No, wait—Fu Ying discovered a neglected problem. Today is Wednesday, June 1st? Yesterday was Tuesday, May 31st?
Why aren't they going to school on Tuesday, and not on Wednesday either? There are no holidays at the end of May, and Children's Day isn't a day off anyway.
Should she ask her older sister? But asking would seem really strange. Or she could wait for Little Black Charcoal to come back and ask him; he's not very shrewd and is easy to pump for information.
As for anything else, there didn't seem to be anything urgent to ask for the moment. Leaving aside whether her sister's family would go back to their hometown with her, the matter of her own return to the hometown still required persuading Dad Fu and Mom Film first.
The two of them didn't speak again. Fu Ying was thinking about the high school situation back in her hometown, wondering if the dormitories had been built yet in case she wouldn't be living at home. Seeing that her younger sister was much quieter than usual and not as lively, Fu Yu assumed she was worried about taking the high school entrance exams and didn't offer too much comfort. She still needed to ask the school teachers clearly first, talk it over with Dad Fu and Mom Fu tonight, and then decide whether to transfer schools.
Half an hour later, Fu Yu had the eldest and second child get ready for their afternoon nap and turned off the TV. She also had to do the laundry and make dinner.
Fu Ying checked to make sure the doors and windows were propped open for ventilation, said goodbye to her sister, and headed home first.
When she got back, it wasn't even four-thirty. Fu Ying looked at the leftover dishes from lunch—they'd have to eat those again, just frying up some potatoes to go with them. It was a bit early to start cooking, so she washed the rice, pressed the cook button, and peeled the potatoes, leaving them soaking in water. Then she went out to look for Little Black Charcoal.
According to where he had said he was going to play with friends yesterday, he must have gone to an illegal internet cafe. Proper internet cafes were too expensive; he had no money and couldn't afford them. As for illegal ones, Fu Ying remembered there were two, both located inside small grocery stores. Mostly students went there, and their rates were cheap—she remembered it was 3 yuan to play for a whole afternoon.
Following her memory, Fu Ying went to the one she had visited earliest because she had gone there a few times with Fu Zhe. Back then, she had just barely learned how to use a computer, followed along to register a QQ account, and met some uncle she almost had an online relationship with, even talking on the phone a few times. She couldn't remember why they stopped keeping in touch later on.
Walking for five minutes, she reached the grocery store from her memory. All the surrounding buildings were these casually thrown-together structures; after she started working, the buildings on both sides of this street would be completely demolished and turned into an asphalt road.
The owner actually still remembered her when he saw her, asking:
"Are you here to surf the net too, or are you looking for your younger brother? There's just one machine open right now."
Actually, she didn't remember the owner, but since he had spoken up, Fu Ying answered him, "I'm looking for my brother first, I'll see whether I want to get online later."
The owner pointed inward. "Go on in then, yourself."
Fu Ying walked inside to a tiny rectangular partition with three computers. The innermost one was empty, Little Black Charcoal was in the middle, and on the outside was a boy about the same size as Fu Zhe. Both of them were wearing headphones, playing what seemed to be the same game with similar screens—it looked like CrossFire. Little Black Charcoal basically only played this game at internet cafes; she didn't know if its English name was CS or DNF—to be honest, she could never tell those two games apart, knowing only that they were gunfight games and remembering that classic line: "fire in the hole."
The little boy felt someone standing beside him, looked up, and patted the hand of the person next to him. "Your second sister is here."
Fu Zhe took off his headphones and looked at Fu Ying. "Second sister, did you come to surf the net too?"
"No, I'm here to find you." Fu Ying thought for a moment and decided to ask him directly, "Why aren't you going to school today?"
Little Black Charcoal's mind was completely on the game and he didn't think much of it, directly complaining to Fu Ying:
"Are you out of your mind? The weather forecast said two days ago there was a typhoon coming, and the school sent out a notice suspending classes. Classes don't start again until tomorrow."
A typhoon? Fu Ying thought about it. Yesterday and today had been overcast, but there hadn't been any strong winds or rain—was this supposed to be typhoon weather? Or was it like that saying: the Guangdong Province weather forecast equals random weather reports?