Rebirth 08: A Happy Life Begins in Elementary School

Chen Nian was a bit conflicted.

He knew Li Zhao really liked CrossFire; he played a game at his house during winter break and talked about it for a long time afterward.

He knew that Li Zhao's family was very strict, and even eating a grilled sausage was so difficult; if his family found out he was going to internet cafes...

Chen Nian couldn't imagine it.

However, since Li Zhao rarely made such a request, Chen Nian found it difficult to refuse.

Leading your brothers to do bad things has a fatal attraction.

But then I think about how Li Zhao might become a teenager addicted to the internet, be taken on legal programs by his parents, and then cry in a juvenile detention center accusing Chen Nian of ruining his son...

Chen Nian was a little nervous.

Then I thought that maybe Li Zhao was particularly good at the game, which led to a large crowd gathering that day, and then the boss discovered they were elementary school students, called the police, and had them arrested...

Chen Nian became even more nervous.

Old Wine is more than just a little conflicted.

On the other side, Li Zhao slowly walked back to the downstairs of his house.

The residential buildings, built in the 1980s and 90s, have gray slate exterior walls and protruding wire window frames in every house. If someone waters a flower upstairs, the tin window awning downstairs can create a symphony.

Li Zhao still remembers how much he longed for those high-rise residential buildings at that time.

Once they actually moved in, they started complaining about the pigeon coop.

Li Zhao sighed and began climbing the damned eight flights of stairs.

The stairs were very dusty, the handrails were rusted, and every step echoed. Reaching the eighth floor was a really unpleasant experience.

School ends early on Friday, and Li Zhao's parents haven't come home yet. Li Zhao takes out his key from his schoolbag and opens the door.

The house is very quiet.

Li Zhao put his schoolbag back in his room and saw a Swiss roll on the kitchen table.

These are the snacks Zhou Xiaoyun prepared for him.

Li Zhao took the Swiss roll and sat down on the mahogany sofa in the living room, pouring some hot water from a thermos with a cork stopper.

It brought back the habit of drinking hot water after having stomach problems in my past life...

He took a bite of the Swiss roll, and a pure, ordinary cake flavor filled his mouth.

It tastes very familiar. At this point, almost all cakes taste the same; the Swiss roll is just a different shape.

Later, various creams were added to this thing, and it became a bourgeois dessert to accompany coffee—that might be the original form of the Swiss roll.

The flavor he described was named "old-fashioned flavor".

Li Zhao looked around his home.

The television had a large back and a glass screen that made a clear, ringing sound when tapped. Li Zhao wasn't allowed to watch television, and right now the television cables had been unplugged and hidden away.

But Li Zhao knew it was hidden in the TV cabinet, which was taller than the desk.

He's been outsmarting Zhou Xiaoyun for years in order to secretly watch TV.

From the TV getting hot, to static electricity on the screen, to the channels and volume being turned on, it eventually escalated to the wires being wrapped around several loops...

On the coffee table in the right corner, there is a red landline telephone.

Ten years later, the new generation who grew up playing with smartphones no longer understand why the call button icon is an earpiece, while Li Zhao in 08 still had to memorize phone numbers to call his classmates.

Hey, what's Chen Nian's phone number again?

Li Zhao walked into the kitchen and discovered that there was even a water tank in the house, covered with tiles and embedded under the countertop.

This was almost entirely absent from his memory.

His cramped room, besides containing a bed and a table, also served as a storage space for miscellaneous items and a place to dry clothes.

Whenever it rains, he has to rush back to his room, grab the clothes hanging outside the window, and hang them on the wire in his room.

Later, they were all handed over to the drying machine.

In his past life, he saw a novel about rebirth set in 08, and he was still complaining that his sixth grade year of elementary school had become a "remembered era" in other people's eyes.

Looking back now, it's like the old-fashioned cake in my mouth; all of this that I took for granted in sixth grade is now a long, long time ago.

Li Zhao's generation was truly a pivotal one, bridging the past and the future.

When Zhou Xiaoyun got home from get off work, the first thing she did was touch the TV. She found that it wasn't hot and there was no static electricity. Slightly puzzled, she walked into the kitchen and immediately saw Li Zhao flipping through a newspaper in the room.

"Zhao, why are you reading the newspaper?"

"Mom, you're back! I found this while tidying up the bookshelf, just browsing."

"Why don't you do your homework first?"

"Finished writing."

"oh."

Zhou Xiaoyun was about to cook, but decided to wash her face first.

Something's not right with this son. He usually sneaks a peek at TV when he comes home early on Fridays, but he didn't. He's not only not watching TV, but he's also not closing the door in his room and is reading the newspaper. He even said he's finished his homework?!

Did the divorce scare you so much that you suddenly matured?

When Li Changlin returned home, dinner was almost ready. Li Zhao, with a slightly worried expression, took the initiative to sit at the dinner table.

Zhou Xiaoyun didn't even have time to urge her.

Seeing Li Zhao's preoccupied expression during the meal, the two tentatively asked, "Son, did you not do well on your English test today?"

"No, the test was quite easy."

"What's wrong with you?"

The newspaper is terrible.

The big news was too big, and the small news was too trivial. I flipped through three newspapers but couldn't find a single piece of useful information.

It's one thing if the news articles are bad, but the editorials are even worse, with no depth whatsoever.

To put it more seriously, even his buttocks might be crooked.

"Mom and Dad, I want to watch the news tonight."

Zhou Xiaoyun never expected this response and instinctively wanted to refuse, but Li Changlin beat her to it: "Sure, let's watch some together after we've eaten."

The children wanted to watch the evening news, so how could they refuse?

So at seven o'clock, Zhou Xiaoyun didn't even wash the dishes. The three of them sat on the sofa and turned on CCTV-1 right on time.

They didn't believe Li Zhao was really going to watch the news; they were waiting to see how long he would keep up the act and when he would say, "Hey, you've already watched it, let me watch some cartoons."

As a result, Li Zhao stared intently at it for half an hour.

National fiscal revenue... foreign exchange reserves exceeded... both reached new highs...

Promote the "Home Appliances to the Countryside" program and increase subsidies for farmers and low-income urban residents...

A new president has been elected in a major northern country.

What are the top leaders doing in the familiar ten minutes? What achievements have we made in the ten minutes? Five minutes of domestic happiness and well-being, and five minutes of foreign people suffering in dire straits.

It's meaningless.

For Li Zhao, the information was still almost non-existent.

I definitely still need a computer; the internet is truly a wonderful thing.

Zhou Xiaoyun hesitated for half an hour, knowing that the children's channel was about to broadcast cartoons. She was just about to intercept and send a message when she saw Li Zhao get up decisively and walk directly into the room.

Zhou Xiaoyun and Li Changlin looked at each other, feeling utterly confused.

A sense of shame.

This is judging one's son by one's own petty standards.

Back in his room, Li Zhao sat at his desk, momentarily at a loss for what to do.

Without smartphones and computers, social interaction has been forced to cool down, and information input has been interrupted. If we don't do something, time really drags on.

He then saw the newspaper lying on the table, and on a whim, he took out his composition book.

Li Zhao had done things like writing editorials before in his previous life.

He even gave two lectures at Linjiang University.

He can now not only see the social problems of 08, but also "predict" the social development and existing problems of the next twenty years.

The editorial circles of Linjiang are about to welcome their strictest father.

Meanwhile, Huang Keyun, having finished her gathering with friends, returned home carrying a bag of exam papers.

It was called a gathering, but it was actually her venting session. She poured out all the frustrations and disappointments of the past year or two, which made her feel much better.

The price was that she paid for the meal.

The exam was on Friday, and the review session is next Tuesday, so she didn't really need to bring the exam paper home to work overtime.

But because of Li Zhao's exam paper that she finished early, she had a little bit of expectation in her heart that she didn't want to admit.

Li Zhao was, after all, just a kid whose average English score wasn't high enough to get into the preliminary training class.

"I'll change it after I take a shower," Huang Keyun muttered to herself as she sat on the sofa. "I've already brought it back."