Liu Chen felt a pang of toothache from Wang Dong’s teasing, but seeing his aunt’s shy, smiling face, he figured it was a private joke between a couple, none of his business.
They parked where the old sales office used to be. As they walked towards the complex’s main gate, they passed the former sales office, its sign now replaced by the Phoenix City Property Management Center.
About fifty meters past the management center, they saw the main entrance to Phoenix City.
On the left was the entrance to the underground parking garage. In the middle was the pedestrian walkway and the main gate wide enough for fire trucks. On the farthest right was a passage for electric scooters to descend into the underground parking.
It was exactly as he remembered from his past life, only newer.
He took out the owner’s card and swiped it on the machine. The pedestrian gate swung open.
As they walked in, Liu Fang pointed out features to Chenchen.
“We entered through the main south gate. Later, when we move in, the west gate will open. It faces a large shopping mall, so we can go shopping there. Our complex has an outdoor swimming pool in the central courtyard, and an indoor one in the former sales center. It’s even more upscale than Hu Xingfa’s neighborhood.”
As she spoke, they arrived at their building. Unlike the cheap apartment Liu Chen had rented in his previous life, Phoenix City, while not expensive, had a two-story elevated entrance. The ground tiles were patterned, and the walls were tiled all the way up, gleaming clean.
Walking inside, they saw two elevators side-by-side. Liu Chen noticed the brand: Mitsubishi.
Even by the standards of over a decade later, the complex’s amenities were quite good. They took the elevator up; it was smooth and reasonably fast. The fire escape door opposite the elevator was open, making the corridor bright.
“This is our home.”
As Liu Fang opened the door, behind the ordinary security door, lay a house that the mother and daughter had bought and designed themselves.
“Wow… Sister-in-law, your house is so beautiful…”
Looking at the spacious and bright living room, decorated in a predominantly milky white American style, Liu Fang hadn’t followed the trend of installing wine cabinets or TV stands, given the ample number of rooms. However, a crystal chandelier, wrapped in plastic, hung from the ceiling.
It looked very similar to the one at godmother’s house, but was much smaller, like a great-grandchild of that lamp.
The kitchen also featured American-style cabinets, primarily white. Outside the kitchen was a small balcony with a floor drain, where Liu Fang said the washing machine would be placed.
From the kitchen, Liu Chen went to see his study. The twelve-square-meter room with a floor-to-ceiling window had dark brown solid wood flooring and light beige wallpaper. A small white crystal lamp, shaped like an anchor, hung from the ceiling.
Then, from the study, he walked to his bedroom. It had the same dark brown solid wood flooring with natural wood grain. Below the light beige wallpaper, his mother had insisted on adding a strip of pink pastoral-style wallpaper.
On a bay window that stretched nearly half the length of the wall, there was a milky white bay window sill. To the left and right of the bay window were openable windows.
Liu Fang had finished showing Hu Min and the others her study and bedroom and came over. She smiled at Liu Chen, who was gazing out the bay window at the complex’s greenery.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to find this.” As she spoke, Liu Fang closed the bedroom door, revealing another door behind it. Opening it revealed a private bathroom exclusively for Liu Chen.
Perhaps inspired by the contrasting wallpaper in the bedroom, the bathroom tiles also featured a waistline. The upper section was white, and the lower section was a pale pink, resembling shells.
Liu Chen stepped into his private bathroom. It was rectangular. The door was in the lower left corner, leading to the vanity. Next was the toilet in the middle. Further in was a glass partition, then an American-style shower, and finally, near the window, a built-in bathtub.
After touring their new house, Liu Chen even started thinking about when they would move in.
Before he could ponder further, he heard his mother making plans.
“We’ll move after your college entrance exams. Otherwise, the noise from new house renovations in the complex will affect your studies.”
Wang Dong had entrusted the entire renovation of their house to Engineer Mi. He had felt quite confident before seeing Liu Jie’s new house, but after seeing it, Wang Dong suddenly didn’t feel like letting Xiao Min tour their marital home anymore…
Although the floor plan was the same, he inexplicably felt it wasn’t presentable enough.
Liu Fang closed the security door and said to Wang Dong and Hu Min, “Let’s go. We’ve seen our place. Shall we go see yours?”
Wang Dong thought of Liu Jie’s renovation and then of their own, and quickly tried to salvage the situation. “Our house isn’t finished yet. It’s all dusty at the construction site right now. How about next time? When it’s cleaned up?”
Liu Fang found it a bit strange, but let Hu Min decide, as it was their marital home.
“Then I’ll listen to you.”
After seeing the new house, Liu Chen returned home and suddenly remembered the American-style white furniture he had drawn yesterday. Wouldn’t it match his new room perfectly? But how could he explain all that furniture?
He couldn’t figure it out for now. Anyway, there were still half a year before he moved in, so Liu Chen adjusted his state and continued reading.
The arrival of 2009 seemed to bring no change to these high school seniors. They still did practice problems, still memorized texts. The only change was probably –
“Ah, I just wrote the date on my notebook and wrote 2008 again. I had to use correction fluid to cover it and rewrite, and now it looks so ugly!”
Following Liu Chen’s suggestion, Mi Zhuzhu created a mistake notebook. However, because she made so many mistakes, the notebook was filled in less than a month, and she had to get a new one.
Lai Jielun flipped through Mi Zhuzhu’s mistake notebook and, to everyone’s surprise, nodded.
“With this notebook, if you don’t score over 130 in math on the final exam, it would be a disservice to both me and Sister Chen for our guidance!”
Mi Zhuzhu rolled her eyes dramatically and took back her mistake notebook. “Of course, my Chenchen guided me. But even if my grades improve, what does it have to do with you? You went for training for two whole months before. If it weren’t for the desk, I would have forgotten I even had a deskmate!”
“How is it unrelated? Look at these, and these, and those – they are all the correct answers I wrote for you. Who would have thought you could copy the problem-solving steps from the blackboard incorrectly?”
Just as he finished speaking, Lai Jielun casually took out his phone from his pocket, pressed a few buttons, and his eyes widened.
He held up his phone to Mi Zhuzhu, who was still muttering, and Liu Chen, who was studying. He also nudged Ren Mo, who had fallen asleep from exhaustion.
“My, my unified exam scores are out!”