So, in the Xu Family before Xu Su came along, the unspoken rule was that Xu Yang ate the lean meat, while Xu Weiping and his wife ate the fatty parts.
After dinner, Xu Su was about to clear the dishes when Chen Shulan stopped her. "Today, I asked a colleague what you'll need for military training. Her son started high school last year. We'll use my lunch break to go buy what you need. You can wash the bowls when we get back."
This time, the mother-daughter pair rode a bicycle whose frame was covered in rust spots. The bike had been in service with the Xu Family for several years; in her previous life, Xu Su had initially ridden this very bike to and from school.
This lasted until the second semester of her first year of high school, when her family moved into a new house. Zhou Mochen lived across the street from the Xu Family, and over time, they became acquainted. He claimed that he liked to wake up early every day to exercise in Nanhu Park, which was right next to City No.1 High School, and that in the evening, he just so happened to pass her school on his way home from work, making it perfectly convenient to give her a ride.
Back then, Zhou Mochen was a grown-up in Xu Su's eyes. How could she ever suspect that this 'adult,' a university graduate, would have those kinds of feelings for her? She was just secretly happy that she no longer had to suffer through the grueling bike ride to school.
Thinking back on it now, Xu Su had to hand it to him. Throughout her three grueling years of high school, rising early and returning late, Zhou Mochen had astonishingly given her a ride every single day for nearly two and a half years. She had no idea when his motives had become impure.
Once at the supermarket, Chen Shulan purposefully bought a bottle of floral water mosquito repellent, a box of mosquito coils, a small bottle of shampoo, and a tube of toothpaste.
"We have soap, a towel, a water cup, toilet paper, and a toothbrush at home. You can just take those with you." Chen Shulan glanced at her daughter, who was following her, and asked, "Do you see anything else you need to buy?"
Xu Su thought for a moment, then walked to the aisle with feminine hygiene products and picked up two packs of a budget-brand of sanitary pads. "This should be enough. I can't think of anything else I might need right now."
In that era, the concept of using sunscreen hadn't yet reached ordinary families, so Xu Su didn't even bother mentioning it.
Chen Shulan nodded. "Remember to bring back anything you don't finish using. We can still use it at home."
They also went to the vegetable section to pick out some discounted produce that would last a while. In total, they spent a little over thirty yuan. After paying, Xu Su sat on the back, holding the shopping bag, as Chen Shulan pedaled them home.
Chen Shulan was in a rush to get back to work and didn't have time to go all the way home, so she dropped Xu Su off at the entrance to their alley and let her walk the rest of the way.
Carrying the shopping bags on her way back, Xu Su passed a barbershop and stopped in her tracks.
She suddenly recalled an exchange from a business interview with Zhou Mochen in her past life. The host had asked him what he looked for in a future partner. No one expected that this man—with his elegant, aloof exterior, the very image of a remote, unattainable flower on a high peak—would give such a shockingly unrefined answer.
His answer was just six words long: "Fair skin, big eyes, long hair."
Xu Su was born with fair, cool-toned skin, the kind graciously blessed by nature to barely tan. She couldn't change that. As for her eyes, well, she wasn't about to gouge them out. The only thing left that she could change was her long hair.
She remembered that military training at City No.1 High School didn't require female students to cut their hair short. But that was fine. She could require it of herself.
Xu Su sat in the salon chair, glanced at a middle-aged man with a fresh buzz cut who was just walking out the door, and said to the young stylist standing behind her, "Give me a cut just like his."
The stylist was young and looked like he'd only been in the business for a few years. In all his professional experience, this was likely the first time he'd ever had a female client make such a request.
He frowned in astonishment. "A pretty young lady like you, why would you want a man's haircut? If I do it, you'll probably end up crying, and your parents will blame me."
He refused to take her business, no matter what.
Xu Su tried to reason with him a bit more, but seeing he was truly reluctant, she said with resignation, "I have military training in a few days. If you won't give me a buzz cut, you can at least cut it really short, can't you?"
The mention of military training made it all click for the stylist. He explained knowingly that while some schools required students to get their hair cut shorter for training, none were so twisted as to force girls to get buzz cuts. He cut hair for plenty of female students heading to military training every year.
In the end, at Xu Su's insistence, he gave her a boy's cut that wasn't much longer than the buzz cut favored by middle-aged men.
Having lived two lives, this was the first time she had ever cut her hair so short. Staring at the short-haired girl in the mirror, Xu Su resignedly came to a realization: something that had been a popular saying online for a while in her previous life was actually true.
A good-looking person will look good even with a shaved head.
Amidst a torrent of effusive compliments from the young stylist, Xu Su paid her bill, grabbed her things, and left without a backward glance.
'Didn't Zhou Mochen like girls with long hair? Now that my hair is this short, even if we accidentally meet, he probably won't be interested in this tomboy version of me, right?'
As soon as she got home, Xu Su washed the dishes, then took a shower to rinse the stray bits of hair from her neck.
She paid no mind to Xu Yang, who was eating snacks on the sofa, and went into her room to start reciting her texts. She had spent all of yesterday and today drilling middle school math problems and had already reawakened most of her knowledge on the subject. Grinding more problems wouldn't help much more, so she figured she might as well start on Chinese.
School was about to start, and she had no time to waste. She never wanted to repeat the regret of having to move her desk out of the advanced class.
When Chen Shulan got home that evening, she was startled. "Why did you cut your hair?"
"I'd heard from a classmate that we have to cut our hair short for military training. I saw a barbershop on the way home today, so I just went and got it cut."
Chen Shulan sized her up for a moment, then praised, "It looks good short, too. Your skin is so fair, and you're so pretty. Your dad told me his grandmother was a real beauty in her youth. Maybe you take after your great-grandmother?"
Chen Shulan was extremely proud of having given birth to such a great beauty. Regardless of whether she favored sons over daughters, her daughter was her own flesh and blood. A daughter with good grades and good looks was a credit to her.
Xu Weiping returned much later today than he had yesterday.
The textile factory was relocating to a new facility this year. Across the vast factory grounds, all the equipment and office supplies were more or less moved. The only things left were a few machines, which would be transported over after the materials at the old plant were used up in a final production rush.
The workers at the old plant began the rush, and as a porter, Xu Weiping became just as busy.
The moment he walked in the door, he announced, "Starting tomorrow, the factory is putting us on continuous shifts through lunch. We'll only get a half-hour break to eat, so I won't be coming home. After you're done cooking, have Susu bring my meal to the factory."
Chen Shulan sounded worried. "What's the overtime pay? Your job is already exhausting, and now they're not even giving you a lunch break. In this heat, will you be able to handle it?"
"Old Liu said this overtime is double pay, plus we get a heat stipend. It'll only be busy for a few days. Once we get this shipment out and move to the new facility, things will calm down."
Xu Su listened quietly from the side as a memory of this event surfaced in her mind.
The textile factory was the largest in this industrial park, with tens of thousands of employees. And the majority shareholder, if Xu Su remembered correctly, was Zhou Mochen's maternal grandfather.