So rather than saying he was reading, it might be more fitting to say he was relaxing and easing his mind.
Beside him sat Qin Li, with "Qin’s Jiao Observation Method" in hand, while downstairs Grandma Liu was drinking tea and smiling as she looked up.
Li Zhiyuan had considered whether or not to tell Grandma Liu about the new insights into the "talisman" drawings of the Qin and Liu families. After thinking it over, he felt it wasn’t the right time yet—at least not until he had skimmed through all the books worth reading in the basement. What if there were other heritages from the Qin and Liu families in there?
In the afternoon, Li Zhiyuan put down his book and played several rounds of Go with Qin Li, then went downstairs with her to watch TV while snacking on paired snacks and beverages.
The TV was theirs for the taking; they could watch as long as they wanted.
But just watching TV can also become dull. Li Zhiyuan thought about whether to take Qin Li to the cinema to watch a movie. These days, besides holidays, the cinemas are mostly empty, so there’s no need to worry about Qin Li encountering strangers.
Li Sanjiang went out after lunch and when he returned and saw that Li Zhiyuan wasn’t studying, he wasn’t angry but rather pleased. He thought it was good that Xiao Yuanhou was gradually overcoming the shock of losing his residency registration.
Around five-thirty in the afternoon, a motorcycle approached, and the rider took off his helmet—it was Tan Yunlong. After greeting Li Sanjiang, he easily took Li Zhiyuan onto his bike and then started the engine again, smoothly making a turn down the dam.
Tan Yunlong’s motorcycle driving was even wilder than Uncle Qin’s, but fortunately, this time Li Zhiyuan had a helmet.
When they arrived at the police station’s family building, Tan Yunlong led the boy to the third floor and opened the door. A middle-aged woman wearing an apron and dressed modestly and friendly came out of the kitchen.
"So this is Xiao Yuan, right?"
"Hello, such a good boy. Just call me Aunt Zheng."
Tan Yunlong asked, "Where’s Binbin?"
"Binbin is doing his homework in the room."
Tan Yunlong opened the door to his son’s room. At the desk, a tall high school student in a uniform was buried in his homework.
Tan Yunlong walked over to the desk and placed his hand on it.
Tan Wenbin’s posture became a bit distorted.
Then, Tan Yunlong opened his son’s pencil case and pulled out a Tetris handheld game console, with the game screen still paused.
Tan Wenbin lowered his head, not daring to make eye contact with his father.
Perhaps because there was a guest present, Tan Yunlong did not get angry. Instead, he took out a handful of jelly candies from his pocket, placed them on his son’s desk, and handed two to Li Zhiyuan.
Li Zhiyuan quietly tore open a jelly candy and ate it, knowing that the relationship between this father and son was definitely strained. What kind of father continues to give jelly candies to a son in his senior year of high school?
Although Tan Wenbin ate one to appease his father, it seemed more like a display of father-son affection than genuine warmth.
Seeing this, Li Zhiyuan sighed inwardly. Even if theirs was a performance, it still contained warmth at its core, unlike his own relationship with Li Lan, which lacked emotion and was all an act.
"This is Xiao Yuan, Li Zhiyuan. Xiao Yuan, this is my son I told you about, Tan Wenbin. You can call him Brother Binbin."
"Hello, Brother Binbin."
"Here, find a blank test paper for Xiao Yuan to do."
"What, for him to do?"
"Oh, then take this one." Tan Wenbin pulled out a blank math paper from a stack of test papers.
The high school curriculum is usually completed by sophomore year, and the entirety of junior year is spent reviewing and practicing.
"Alright, now, come out with me for a moment."
"Come out." Tan Yunlong began to unbuckle his belt as he walked outside.
Tan Wenbin followed with a look of distress on his face.
Then, the door of the next room closed, and Li Zhiyuan heard several anguished cries interspersed with Tan Yunlong’s rebukes:
"I won’t bother with the fight you got into, but you dared to steal your mother’s money to buy a game console—how have I taught you? It doesn’t matter if your academic performance slips a bit, but as a person, you must not stray from the right path. Do you want to end up with me personally putting you in jail?"
But Tan Yunlong only gave a few spankings, then proceeded with verbal education.
In the meantime, Aunt Zheng knocked on the door a few times to no avail.
Two hours later, the father and son came out.
Aunt Zheng complained: "There’s still a guest at home, aren’t you going to have dinner, or do you want Xiao Yuan to go hungry?"
"I forgot." Tan Yunlong glanced at his son, "Isn’t it all because of this disappointing brat?"
Li Zhiyuan had long since left the desk and was sitting on the bed, reading a comic book he found in a pile of books. Before father and son entered, he hid the comic under the blanket, unnoticed by Tan Yunlong.
Although Tan Wenbin was no longer crying, his neck was still twitching, looking pitiful.
Tan Yunlong patted the back of his son’s head: "Go and see how Xiao Yuan did on the test paper."
Tan Wenbin walked over to the desk, flipped the math test paper up and down, and saw that all the questions had been answered.
"How did he do, are they all correct?" Tan Yunlong urged, "I’m asking you."
"I don’t have the answers in my hand... I don’t know."
Tan Wenbin flipped through the other papers beneath and exclaimed in surprise, "They’ve all been answered!"
This stack of papers was distributed in advance by the teachers, instructing students to do them at home according to the schedule, covering not just math but several subjects.
Tan Wenbin noticed that aside from the composition section of the Chinese paper, the rest of the subjects had been completed.
He tried a few of the questions that were simple and that he knew as well and found that the answers matched what the boy had written.