Chapter 90: A Family of Five Collecting Bottles

After getting off the Ferris wheel, Bai Qingxia followed behind Lu Yuanqiu, and the five of them gathered together again.

Lu Tian and Su Xiaoya both looked toward Bai Qingxia at the same time. Bai Qingxia rested her little hands in front of her and, sensing their gazes, looked back with a naturally gentle smile for Uncle and Auntie.

Lu Tian and Su Xiaoya then exchanged a silent glance, both wearing grave expressions, as if they were communicating some crucial secret with their eyes.

Lu Tian: Why does it seem like nothing happened at all?

Su Xiaoya: You old fool, they’re just children. What could possibly happen?

Lu Tian: Fair enough. Then what was the point of putting the two of them in the same cabin?

Su Xiaoya: How should I know?

"Snap."

Lu Yuanqiu snapped his fingers between them and complained, "Do you two have to use in-game voice chat for this?"

Lu Tian frowned. "What game voice? Something got in my eye. Let your mother take a look."

Upon hearing this, Su Xiaoya immediately puffed out her cheeks in an exaggerated show and blew at her husband’s eye.

"Better?"

"Better."

Lu Yuanqiu curled his lips and waved them on. "All right, let’s go. Bai Qingxia should be heading home."

The five of them walked toward the amusement park gate. Halfway there, Lu Yuanqiu suddenly noticed Bai Qingxia had slowed her steps. Turning to look, he found her staring fixedly at the scattered empty bottles all over the ground.

A conflicted, embarrassed look appeared on the girl’s face, as though her feet had become heavy. Yet when she saw that the others were still walking toward the gate, she could only follow along reluctantly.

Lu Yuanqiu stopped and reached back to pinch the flesh on Lu Yidong’s back. "Dongdong, don’t you love picking up bottles the most? Look, there are a lot of empty ones over there!"

The little girl yelped in pain and turned around blankly, blurting, "What did you say?!"

"Empty bottles! Don’t you love picking up those empty bottles and exchanging them for pocket money?"

Lu Yuanqiu repeated himself with a fake smile.

Hearing this, Bai Qingxia blinked her beautiful eyes and looked at her younger sister in surprise, as if she had found someone who shared her hobby. Excited, she quickly stepped forward and pointed at the pile of bottles. "There! There are lots of them!"

From the couple’s angle, they could see Lu Yuanqiu’s dark hand reaching out from behind to his sister.

Lu Tian instantly understood and said, "Ah, yes, Dongdong loves picking up bottles. Back when school got out, she used to bring back piles of them every day."

Su Xiaoya said, "Then what are you standing there for? Go find a plastic sack! There are so many, it’d be a shame not to pick them up."

Bai Qingxia immediately nodded. "Yes!"

Lu Yuanqiu let go of his sister and went to find a bag. The dark hand behind her finally vanished, and only then did Lu Yidong regain her composure. "You people are talking nonsense—mmph, mmph—"

Su Xiaoya smiled as she covered her daughter’s mouth. "Look at this child, she gets this excited even seeing bottles. Heh heh heh... I’ll take her over there to calm down a bit."

With that, Su Xiaoya dragged her daughter toward the side of the flowerbed.

Meanwhile, Lu Yuanqiu approached an elderly man. He remembered seeing the old gentleman here earlier, carrying a plastic sack and picking up bottles.

"Sir, I’ll take this. How much?"

Lu Yuanqiu asked, looking down.

The old man sitting by the flowerbed glanced at the bottles in the sack and said, "I don’t have a scale on me either. Two fen per bottle. Give me whatever you think is fair."

Lu Yuanqiu directly handed him a hundred-yuan bill. "No change needed."

He dumped out all the bottles, grabbed the oversized plastic sack, and strode off with great flair.

The old man stared at the hundred-yuan bill in his hand, utterly stunned.

Lu Yuanqiu came back with the sack. Bai Qingxia had also gone to look for one just now, but hadn’t found any. Seeing the bag appear, she happily took it. "I’ll pick them up!"

"All right."

Watching the lovely girl in a yellow patterned dress walk off and bend down cheerfully to pick up bottles, Lu Yuanqiu stood where he was with his arms crossed, a smile on his face.

"You brat... you seem a little different from before in a lot of ways. Could it be your brain finally developed late?"

His father, Lu Tian, suddenly appeared beside him and asked with curiosity.

Lu Yuanqiu twitched the corner of his mouth and gave a dry laugh.

At that moment, Su Xiaoya came over with Lu Yidong. It looked as if she had been specially instructed by her mother, and her expression had become obedient, not nearly as impatient as before.

Su Xiaoya looked down. "You like picking up bottles, don’t you? Go on."

"Yes, I like picking up bottles." Lu Yidong nodded quickly.

She rushed over and joined in, working very hard. Bai Qingxia saw this and couldn’t bear to dampen her younger sister’s fierce enthusiasm for bottle-picking, so she generously handed over the sack with both hands. "Here!"

Lu Yidong looked up blankly for a moment, then quickly smiled and took it. Bai Qingxia did not idle either; she kept picking while also putting bottles into the bag.

The passersby kept turning their heads, their hearts full of surprise. Were these two pretty little girls really this good at making a living?

The sack, stuffed to the brim, was loaded into the trunk. It was so full the lid could not even close properly. The Audi started up, puffed out exhaust, and drove away from the Wuhe Amusement Park.

Not long after, the white Audi stopped beside a recycling station on Wangjiang Road.

Lu Tian and Lu Yuanqiu got out and carried the sack. Bai Qingxia trotted after them, first running into the recycling station to greet the old man inside.

Very soon, an elderly white-haired man with a limp came out from within. Bai Qingxia pointed at the sack, and the old man smiled kindly. "Good, good."

Ten minutes later.

The five-member family sat side by side on the steps opposite a little shop, eating old-fashioned popsicles bought with the money from selling the recyclables.

Bai Qingxia was eating one herself while holding another in her hand to bring to her father.

"Back when these were so cheap, I never bought one. I didn’t expect them to be this tasty," Lu Tian said in surprise as he licked it with his tongue.

The other four all smiled. Lu Yuanqiu turned to look at the girl beside him, and she tilted her head up to look back at him, her lips gently pressed together on her innocent face.

...

At ten o’clock on the evening of October seventh, the "secret agent" Lu Yuanqiu tore up his homework and flushed it down the toilet.

He walked out of the bathroom and, pretending to wash his hands, suddenly heard a burst of wailing from Lu Yidong’s room.

"I was wrong, Mom! I was wrong! I’ll never dare do it again!"

"You know you were wrong now? That just means you’re scared! You didn’t do your homework for days, and now you want to burn the midnight oil today? If I hadn’t come out to use the bathroom, I still wouldn’t know what you were busy doing in there!"

Listening to this, Lu Yuanqiu wore a wicked expression and let out a sinister cackle. Then he tiptoed toward his own room, only to turn his head and find Lu Tian standing there like a ghost, staring at him.

"Shit! What are you doing?!"

Lu Yuanqiu panted heavily and clutched his chest against the wall.

Lu Tian asked expressionlessly, "Has the National Day homework Xiaxia brought you from school been finished? I remember there were several worksheets."

"Done long ago, damn it!"

Unfazed by the danger, Lu Yuanqiu shoved his hands in his pockets, lifted his chest and chin, and calmly walked into his room.

The End