Chapter 54 - Why Er’jie Was Unhappy
Translator: Lav
Editor: Levs
Zhang Liangliang opened the door for Shi Lei unwillingly. She didn’t even greet him and walked into her room herself.
As soon as Shi Lei came in, he began to apologise and expressed that he didn’t know he had to come to tutor her. But Zhang Liangliang ignored her and Shi Lei felt very awkward.
She was probably still angry about yesterday. But Shi Lei couldn’t understand how he had p.i.s.sed off Zhang Liangliang.
Shi Lei let it go as he didn’t know what to do. He picked up a book and flipped through it, and suddenly remembered the questions he gave to Zhang Liangliang yesterday. This girl knew everything already, and she was even smarter than Shi Lei who struggled with his subjects. Shi Lei really didn’t know what else he could teach her.
Looks like he needed to talk to Zhang Meimei. He didn’t want to earn their money for no good reason. But Zhang Meimei shouldn’t care about this money as her purpose was to find someone to look after Zhang Liangliang for her.
“I’ll be honest. From the quiz I gave you yesterday, I don"t have much to teach you. All I can do is to supervise you finish your school work. What about this, after we finish today, I’ll talk to your mother about it because it’s unnecessary to continue the tutoring. You have no problems with your middle school work. The rest is your subjective initiative, and you need to change your att.i.tude yourself. What do you think?”
Shi Lei didn’t have any other ways but to say it to Zhang Liangliang like this. But he did not think that Zhang Liangliang would explode after he said this.
She stood up and yelled: “Fine, fine! You can all leave! I can do whatever I want! What tutor? I fought off a dozen of them this year anyways and you will be one of them! Just leave now if you don’t want to take care of me, don’t wait till next time! Didn’t you come for the tutor fee? Today’s pay, 120 yuan, take it!” Zhang Liangliang pulled out all the money in her pocket which were more than 120 yuan, and threw them in Shi Lei’s face.
Paper notes fell down in the air. Shi Lei didn’t know where he had offended her again.
“Leave! What are you doing here? You didn’t want to come next week after today anyways! Leave now! I don’t want to see you!” Zhang Liangliang shouted and she was choking on sobs.
Shi Lei suddenly understood why Zhang Liangliang was like this. The reason she seemed to be so rebellious before was due to lack of family warmth, and she fought all the tutors away. Maybe he really was different those tutors from before. At least Zhang Liangliang did not reject him but was willing to hang out with him. Now that Shi Lei suddenly told Zhang Liangliang that he wanted to talk about this with her mother, it made Zhang Liangliang feel abandoned.
Seeing that Zhang Liangliang was rather overwhelmed, Shi Lei didn’t know how to deal with it and he could only wait for her to calm down.
Tears rolled down Zhang Liangliang’s cheeks. She stopped wearing heavy smoky makeup and she seemed delicate and charming. Shi Lei was soft hearted; he took some tissue from the table and pa.s.sed it to her.
Zhang Liangliang slapped his hands away and yelled: “Stop pretending to care for me! Leave! I don’t need your care! I’m fine on my own!”
Shi Lei sighed and shoved the tissues forcefully into her hands. He spoke as slowly as possible: “First, your nature isn’t bad and you are smart. You can cope with your studies if you just paid a little attention to it. I think your mother would also understand this point, so all she asked of me was to accompany you for a few hours to hang out with your shady friends because something might happen sooner or later.”
“That’s none of your business, I can be together with whoever I want!” Zhang Liangliang wiped her tears and threw the wet issue at Shi Lei harshly.
Shi Lei ignored her and continued: “Then, you are at a rebellious age right now. You may think that your mother pays too little attention to you, and you are trying to catch her attention like this. But, your mother is raising you alone. The first thing she has to make sure is the quality of your life. A woman fighting in the workplace is not easy, plus she’s a lawyer so naturally she’s busy. You are still young and you may not understand that. But when you become a parent yourself, you would be able to understand your mother’s difficulties!”
“I’m not a kid anymore, I’ve grown up, all of you treat me as a kid! Plus, you are only a student yourself too. Just because I call you dashu, do you really see yourself as one? Even if I don’t understand my Mum’s difficulties, do you? What do you know?”
Although Zhang Liangliang was still growling, but at least she was following Shi Lei’s train of thoughts and they could communicate.
Shi Lei held his temper and said: “You are right. I’m only a few years older than you. But I’m a university student and I have experience of living on my own. Especially that my parents are just normal employees and my background isn’t as wealthy as yours, so I can understand their difficulties better. It’s not that your mother doesn’t care about you, but she can’t do anything about it because if she doesn’t try this hard to work, how can she make sure of your quality of life? You are only in middle school right now. After you go into high school, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the school fees or your living expenses, it will increase noticeably. After you go into university, the tuition fees are a few 10,000 yuan a year. You don’t think about it when you spend money, but do you know how much effort your mother put in on work to make sure you have this money to spend?”
“Money, money, money, all you know is money! Yesterday was the same, we were only eating and you just had to talk about money to me. Fine, I don’t know how hard it is to earn money, but she only knows to give me money, what can I do? If I don’t spend her money, would she stay and home and not go to work?”
Shi Lei was blank for a second and realised why Zhang Liangliang was angry at him yesterday.
Shi Lei didn’t know how Zhang Meimei usually communicates with Zhang Liangliang, but obviously, it was not very good, or no effective communication at all. Her career was too inflexible as if anything can become a part of a contract, so the only way to give Zhang Liangliang attention was to materialistically satisfy her. At the same time, she felt guilty about it and hence, she would try to satisfy Zhang Liangliang with more material things.
This made Zhang Liangliang not see money as anything important as her mother can afford it. Except, Zhang Meimei ignored that all Zhang Liangliang needed was some time with her, eat with her, give her a small present, and not chuck her a bunch of paper notes and tell her to buy whatever she wanted to buy.
Shi Lei laughed in self-mockery and said: “My family background is very ordinary so I’m sensitive to money. I’ve never had a buffet of a thousand yuan before. I apologise for yesterday; it was my fault. I spent the money anyways, I should’ve treated it more seriously and not mention the price to you.”
Zhang Liangliang’s eyelashes were all tainted with tears. She looked at Shi Lei with eyes half-opened as she did not think that Shi Lei would apologise to her.
“I didn’t understand why you were so angry yesterday and I finally know now. Mhm, I should’ve ate with you happily and not discuss about the price non-stop. But the price was really high, if there’s another chance, let’s find a cheaper place, ok?”
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