Chen Qiao planned to exercise before taking a bath, but unexpectedly, he couldn’t manage more than three standard push-ups.
He was weak, no wonder he was bullied by girls.
He drew hot water from the water tank of the coal stove, making sure to add more water in time, as his sister would also need to take a bath after her evening class.
The bathroom was very rudimentary, merely coated with rough cement, full of tiny particles.
The door couldn’t be locked; it was hung with a hook using a rope, leaving a recess for the washing machine.
However, the power cord was too short, and there were no sockets in the bathroom, making it a breeding ground for various insects that thrive in dark and damp conditions.
When Chen Qiao was young, he was afraid to take a bath alone, partly due to these insects.
There were sowbugs and other insects that Chen Qiao didn’t recognize.
Although they didn’t bite or anything, just looking at them made one feel uneasy.
There was a shower pipe, but it could only provide cold water and wasn’t equipped with a showerhead.
It was just a U-shaped pipe, which was only usable in the height of summer, and the water flow was so strong that it hurt when it hit the body.
Chen Qiao found that taking a bath by drawing water was quite water-saving, a realization he had after finishing his bath.
He casually washed his school uniform and hung it on the clothes rack on the rooftop to dry before heading towards the bedroom he shared with his sister.
The second floor consisted of three rooms and a living room, with an additional room the size of a bathroom serving as the family’s small granary.
It was so poorly ventilated that not even sunlight could penetrate through the small window high up, creating a musty smell.
The bedroom next to the staircase was a storage room, filled with construction wood and other miscellaneous items, just like the attic.
Chen Qiao’s Little game console and cartridges were also hidden in this room.
In the center of the living room stood a bulky color television, next to which was a Wanyan DVD player.
Thanks to this DVD player, Chen Qiao had caught up on many animated series by purchasing pirated anime discs.
For instance, the famous EVA, which he found cool even though he couldn’t understand it.
As a child, he was naturally drawn to robots and various beautiful girls.
His sister’s collection of Hong Kong and Taiwan idol dramas were also on discs, either borrowed from classmates or rented from video stores.
At this time, Chen Qiao only knew how to play games at the black internet cafe and was unaware that computers could also be used to read novels and watch videos.
Chen Qiao and his sister’s bedroom was separated from their parents’ master bedroom by just a single wall.
Inside, there were two beds.
One was a relatively new panel bed, placed against the upper right corner of the wall, with both sides against the wall.
The bed was covered with a bright red bedsheet featuring the character for “happiness”, and there was no cool mat yet.
The previous dog-themed bedsheet had been washed.
The family generally used whatever was available, with a thin blanket, two pillows, and a bedside table.
Chen Qiao and his sister still shared the same bed.
It was understandable during the cold winter, but even in the hot summer, they would occasionally sleep separately.
However, when the heat became unbearable, they would sleep together again just to enjoy the fan.
The other bed was placed diagonally next to the panel bed, a wooden plank bed.
The two beds were of different heights and sizes, with the wooden plank bed being higher and larger.
A red alarm clock with two distinctive bells on top was placed on the bedside table beside it.
The wooden plank bed was well-crafted, after all, it was the bed from their parents’ wedding.
Before buying a new bed, both Chen Qiao and his sister slept on this bed, which had a headboard, footboard, and pillow boards.
Now, it was adorned with various bubblegum stickers by Chen Qiao, and the bed was even messier, filled with his various toys.
There were yo-yos, four-wheel drive cars, and scattered Yu-Gi-Oh! and Sanguosha cards, among other miscellaneous card games.
When bored, he would sort and play with the cards by himself, and when tired, he would simply lie down on the pile of cards and fall asleep.
When he woke up, he would be on the other bed, with his sister sleeping beside him.
However, his sister mischievously didn’t remove the cards from his face or body.
“Since you like sleeping with your so much.”
The two beds took up most of the bedroom space.
On the desk were the sister’s two golden piggy banks and a nearly completed cross-stitch embroidery of a calligraphy and painting type, which read “People are drifting boats, home is the harbor to dock.”
The background featured half a house, an arched stone bridge, and a sailboat.
Chen Qiao picked up the original picture and compared it.
The pattern and color of the house had clearly been changed to match their own home’s style.
His sister was truly talented.
Chen Qiao had no intention of sleeping.
It wasn’t the dead of winter where he needed to warm the bed for his sister.
He took out a brand-new notebook that came with his sister’s award certificate, turned on the old-fashioned floor fan, and began to write his novel.
Now it was completely the opposite of typing on a keyboard.
Handwriting was too slow, and soon his arm and fingers grew sore.
It would take some time to get used to it.
The sound of the door opening came from downstairs; it must be his sister returning.
Checking the alarm clock, the time was about what Chen Qiao had anticipated.
His father’s return was much noisier, often chatting with friends and speaking loudly, which was somewhat disturbing to the neighbors.
His sister still needed to take a bath, wash clothes, and add coal to the coal stove so that it would be burning well early the next morning for cooking.
Chen Qiao almost wanted to rush downstairs to see his sister.
Although they had only been apart for a few hours, it felt like a very long time.
Chen Qiao restrained himself, suppressing the instinctive urge to act coquettish towards his sister.
He wanted his sister to see that he, as a brother, had grown up.
Only then would his words carry weight, influence his sister’s thoughts, and get her to stand on his side.
About half an hour later, Chen Feifei came upstairs with the washed clothes, first going to the rooftop to hang them out to dry before returning to the second floor.
Seeing that the room’s light was still on, she called out: “Chen Qiao, aren’t you going to sleep yet? It’s already ten o’clock. Did you watch TV all night?”
Chen Qiao usually, when seeing his sister come home, would at least pretend to be asleep.
Chen Feifei touched the back of the television, which was surprisingly not warm at all.
“What’s so good about watching TV?”
Chen Qiao muttered quietly.
At present, he really couldn’t get into watching TV alone.
Closing the notebook, he let out a big yawn; he was indeed a bit sleepy.
Chen Feifei, who had just taken a bath, was wearing a knee-length blue plaid nightgown.
Her long hair, half-dry and half-wet, was casually draped over her back.
Her chest was slightly raised, and she wore a black rubber hairband on her wrist.
A dry towel was draped over her shoulder, and her delicate and petite feet were in pink slippers.
Chen Feifei neatly placed the two sets of school uniforms she was holding on the bedside table for easy access to change clothes for school early the next morning.
“Did you wash the clothes yourself, or did you just throw them into the washing machine?”
“I washed them by hand.”
Not throwing them directly into the washing machine was already quite considerate of the nosebleed stains on the school uniform.
“The bloodstains aren’t completely washed off. In the future, just leave them for me to wash when I come home.”
“Okay.”
Chen Qiao didn’t refuse and accepted his sister’s kindness without hesitation.
As for his mother’s white coat, it went without saying that it was taken to the hospital’s laundry room for high-temperature disinfection and ironing.
Her casual clothes wouldn’t be washed together with theirs, mainly to avoid any contamination from germs.
His father’s clothes, on the other hand, were too dirty and smelly, all sweat-soaked, and it would be too filthy to wash them together.
The siblings’ school uniforms, no matter how dirty, were just like that.
“What’s your deskmate like?”
Chen Qiao asked curiously “Isn’t that obvious? She’s much better at dressing up than I am.”
His sister lacked self-awareness, which was also inseparable from the strong family filter that Chen Qiao had.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, especially within the family.
“She must often ask you to copy homework, right? And her grades aren’t too bad. If she worked hard, she could do even better.”
“How do you know?”
“I guessed.”
Being praised as smart by his sister, she must have some real skills.
However, Chen Qiao didn’t think that this girl, Zhirou, would really be able to outperform his sister if she worked hard.
Maybe she was secretly competing behind the scenes, and playing with her phone in the classroom was just to make her classmates let their guard down.
“Did you go online last night? Did Zhirou log into my QQ and chat with you? No wonder you weren’t watching TV at home.”
His sister’s intuition was pretty accurate. Except for some minor details, she basically guessed right.
“More or less. I knew it. No wonder she asked me if you had a younger brother and what his name was. I was puzzled why she suddenly asked that. Didn’t you agree with mom and dad to be the top student in the class? You wanted them to have a younger sister for you. Why did you go online right after saying that? And not study hard?”
The talk about wanting a younger sister should have been a joke, just like the usual petulant words.
Chen Feifei had thought that she might have done something to upset her brother, making him want a younger sister again.
Now it seemed that her brother was just in a whimsical mood and not serious.
For some reason, Chen Feifei felt a sense of relief, though she couldn’t quite explain why.
Not wanting a younger sister?
But she thought that a girl like Xin Yu was quite lovely.
It would also be a good thing if her brother could study well, and she should support him, even with such a strange motive.
“How did you know?”
Chen Qiao remembered that when he talked to his parents about this, his sister had already gone to school for the evening class.
“Dad was having a late-night snack with his friends at a street-side snack shop, and I happened to see them. They were talking about having another child, and dad mentioned your thing. Everyone laughed.”
Light.
“Ah………………”
Chen Qiao covered his face, not knowing what to say.
Chen Feifei took out a mobile phone battery and a universal charger, aligned the charger’s prongs with the battery’s copper plates, and then plugged it into the socket.
The universal charger flashed red.
“Is this from your deskmate?”
“Yes.”
“Turn the electric fan this way. I’ll dry my hair and then get ready to sleep.”
Chen Feifei sat on the edge of the bed, lifted her hair, and roughly wiped it with a towel.
She was really not gentle with her own hair.
Chen Qiao turned the electric fan and suggested, “Sis, how about I help you dry your hair?”
“No need. You’re just a little kid. How would you know how to dry someone’s hair? I used to dry your body and hair for you.”
Chen Qiao, on a sudden impulse, took the cross-stitch embroidery and needle and thread and placed them on his sister’s lap.
“Sis, you continue with the cross-stitch. I want to see what the finished product looks like. I’ll dry your hair.”
Chen Qiao took the towel from Chen Feifei’s hand, used his hand as a comb, and slowly combed through the long hair.
When he encountered knots, he didn’t dare to be too forceful, carefully untangling them before gently drying the hair.
The wind from the electric fan blew on Chen Qiao, mixed with the shampoo scent from his sister.
The gentle touch felt comfortable to Chen Feifei, and she couldn’t help but squint her eyes.
She didn’t expect her usually restless brother to have such a side.
Drowsiness gradually came over her.
She squinted and nodded, even making a mistake in her cross-stitch embroidery, committing such a basic error.
But Chen Feifei just thought she was tired from studying today and didn’t think much beyond that.
“Stop here. Be careful on your way.”
His father’s voice came from downstairs.
“Dad’s back. My hair is dry now. Let’s sleep.”
Chen Feifei put away the cross-stitch embroidery and said.
“Okay.”
Chen Qiao climbed into the inner side of the bed and lay down without being coquettish, saying things like wanting to sleep separately or who should sleep at the head or foot of the bed.
Before his reincarnation, Chen Qiao not only wanted to sleep separately from his sister but also in different rooms.
He even thought he could sleep in that dark and windowless granary.
On one hand, he felt it was very inappropriate to still sleep with his sister at his age, even though his sister didn’t mind.
On the other hand, his body had already started to react.
Chen Qiao had read quite a few pirated novels with Huang Yi’s book covers, which served as his enlightenment in that regard.
He was afraid that his sister would discover the strange changes in his body, and then she would dislike or distance herself from him.
When sleeping in the same bed, he always faced away from his sister.
If the bed had been big enough, Chen Qiao would have even wanted to put a quilt in the middle to separate them.
However, if the siblings were to set up such a”38-line” like male and female deskmates, his sister would probably remove it immediately.
As a result, after their father had an accident and their mother went to work in the city, the master bedroom was left empty.
Chen Qiao planned to move in, but in the end, it was his sister who moved in alone.
Then his sister went to high school in the city, leaving Chen Qiao at home by himself.
He was now a child and should take advantage of this.
When his sister grew up a bit more, he would be kicked out of bed by her.
Chen Feifei turned off the light, closed the door, and climbed into bed.
Chen Qiao, who had been lying close to the wall, moved a bit towards her direction.
Their arms touched, and Chen Qiao’s heart raced, feeling a bit nervous.
His sister’s arm was a bit cold, probably because his body temperature had risen.
Chen Feifei didn’t say anything.
Just as Chen Qiao’s heart began to settle, Chen Feifei gave him a bear hug, half of her head resting on his pillow, and her leg pressed on top of him.
His sister indeed had the habit of using him as a pillow.
He was forcibly sharing the bed.
After all, if his body had such a reaction, his sister should be half responsible, right?
It wasn’t entirely his fault.
Any normal boy would have the same issue.
Chen Qiao didn’t dare to move at all, hoping his sister would fall asleep soon and not affect her studies and life tomorrow.
Just being able to do this made him very satisfied.
In the deep of the night, the room was left with only the ticking of the alarm clock and the flashing universal charger.
The long first day was finally coming to an end.
Tomorrow …………….. With these final thoughts, Chen Qiao fell asleep in his sister’s warm embrace.