of the eyes.

An Yinong looked at him, and the shadow also looked at An Yinong. An Yinong did what normal people always wanted to do but could never do – he saw his real face (not a mirror or an image). He felt like he was controlling two entities: he was the person and he was also the shadow, and they did not interfere with each other. It’s a very strange feeling.

“Is it really a shadow puppet?” The system was speechless for a long time as it looked at the man in black who was deeper than a black hole.

The shadow puppet sat down and opened his workbook. An Yinong felt that it was another him who sat down and opened his workbook. The words on the workbook jumped up and bared their fangs and claws at him. He subconsciously covered his eyes.

“Okay, verification is complete.”

The man in black suddenly deflated like a deflated balloon and returned to An Yinong’s feet: “It seems that I am still the one who suffers when using the shadow puppet to do my homework. Doesn’t mental damage count as damage?”

Dejected, An Yinong picked up the pen. Math was okay, he could handle it with his previous foundation, but Chinese was a headache, and English was even more painful. As for other minor subjects, he basically had to start from scratch.

He picked up the pen several times and put it down several times. “They’re moving.” He said painfully, lying on the table.

“Why not just forget it?” said the system. It was the first time it saw the host suffering so much while reading. In his previous life, he was the type of person who could not put down his book.

“No.” An Yinong stood up suddenly and picked up the Chinese book again. “It’s better to have it myself than to have it with my parents. I don’t have the ability to survive. Once something goes wrong in my life, I will be reduced to the bottom of the society.”

Of course, in the plot, the He family had always been rich and has a high social status, and An Yinong is accustomed to preparing for a rainy day.

“But host, your condition is so serious. Not to mention your studies, your future work will also be affected, right?” The system hesitated.

An Yinong was also thinking about this. The original owner’s voice was soft and sweet, suitable for singing love songs, but he didn’t want to sing only love songs. Writing songs was suitable, but he had to figure out the local dialect first, because Mandarin songs were not very popular at that time.

“The original owner’s dream was to become a cartoonist, right? What do you think about me drawing comics in the future?” An Yinong thought of the happiness he felt when he picked up the paintbrush. This was the emotion left by the original owner, second only to hatred.

“Ah?”

That night An Yinong had a nightmare. In the dream, he was forced to wear a corseted princess dress and was surrounded by a group of chirping animals. There were also dancing characters all over the sky. In the middle, he was smiling, maintaining a state of wanting to go crazy but not going crazy.

He woke up with a start and looked towards the window, and heard a familiar voice: “Open the door, Twolegs, open the door!”

An Yinong got up quietly, opened the curtain, and saw the parrot. There was a small bottle tied to the bird’s foot.

“Twolegs, my master said he wanted to thank you.”

“……?” What kind of owner was so careless? He released his pet after it got lost once?

He opened the window, took the small bottle, and poured out a small note from it.

“Thank you for your care. If you have any requests, please feel free to ask.” There was also a string of numbers following it, which seemed to be a phone number.

After reading the note, An Yinong frowned: “What does this mean? Do you think I left this note to repay a favor?”

He almost laughed out loud because the owner of this parrot was paranoid and thought that others had ulterior motives when his pet was rescued. Fortunately, the handwriting was so beautiful, but the personality was really not good. An Yinong really hated the feeling of being misunderstood.

“Wait a moment.” An Yinong found a plate of melon seeds for the parrot, tore off a small piece of paper on the other side and wrote: I rescued this little bird simply because of the bird itself, and I don’t need your thanks.

He pressed the paper with his fingertips and rubbed it, and the paper rolled up and put it into the small bottle.

“Please deliver the letter. Your master is so rude.” An Yinong and the parrot complained.

“That’s right,” the parrot, who was trying hard to eat melon seeds, even raised his head to respond, “He often scolds two-legged animals until they cry.”

“So you still like him so much?”

The parrot, having eaten enough melon seeds, lowered its head and used its beak to comb its feathers: “He didn’t scold me.”

“……” What you said makes a lot of sense.

“Tell your master that I don’t need any thanks from him. Now, go ahead.” After sending the parrot away he went to the bathroom.

An Yinong spit out the water from his teeth and said, “I thought of something.”

“Parrot?” The system was sour. It felt that it was in danger of falling out of favor.

“No, is there anything you can use to convert text into images or audio?”

An Yinong said to himself: “In later generations, there are reading pens and various audios, but there is nothing here. I can’t really spend money to hire someone to read to me.” Although it was not impossible.

After washing up, he changed his clothes and went downstairs. The He family has a sumptuous breakfast every day. They have a chef hired at a high salary. Not only could he cook home-cooked meals, he can even prepare a full banquet.

It was the first time for An Yinong to enjoy the treatment of having a professional chef cook for him and a maid serve him food and pour milk. Even when he was a governor in his previous life, he was not so wealthy.

After finishing breakfast, he was ready to leave, and Granny Lian handed him a packed travel bag.

“Our young master looks so good in this outfit, he outshines those movie stars. The Hawaiian shirts and bell-bottom pants that are popular nowadays are all too flashy. This one is refreshing and the best.” Granny Lian praised him again and again.

“It’s because my mother-in-law favors me that this happens.”

Having been an ancient man for many years, An Yinong’s dressing style was still conservative. He wore a white T-shirt inside and a gray-blue short-sleeved shirt outside, and a backpack, which made him look clean and refreshing.

“Maps, notebooks, pens, tissues… are all in there. There’s also a box of snacks in the bag, some cookies. Grandma knows that you young people don’t like traditional snacks, you like Western snacks instead.”

“How could that be? I love everything my mother-in-law cooks.” After making Grandma Lian smile, he set off in the family car.

The car drove out of the deserted road and into the bustling commercial street. Classical European buildings were on both sides of the street, and even the street lights seemed to be copied from the other side of the ocean.

However, there were fewer foreigners on the road, but there were rickshaw drivers, garbage collectors, small vendors who got up early to buy things, and shoe boys carrying a large wooden box and shouting for shoes to be polished.

“Uncle Cai, what street is this?” he asked the driver.

The driver, Uncle Cai, mentioned the foreign name and said that there were many banks, European and American senior officials residences, embassies, etc. on that street, and the security was very good.

An Yinong nodded and continued looking out the window. All these scenes were receding, and the car continued to move forward. Gradually, there were fewer European-style buildings, the main road became narrower, there were more small shops, and more people wearing small jackets. Finally, they arrived near the agreed location.

The driver suddenly said with some concern that this place was not very safe. It was said that this place was reclaimed from the sea a hundred years ago. It was a Japanese-occupied area not long ago. Now it is the place where many new Hong Kong people who have just arrived settle down. It was relatively messy and the original owner rarely came here.

“That’s enough. I’ll take a taxi back later.” The car stopped before the agreed bridge, and An Yinong got out with his schoolbag on his back.

“Young Master, how about I go with you?” Uncle Cai was still a little worried.

“It’s okay, it’s broad daylight now.” An Yinong looked at everything as if it came out of a picture and took a deep breath.

It was early summer, and the streets were filled with men and women in light clothing, some in cheongsams, some in dresses, and some in just a vest. They all had a lot of fashion accessories on them, such as scarves, pins, and small bags, and all the men wore glasses. Compared with them, An Yinong seemed rather “rustic”.

There were all kinds of small shops on both sides of the street, selling snacks, styling services, shoe repair, watch repair… Recruitment notices with red letters on a white background were lined up, and at first glance, they look very diverse. There were also craftsmen carrying loads on their shoulders on the road, shouting loudly about repairing umbrellas and sharpening scissors.

Neighbors, fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans, walked into small shops to get their hair cut and chat, or walked under the bridge where someone was setting up a stall to shine shoes. In fact, from the perspective of later generations, this street was not wide, and two cars parked side by side could block the road. But because there were few cars and many people at that time, it can also be called a “highway”.

An Yinong looked around as he slowly walked. It was the first time for him to feel the human touch of this port city up close.

“Meow~” A short-haired kitten jumped out from somewhere, sniffed, came to An Yinong’s feet, rolled over, revealing its white belly. An Yinong squatted down and rubbed it, then stood up and continued walking forward.

The kitten got up, followed, and followed for a whole street before leaving. He walked through the busy streets, brushed shoulders with a rag collector, and met a rickshaw speeding past at the corner.

The mud splashed by the rickshaw splashed on a woman in a floral dress. She shook her skirt and cursed: “Are you in a hurry to be reincarnated?”

“Mrs. Qing, you don’t have to scold me. Good things always come after bad things. Do you want to come and see the fish on my stall?” The fishmonger at the side tried to comfort her.

The woman still hummed a few words before walking over to look at the fish on his stall: “Are these fish fresh? If they are not, I don’t want them.”

“We’ve been neighbors for so many years, how could I lie to you? They were all just caught today, very fresh.” The fishmonger in a navy blue waterproof apron picked up a big fish and said, “Look, it’s so fat, buy it home and make soup.”

Leaving the bustling downtown area, An Yinong continued walking forward. He met a group of young people wearing black suits with brightly colored shirts and rolled up sleeves. He didn’t know if they were gangsters or trend-seekers. They laughed at him and said, “Students.”

An Yinong heard it and raised his corners of his mouth: “Hello.” His smile was as bright as the rising sun, and his eyes were like sparkling lake water. The young man in the lead turned his head to look at him, and ended up bumping his head against a telephone pole.

An Yinong continued walking, passing through a street filled with the aroma of food. There were dim sum shops on both sides of the street, and a girl in a floral dress and an old lady in a double-breasted jacket were eating at the same table. One of them had her hair permed and wore brightly colored plastic jewelry, while the other used a wooden hairpin to hold her hair in place, but they were still able to sit together and chat.

He walked and looked along the way, and finally arrived at the agreed location, a stone bridge, amid the lively calls of hawkers.

Two people on the bridge waved at him when they saw him. One of them was wearing a bright blue Hawaiian shirt and denim bell-bottoms, and the other was wearing a blue denim short-sleeved jacket and black bell-bottoms. Their hair was blown into a fluffy split. One child pretended to be an adult and posed at the end of the bridge.

“He Tiantong, you are finally here?”