Rebooting 60, let's go on a rampage with the orange cat!

Shi Huai'an unlocked the front door, feeling as if a pair of eyes were watching her intently from behind. She turned around sharply to look around, but found nothing. She was puzzled; was it just her imagination...?

Just as Huai'an was about to close the door, a streak of orange lightning suddenly 'whooshed' into the room. Fat orange dog "Duoduo" had already jumped onto the table, looking at Huai'an with a mischievous expression.

Huai'an breathed a sigh of relief. So it was these guys!

Outside, five or six stray cats of various colors were crouching, including calico, tabby, and black cats. Each of them stared into the house with their round, green eyes, meowing loudly, which looked very eerie, as if they were gathering in front of their parents to complain.

This startled Shi Huai'an quite a bit. Her eyes widened, and she involuntarily took a few steps back, exclaiming softly, "What's going on? Did you steal their food and get chased by these cats?" After all, Fatty Orange had a history of such behavior.

The chubby orange cat, 'Dodo,' explained helplessly, 'Meow~ These are all my newly acquired little brothers! I'm helpless too, they insist on following me, and if I don't accept them, they'll fight me to the death...'

Upon hearing this, Shi Huai'an was stunned and speechless. He couldn't help but marvel at how charming this fat orange cat was, attracting so many stray cats to follow it.

But Huai'an knew this couldn't go on, so he teased Fatty Orange and ordered, "Duo Duo~ I bet you lured them here with dried fish, right? Okay, you're something else! Make them scatter, they're attracting too much attention, it's not good..."

The chubby orange cat, "Duoduo," meowed once, already understanding Shi Huai'an's meaning, and stretched its neck towards the outside, barking several times.

Upon hearing the sound, the stray cats outside stood up as if they had received some kind of promise, then swooped away and vanished without a trace.

Shi Huai'an quickly moved all the books inside, then closed the door and patiently advised the chubby orange cat 'Duo Duo': "Don't be so blatant. You need to be more discreet, okay? Be careful, the cat that sticks its head out gets shot!"

The chubby orange cat was tired. It sat cross-legged on the chair with its eyes half-closed, only occasionally wagging its tail in response to Huai'an.

Huai'an rubbed his rumbling stomach and said, "I'm hungry, what do you want to eat?"

Fat Orange immediately meowed and flashed into the space. Huai'an followed and ate a box of durian-flavored pizza. Duoduo also ate freeze-dried food and canned fish, then lay down with its round belly rubbing and legs spread wide.

Huai'an said disdainfully, "Can't you pay attention to your image? How are you going to find a wife like this?"

"Meow~ I'm still a little kid who doesn't know any better~" The chubby orange cat hid away shyly.

Huai'an couldn't help but laugh, thinking of going back to the room to read. The light was too dim, and the flickering kerosene lamp was not good for the eyes. The room was very bright, though. It would be nice if there was a study here.

She simply sat down on the floor of the space and began reviewing the "Elementary School Review Outline," starting with the easy parts. She desperately needed points to pay off her debts and also urgently needed to improve her intelligence. Although her physical strength had increased by two points, she didn't notice anything particularly different about it. She didn't find anything different about her body, but what about her intelligence? She felt that her memory seemed to have improved a little. Before, she was always forgetting things and had difficulty concentrating.

Huai'an found some classical Chinese poems and prose, and after reciting them a few times, she could memorize them, which was almost impossible before. It seems that the 10-point increase in intelligence is quite noticeable. She briefly reviewed the Chinese texts and then skipped over them. After all, it was elementary school, and the textbooks used to be relatively simple. She already had a certain knowledge base; she loved reading books and newspapers in her previous life, and after getting a mobile phone, she had read a lot of novels. Her Chinese level should be at least at the junior high school level.

She focused on reviewing the fourth-grade math curriculum and found that it was quite easy for her. In her previous life, she had worked as a saleswoman and was very skilled with the abacus. Although calculators were more convenient and faster later on, she still retained the habit of mental arithmetic using the abacus.

Moreover, this was elementary school content, not as insane as the Olympiad math of later generations. But in order to improve his progress, Shi Huai'an still carefully browsed through it once, and did a few advanced math problems to practice. He was quite interested, so he looked at some more difficult problems and understood the basic formulas.

Fat Orange had curled up into a ball next to her again, snoring and sleeping soundly.

The walls of the space faintly displayed glowing electronic time numbers. In the blink of an eye, it was four o'clock in the afternoon. Shi Huai'an stretched and took Fatty Orange back to the house.

She checked the time and realized it was almost time, so she prepared to cook rice. To save time, she simply cut a sausage and placed it on top of the rice to steam together.

But Huai'an found that the stove was out and cold. It turned out that she had been so busy today that she forgot about the stove and hadn't turned it on at noon, so the coal briquettes in the stove had burned out all day.

In the city, coal stoves are still used. Usually, only a small hole is left in the stove door to keep a small fire burning. The fire is kept burning by replacing a coal briquette every 8 hours, otherwise the stove will easily go out. In the countryside, firewood is used. In the city, space is small, it is inconvenient to buy and store firewood, and the smoke is choking. Therefore, most city dwellers now use coal stoves.

This is quite troublesome for a child. Although Shi Huai'an looks like a child, he acts like an adult. He remains calm and composed when faced with problems.

She opened the furnace door below and used her long iron tongs to pick out the extinguished, whitish coal briquettes. These small coal briquettes are called honeycomb briquettes, with 12 holes arranged in the middle. This makes them easy to pick up with tongs and also increases the contact area between the coal and oxygen, thereby promoting combustion efficiency.

It's still quite heavy for an 8-year-old child to be holding a lump of black coal with iron tongs.

However, Shi Huai'an did not feel it was heavy, probably because his physical strength had been increased by two points by the system, and his strength had increased.

She easily picked up a new black coal briquette with the tongs, took out a gas igniter from her spatial storage, and the nozzle of the igniter immediately shot out a blue flame, which soon ignited the black coal briquette. The black coal briquette burned from the bottom up and turned bright red.

Huai'an placed the burnt coal briquettes on the iron rack at the bottom of the furnace passage, then put the igniter back into the space. He then replaced them with two new black coal briquettes, overlapping the burning ones. Most importantly, the holes in the three overlapping coal briquettes had to be aligned and connected. If the flames inside the holes could circulate, they would burn brightly; otherwise, the fire wouldn't start.

She waited for the new coal briquettes to burn again before putting the rice cooker with the rinsed rice back on the stove.

Leave the others for now. If they become too capable all at once, it will be too conspicuous. After all, Huai'an is still an 8-year-old child. We can't expect him to become a completely different person right after falling into the water, even though children of this age here can all cook.

Inside the room was an old-fashioned grandfather clock, its round pendulum swinging rhythmically, making a ticking sound. Huai'an glanced at it and saw that it was almost five in the afternoon; her parents would be home soon. She instructed Fatty Orange 'Duoduo', "Whatever you do, don't pee on the coal ash. The smell is unbearable. You're not allowed to poop or pee in the room, understand?"

Dodo jumped onto the roof beam, looking wronged. "Meow meow~ You're wronging me~ Humph! I'm a chubby orange cat, not a stinky one. Don't you like me anymore? I'm the cleanest baby ever~"

Huai'an rubbed his forehead, looking exasperated, and said, "Duoduo, you've changed. Are you still the chubby orange I know...? Oh well... actually, 'stinky orange' is quite fitting too..."

Shi Huai'an piled the borrowed textbooks and the three books issued by the system onto a wooden shelf, and then climbed up to the attic to tidy up. Although the attic was not high, she was still tall enough to live there. Even if she slept on a tatami mat on the floor in the attic, it would be better than squeezing into her parents' room.

Even at only eight years old, I'm somewhat sensible. It's already inappropriate for me to be in the way of my parents in their room; how much more so for someone with the mind of an adult inside me? I absolutely cannot tolerate such erotic scenes!

Fat Orange loved watching Huai'an tidy up, and it would jump around busily helping out. Then Huai'an remembered something and said to Fat Orange, "Duo Duo, you have to do a good job of security. There can't be any mice in this house, okay?"

The chubby orange cat raised its head arrogantly, stretched out its little paws, and said like a beckoning cat, "Meow~ Little mouse, take this~"

Just as I feared, a little mouse emerged from the clutter in the attic, squeaking. Its bright black eyes darted around, and when it saw the fat orange cat, both of them froze. The fat orange cat was furious; it could no longer tolerate this. With a meow, it pounced on the little mouse, who scurried downstairs in fright.

One chased, the other hid; a cat-and-mouse battle was about to erupt. Huai'an also cried out in surprise and took a few steps back.

Just then, the downstairs door opened, and the mouse scurried past the feet of the people entering. Mr. and Mrs. Shi Renmei happened to stop the fat orange cat, and Xiuzhi exclaimed in surprise, "Huh! How did an orange cat get into our house?"

The chubby orange cat had already hidden behind Shi Huai'an. As Huai'an went down the stairs, he said, "Mom, this is a stray cat I picked up outside today. Please let it stay and keep me company..."

Wang Xiuzhi hesitated and said, "Oh, whatever you want. This orange cat is quite fat. I really don't know what it eats to get so fat. It's obviously a glutton."

Fat Orange looked angry and turned its back to Xiuzhi, not wanting to talk to her. Huai'an smiled, picked up Fat Orange, and hugged it, saying, "From now on, you can call it Duoduo. It's very well-behaved and can find its own food. We don't need to take care of it."

Fat Orange buried its fluffy head in Huai'an's arms, looking weak, pitiful, and wronged.

Xiuzhi couldn't help but reach out and pat Duoduo's head, saying, "So chubby and cute!"

Duo Duo stared at Lan Yingying's round eyes and shyly meowed. Xiu Zhi couldn't help but want to hug her.

Shi Renmei put down the net bag in her hand and walked curiously to the table. Pointing to the large pile of apples, canned goods, malted milk powder, meat, sausages and other food on the table, she asked, "An'an, where did all this come from? Who came to our house?"

Shi Huai'an had already prepared his speech in his mind, and said in a serious tone: "An aunt surnamed He came over at noon today. She said she was your friend and came to see me after hearing that I had fallen into the water."

Upon hearing this, Shi Renmei and Wang Xiuzhi exchanged a glance, immediately guessing it was He Shuyi. Who else could it be? Who else would care about Huai'an like this?

Wang Xiuzhi feigned composure, then asked suspiciously, "Is that Sister He? Did she say anything else? Why did she bring so much stuff? Isn't that too much?"

Shi Huai'an thought seriously, "She said she was relieved to see I was alright, and she told me not to let you go to her, and not to tell anyone that she had been here, as if someone in her family was being investigated by her workplace... She also said... something about... just pretending not to know her, pretending she never came... something like that. It's so strange, it feels weird... like she's afraid of being discovered by others, it's so weird!"

Huai'an glanced at her parents' solemn expressions and said, "I don't know why she said that? She said you'd understand! Mom, this aunt is so strange. Have I seen her before? But I can't remember. And she kept telling me to accept the gifts, that it was her way of showing her appreciation, and that you'd worked hard! She also told me not to go to her house, and not to mention this matter at all. If we run into her, we should pretend nothing happened..."

Huai'an was worried that if his parents took the things back to their birth mother, the truth would be exposed, so he deliberately kept saying this while pretending to be confused.

Wang Xiuzhi looked at Shi Renmei again. Neither of them spoke, but they believed Huai'an's words. She thought to herself: He Shuyi must be worried about Huai'an's safety. What parent wouldn't be anxious if their own daughter fell into the river? They've kept their promise for so many years and never visited Huai'an. She thought they were cold-blooded, but they've always cared for her. This time, after Huai'an fell into the water, they must feel guilty and remorseful, which is why they bought so many things. These things are all scarce and hard to find, requiring both ration coupons and money. She still feels sorry for this sixth daughter, but her family's situation is special, and she doesn't want outsiders to know, much less implicate them.

Sighing inwardly, Wang Xiuzhi wondered if she had been too selfish. For so many years, although the two families weren't far apart, they had never interacted, nor had she taken Huai'an to visit his birth mother. But who would want their child, whom they raised, to recognize someone else as their biological mother? Wouldn't all her years of effort have been wasted?

Wang Xiuzhi couldn't help but hug Huai'an and say, "Aunt He likes you very much. She even held you when you were little. She'll take you to her house to play sometime. Did she... say anything else?"

Huai'an shook her head and said, "That's all. She put down her things, said these nonsensical things, and left." Then she said smugly, "Anyway, you didn't return the food. I ate an apple and even steamed some sausage on top of the rice. Didn't you smell the aroma? It smelled so good!"

Wang Xiuzhi and the other woman then realized what was happening and said, "Oh, we can definitely smell the aroma of sausage! I thought it was coming from someone else's house. My Huai'an is so capable; he even knew to steam the rice in advance!"

Xiuzhi also got busy in the kitchen, chopping a large bowl of cabbage to stir-fry.

Shi Huai'an quickly introduced a large pile of borrowed books to his father, saying, "I learned a lot of pinyin and Chinese characters today, and I also learned addition and subtraction." Then he took out his first-grade textbook and read the words to his father one by one.

Shi Renmei was surprised that his daughter was so smart and had learned so many words so quickly. He didn't know why, but he felt that his daughter was smart and good at reading. It was probably because of the strong genes of the Li family. After all, all the children in the Li family were talented, smart and eager to learn.

Shi Renmei flipped to "Basic Theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine" and "Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica" and asked, "Whose books are these? Where did they come from? They look quite new!"

Huai'an, without blushing or skipping a beat, said shamelessly, "This? I found it in the junk that Grandpa Wang threw outside today. He saw that I liked it, so he gave it to me."

When you tell a lie so many times, you start to believe it yourself. Huai'an touched his nose, always worried that it was going to grow longer.

Shi Renmei nodded, feeling that something was off about today, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

He then looked at the fat orange cat, which, in a time when most people and animals are thin and malnourished, appeared to be overnourished and a bit too greasy.

The chubby orange cat lowered its head guiltily, avoiding his gaze. Shi Renmei was even more puzzled. Why did this chubby orange cat seem so intelligent, as if it had completely understood his thoughts? He gasped, unable to pinpoint what was wrong...

It was unusual for He Shuyi to buy so many things on her very first visit, but it was still somewhat plausible. However, Huai'an seemed a little different than usual. Had something happened during the day that they didn't know about?

Wang Xiuzhi brought the food to the table, interrupting his thoughts. "Forget it, I'm too lazy to think about it. No matter how different they are, she's still my daughter. Why worry so much? Let's eat. This sausage and rice is so delicious..."