LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 442 - A Chance Encounter with An Old Acquaintance
Chapter 442: Chapter 443 A Chance Encounter with An Old Acquaintance
Translator: Doggotranslation
“How would the people in the city be interested in a girl from the countryside like me? Elder Brother Chu, I think you just want to talk to a lady who has been staring at you, and you think I’m getting in the way, right?” Pampered Girl jokingly said. Obviously, she also noticed the aggressive gaze of the chubby lady at table 3. “Xiaoyue, give Brother Chu a cup of ice lemon tea, and a rose as well! Hehe, Brother Chu, then I won’t disrupt you two.”
This bratty girl really had some nerve. She actually dared to make fun of me. Just as I pretended that I wanted to hit her, scaring her into running away like a rabbit, another curious face popped out from behind the counter and said excitedly, “Rose? Who did Elder Brother Chu bring this time? Elder Sister Liusu or Little Yuan Yuan?”
I was speechless… If I came with Chu Yuan, would I still need her to give roses? In terms of Liusu, I had asked her to come with me, but she felt embarrassed to come to see my stepmother, saying that she was not ready…
Liusu didn’t want to come, and Ziyuan was also the same. Thinking that she didn’t want to tell people the reason why she came back, I didn’t force her. After all, if my stepmother saw her, she would definitely ask her many questions; but there were many things that she didn’t want to say…
“Chu? Your surname is Chu…” The chubby woman suddenly put down the spoon, swallowed the food she stuffed in her mouth, and asked me: “You graduated from Bei Tian First Middle School Affiliated Elementary School, right? ”
Pampered Girl had been calling me Elder Brother Chu for a while now, but she still asked me if my surname was Chu; her pick-up line was so lame. However, the later half of her sentence startled me, “How did you know?”
After all, ‘Bei Tian First Middle School Affiliated Elementary School’ has become a name in history. The year I went to middle school, that Elementary school was renamed to ‘First Central Elementary School’. So when the woman said a name that had disappeared 11 years ago, how could I not be surprised by it?
Seeing my reaction, the chubby woman immediately stood up excitedly, “That means I was not mistaken, you are Chu Nan, the problematic boy, right? ”
How does she even know my full name and my nickname that was given by my teachers in elementary school?
I was so shocked that I even forgot to answer her. Looking closely at the woman’s round face, I still couldn’t remember who she was… Checking her facial features one by one carefully…
“Are you… Miss Hou?” I was not sure. Even if she nodded, I would still find it hard to believe.
“Yes, it’s me!” She really nodded! She walked over excitedly and said. While looking at me with a satisfied gaze, she patted my shoulder and smiled in surprise: “In a blink of an eye, it’s been eleven years, right? You little brat has grown so tall and handsome now. From what you are wearing, you have already found a job?”
I was still surprised about her identity. The memory of the past was too far away from the reality of the moment. I nodded in a daze, and replied instinctively: “I graduated from university last year and now I work in Fengchang Corporate Group.”
“Fengchang Corporate Group? The Fengchang in Bei Tian city? You are working at Fengchang Headquarters?!”
It was normal for Miss Hou to be surprised. Based on my performance in elementary school, it was already very gratifying for her that I didn’t become a criminal…
“Mhm, I work as a clerk in the investment department.” I didn’t want to show off, I just wanted to prove that I was not really a bad student.
“Wow, not bad. Back when you were still in elementary school, I often told other teachers that although you were a troublemaker, you were not bad in nature, and you were a smart kid, so you would definitely become successful in the future. No one believed me at that time, but hehe, now it proves that I wasn’t wrong. Come, sit down, sit down, and have a chat with me,” Miss Hou said while enthusiastically, pulling me to her table.
Seeing three empty plates and one empty bowl on the table, she smiled awkwardly, “It’s quite funny that amongst all the students I taught, you are the only one who can recognize me at a glance. My efforts of treating you nicely when you were a kid didn’t go wasted. You didn’t let me down.”
Er… a plate of shrimp fried rice, a plate of fish-flavored pork rice bowl, a plate of spicy cold noodles, and a bowl of white fungus porridge. Just how much can you eat? If you eat it like this every day, even your parents may not recognize you after 11 years…
Although Miss Hou had an unattractive nickname “Little Monkey” at that time, it was a testament to her slender figure. She wasn’t tall, but she was also considered a beautiful woman in the past. In the fourth and fifth grades, she was my head teacher. Because she often stood up for me, I used to dream of having a girlfriend like her in the future for a long time…
But reality once again proves how cruel it is. The woman before me didn’t look like a “little monkey” now at all. She was clearly a panda! Had it not been for her to call out my nickname back in elementary school, probably I wouldn’t have been able to recognize her as well.
“Miss, you have changed quite a lot…”
“I became fat?”
“No…” It’s very rude to call a woman fat. I quickly denied it, and then realized that this was something that even Miss Hou herself couldn’t deny.
I shook my head, thinking that it was too hypocritical to deny it. So I wanted to use a different way to describe it. After thinking about it for a while, I still couldn’t think of a suitable word, “It’s… plumper than before.”
“Plumper ?” Miss Hou was dazed for a moment, then burst into laughter, “Doesn’t that still mean I’m fat. Hehe, you little brat, when did you become so considerate? You actually know to use euphemistic terms to avoid hurting other people’s feelings. When you were in elementary school, you were not like this. All you knew was to cause me trouble every few days, and fight with other kids everywhere…”
Recalling my foolish acts in my childhood, I smiled embarrassedly. I didn’t think much when I was a kid, but now that I look back and think about it, I did create a lot of trouble for Miss Hou and give her a lot of headaches, “But Miss, you are still the same. You are still that free-spirited…”
“Are you trying to say that I’m as sloppy as I used to be, right?” Miss Hou slightly arranged her long tousled hair with her hands and said with a smile. “It’s my nature, I can’t change it. Anyway, I am already married, so there is no need for me to change it. Hehe.”
What kind of mindset is this… I was speechless.
“Miss, you are married now?” I was surprised.
“My kid can even walk now,” She said proudly. “Oh right, you know my husband too. He is Mr. Tao. Your old IT teacher. He quit the teaching job not long after you graduated from elementary school, and went to start a business with a few friends. He now owns an advertising company. I also quit my job after marrying him and became a full-time housewife.”
I jokingly said: “You… you really don’t look like a full-time housewife…”
“What do you mean? I may look sloppy, but my house is well cleaned up. If you don’t believe me, you can come to my house to take a look. Oh right, I live nearby, so you can visit me at any time,” Mrs. Hou defended herself, “Actually, I’m not that sloppy normally. After all, my husband is also the owner of a company. These few days are special circumstances. My husband is on a business trip, and my son went to visit his grandmother. Since I’m home alone, I am too lazy to cook for myself. If I knew that I would bump into you here, I wouldn’t have come here dressing like this. I definitely wouldn’t want to ruin my image in my student’s memory.”
I called Xiaoyue to bring another cup of lemon tea and then smiled: “I also didn’t expect to meet you here. But Mrs. Hou, I am really surprised that you can still recognize me.”
For an adult, no matter how much their appearance changes, it is still not comparable to the changes children have when they grow up. So it was not strange for me to recognize her, but it was strange for her to recognize me.
“Hehe, in the four years I was a teacher, I only met one problematic student and that was you. Do you know how many times I was scolded by the principal because of you? Do you think I would forget you? I’m not a very forgiving person, you know.” Mrs. Hou jokingly said, “But to be honest, you’ve really changed a lot. Not only do you grow taller and become handsome, but your temperament is also totally different compared to your temperament in the past. Even if I saw your picture a while ago, I still wasn’t very sure earlier.”
“You saw my picture a while ago?” I was dazed. Where did Mrs. Hou see my photos?
“Yeah, two women went to my house and asked me something about your childhood,” Mrs. Hou suddenly stopped. She looked me up and down and then carried on with an ambiguous expression: “By the way, I haven’t asked you yet. Is the little girl named Xue Ziyuan still with you? I remember that you two took the same middle school exam, right? Tell me honestly, are you two dating now? Hehe. I won’t be surprised if you two are dating now. In the past, most of your fights had something to do with her. I also don’t know why that little girl was always bullied by other people. You know we teachers often joked that she would not be able to live without you, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. You two look like you are made for each other…”
Before I could ask Mrs. Hou who those two women were, I heard my stepmother’s voice suddenly appear beside me, “Who are made for each other?”