“Madam uses this car every day,” the driver said at the time.
He was a good-looking young man in his twenties and his surname was Zhou. Generally, those who worked as drivers had a high school diploma. In front of Huan, he was quite decent and respectful.
But in front of Yansheng, a ‘child’, he was more casual.
“First come first served.” Yansheng said, “She hasn’t gone out yet, right? So, I will use it first.”
“That won’t work.” Mr. Zhou replied with a smile, “I will be scolded later.”
The contempt in his attitude was the same as Mrs. Wang.
The fifteen-year-old Yansheng didn’t notice it, but the reborn her saw it clearly. Her face fell at the time, like a bamboo steamer with a layer of frost.
Mr. Zhou was also recruited by Yingying. The driver that the Zhangs’ used to have at home had been in their family for many years and grew up watching Yansheng.
After Yingying came to this house, the old driver had put Yansheng’s needs first several times and ranked Yingying behind her. So, Yingying then urged Huan to fire him and recruited another young man to work for them.
Yansheng was still young at the time and there was nothing she could do about this kind of thing. She also didn’t realize the impact of Yingying’s actions on her at that time.
Of course, she was fully aware of it now.
Among the servants in this family, Mrs. Luo was probably the only one who really regarded her as the eldest lady in her heart. These other less experienced servants were just following Yingying blindly.
“The driver hired by our family won’t allow me to use our car?” Yansheng stared at Mr. Zhou and said, “Then you can get lost!”
Mr. Zhou was stunned for a moment.
He heard that Yansheng had a bad temper in the Zhang family, but he hadn’t witnessed it yet. He also picked her up to and from school before, but he had no other dealings with her aside from that. And because she hated sharing the car with her half-brother and half-sister after attending middle school, she would often use the ride-hailing service to avoid them. So Mr. Zhou had lesser dealings with her.
She didn’t talk much, but she had a good upbringing and good attitude towards the servants. In Mr. Zhou’s opinion, she was much better than the little brat Shuocheng.
Rude words like ‘get lost’ were really not what Yansheng would say, so Mr. Zhou was stunned when she said it to his face.
Yansheng had already taken out her cell phone. “I will ask my father to settle your salary.”
Is she really serious?
Mr. Zhou was dumbfounded.
He thought he could bully Yansheng because she was young and had a tender face. But for this matter to really get Huan’s attention, it was indeed his fault. Yansheng was young and she had the right to request for their family’s car.
“No, no, no!” Mr. Zhou changed his attitude in a flash and stopped Yansheng. “Where are you going? I’m going to start the car now, so wait a minute. I’ll turn on the air conditioner first!”
Yansheng glanced at him, then she finally put away her cell phone and got into the car.
On the way, Yingying called the driver.
Mr. Zhou just learned Yansheng’s temper, so he summoned up his courage and told Yingying what Yansheng said, “Miss Yanyan said that she’ll use this car today and let you drive by yourself.”
The sound would leak a little on most of the phone receivers. And on Mr. Zhou’s cellphone, the leak was very clear.
Sitting in the back, Yansheng heard Yingying’s sharp swearing on the cell phone. She could swear for as long as Huan couldn’t see or hear her.
“Just hang up,” said Yansheng. It was not loud, with no hint of irritation or impatience, but the meaning was clear.
Mr. Zhou raised his eyes and saw a pair of dark eyes in the rearview mirror. Her gaze was a bit scary for a young girl.
He said on the call, “What, Madam? I have to concentrate on driving, so I will end this call now. Goodbye.”
He really hung up.
Yansheng stopped looking at him and turned to look at the scenery outside.
She was reborn six years back and K City had basically remained the same.
Then, she suddenly thought of something and said, “Go to Jianshe Road first.”
“Where are we going on Jianshe Road?” asked Mr. Zhou.
“Just go to Jianshe Road.” Yansheng did not give the specific location. “Just drive over there.”
Mr. Zhou couldn’t help but go to Jianshe Road as she said. When they reached the destination, he didn’t know where she would go, so he slowed down and told her they had arrived already.
Yansheng didn’t mention getting out of the car and just nodded. “Just keep driving. Drive over there.”
Mr. Zhou was baffled, but he still increased the speed again and drove from one end of Jianshe Road to the other.
Yansheng kept looking outside. She saw a ten-story building sandwiched between two buildings, but the facade of that building was now a bit rustic and the signs also showed that it was just an ordinary shopping mall.
The Jinding KTV, which would become popular in K City later, had not yet opened at this time.
She was there six years later and someone put drugs on her drink.
Mr. Zhou drove slowly while looking at her from the rearview mirror. He saw the girl staring out the window.
Obviously, she was still an adolescent girl but she didn’t have any expression on her face. There was a strange sense of contradiction between that expression and her age.
He didn’t know that what she remembered at this time was the stranger who had been with her before she died. The man who was holding her hand and comforting her gently.
Yansheng saw that man clearly when her soul was separated afterward.
The young man was in his twenties. He was very handsome, with a slender figure and deep eyes. Those eyes that looked at her were full of pity and regret.
She remembered his face firmly in her heart.
“Miss Yanyan, we are about to leave Jianshe Road soon.” Mr. Zhou couldn’t help but remind her when he saw that the road was almost coming to an end.
Yansheng came back to her senses and said lightly, “Okay, let’s go to our original destination.”
Mr. Zhou was speechless hearing that response.
Did she insist on going to Jianshe Road just to drive around? Or is it just for us to return late and deliberately leave Yingying without a car?
He concluded that this young girl was too scheming.
He shook his head inwardly.
******
Yansheng didn’t have dinner at home that day. Huan was already at home when she returned with a large pile of shopping bags.
Seeing her back, he looked very kind and said, “You’re back, where did you go? Have you eaten?”
“Yes, I did.” Yansheng just graduated from middle school after all and it was not yet time to be completely out of her parents’ control. So it’s just right for her father to ask where she went and what she had done.
She simply replied, “I went shopping and found a new sparring partner to train boxing with.”
She was actually looking for the sparring partner she had been using from her previous life.
It was just that the other party’s number was stored in her cell phone before, so she couldn’t just contact him directly when needed. Now that she was reborn, she didn’t have that person’s contact number on her cell phone, so she could only go to that place to find him. Fortunately, that person was really there today and she found him as soon as she arrived.
The man was a little surprised to see that she was only a middle school graduate. But since Yansheng could afford to pay, he gladly accepted her business.
“Oh, it’s good for your training then,” replied Huan.
His eyebrows relaxed and Yansheng watched his expression coldly. She perceived that his mood today was really good.
Didn’t Yingying and Shuocheng complain to him?
“Sister, you are back!” Heling ran down from upstairs and reported to Yansheng everything without reservation, “Shuoshuo was very slow to do his homework. After he finished lunch, I watched him in the afternoon and he finished today’s homework. I checked them all for him and I also pointed out his mistakes.”
“What else?”
“He was afraid that you would beat him, so he didn’t dare to come out of his room,” Heling replied gleefully.
“Yanyan.” Huan interrupted and asked, “Did you beat Shuoshuo again today?”
He smiled without any displeasure in his look. Yansheng realized that he came to her because he had known everything—she beat Shuocheng and he was able to complete his homework for the first time.
The former was the cause and the latter was the effect. The cause was not heavy but the result was very good, which was what Huan liked to hear. So that was the reason why he was in a good mood.
“I didn’t hurt him. I just spank him a few times.” She said, “I set rules for him so that he can do his homework every morning during the summer vacation and only play in the afternoon.”
Huan had already known everything from Heling. Whether it was the change in his eldest daughter or the change in his youngest son, he was surprised and delighted, so he was in a great mood.
He said comfortably, “Good, very good. You really look like a big sister now.”
After understanding this man’s mentality, Yansheng couldn’t be more interested in talking to him. She was no longer as eager to win his attention as before.
“Mm-hmm. I’m going upstairs now,” she replied.
Before she reached the top of the stairs, Yingying came down.
Yingying stared at Yansheng.
Yansheng only glanced at her faintly.
The two brushed their shoulders as they walked past each other on the stairs.
“Sister, wait for me!” Heling chased Yansheng upstairs.
Yingying tugged her. “Why are you going to her!”
She twisted her shoulders and fled from her mother’s side. “I have something to do with my sister!”
Yingying gritted her teeth with anger.
In her opinion, this daughter of hers was born stupid. Since she took Heling in the Zhangs’, this little girl had always wanted to treat Yansheng as her own sister, which was really annoying. It was useless to give birth to money-losing goods.
Yingying watched Heling run upstairs to chase Yansheng. After being angry for a while, she went down to find her husband.
“Why did the family’s eldest miss come back so late?” She went over to massage Huan’s shoulders and said softly, “Your daughter is a big girl now, did she meet with her boyfriend outside?”
“No,” Huan immediately denied. “Yanyan said that she went out to train in boxing. She is not the kind of child who talks nonsense.”
At this time, Huan hadn’t experienced the rebellious girl she had been before. In his heart, although Yansheng often had disagreements with Yingying and even if her academic performance was not as good as in elementary school, she was still a pure and good child after all.
Yingying felt suffocated. Finally, she couldn’t help but complain, “She asked Mr. Zhou to go out with her, but she only came back now. She occupied the car for a whole day, so I didn’t have a car to use.”
Huan understood what made her unhappy as soon as he heard it.
“Isn’t there another car at home? You can drive by yourself.” He said, “It’s not that you don’t have a driver’s license.”
Yingying pouted. “It is more convenient for me to have a driver than to drive by myself, and he can also help me carry my bags when I go shopping.”
How could Huan not understand Yingying’s careful thinking? Compared to driving by herself, she just preferred to have a driver as an attendant, so that she had a lot of face in front of her girlfriends.
Huan felt slightly embarrassed in his heart.
But he thought for a while and said, “Yanyan is getting older now and she will go out more often than before. She can’t drive by herself, so the driver at home will follow her closely in the future.”
Before Yingying had time to get angry, he said again, “You have a driver’s license. Do you think the car at home is not beautiful? Well, how about buying you a new Ferrari then?”
Yingying was surprised and delighted.
Yansheng’s mother had been ill for several years before her death, and she had been in a state of recuperation. The cars at home are all used by Zhang Huan, which of course is close to his aesthetics and preferences.
Except for the two cars driven by the drivers, Yingying didn’t like the other cars. They were all old-fashioned. They couldn’t match her youth and beauty.
If she had a Ferrari of her own, how dignified it would be to drive it around?
She was overjoyed. “I want a prettier one!”
“I know, you can go and pick it yourself later. Just tell me when you have picked one.”
After Huan finished speaking, he was hugged and kissed on his face twice by his wife. “Thank you, my dear!”
All the children were all upstairs anyway, so Huan took Yingying in his arms and kissed her.
But he thought in his heart that if his eldest daughter could be like his little wife, who could be happy with just money, then that would be great. He was not short of money and he was not willing to spend more energy on things that could be settled with money.
It was a pity that things at home couldn’t be just settled with money and they required people’s attention the most.
He couldn’t help but sigh a little bit.
Heling caught up with Yansheng on the second floor. “Sister, there is a package for you and Auntie Luo has put it inside your room for you.”
“Okay,” replied Yansheng.
Heling urged her a little excitedly, “Come on, open it now to see what it is.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Yansheng said indifferently, stepping into her room.
Heling opened her mouth to speak again but she held back.
Yansheng threw a pile of shopping bags from her hand on the sofa and saw the package on the coffee table. She didn’t like things that others touch, especially Shuocheng, so Mrs. Luo usually put it inside her room whenever she had a package.
She took out the paper cutter from the drawer under the coffee table, cut the tape, opened the outer carton, and saw the box that contained the merchandise inside. She finally realized why Heling was so noisy just now, because the content of the package was the latest model of game console she bought for her.
She turned her head to call the little girl, but her side was empty.
She looked up and found her younger sister standing at the door with expectation in her big eyes, looking at her eagerly.
But even if Heling was so impatient, without Yansheng’s permission, she didn’t dare to step into her room, so she just stood honestly outside the door.
She was so well-behaved that it kind of hurt.
Yansheng was silent for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and said, “Come in.”
Heling’s thin legs jumped in quickly. “Sister, is that my game console?”
Yansheng took out the game console box from the carton and handed it to the little girl. Heling hugged the box and jumped happily a few times. “Thank you, Sister!”
The little girl couldn’t wait to leave. “Sister, I’m going back to my room now. I won’t bother you anymore. You can rest early.”
But Yansheng stopped her, “Come back!”
The little girl came back while sliding her feet.
Yansheng was speechless upon seeing that action.
She rolled her eyes, then she took out a bank card from her bag and handed it to Heling. “This is for you.”
Heling took it. “Bank card?”
Her eyes were showing a confused expression because she didn’t quite understand what was going on.
Yansheng unexpectedly thought that Heling was ‘not too smart’ and had something in common with Yingying.
“You’re going to be in fourth grade soon,” she said. “It’s time to have your pocket money.”
Heling suddenly had a realization. She was surprised and delighted. “This means that I can buy things by myself in the future, right?”
If she wanted something and told their father about it, her father would just say: ‘Go to your mother.’
So she would have to look for her mother, who was always not happy to see her, although she didn’t know why. Their family was obviously not short of money and Shuocheng could buy everything immediately. But when it came to her, if she took the initiative to say whatever she wanted to buy, her mother would always be very unhappy, as if she owed her mother something.
Heling gradually grew up and began to have the need to spend money. But the older she got, the more reluctant she was to ask Yingying for money.
She had been hit too many times as well.
“Just use this bank card for whatever you want to buy. You are also getting older, so it’s time for you to learn how to spend money and manage it,” she explained. “However, giving you pocket money is not letting you spend it recklessly, but letting you learn how to spend your own money. Do you understand?”
Heling nodded again and again, and promised, “I will not waste money!”
Compared to the naughty younger brother, this younger sister was very good.
Yansheng was quite satisfied and nodded with crossed arms.
“This bank card is an account opened in my name so that I can see your consumption records. You are still young, so I won’t give you a lot of money.” Yansheng pondered for a while, referring to the amount of pocket money she had when she was a child, and made a conclusion. “I will give you ten thousand yuan a month first.”