Chapter One Home

  "Grandpa, grandpa! Grandma is calling you for dinner!" Along with a clear and crisp child's voice, the old man who was sleeping on the recliner woke up. He opened his eyes and smiled kindly at Xiaotian: "Okay, let's go eat. Bring me my cane." Xiaotian fetched the pair of canes leaning against the side and handed them to grandpa.

  But this old man is different from ordinary people, because he only has one leg. His name is Xiang Shaohua!

  "Grandpa, shall I help you up?" asked Xiaotian straightforwardly to Shaohua.

  "No need!" Towards Shao Hua, although he was over 70 years old, his speech was still full of energy and vigor.

  "But, Grandpa! Dad already bought you a wheelchair, why don't you use it? That way, every time you come out to sunbathe, Little Tian can push you around. Otherwise, even though the road is short, what if you fall?" asked Little Tian with concern.

  "A real man stands tall and firm! If you can't even walk on your own, how can you achieve anything? Xiaotian, remember that in your future life, what you need to conquer is not the road, but yourself." Xiang Shaohua replied sternly.

  "Oh! Got it!" Thirteen-year-old Xiang Xiaotian may not have fully understood the sentence at that time, but he indeed remembered it. And this brief conversation between grandfather and grandson helped him get through several difficulties in his later life.

  Back in the room, Xiaotian sat at the dinner table and saw that the dishes were not yet ready, so he began to daydream. In fact, when he thought about it, he felt that since he had consciousness, most of his time was spent daydreaming. Apart from thinking wildly, he seemed to have done nothing practical!

  Today is the Dragon Boat Festival, and it's rare for everyone in the family to gather together. Father Ru Yu and Mother Shen Dan are both teaching at the same university in Beijing, and they only come back once a year during holidays! As for me, I live with my grandparents in this remote mountain village.

  Xiang asked his dad why his grandparents had given him such a strange name, but Xiang Ruyu said that the name wasn't chosen by his grandparents, it was chosen by Grandpa Wen.

  "Grandpa Wen... seems like I only remember him hugging me when I was little, uh... or maybe he didn't! Can't recall!" muttered to Xiaotian.

  "Ding. Ding. Ding~~" accompanied by the sound of knocking on a bowl. Mom Shen Dan said, "Hey, hey, hey, all the dishes are on the table, what's wrong with you daydreaming?! Not even helping to serve the bowls and chopsticks, just spacing out all day! You'll become stupid if you keep this up!"

  "Got it!" replied to Xiaotian, and then lowered his head and started eating. He was simply wolfing down his food, shoveling a few mouthfuls into his mouth at a time, finishing off a bowl of rice in no time. Even he himself felt that, apart from eating quickly, he didn't seem to have any other strengths.

  "Slow down, how can't you get rid of this habit? Why eat so fast? No one is competing with you!" Shen Dan started nagging again.

  "Haha, eat quickly and well. Thinking back to the old days of fighting, eating quickly was also a kind of military skill, we might have had to march at any moment! We mustn't have food but no time to eat, that would be bad for fighting on an empty stomach. It seems that Little Tian still has a strong sense of combat readiness and is good material for being a soldier, haha!" Xiang Shaohua laughed loudly after hearing Shen Dan's words.

  "Pffft!" Xiaotian spat out the food he was chewing in his mouth, thinking to himself: "Great! The words I feared most were finally spoken by Grandpa's own mouth!"

  "What's wrong with you! Are you going to let people eat or not? Don't you have any manners?" Shen Dan said, looking at Xiang Xiaotian with a face full of anger.

  "No, nothing. Just a bit stuck, that's all!" Xiaotian looked at his mother and replied. "Is it true that women are like this at every age? Then men are really miserable; when they're young, they listen to their mothers, then they listen to their wives, and finally they listen to their daughters. Good grief!" Of course, the last sentence was what he thought in his heart.

  "You..." heard towards Xiao Tian back to Shen Dan's matter bursting into flames.

  "In a few days, the college entrance examination will be held. How's your recent state?" Yu Ru spoke up, seemingly to interrupt Shen Dan's nagging.

  "It's okay, just answer a few questions and I'll be fine!" Xiaotian was secretly grateful to his dad. Although he usually looked like a bookworm, he was actually a henpecked husband. But in his heart, he was the kind of person who "could save people from danger at critical moments".

  "That's good, but no matter which high school you attend, you may have to leave your grandparents and go to a boarding school. We came this time also planning to take you to the affiliated middle school of our university, what do you think?" Xiang Ruyu asked further.

  "No way!" Xiaotian replied without hesitation.

  "Hmm? Why?" Xiang Ruyu continued to ask.

  "I don't know, maybe it's too sudden for you guys, I haven't thought about it specifically. But in any case, I probably won't go!" Xiaotian thought for a moment and then replied seriously again.

  "It doesn't matter, as long as you have your own thoughts." Xiang Ruyu wasn't surprised by her son's response, seemingly already knowing the answer in her heart.

  "You have to say something about your goals, don't just give such a vague answer. How can we be at ease? You've never done anything wrong since you were young, but you also don't have any special talents that stand out. Do you really want to grow up and become an ordinary passerby?" This time it was Shen Dan speaking, she couldn't bear the way Mo Xiangyu spoke to children, it was the same at school, he seemed to never get angry, but maybe that's why she liked him.

  "That's not bad either, at least it's less trouble!" whispered to Xiao Tian.

  "How dare you talk back, look at your attitude." Shen Dan was really furious in her heart. Actually, she wasn't angry about Xiao Tian talking back to her, but rather that his meek and mild demeanor was something she couldn't stand.

  "Dandan, Xiaotian has his own ideas, that's a good thing. If there's really something planned, let's talk about it after he finishes high school!" Xiang Ruyu unexpectedly retorted to her husband.

  "Shut up! Eat your meal. You father and son are both like this, you'll drive me mad sooner or later!" Shen Dan obviously didn't give him any face.

  Xiang Ruyu lowered his head in a very unmanly manner and started eating the plain rice from the bowl, which didn't have a single vegetable.

  Xiang Xiao Tian looked down on him in his heart, but still felt grateful, because the two of them needed a lot of courage to talk back to their mother every time.

  "Alright! Alright! Let's talk after we finish eating, the dishes are getting cold." The speaker was Grandma of Xiao Tian. Xiao Tian was willing to stay in the countryside and not go to the city also had a lot to do with her. Even when he was young, his standard for choosing a partner was based on his grandmother. She didn't talk much, but she took care of people 360 degrees, taking care of her crippled husband and herself for many years without ever complaining, and even never showing an angry expression.

  "Right, right! Let's eat first. You're always quarreling all day, how can you not study and be useless? I didn't attend school myself, but I'm doing fine now. I used to think of ways to get Ruyu to read books, but look at the result! Look at you two now, considered intellectuals, do you have great achievements? I said it before, Xiaotian is a good seedling. He can join the army in the future!" Xiang Shaohua seemed to be making excuses for them.

  "Ah..." Before Mr. and Mrs. Xiang could respond, a second mouthful of food had already sprayed out of Little Tian's mouth.