Chapter 63 - Asked to stay behind by a teacher (3)
The unit next door has also been sold and was right now remodeling. Shu Yan took a peek from the patio and noticed that the owner planned to close off the patio. It so happened that the owner was there as well and smiled at Shu Yan when she saw her. “You are the owner next door? I didn’t see you here yesterday when I was over.”
“Yes. Hi. I wasn’t able to make it here yesterday. Why are you closing off your patio?” That was the patio for the second bedroom. It would kill off the light source after she had closed it off.
“Yeah, we have a lot of people in our household so we plan to close off the patio to add another room,” said the woman next door as she walked closer to Shu Yan. “My last name is Zhang, and I’m probably a few years older than you. If you don’t mind, you can call me Zhang-jie. How should I call you?”
“My name is Shu Yan; you can call me Xiao Yan.” Shu Yan was baffled. “If you wanted one more room, why not buy the 90 m2 unit?” It came with four rooms and no need to close off the patio.
“I have four kids, three daughters and a son. The son would take the second bedroom and we are going to convert this large room into three separate rooms for my three daughters. When all of my daughters are married off, we can knock out this room and turn it into a 3-bedroom apartment with living and dining rooms. It would make a good house for my son when he gets married.” Zhang-jie was smiling brightly as though she could already see the day that her son got married.
Shu Yan was speechless for a while. She had three daughters in a row and still insisted on going till she has a son. She was obviously the type who was crazy for sons. She wouldn’t be able to reason with someone like that. Plus, it was her personal business, so it wasn’t her place to comment.
“How many kids do you have, Xiao Yan?” Zhang-jie recollected herself and asked.
“I have two. Older one is a daughter and the younger one is a son.” Shu Yan smiled lightly.
“Oh, one of each. How perfect is that?” said Zhang-jie enviously.
“You are lucky too. You will have four kids helping you out later.” Shu Yan didn’t want to go on to talk about her husband and kids, so she looked for an excuse to go back inside the house.
All in all, Zhang-jie seemed pretty friendly. It’s better to have friendly neighbors than not-so-friendly neighbors. Shu Yan walked around one more time and went over to the salon.
Her hair was a bit curly naturally, so no matter what she did, it always seemed messy. Loose strands were all over her face, much like herself. It was sad to even look at them.
She found a decent-looking salon and went inside. “Do you do perming here?”
“Yes, what kind of perm?” asked the salon worker.
“I also want to cut my hair, to like here.” Shu Yan gestured with her hand and asked again, “Can you straighten them also?”
“Sure, but right now wavy hair is in. Look at all the actresses in movies from Hong Kong. All of them had big, wavy hair. It’s so pretty,” suggested the hair stylist as he took Shu Yan to the hair wash station.
“Not with my hair. Straightening would suffice.” Shu Yan knew her own hair quite well. Wavy hair was pretty. Problem was once she washed them at home, she’d look like she was struck by lightning after her hair dried. She wouldn’t even be able to tie them up into a ponytail.
“There’s no such thing as the wrong kind of hair, only hair stylists with poor techniques. Have you tried it before? Don’t worry. I will make you look pretty. I have been doing this for years. I guarantee it’d look good.” The hairstylist kept on going.
Shu Yan frowned. This was the reason she didn’t like going to a salon. She said in a point-blank way, “I just want my hair straightened. If you can’t do that, I can always go somewhere else.”
The stylist went quiet all of a sudden. But about a minute later, he started chatting Shu Yan up about other subjects like Where are you from? Are you married? What are you doing at City Nan?
Shu Yan, “……”
A few up and down with the scissors and the original owner’s hair that she had spent years keeping were cropped down to just below shoulder’s length, a medium short length. After they have been straightened along with Shu Yan’s current wide face, ummmmmm, it was quite ugly.
The hairstylist looked at Shu Yan sadly with a I-told-you-so-and-this-really-looked-bad look.
“Thank you. I am happy with it.” She was happy with the result of her hair being straightened. Her hair was now straight like steel.
She tied her hair up into a ponytail, and she looked much cleaner and her whole person appeared much livelier. Shu Yan paid and left.
Her hair was truly atrocious to straighten. What would take a normal person three hours took her at least five. She had missed lunch completely, so she just went home and had some rice with water. Half an hour later, she did burpees for 10 minutes before she showered, changed, and went to buy groceries. Then, it was about time to go pick up the kids.
Nothing happened with Ye Tianbao, but when she went to pick up Ye Jingjing, Shu Yan was asked to stay behind by a teacher.
Shu Yan had always expected this to happen one day, but she didn’t think it’d be over Ye Jingjing.