"Then... let’s try to live a few more years..."
Faced with Leon’s Japanese-style question, the administrator lady hesitated for a while but couldn’t resist the temptation of personally witnessing the establishment of the New Poverty Relief Institute and finally agreed to Leon’s proposal.
However, even so, she couldn’t help but advise:
"But don’t be too deliberate. My husband and I have lived long enough, and we’re very satisfied. There’s no need to go to great lengths for us."
"Yeah, yeah, definitely not."
After hearing the administrator lady’s words, Leon smiled on the surface, but in his heart, he had made up his mind. When the New Poverty Relief Institute starts, he must find a way to preserve this elderly couple as much as possible.
If they really feel they’ve lived enough and want to rest forever, there’s no reason for him to stop them. But now it’s obvious they still have some concerns, they just don’t want their presence to affect the establishment of the New Poverty Relief Institute. So, he definitely needs to do some "behind-the-scenes manipulation."
While Leon, who was acting "two-faced," was contemplating how to be a power broker and quietly preserve Happy Apartments, three familiar footsteps came from outside the door.
Soon after, Anna, with a slightly darkened complexion, appeared outside the apartment door, holding William, looking calm, with her left hand and Melanie, full of despair, with her right.
"Anna, slow down, slow down, okay?"
Melanie, whose ear was red, clearly twisted hard by someone, begged pitifully with a crying face:
"It’s not even five o’clock yet, we don’t need to rush home, do we? Also, I saw Grandpa John fixing the fence in the little garden, why don’t you go help him first?"
"Melanie, you should just accept your fate."
Before the dark-faced Anna could answer, William, with an equally red ear, spoke calmly:
"As far as I understand Anna, we can’t escape a beating today. If she lets out her anger immediately, we might get a few less hits, but if she holds it in a bit longer, who knows what will happen."
Darn... I barely got a two-day break, and as soon as I got back, it’s all chaos...
Seeing his siblings in such a tense situation outside the door, Leon’s lips twitched slightly, and then he went up with a hint of helplessness to ask:
"Anna... what trouble did they get into this time?"
Hearing Leon’s voice, Anna, who was wrestling with their sister, trying not to go home, suddenly looked up in surprise and somewhat delightedly said:
Before Anna could finish her sentence, Melanie, who was unwilling to step onto the stairs just a moment ago, suddenly shot forward and dashed into the hall, skillfully hiding behind Leon and grabbing his trouser leg.
"Big brother, you don’t look well!"
Seeing her savior appearing, Melanie’s previously despairing face instantly blossomed into a bright smile, as she eagerly said to Leon while winking at him:
"Are you too tired from work? Shall I give you a shoulder massage? Or maybe tell you a story?"
Seeing his little sister being exceptionally well-behaved, Leon knowingly patted her little head and gave her a helpless smile.
"In our family, we listen to your sister Anna. We have to hear what she has to say before I know if I’m tired and need a shoulder rub."
"It’s not that exaggerated..."
Hearing Leon’s words, Anna’s cheeks slightly flushed, and she teasingly complained while twisting Melanie’s little ear half a turn in the latter’s despairing gaze, using her signature sister move.
"Just wait till we get home!"
Issuing a tactical threat to her little sister, whom she pulled out from behind Leon, Anna first greeted the administrator lady, then turned to Leon with curiosity, saying:
"How come you’re home so early today?"
"Hmm... I’ve been working overtime a lot lately, so the office gave me a few days off."
Without mentioning the business trip to Crolock Kingdom, Leon made up an excuse and then, while picking up his still-calm brother and walking toward the stairwell, he curiously asked:
"Let’s not talk about me. What exactly did they do this time to make you so angry?"
"Big brother, that’s prejudiced."
Upon hearing Leon’s inquiry, William straightened his little face and replied seriously:
"Though Melanie and I are a bit naughty, we aren’t just troublemakers."
"So you haven’t caused trouble lately?"
"Big brother, don’t misunderstand."
Seeing Leon’s speechless expression, William quickly explained earnestly:
"While we did cause trouble, Anna is not angry because of that. She’s angry because of our poor academic performance. It’s an intellectual issue, not our fault."
Hearing William’s explanation, Anna immediately turned red with anger and gently pinched him, unable to help but complain to Leon:
"Brother! You don’t know how infuriating they are!
In this exam, the last question in arithmetic was : Due to the long waiting time for the public carriage, the Department of Transportation plans to increase the number of carriages on Bridge Street, but due to limited funding, only two new carriages can be allocated.
Given that there were originally four carriages on Bridge Street, each operating 18 hours a day, and each carriage can return to the starting point for new passengers after 3 hours, how should they be arranged to best solve the waiting issue?"
How should they be arranged to solve the waiting problem?
After hearing Anna’s words, Leon pondered on the math problem for a moment.
With limited funding, the Department of Transportation can only allocate 2 new carriages, plus the original 4 means 6 carriages. Each runs a circuit in 3 hours, and the total operating time is 18 hours a day, meaning each carriage can run 6 trips, totaling 36 trips.
If calculated this way, 18 hours for 36 trips means one trip every half hour... wait!
At this point, Leon suddenly realized that this seemingly simple problem had a very insidious trap.
Although it seems every carriage can run 6 trips in 18 hours, in reality, these 6 are not departing simultaneously in the morning but are staggered, so in fact, only one carriage can complete 6 trips daily.
"Hmm... For kids, this is indeed pretty challenging."
Frowning slightly, Leon said in confusion:
"William and others are transfer students and missed a lot compared to other children. It’s perfectly normal they couldn’t answer it. Is there a need to be so upset?"
"I’m not upset because he couldn’t answer it, I’m upset because he did!"
Anna replied angrily:
"William’s solution was to first deliver a speech on the street, criticizing the Transportation Department for misusing funds and stirring up discontent among Bridge Street residents to pressure the managers, then demand an audit of the carriage company’s accounts to check for overspending.
After finding faults between the Transportation Department and the carriage company, he suggested going to a councilor to report them, threatening him with affecting the district votes to propose additional funding.
Once the proposal was on the agenda, it would involve raising funds for tabloid campaigns questioning if the underfunded Transportation Department was overly corrupt, or even colluding with councilors, leveraging public opinion to prevent them from voting against it, thus passing the proposal for more carriages. That way, there would never be a shortage of carriages!"