Yu Shao's family ran a hot pot restaurant.
It wasn't some big-name trendy hot pot place, just the kind of small restaurant a couple would run on the street. The decor was somewhat dated, but because the food was good and they had many repeat customers, business wasn't bad.
It was dinner time now—the busiest period for the hot pot restaurant—so when Yu Shao got home, his parents weren't back yet.
Walking into the living room, he found two dishes and a soup on the table, covered with mesh covers.
Stir-fried pork with green peppers and dried tofu, braised beef with carrots, and winter melon soup—all very homestyle dishes. His mother Cai Xiaomei must have rushed home during a lull at the restaurant to cook.
Next to the dishes was a note: "Heat the food in the microwave before eating—don't be lazy."
Seeing the handwriting on the note, Yu Shao couldn't help but smile.
In his memory, his predecessor often couldn't be bothered to heat the food and would just eat cold dishes with rice, which led to this note.
However, as a psychological adult, Yu Shao knew how to take care of himself and naturally wouldn't eat cold food.
Soon, Yu Shao had heated all the dishes in the microwave, ladled some rice, turned on the TV as background noise, and began eating while watching.
While eating, his phone suddenly buzzed. Looking down, he saw a WeChat message.
[Cheng Mengjie: What are you doing?]
Seeing the name Cheng Mengjie, Yu Shao's eyelid twitched.
Cheng Mengjie was a girl from their class—pretty good-looking, the sweet girl type. His predecessor had confessed to her but was rejected with the reason "need to focus on studies in high school."
Yes, although his predecessor had a crush on Xu Zijin, that didn't stop him from confessing to Cheng Mengjie. It was like having Ishihara Satomi as a wife but still being open to bigamy.
But getting rejected was getting rejected. The strange thing was that Cheng Mengjie would often chat with his predecessor, saying things like "if only we were already in college."
Did this mean if they were in college, she'd agree to be together?
—Does she actually like me too?
His predecessor, young and inexperienced, was easily hooked by this and thought she rejected him only to focus on studies and get into a good university—what an excellent girl!
But oddly enough, just when his predecessor was rekindling his passion for Cheng Mengjie, she suddenly became cold and stopped chatting much.
His predecessor was very smart and immediately understood.
—She must be doing homework at home!
By the time Yu Shao crossed over, his predecessor had reached the pathetic level where receiving even one reply from Cheng Mengjie could make him writhe happily in bed like a maggot for half the day.
Yu Shao actually thought this girl Cheng Mengjie was quite something—mastering tea ceremony at such a young age, unlike him who only mastered chess at that age.
Since crossing over, Yu Shao had never contacted Cheng Mengjie, never spoke to her at school, and she hadn't reached out either.
Yu Shao had thought this matter was over, but unexpectedly... what was meant to come had come.
So should he reply to this WeChat message?
Yu Shao thought about it and felt that as classmates, not replying would be somewhat rude, so he typed back: Eating.
After replying, Yu Shao put down his phone and continued eating.
By the time Yu Shao almost finished eating, Cheng Mengjie still hadn't sent another message. Just when Yu Shao thought this young tea ceremony master had come to her senses, his phone buzzed again.
[Cheng Mengjie: Today's sunset is beautiful. (image.jpg)]
Clicking the image, it was a sunset photo with a delicate white hand making a peace sign toward the sun. Any straight guy would think: Wow, she's so cute and fresh!
Even Yu Shao looked at it carefully twice, and after determining that the Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet on her wrist was a knockoff, he contentedly closed his phone without planning to reply.
But before long, the phone buzzed again.
[Cheng Mengjie: Why aren't you responding to me?]
Yu Shao still didn't reply.
[Cheng Mengjie: Are you done eating? What did you eat?]
Yu Shao couldn't help himself and picked up his phone to type: Rice.
The other side immediately fell into long silence. By the time Yu Shao finished eating, no more WeChat messages came.
Yu Shao was fine with this—he'd just finished eating anyway. He got up to clean the dishes.
After putting leftovers in the fridge and washing all the dishes, Yu Shao went to his bedroom, pulled out his books, and began doing homework.
When Yu Shao's parents came home, it was already 10 PM. More and more people were eating late-night snacks these days, so Yu's parents were closing later and later.
Yu Dongming had even considered staying open 24 hours, but after discussing it with his wife, they decided against it—it would be too exhausting.
When Yu Dongming and Cai Xiaomei got home, Yu Shao had long finished his homework and was lying on the couch watching a movie.
Yu Shao felt he'd discovered a hidden benefit of crossing into a parallel world.
Although many classic films and TV shows from his previous life didn't exist here, this world's classics were just as good—some even better.
This meant there were countless excellent new movies waiting for Yu Shao to discover, much better than his previous life's experience of searching for shows like panning for gold in sand!
Yu Shao had briefly considered whether he should bring movies, novels, and TV shows from his previous life to this world, like those literary and film plagiarists in novels.
But it was just a thought.
For movies from his previous life, Yu Shao only remembered general plots, and making movies required understanding camera language, lighting artistry, and most importantly, securing investment.
Those novel plagiarists were even more ridiculous—novels could be millions of words long. How could anyone remember clearly? Even if they did, without being a professional writer, did they have the writing skills and typing speed?
Yu Shao could only say to those literary and film plagiarist predecessors in novels: My brain isn't great—could I borrow yours?
"Did you do your homework? Here you are watching movies."
As soon as Yu Dongming got home and saw Yu Shao watching a movie on the couch, he frowned and said.
"Dad, I finished long ago."
Yu Shao immediately proved his innocence: "My homework is still on my desk."
"Even so, look what time it is. Go shower and sleep—don't you have school tomorrow?"
Then Cai Xiaomei chimed in: "No self-control at all. If we hadn't come home today, you probably would've watched all night."
Yu Shao had heard that mothers worldwide all spoke the same way, but now he realized it wasn't just worldwide—mothers from two different worlds spoke identically.
But Yu Shao didn't find it annoying.
In his previous life, his mother died early, and he hadn't heard these words in a long time. Hearing them now made his heart feel warm.
"Got it, I'll go shower now."
Yu Shao smiled, picked up the remote to turn off the TV, found clean clothes, and went to the bathroom.
"This kid..."
Seeing Yu Shao go to the bathroom, Cai Xiaomei said to her husband with some surprise: "He's been pretty obedient these past couple days. Has his rebellious phase passed?"