0713: You who shine in the parallel world

After leaving the matchmaking noodle shop, Wang Yuexin was still chatting with her friends on her way to the last plot location, discussing how Xiaoyu, who had suffered setbacks in both love and career, would eventually pick herself up and start a new family.

“Sometimes life is like this. Even if you’re extremely unlucky, life will always go on. After going through all sorts of hardships and overcoming one difficulty…” Having lived two lives, Yu Yu had a very clear and open-minded view of these things. He paused deliberately at this point, then made a fist and pretended to hold a microphone to Su Xing’s mouth.

The tacit understanding built over twenty years allowed Su Xing to seamlessly follow up with her signature Su-style twist without a second thought: "There will be another hurdle."

"I really can't stand your toxic chicken soup anymore."

Wang Yuexin covered his ears to indicate that he didn't want to hear it. He was much more optimistic now. After getting through that ordeal, he had begun to enjoy his new life. His family and brothers were all there, and he knew that everything would get better. Even if there were other unpleasant things to come, could they be any worse than what happened a year or two ago?

Yu Yu smiled knowingly at him, stepped forward, put her arm around his shoulder, and led him to a door with a light on. As she pushed the door open, she said, "You don't have to believe me, Yuexin, look, the next challenge is here. But every challenge has a solution, so I've decided on you now, Liang-ge!"

Yu Yu pulled Wang Yuexin to the side to block the door, gesturing for Wang Zhengliang, who hadn't done the mission yet, to go in first.

"Brother Liang, keep going! Brother Liang, keep going!" Wang Yuexin clapped her hands and shouted the slogan.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yuan and Lu Hu joined in the shouting without saying a word, and it even sounded quite rhythmic.

Taunted by his four younger brothers, Wang Zhengliang reluctantly went into the room.

The room was a classroom. Judging from the age of Yu Yu's NPC friend, this flashback scene was definitely not about Xiao Yu's student days. It was more like a parent-teacher meeting at school. There was a chalk drawing on the blackboard, with the words "Holding the lamp to guide the way, nurturing dreams into light" written in yellow chalk.

"This is Weiwei's story." The background voice played at the opportune moment after the group of friends entered. "Weiwei's income isn't high; he works two jobs every day to support his family. Busy with work, he often neglects his family and children. Today is his child's first parent-teacher conference as he finishes fifth grade and enters sixth grade. It's also the first time Weiwei has had time to attend one. He's determined to do well and not let his child and wife down."

The background information is similar to that given in the previous six instances, and at first glance there seems to be no problem, but upon closer listening there are quite a few points worth considering.

The classroom is not large; at most, there are only twenty desks and chairs.

The background audio provides an introduction but the story doesn't begin, indicating that they haven't completed the prerequisite tasks.

As for what this prerequisite task is, it's easy to guess: it's a parent-teacher meeting, so the first thing you need to do is find your child's seat.

The seven people discussed it and decided to split up and search for clues on each table.

Yu Yu guessed that this preliminary task should not be difficult, after all, the background information provided was too little. They didn't even know what Xiao Wei's child's name was. If they simply judged the seats based on the things in the desks, then every desk had a certain possibility.

So, unsurprisingly, Weiwei's child's seat was the most special one.

It is known that Weiwei often works overtime, rarely pays attention to his family, and has never even attended a parent-teacher meeting before. His wife either raised the child alone in a marriage where she was essentially widowed, or she was also busy with work and left the child in the care of her elders.

Children raised in such an environment may only exhibit two extremes in terms of academic performance.

Yu Yu thought for a moment and decided to start looking from the last row. Unexpectedly, he actually guessed right.

"Hey guys, come over here and take a look." He waved to the others.

"Found it so quickly?" Wang Zhengliang, who was still looking at the second drawer, walked over with some surprise.

Upon seeing this table, he was slightly taken aback, and the expressions of the others were also somewhat puzzled.

The table was covered with blurry ink stains, as if someone had tried to wipe them off but couldn't, leaving only illegible marks, like quarantine stamps on pork—edible, but utterly repulsive.

Especially compared to the clean and tidy tables around it.

“No way…” Zhang Yuan sighed softly. He didn’t say the rest of his words aloud, but everyone else understood what he meant.

"There's something else in the table." Chen Chusheng didn't delve deeper into the topic. He frowned when he saw the drawer crammed full of things.

The drawer was filled with beverage bottles, cans, yogurt containers and other "trash". As props, they were actually quite clean, but in real life, the stickiness and grime would be secondary; the unpleasant smell would definitely attract a lot of insects to make their home inside.

There's a trash can right behind the desk. Why would the desk's owner put all that trash in the drawer?

Or, did he really put these in there himself?

No one said a word.

Land Rover noticed a faux leather briefcase with peeling leather next to the table leg. He picked it up and found a diary inside.

This is Weiwei's diary, and he is the signer on every page.

It records some of his daily work. Weiwei, who worked two jobs, did all manual labor. One job was as a temporary worker on a construction site, and the other was as a loader at a factory.

His wife argued with him more than once, accusing him of completely neglecting his family and children's studies, saying that he worked himself to the bone and earned less money than she did. But at Weiwei's age, it would be very difficult for him to find other jobs.

His wife had mentioned that their child's grades were not stable, but Weiwei didn't have time to care. He felt that it was good enough that the child was able to study, so he didn't pay attention to the child's silence and impatience when asked how he was doing at school.

The child said that his classmates were very kind to him and knew that his family was in difficulty, so they would often give him bottles and jars so that he could save them up and sell them for money.

His wife mocked him, saying that the money he earned from selling bottles couldn't even buy back a single day of his father's time. She accused him of being too young to focus on his studies and instead thinking about how to make money by collecting recyclables, implying that he might be eyeing some other child's toy. No wonder his grades were dropping.

"Why is she still putting so much pressure on her own child?" Land Rover muttered indignantly after reading the text. "The child is clearly acting strangely. The mother is strict, and the father doesn't care."

"Weiwei, how could you do this?" Zhang Yuan said this while looking at Wang Zhengliang.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not Wei’s dad yet,” Wang Zhengliang said. “Wei’s dad is only 42 years old, I’m a little older than him, so I should be the one with the big tail.”

Zhang Yuan: ?

"Fine, fine, you're the biggest, the most powerful." Wang Yuexin said dismissively, trying to quickly move past the tired trope.

But Wang Zhengliang's tired jokes kept coming, and he even started singing: "I used to sing whatever I wanted, like 'I'm the biggest tail'? Hey, look, I'm not off-key, because a big tail won't fall off, I'm big so I'm not off-key."

Caught off guard, Wang Yuexin could only wail in agony: "Ahhh, enough! Show your face!"

"Ouch, ouch!" Land Rover grimaced as he closed the diary.

"Stop! Stop! Parent, please stop your cheesy jokes, or I'll tell the teacher!" Su Xing quickly pulled out a chair and sat down. "Where's the teacher? Isn't it supposed to be a parent-teacher conference? Why isn't the teacher here yet?"

The background voice was from the Soft-Hearted God, who heard Su Xing's shout and responded a second later: "Parents, please return to your seats. Our parent-teacher meeting will begin soon."

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhengliang sat in that special seat, and the others quickly found seats near him and took their places.

After sitting down, Wang Zhengliang exclaimed in exaggerated surprise, "Wow, this is a magical seat! After sitting down, I feel like I've become a few years younger and turned back into Dad Wei!"

"...Brother Liang!"

This time, everyone couldn't help but protest and shouted, even the meme-wielding assassin Sheng Ge showed a wrinkled, disgusted expression that said, "I'm so sad to hear this."

To be fair, after Xiao Liang's series of cheesy jokes, the atmosphere in the classroom became more lively, and the temperature dropped a bit, adding a touch of coolness to the sweltering summer.

After the group of students settled down, the classroom door opened, and a middle-aged man and woman walked in. However, they weren't the homeroom teacher. They chatted and laughed as they walked over and sat down at the two desks in front of Wang Zhengliang; they seemed to be his parents as well.

The two parents have a good relationship. The lady is Guoguo's mom, and the gentleman is Xiaotang's dad. They are currently chatting about how their child received praise from the teacher in the parent group, and then they mentioned that the parent representative in their parent group had privately created a small group.

With Teacher's Day approaching, and considering how much effort Teacher Liu, the homeroom teacher, puts into the children's education, a parent representative suggested crowdfunding to buy her a designer handbag as a token of gratitude. The representative offered to help with the fundraising, with the other parents contributing only a small amount.

The parent representative is highly respected among the parents because his child is consistently ranked first in the grade, and he often shares his insights on raising children. He also mediates conflicts among parents in the class group chat, helping everyone a lot. Therefore, the parents in the group trust him and transfer money to him.

"Not everyone received it..." Guoguo's mother suddenly lowered her voice and said to Xiaotang's father, while gesturing behind her with her eyes.

Xiao Tang's father immediately understood. He turned around in his chair and extended his hand to Wang Zhengliang: "You must be Weiwei's father, right? This is the first time I've met you today. What a rare guest! For the past five years, it's always been your wife who has come to the parent-teacher conferences."

Wang Zhengliang shook hands with him politely: "Hello, hello. I've been very busy with work, so it's rare for me to take the time to participate."

"Weiwei's dad is so busy with work, he must be a big boss who runs a large business, right?" Guoguo's mom said with a smile. It was clearly a polite compliment, but for some reason, the brothers felt awkward and sarcastic about it.

"Nothing like that, it's just a small business," Wang Zhengliang said somewhat guiltily, since Weiwei's work had nothing to do with business.

"Hey, aren't you being modest?" Xiao Tang's dad chuckled. "You're so busy you don't even have time to check your phone, yet you call it a small business. But it's good that we're meeting now, so I can talk to you directly in person."

“Weiwei’s dad, we parents are usually busy with work and taking care of our families, so we can’t always be a little negligent. We rely on the teachers to help us middle-aged people with elderly parents and young children to keep an eye on our children’s studies. Teacher’s Day is coming soon, and we’re planning to buy a thank-you gift for our homeroom teacher, Xiao Liu. We’ve already given ours, and now we’re just missing yours.”

Wang Zhengliang, who has a daughter, naturally understood what was going on. It was common for parents to privately give teachers gifts and gift cards, so he readily nodded: "Sorry, I don't usually check the group messages (Yu Yu whispered to the Land Rover Cricket next to her: That's true, he doesn't call it checking, he's just secretly watching the screen without saying anything), I'll transfer whatever amount you want."

“Look, Tang’s dad, Weiwei’s dad is quite straightforward. Sigh, Weiwei’s dad, I’m a bit blunt, please don’t mind, you’re a good person, but your wife is a bit petty. She never cared about the crowdfunding before,” Guoguo’s mom complained.

Although he knew that the "wife" here was not the same as the one in the story, Wang Zhengliang immediately defended his "wife" by saying, "That's because when I'm busy with work, she takes care of the family by herself, so she always thinks more carefully when it comes to spending money."

"Guoguo's mom, don't talk nonsense. His wife is a really nice person." Xiao Tang's dad said a few words of support for Wang Zhengliang, "This crowdfunding is not much, only two thousand per family. For someone like you who runs a big business, this should be just a small amount of money."

Wang Zhengliang's smile froze, because he still remembered the salary records Weiwei had kept in his diary. Weiwei worked two jobs a month, and his average salary was only five thousand yuan.