Winter turned to summer, and the years passed. In the blink of an eye, the two of them had reached elementary school.
Every morning, Chen An would brush his teeth while running downstairs to wake up Cheng Lele. Cheng Lele loved to sleep in, and only Chen An could wake her. The Cheng family would unlock their front door at the appointed time each day, giving Chen An free access. After Cheng Lele finished washing up, she would run upstairs, where Grandma Chen had already prepared breakfast. One of them liked egg yolks while the other preferred egg whites—they coordinated perfectly, working in clear division to finish breakfast, then went downstairs to get their bicycles.
Baihua Elementary School was about two kilometers from the residential complex. After Chen An learned to ride with a passenger, Cheng Lele abandoned any thought of learning to ride a bicycle herself. She could even take a nap while sitting on the back seat of Chen An’s bike. They were in the same class and had the same homework. Once in the classroom, the two would copy each other’s homework. For problems Cheng Lele knew how to solve, Chen An was too lazy to do them himself—copying hers was more convenient, and while copying, he could generally spot errors as well. For problems Cheng Lele didn’t know how to solve, Chen An would be in the mood to take a look and work them out, and she would then copy his. The two were quite good at complementing each other’s strengths.
Besides his academic talent, Chen An gradually revealed a business mind. When idle and bored, he designed a card game and roped his classmates into playing it. The students were strictly monitored when playing games at home, so when they got to school, they were worried about finding something to play—Chen An only had to explain once and they were hooked. Chen An’s cards were all homemade, with Cheng Lele responsible for the artwork and design. He let them play for free in the early stages, then later Chen An started selling props. The ill-gotten gains were split fifty-fifty with Cheng Lele.
The two little landlords’ first task every day after getting home was counting money. They saved up every few cents and dimes. Chen An didn’t count on Cheng Lele to be the accountant—her brain worked slowly and she only knew how to foolishly save money. For this purpose, she even bought a pink piggy bank and deposited money into it every day. What was she saving it for? To support her idols.
What a wasteful thing.
Chen An would get a headache whenever he saw Cheng Lele’s room full of idol celebrity posters. As the saying goes, fertile water shouldn’t flow to outsiders’ fields, yet Cheng Lele’s arm always bent outward. Without Little Brother in front of her idols, all the money she earned went to these pretty boys.
Chen An didn’t like saving money—he preferred to keep it circulating. On weekends, Chen An would also take Cheng Lele to browse the stationery market in the county town. He would wholesale some nice-looking stationery or fun toys, then turn around and sell them to the country bumpkins in the small town. Cheng Lele was the biggest obstacle to his business expansion. Every time it came to selling the stationery, she wouldn’t allow this or permit that. Why? They were so cute that she couldn’t bear to sell them.
“With your study volume, can you possibly use up so many pens and papers?”
As the saying goes, poor students have lots of stationery. Cheng Lele didn’t care—she told Chen An to wholesale more Ultraman stuff and things like that, which she had no interest in. She liked those colorful erasers, stickers, pencil cases…
She wrote letters to her idols on newly bought letter paper, and bought exquisite photo albums to treasure her idols’ photos, with many little red hearts pasted around the edges of the photos.
Chen An figured that Cheng Lele would most likely grow up to be a shallow person—though of course, the prettier kind of shallow person, commonly known as a trophy. After all, by fifth grade, Cheng Lele had blossomed into—not quite a graceful young woman with a svelte figure yet, since she wasn’t old enough for that, but with bright, expressive eyes and level shoulders and straight legs, she was already a complete beauty in the making.
At the same time, Chen An was also growing increasingly handsome, especially those jet-black eyes of his that made anyone who saw them sigh and say they were “bright as stars.”
As they say, one region’s environment nurtures one region’s people, and also that appearance reflects the heart. The two who ate together, lived together, and shared the same lifestyle habits—spending so much time together day and night, their body cells influenced by each other’s presence—gradually grew to resemble each other, developing the temperament of family members. Like two vines that, after being entwined together for long enough, became one bundle. But Chen An didn’t look feminine—his features were sharp and defined. Cheng Lele wasn’t masculine either—her features were soft. Each had their own kind of good looks.
Girls mature early, and already some little girls were starting to secretly notice Chen An. By sixth grade, Chen An was promoted to brigade captain. With good grades and a love of playing soccer, he ran like a young colt on Baihua Elementary School’s bare playing field, capturing quite a few budding crushes.
Cheng Lele was no slouch either. She was the class’s arts committee member, taking after Ye Xiaomei with a naturally bright voice. She served as the Monday national anthem lead singer and was naturally also a celebrity at school.
However, boys develop later, and fifth and sixth graders only knew how to play. Their hazy feelings toward the opposite sex were limited to verbal teasing. But they didn’t dare tease Cheng Lele, because Cheng Lele’s father was the captain of the police station. After an incident in the provincial capital where a mentally ill patient broke into a school and killed people randomly, schools at all levels had to organize emergency drills, and the person who came to lecture at Baihua Elementary School was none other than Cheng Dong. Cheng Dong was tall and burly, and in a few moves he took down the assailant, with fierce technique and decisive footwork. Even if you gave them a hundred times the courage, they wouldn’t dare make a move on Cheng Lele.
So compared to Chen An, Cheng Lele’s male market was somewhat desolate. But thanks to Chen An, Cheng Lele had excellent relations with the girls. There were always girls experiencing their first awakening of love who liked to chat with Cheng Lele, using this to probe Chen An’s preferences. Cheng Lele called Chen An “Little Brother,” and the two also looked alike, so everyone thought they were cousins. Even the homeroom teacher mistakenly assumed the same.
“What does Chen An like?”
“He likes money.”
“It’s Chen An’s birthday—should we buy a gift together?”
“No need for such trouble, just give him money directly.”
The little girls repeatedly hit walls with Cheng Lele, but it wasn’t enough to dampen their spirits. Because Cheng Lele was also quite good at chatting, especially when promoting her idols—she was vivid and eloquent, very engaging. They came for Chen An, then left with a whole wall of idols, which could be said to be a full harvest.
Cheng Lele single-handedly raised the viewership ratings of that year’s “Happy Boys.”
It was also in this year that Chen Tao and Wang Liting were both successively transferred to work in the provincial capital. They planned to have Chen An go to the provincial capital the following school year, but Chen An had strong opinions. He used the promise of guaranteeing first place in the whole school to bargain for staying in Taixi to live alone. Actually, it wasn’t really living alone—Grandma Chen still lived in the complex, and besides, Cheng Dong and his family were right downstairs. Plus they would come back every weekend, so nothing major would go wrong. Chen An’s other reason for persuading his parents was also quite reasonable: while the educational resources in the provincial capital were certainly good, the growth environment was equally important. As dual-income workers, they didn’t have the energy to take care of and accompany Chen An. After mulling it over, they agreed.
At that time, the situation of left-behind children was very common, but common doesn’t necessarily mean correct. When a family gradually becomes accustomed to separation, it inevitably leads to the cooling of family affection. However, at that time, no one took this seriously.