Novel Bin Chapter 110: Uncivilized
When their family had an issue, Lawyer Sun worked around the clock to help them without hoping for something in return. When Zhang Pei borrowed money from him, Lawyer Sun unhesitantly took out hundreds of thousands of RMB.
Liu Man remembered this kindness.
Thinking of this, she still agreed.
Nobody expected Liu Man to accept so hastily, so they were all surprised.
Fang Hao said, “I’m going to emphasize that our Tik Tok account still hasn’t profited. All of our work is voluntary without getting anything in return, so we won’t be able to pay you anything.”
Liu Man nodded to signal her understanding, “It’s fine. It’s a short video anyway; it won’t take me much time.”
He Qisi was very happy and hurriedly said, “Then we have a deal. We usually film our videos on weekends, but I can’t tell you the exact timing right now. We should add each other on WeChat first, and I’ll notify you when we are filming.”
Liu Man showed them her WeChat QR code, and every one scanned it except for Sun Weiwei. Liu Man said to her in a soft voice, “I’ve changed my WeChat account since high school, and this one is new. You should add me, too.”
Sun Weiwei was stunned. She had never added Liu Man’s WeChat, so what did she have to do with whether Liu Man’s WeChat account was new or not? But she was intelligent and understood Liu Man’s implications. Liu Man was pleading for her to add her WeChat.
After half a second of silence, Sun Weiwei took out her phone and added Liu Man’s WeChat. This meant their six years of broken friendship ended at last.
After she left Capital University, she did not return to school. She directly got on the subway to go back home and went to the storage room.
Her cat food business had already got on track, and the fans had started calming down after their crazy amount of orders at the beginning. Cat food wasn’t something that got consumed very quickly. Some buyers bought many bags in just one order from Liu Man, which would be dozens of pounds. Their next order would be many months after.
Now, Liu Man received around 60 orders every day. Excluding their rent, transportation fee, water, and electrical fee, and employees’ salaries, Liu Man calculated they could earn around 50k to 60k RMB every month in the future.
She could not increase her sales unless she attracted more people’s attention to her Wei Bo and her live-streams. This question went into countless cyber stars’ minds, too. Liu Man could not think of any good ideas for now, and her number of fans stopped growing once again.
Yesterday, Manager Huang had someone send another batch of cat food from Hong Kong. The entire storage space was full, and when Liu Man got there, Zhang Pei was verifying with the charts on every box with a notebook in her hand. Boxes were open to get examined. Today, there were only around forty orders, and they weren’t busy at all. The two employees got off work early in the day.
Seeing Liu Man, Zhang Pei asked her, “It’s rare for you to come here early. Have you had dinner yet?”
“I ate at the school cafeteria,” Jiang Chengfeng treated Liu Man to a meal at his school’s cafeteria.
Zhang Pei then asked what Liu Man ate and realized her daughter didn’t even have as good a dinner as she did, “If you get out of school as early as you did today in the future, come to the storage for dinner and live-stream afterward. Li is trying to control his diet and doesn’t eat his dinner. We have one box of dinner left every day, and it’s too unfortunate if we throw it away. You spend money on this monthly package of dinner, and we shouldn’t be wasteful,” Li was one of the employees.
“What ‘monthly package of dinner’?” Liu Man felt confused. She knew Zhang Pei and the employees had boxes of meals, but she thought Zhang Pei was the one who ordered them.
The result was, Zhang Pei thought she ordered it, “Owner Wang said you preordered boxes of meals for me and the two employees, and waiters serve them up every day,” Zhang Pei was confused, too, “Are you not the one who’s been ordering them?”
Liu Man quickly answered, “Yes, yes, yes. I ordered them. I just forgot because I’ve been very busy.”
“That’s right. No owner would be willing to generously give us meals without any payment.”
Liu Man gave a little laugh.
She stopped mentioning this topic. She stayed to organize the products with Zhang Pei until ten o’clock in the evening. Before they left, she purposely took a glance at the pet clinic beside them. Through the glass, she could see the nurse accompanying the last customer out. Yu Zhan must still be in there, cleaning up.
She pondered for a moment, took out her phone, and started editing a WeChat message:
“Thank you for ordering the meals.”
Yu Zhan quickly replied: “My pleasure.”
Two days later, Liu Man received a message from He Qisi. They were going to start filming on that Saturday, and they wanted her to be in the eastern sports field at one o’clock. She was also required to wear a pretty dress.
So, on Saturday morning, Liu Man, looking pretty, headed to Professor Su’s calligraphy department for her first lesson with him.
The girl, in a long, light green dress, wandered into the ancient building with red walls and yellow tiles. The students, passing by, absent-mindedly stared at her disappearing silhouette.
Professor Su’s two Ph.D. students weren’t there on weekends, and the other teachers were on breaks. She was the only one with Professor Su in that gigantic building.
This was his first lesson with Liu Man, and Professor Su took it very seriously. He prepared beforehand by reviewing the PowerPoint he used to teach undergraduates and added even more information: The origins of the clerical script, the changes in fonts, the outstanding clerical calligraphists in history. In their 1v1 lesson, Su Yi found a very weird issue.
Liu Man’s history knowledge seemed to be incomplete.
She was very familiar with the history and all the classics before the Western Han dynasty. She could recite all the books, classics, rites, music, archery, riding, and writing. However, she knew nothing about the history after Western Han, not to mention reciting the Tang and the Song dynasty poetries.
She wasn’t even able to say the names of all dynasties according to the timeline. She only mumbled that there was Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing.
Professor Su wasn’t aware the only reason why Liu Man even knew about Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing was because of the past Liu Man’s memory. The past Liu Man was a slacker and slept through every history class. She first went to the sciences department in high school before she became an art student, and she never touched the history textbooks ever again.
Su Yi felt Liu Man was a character who lived in “Land of Peach Blossoms” by Tao Yuanming, “Be unaware of the establishment of the Han dynasty, regardless of the Wei and Jin dynasties that had succeeded it.”
He wrote down this sentence and asked Liu Man, “Do you know where this sentence came from?”
Liu Man shook her head, confused.
He then asked, “Do you know who Tao Yuanming was?”
Liu Man carefully searched through this body’s memories.
“Yes, he seems to be a poet from the Tang Dynasty,” The memory from the past Liu Man told her that.
Su Yi: “…”
He sighed, “Tao Yuanming was from Eastern Jin. He was born three hundred years after the Western Han dynasty died.”
Liu Man was so embarrassed she wanted to find a hole in the ground to hide in.
“Looks like there are still so many things you need to learn. The path is long, and I will bear lots of responsibilities,” Su Yi stared at her as if she was a new creature. Did her situation count as being uncivilized?
Su Yi said, “I have met lots of people who are extremely good at one subject but bad at all others. However, I’ve never even heard of someone like you, who’s familiar with a specific dynasty but very unfamiliar with the others. How passionate about Western Han culture was Madam Xu to make you like this?”
TL’s Note: What if Madam Xu isn’t passionate about Western Han culture and is from the Western Han dynasty…?
Credits: Sydney