Chapter 138 - Extras (1)
Heavy snow fell over the city. After a month of winter vacation that had pa.s.sed at a leisurely pace, the room next door started having the sound of speech that was neither loud nor soft at night.
Constantly feeling like there was some kind of situation in the hazy and late hours of the night, Kang Shengzhe’s father Kang Xueqing opened his eyes and turned on the bedside light. Nudging his wife, he whispered: “Hey, do you hear something.”
Because it was two o’ clock at night, he was initially reluctant to wake his wife up, but he did not expect that Shen Qin would suddenly turn her head around with rounded and wide eyes, causing him to choke on his breath in fright and come short of yelling.
“You, you haven’t slept yet?”
Shen Qin glanced at her husband who was slow to react, and said faintly: “Listen to this noise, how do you sleep?”
Kang Xueqing’s face scrunched and he did not speak. Truth to be told, the voice talking next door was not loud per se and it was not within the range that would affect a person’s sleep. However, as his parents, it was hard to ignore the fact that they were constantly hearing Kang Shengzhe speak to someone in the middle of the night.
Kang Xueqing counted with his fingers and told his wife: “Calling someone in the middle of the night, that has happened two to three times at least.”
Shen Qin remarked: “Two or three times?”
Her voice was calm and without fluctuations but Kang Xueqing could clearly hear the complaints his own wife had against him in her words. Uncertain, he said: “Five to six times?”
Shen Qin sighed: “Nine times, he’s on nine calls for late night calls alone, and during the day, he won’t even let go of his phone. You didn’t notice?”
He did not notice at all…
Kang Xueqing sniffed and said: “It’s not related to his live broadcasting?”
Shen Qin shook her head, “After live broadcasting for so long, when have you ever seen him being this invested?”
Undoubtedly, Kang Shengzhe was usually like a tortoise for the most part; if he did not have to move, he would not move, and besides the things he was interested in, he could not muster the slightest energy for the rest.
And now that they had reached this point, Kang Xueqing could not help but become solemn. He asked: “Is he in a relationship?”
Shen Qin said: “I’m not sure, but there’s an eighty percent probability.”
Kang Xueqing knitted his brows together. “You didn’t ask?”
Shen Qin: “He’s a young man above the age of twenty, how am I supposed to ask this as his mother?”
Kang Xueqing: “… You have a point.”
The air went quiet but the voice next door was still going. And while the person on the other side of the call could not be heard, Kang Shengzhe’s cheerful and light-hearted tone could still be perceived.
With how happy he sounded, trying to pa.s.s it off like there were no special circ.u.mstances going on was not an option.
Shen Qin said: “Why don’t you go and ask instead?”
Kang Xueqing said: “Me? This… this isn’t too ideal, he’s currently on the phone.”
Shen Qin replied, “Who said you have to do it now, you can ask tomorrow.”
Frankly, Kang Xueqing did not want to agree to it but under his wife’s coercion, he was completely powerless and he had no chance to reject it. Just as the pair settled the matter and lied back in bed, Kang Shengzhe’s laughter travelled towards them even though they were part.i.tioned by a wall.
Hahahahaha.
Kang Xueqing endured it time and time again before he could no longer take it as he said: “Who does this child even follow in terms of laughter, it’s so annoying.”
Kang Xueqing: “…What are you looking at me for.”
Shen Qin: “…..”
Shen Qin wanted to speak but she chose to stop herself. Instead, she uttered: “It’s nothing, let’s sleep.”
They slipped into slumber slowly and when they woke again, they greeted a new dawn.
Kang Xueqing and Shen Qin woke up at six in the morning on the regular; one was in the kitchen making breakfast while the other was in the living room reading the finance and economics newspaper. Not long after, breakfast was served to the table, and as they were chatting about daily trivialities, their eyes met and they both thought of Kang Shengzhe without prior agreement.
Shen Qin said: “Will you be finding the time today to talk to him?”
Kang Xueqing rarely communicated with his son on a daily basis, and now that the matter was placed in front of him, he kept wanting to push it back. “He’s sleeping now.”
“Ask him after he wakes up then.”
Kang Xueqing could not resist trying to find an excuse to reject it, but before he could voice it, Comrade Kang Shengzhe – a person who perpetually woke up after twelve – managed to climb out of bed in an unexpected and unprecedented feat. As he was on the phone, he was rushing to the bathroom to wash up.
From his tone of voice, it was apparent that he was excited and jumping for joy. He said: “I’m awake! Where are you, have you gotten off the plane, I’ll go and fetch you~~ It’s snowing outside, are you dressed warmly? I can bring you some heat packs~”
Kang Xueqing and Shen Qin exchanged looks silently. Silence reigned in the living room as the pair simultaneously perked their ears up only to hear Kang Shengzhe’s voice, once filled with pleasant surprise pause, before some shock seeped into it. “Yi? Is it convenient? Of course it’s convenient… you want to come to my house?”
Saying that, the voice in the bathroom gradually lowered. Meanwhile, Shen Qin and Kang Xueqing faced each other, and it was evident from their expressions that neither of them had expected that it would come so quickly.
This development, was it possible that…. Could it be that…
After roughly three minutes, a loud thud sounded as Kang Shengzhe pushed open the bathroom door and rushed out. His call had already been dropped but his entire body exuded an aura that conveyed his inability to restrain his happiness. He opened his mouth and asked: “Are you going out today?”
The answer went without saying; the fact that it was snowing outside need not be mentioned first, because even if it was not snowing, they would never choose to go out with what was happening next.
“Not going out.”
Pleased as punch, Kang Shengzhe said: “That’s good, I have a person I want to introduce to you.”
While Kang Xueqing and Shen Qin were calm on the surface, their hearts were pulsing with nervousness as they both thought internally: Once it was mentioned, it really arrived!
They were quite deep into their winter vacation now and to speak precisely, they were already near the end of the year at the present moment. Thus, wanting to introduce someone to their parents at this kind of time meant that the person bore a heavy significance. His parents adjusted their postures from their positions on the sofa, straightening out their clothes as they sat up properly. Although they were perfect aware, they still asked: “Oh? Cla.s.smate?”
Kang Shengzhe said: “Significant other.”
Saying that, Kang Shengzhe’s lips curled and he revealed an incomparably bashful smile because he truthfully could not contain his emotions. Just from his smile alone, it was obvious that he liked the person very much. In their shock, Kang Xueqing and Shen Qin directly jumped past the portion where parents were supposed to lament, and they asked: “Where is she right now?”
“At the airport, he’ll be here in a bit.”
That startled Shen Qin. “Airport? Wouldn’t she be here soon then? I don’t know if there’s still time to make some food, and the house only has some breakfast left…”
If it was under normal circ.u.mstances, it was more probable that Kang Shengzhe would say that they should go out to eat, but at the given moment, he was more anxious than Shen Qin, and he even made a show of being earnest as he said: “Then you should make some as soon as possible, don’t let him go hungry.”
Shen Qin wanted to laugh from his words. Following that, Kang Xueqing said: “Aren’t you going to fetch her on such a cold day?”
Kang Shengzhe said: “He doesn’t need me because he’s taking a car over. When he reaches the entrance of our small community, I’ll go and fetch him.”
However, because he was not aware that there was a discrepancy in the usage of their p.r.o.nouns, Kang Xueqing was extremely dissatisfied with the way his son was treating the girl. “When someone tells you’re not needed, you’re really not going to go? It’s freezing outside and she probably has to pull her luggage in this weather, are you certain you can cajole her later when she gets angry?”
Kang Shengzhe smiled: “He has never needed my cajoling. Furthermore, even if I went, he would still be the one pulling the luggage.”
Kang Xueqing’s visage twitched upon seeing Kang Shengzhe’s expression, immediately feeling a pain that came from knowing that the son he had raised for a full twenty years was unexpectedly a male chauvinist.
How could this be…
With his revolting behaviour, how did he manage to find a significant other??
However, he could care less about so many matters at the present moment. Ascertaining when his son’s ‘girlfriend’ would be arriving was the first and foremost question, and what followed after was an unending stream of questions that his parents had been holding back in their stomachs.
“How long has this been going on?”
Kang Shengzhe said: “For more than half a year.”
With how long that was, did it start during summer vacation? But during that time, Kang Shengzhe had been repeating his studies and he had just concluded his college entrance examinations. Could it be a cla.s.smate from his high school? But why didn’t they have a slightest impression of it?
“A schoolmate from university?”
“That’s right, he’s a Year Three, he’s two terms ahead of me.”
Turns out, it’s an older school sister. Kang Xueqing felt curious in his heart but he was too awkward to ask more. Although Shen Qin told her husband to ask, she could not stop herself from doing so when the actual event arrived. “What is she like?”
Kang Shengzhe was full of smiles, “He’s great, he’s good in every aspect, most of the people in the entire school like him. And later? All of them were slayed beneath my horse! Ah~ Feels good whenever I think about it.”
Amused by his antics, Shen Qin laughed. She hadn’t met the person yet but she had already fallen to one side after being infected by her son’s enthusiasm, and the forbearance she had towards meeting this ‘girlfriend’ rose in a vertical line.
When it came to falling in love, nothing was more important than her child’s happiness.
As they were talking about this topic, the family of three were happy and harmonious.
Kang Shengzhe unleashed his inner heart and praised You Liangxing for his attentiveness, all-roundedness and the lack of dead angles once.
“Liang Liang’s results are particularly good and it’s a lot better than mine, before he went on his internship, all his electives and compulsory courses would have an average score of ninety-five, and although he had no prior experience with roller-skating, he managed to snag an A+ after attending the physical education cla.s.s three times.”
“He also knows how to cook and the taste of it is superb, and whenever he’s not busy he frequently cooks for me. When I came back from my break, didn’t you realise that I was slightly fatter than before?”
“Furthermore, he’s also a man, I can even hold hands with him to go to restroom whenever my cla.s.s ends~”