Chapter 4: Brother and Sister
"Trying to block me? Maybe in your next life."
At around four in the afternoon, Su Xiaofan adjusted the sun hat on his head and walked out from the back entrance of a shop inside the antique city.
He had discovered long ago that Wu Chuanbao and the others were waiting at both the front and back entrances of the antique market. However, the antique city did not only have two exits. Many shops had their own back doors. Without a hundred or eighty people, it was impossible to completely block someone from leaving this place.
After passing through several small alleys, Su Xiaofan arrived at a vegetable market located inside a residential area.
He bought half a jin of pork, a hen, and several kinds of vegetables. After thinking for a moment, he also bought another half jin of chicken feet, which his younger sister loved.
Only then did he carry everything back home.
Luochuan City's cost of living was not particularly high.
The place Su Xiaofan rented was not far from both the antique city and his younger sister's high school. It was a residential building constructed in the 1980s in the old district.
The building itself was older than Su Xiaofan.
Naturally, the rent was cheap.
A two-bedroom apartment with a living room only cost nine hundred yuan per month, and the place already came with complete furniture and appliances.
Although his younger sister only returned to stay for one day each week, Su Xiaofan still kept the sunny room facing south for her.
Buying a slaughtered chicken at the market cost five yuan extra. Su Xiaofan was reluctant to spend that money.
Instead, he boiled a pot of hot water himself.
His technique for killing and plucking chickens was extremely skilled. Within just a few minutes, he had cleaned the entire chicken.
He placed it into a pot, added seasonings, and began stewing chicken soup.
Almost every week, Su Xiaofan prepared this meal for his younger sister.
According to him, chicken soup contained all kinds of nutrition.
The chicken meat could be shredded and mixed with ginger sauce, soy sauce, and vinegar, making a delicious dish that was perfect for spoiling his little sister.
He turned on another stove and stir-fried shredded pork with garlic shoots, then made a cold cucumber salad.
After lowering the heat on the chicken soup, he returned to the living room and turned on the fan to cool down.
Looking at the time, he estimated that his sister still needed about half an hour to arrive home, which would be just enough time to start eating.
"The number you have dialed is currently out of service. Please try again later."
Hearing the electronic voice from his phone, Su Xiaofan helplessly hung up.
Recently, he had called his father several times every day.
However, he had no idea which ocean his father had sailed into this time. He could never get through.
But losing signal while at sea was normal.
Su Xiaofan wasn't worried about his father's safety.
He was only worried about his younger sister's tuition fees.
Although he had earned eight thousand yuan by tricking that man surnamed Wu, Su Xiaofan currently only had eighty-five thousand yuan in his possession.
He was still fifteen thousand yuan short of one hundred thousand.
And according to his plans, besides tuition fees, he needed to prepare another ten to twenty thousand yuan for his sister in case of emergencies.
As the saying went, "A poor family should still let its children travel comfortably."
Su Xiaofan could endure eating poorly himself, but he absolutely refused to let his sister suffer while studying away from home.
"There really isn't anything valuable left in this house."
Su Xiaofan looked around the living room somewhat helplessly.
Aside from some molds and tools used for making bronze artifacts, there was nothing else of value.
"Wait... could this thing be worth money?"
Su Xiaofan suddenly loosened his collar and pulled out a pendant hanging from a gold chain around his neck.
The pendant was oval-shaped.
Its entire body was pitch black, with an irregular hole in the middle where the chain passed through.
It looked extremely ordinary.
If someone threw it onto the ground, the only person who would probably pick it up was a scrap collector who thought it was a piece of useless metal.
According to his father, this object had been obtained accidentally during one of his father's ocean voyages several years ago.
At that time, Su Weixuan's ship was passing through the Bermuda region when it encountered a cruise ship that had accidentally hit a reef and was about to sink.
Naturally, they couldn't just ignore people in danger.
Under Su Weixuan's command, more than five hundred passengers from that cruise ship were rescued.
This pendant was a gift from one of the rescued passengers to thank Su Weixuan, the captain.
That passenger was a very famous meteorite collector with considerable wealth.
Unfortunately, during the escape from the sinking ship, he had been unable to bring anything with him.
So he gave Su Weixuan the pendant that had been hanging around his own neck.
According to the collector, he had obtained this pendant thirty years earlier while searching for a meteorite shower that had fallen to Earth.
Strangely enough, he had found a basketball-sized meteorite in a desert.
But the moment he touched it with his hand, the entire meteorite turned into sand.
It broke apart into particles even finer than ordinary sand.
And what remained in the center of the meteorite was this strange object.
After bringing the small piece of meteorite back, the collector had conducted countless tests.
However, no matter how he analyzed it, he could not determine its properties.
He couldn't even confirm whether it was actually metal.
Although the object did not have an attractive appearance, the collector felt that obtaining it had been a rare opportunity.
So he threaded a string through it and wore it around his neck.
He had worn it for decades.
If he had not been rescued by Su Weixuan and escaped the sinking ship with nothing, he probably would never have been willing to give it away.
However, Su Weixuan didn't think much of it.
After returning home, he simply handed it to his son.
Su Xiaofan thought wearing a pendant around his neck looked fashionable, so he continued wearing it.
But now that he needed money, he couldn't help but consider selling it.
"This thing is called a meteorite? I doubt anyone would believe it."
Looking at the pendant in his hand, Su Xiaofan gave a bitter smile.
This thing was neither gold nor iron.
It wasn't even remotely like ordinary stone.
He had previously taken it to someone in the antique city for appraisal.
The person's final evaluation had only been four words:
"Scrap copper and rotten iron."
"Forget it. If there's really no other way, I'll ask Brother Gang for help in a few days."
Su Xiaofan placed the pendant back around his neck.
His sister's tuition wasn't completely impossible to solve.
Given his relationship with Zheng Dagang, borrowing tens of thousands of yuan for a year or two would definitely not be a problem.
However, Su Xiaofan had always been independent.
Unless absolutely necessary, he was unwilling to ask others for help.
"Xiaofan! Su Xiaofan, I'm home!"
A clear voice interrupted his thoughts.
Immediately afterward, the door opened from outside.
A girl about 1.7 meters tall bounced into the room and rushed toward him.
"Call me brother. Have some manners."
Su Xiaofan pushed his sister aside and said unhappily:
"How old are you already? Why are you still jumping around like a child? What if you can't get married in the future?"
"Hmph! There are plenty of people chasing me at school. Someone writes me love letters every day. How could this young lady possibly fail to get married?"
Su Xiaoxiao giggled, wrinkled her nose, and ran straight toward the kitchen.
"The school cafeteria food is terrible. Brother is still the best. I look forward to coming home every week just for this meal to replenish myself."
"Who is blind enough to chase after you?"
Su Xiaofan spoke harshly, but his heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Their father wasn't around.
He had to keep an eye on his sister.
He absolutely couldn't let her start dating too early.
"I know. This young lady isn't interested in those childish boys anyway."
Su Xiaoxiao snorted and reached out to lift the pot lid.
Although she was playful and carefree, Su Xiaoxiao was actually extremely beautiful.
Her height of 1.7 meters was already impressive.
Her figure had fully developed.
She had an oval face, willow-shaped eyebrows, bright sparkling eyes, and a delicate nose.
She looked about fifty to sixty percent similar to Su Xiaofan.
The Su family's genes were truly excellent.
If the siblings walked down the street together, they would definitely attract attention.
Su Xiaofan sighed.
His younger sister was good in every way.
The only problem was that she had grown up following him in the countryside—climbing trees to steal bird eggs and catching loaches in rivers.
Her personality had become a little too wild.
Most ordinary men probably wouldn't be able to handle her.
"The chicken soup is ready. Don't burn yourself. I haven't even prepared the shredded chicken yet. Why are you rushing?"
Su Xiaofan followed behind her and lightly slapped his sister's head.
"You foodie. If only you could put the same energy you use for eating into studying."
Su Xiaoxiao's grades were actually decent, but she was only slightly above average in her class.
She couldn't be considered a top student.
Compared with Su Xiaofan, there was a huge difference.
Because of this, Su Weixuan had always felt it was a pity.
With Su Xiaofan's grades, repeating one year and taking the entrance exam again would have easily allowed him to enter a top university.
However, Su Xiaofan had always been very stubborn since childhood.
Once he decided something, even his father couldn't change his mind.
"Hehe, this young lady is just lucky. I can enter a famous university without studying."
Su Xiaoxiao shrank her head.
But then she frowned.
"Brother, one hundred thousand yuan a year... Isn't that tuition too expensive? Maybe I should just take the normal college entrance exam. With my current grades, I can definitely enter a regular key university."
Su Xiaoxiao understood her family's situation.
Her father wasn't very reliable.
He spent all year working on ocean-going ships, and sometimes they wouldn't see him for one or two years.
The fact that she had safely reached her final year of high school was mostly thanks to her grandfather and brother.
After her grandfather passed away a few years ago, Su Xiaoxiao and Su Xiaofan had depended on each other.
She understood their family's financial situation very well.
"Don't worry about tuition. I've already prepared the one hundred thousand yuan."
Su Xiaofan moved his sister aside, took the chicken out of the pot, placed it on a plate, and served her a bowl of chicken soup.
"My business is going pretty well. Saving seventy or eighty thousand yuan a year isn't a problem."
"Besides, we still have Dad. He earns American dollars."
"I estimate Dad has at least one or two million yuan saved up. He just doesn't give us money because he's afraid we'll waste it."
Although his father had never told him his exact income, information was so accessible nowadays that Su Xiaofan could easily search online.
A first mate on an ocean-going ship could earn two or three hundred thousand yuan per year.
His father had already been a captain for several years.
Thinking his father only had a million yuan was actually a conservative estimate.
"Then... I'll continue studying for now. If Dad really doesn't have money, I'll quit."
Su Xiaoxiao also didn't want to give up this opportunity.
She helped Su Xiaofan carry the dishes to the dining table.
"The only person from our school who got accepted was me. Our homeroom teacher said the school might even give me a bonus, though I don't know how much."
"Only you from your entire school got accepted?"
Su Xiaofan was stunned.
"That doesn't make sense. What exactly did you take? Your grades aren't even that outstanding in your class."
Last time, he had only been excited and hadn't asked about the details.
"We took Chinese, math, English, physics, chemistry, and politics."
"I heard even first-year and second-year students took it."
"Your little sister is amazing, right? I was the only one accepted."
Su Xiaoxiao had always been carefree.
If she couldn't understand something, she simply didn't think about it too much.
That was why she lived happily every day.
"This doesn't seem right, Xiaoxiao. Tell me—what else did you take?"
Unlike his sister, Su Xiaofan was different.
He had spent two years working in the antique market, a place filled with all kinds of people from different walks of life.
Naturally, he understood one thing:
The probability of a truly accidental event happening was incredibly low.
Just like those old men who wandered around antique markets every day hoping to find hidden treasures.
After working in the antique market for two years, Su Xiaofan had never actually seen anyone discover a genuine priceless treasure.
Most of those stories about "lucky finds" were secretly spread by stall owners themselves to keep those old men enthusiastic about searching for bargains.
(End of Chapter)
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