"Nothing." Both the children replied at the same time.
Bing Lan sat down without saying anything and set the food in front of him.
Xue Ying set out to eat the barbecue diligently.
He eats far faster than either of the girls.
Bing Lan savored each bite as she ate them.
Xue Ying stopped eating once he was full, watched his sister and Dayu eat like baby birds, one small bite at a time.
"Sister. I have something I want to say." Xue Ying said.
"Say." Bing Lan answered.
"First promise me you will listen to the end. " he said.
Bing Lan nodded, for the start did not sound very good.
"I want to quit school." Xue Ying blurted out, then paused to allow for Bing Lan's explosion.
Dayu's jaw dropped from beside him. She did not expect him to be this direct, it seems.
She also looked at Bing Lan's expression.
Bing Lan looked like a dragon about to roast the little puppy in front of him.
"I want to take college entrance examinations early, like you." He explained.
"A'Ying, do you think college entrance examinations are a joke? " She asked him.
He shook his head.
"Or do you think I, your sister, passed them by magic?" she continued.
"I'll coach him." Dayu interjected.
This must be the support Xue Ying talked about.
"Coaching him is not the problem here. Xue Ying, why do you want to go to college early? If you can not convince me, don't even think of begging our mother for help. " BingLan said, waiting for her brother to explain to her properly.
"Because there are no advantages to going to a school. You wanted me to make friends, but it turned out, in the end, the friends I made were not really friends at all. Given I could not make friends, there's no reason to go to school. " Xue Ying answered back.
Bing Lan's anger cooled down.
Her brother always had trouble making friends.
He is far too honest, far too intelligent in specific places for him to fit into normal society. She gave him all the psychological tests she could, and eventually found out he did have mild autism.
So, she had him do the exercises, and to an extent, they have been pretty useful in getting him used to the school. However, there is still one problem.
When directly presented with a human face, her brother still couldn't read an expression properly. Conversely, it made him expressionless.
Worse than that, his emotional responses never followed normal logic at all. It's alright if he was in real society where most conversations are perfunctory, and rest based on facts. But among kids, it has turned out to be a disadvantage.
Like her, he is also very good looking.
Combined with his ice cold personality, he is just the type little girls like nowadays.
Sure, he could go to school, but at this rate, he will either end up a bully or a victim.
If he could manage it, there's no problem with attending college early.
After all, she has the bride price she just received.
"Very well. Tomorrow we will begin preparation to withdraw, and get you certified. On subjects other than math, Dayu will help you get up to speed. I will help you with languages.
However, it's only for two weeks. After that we both will be busy. Busy enough to not be able to breathe.
You must promise me a twenty four hour surveillance, and you must pass all the subjects within the top one percentile." BingLan proposed.
"Okay." Xue Ying agreed easily.
While others might think this is completely a bluff, it is actually a possible feat for the Xue family.
Bing Lan was more than good enough to be an early student.
Xue Ying is better than her, so much so, sometimes Bing Lan wondered if he belonged to the rumored 'Savant' syndrome type of autism, where they are gifted far too much in one field.
Xue Ying is already a whizz at anything to do with machines at ten. Right now, she would believe it if someone said he could probably hack into banking systems.
That is one of the reasons she allowed him to get out.
Over the past two years, she has seen most of Xue Ying's friends come from the kids addicted to games and the internet.
It's not that she thought liking either is the problem, the problem is that they always have some kind of favors they ask her brother. He is either helping them, or doing one or other task for them. it vaguely sounded like they are taking advantage of him.
She was hoping he would learn where to draw the line between good friends and hangers on, but Xue Ying never took any action till today, which is to cut all his friends cold turkey.
This problem will only exacerbate when he goes to high school.
So, it's better he gets out of high school now, and goes to college directly.
College is an entirely different set of minefields, but she will have at least some useful advice for him.
So she agreed.
They celebrated his freedom from school with a coke, and they went home as usual.
She made a call to Delun, the phone was too busy.
So, she wished him good night, and slept for the night.
It never occurred to her that she had completely forgotten bragging about her boyfriend in front of Dayu.
▬ ● ◘ ◘ ● ▬
On the other hand, Xue Ying is busy with his sister's copy of the house key's keychain.
He opened the chain carefully with the precision screw driver set.
As expected, there's a familiar micro chip in there.
He helps out at the mobile shop in the corner sometimes, and the brother there lends him a game card as well as points to play with.
The brother over there has thousands of little things like this, each and every one of which he carefully taught to Xue Ying.
He borrowed his sister's laptop, connected the chip to the computer.
A voice came out soon.
"Young Master, people are holding protests at the eighty three. What should we do with them?" a voice asked.
"See if we can find out who's behind it." he ordered the secretary.
The next moment, a phone icon showed up in front of Xue Ying.
Xue Ying picked up the call.
"Who are you?" a low bass voice came through the phone.
"It is I who should be asking you. Who are you? What business do you have with BingLan?" Xue Ying asked, but at the last moment, his voice cracked.
"Xue Ying …? " the voice on the other side said doubtfully.
"How do you know my name?" Xue Ying asked him, shocked.
"I am your brother-in-law." Delun answered easily.
"I don't know who you are, but the number of guys who want to be my brother-in-law is more than a hundred. Which one are you?" Xue Ying asked honestly.
"I am the one who made it. If you don't believe me, check your sister's purse. I am sure she still has the marriage certificate there." Delun told him proudly.
Xue Ying ran to his sister's place, and carefully opened her bag. There it is, the innocuous looking little red book.
"You.. You are really my brother-in-law."Xue Ying exclaimed.
"Yes, I am. Now, put the chip back where it was." Delun advised his little brother-in-law.
"Hmm.. I don't think spying on one's wife is good husband behavior." Xue Ying said, growling at the app on the desktop.
There are two others connected to this voice stream other than his brother in law.
Ideally, there should only be him and his brother in law.
"Also, I think your bug is faulty. It has one too many connections." Xue Ying told Delun.
"Really?" Delun wondered.
After a moment of thought, he replied back.
"Could you delete both of their files and disconnect them?" He asked Xue Ying.
"Sure." Xue Ying answered, immediately set to work.
"Xue Ying! Do you want to work for me?" Delun asked all of a sudden.
"Work? .. Like a part timer?" Xue Ying asked.
He asked many shops, including internet brother's shop.
None of them wanted to give him work.
His brother-in-law is quite good, already offering him a job.
"Yes, Like a part timer." Delun replied.
"Okay, but call me on my mobile. " Xue Ying answered, giving Delun his own mobile number.
If it were any other than his brother-in-law, to get a his approval, they would have had to go through a thousand hoops.
However, for Xue Ying, Family is always hundred percent trustworthy.
So, even if Delun asks him to walk through sword mountain, he would probably say yes.
After all, it's the guy his sister has picked. His sister always said before a man walked through sea of fire and mountain of swords, she will never ever marry him, so this brother-in-law is trustworthy.
He wouldn't necessarily put him through danger, will he?
Then, he closed the laptop, fixed the keychain, and left it where it was.
BingLan just slept happily, completely unaware that her brother had sold her off so easily.
Delun sent a red packet to Xue Ying first, before giving him the task.
He is to fly camera drones and take footage secretly.
However, if he is caught, he is on his own.
Delun offered big money for the job.
Xue Ying happily walked away to earn his first pocket of gold, with no thoughts to his sister at all.