Buying Textbooks is Hard (1)

"Excuse me, I would like math workbooks for grade four to senior year of high school." Gao Longwei said to the storekeeper who was dusting the piles of books that were stacked up on the ground.

The store owner looked rather disgruntled at being disturbed by Gao Longwei, and shot him a rather nasty look. It was just around lunch time after all. No one wanted to be disturbed when on their lunch break. Not even at the prospect of getting business.

And here, the man was asking for a whole 8 year's worth of textbooks.

Each one of the books were in different corners of the store, and each would be a different pain to find. It was a pain, and was going to cut into his lunch break by a long shot.

Of course the old man was going to be disgruntled.

No one ever came to the store around this time. It was a time when the students who wanted to buy the books were at school, and the parents with money to buy the books for their kids, were at work. What exactly was this one jobless man parading around his store for?

The store owner was going to dust his ware and shut down for lunch, but now he had to go around doing his job. It was such a pain to him. He didn't want to do it.

"Mister, that's a lot of books. If your child is in grade four, come back next year and get grade five. Or if you're in a hurry, take fifth year too. There's no need to rush your child." the shopkeeper's wife walked out from the back and confronted Gao Longwei.

"I'd like all the books I mentioned please." said Gao Longwei, not at all changing his expression.

He didn't think that either of the people there had any business telling him what to do with his money. They were just there to take it and give him the books. Anything more was overstepping their bounds. They had no reason to do that.

"Mister, listen to me. You are pressuring your child by buying all of these books. It will definitely not turn out well. Trust me. I am a mother of three children myself." the sweet old lady said with concern on her face. Unlike her husband, she was in no hurry to go get lunch.

The only problem was that her gossip was definitely going to piss her hungry husband off. She didn't have any reason to be butting into someone else's business.

She was simply wasting his time.

The old lady realized that her hungry old husband was getting irritable and sent him off, "I'll deal with the customer, you go eat. The food is ready upstairs. I'll join you once I'm done here." the old lady smiled at her husband, and sent him off with a pat on his back.

All of her mannerisms were obviously pacifying him as if he was a child.

Gao Longwei took this as added credibility on her part. She knew how to deal with children and man children very well. That gave her words some credibility.

"What do you mean, pressuring?" Gao Longwei asked the storekeeper with a frown.

He quietly accepted the old woman calling Feng Jiao his kid. It wasn't like he could correct her and say that she was his girlfriend, since she wasn't. Even if he said mate that would be extremely suspicious and flat out weird.

How was he going to explain that his mate needed fourth grade textbooks?

That she was slow? Dumb? It sounded like something that he himself would've called the cops on someone over. It was incredibly suspicious and more than a tad bit creepy.

It was very creepy.

The very thought of trying to explain all of that was going to amplify his headache by many many times. It was not a good idea to think about it for too long. So he decided not to. He wouldn't think about it anymore and hopefully it would go away.

The thing that wasn't going away however, was the faint buzzing in his ears.

His forehead was wrinkling up and he felt a headache coming along. He didn't know what to think of this, so he rubbed his forehead, in and out, in an attempt to reduce his headache.

"How much time do you expect your child to finish this many textbooks in?" the old woman smiled with great wisdom coming through her words. She obviously knew what she was talking about.

"In two days."

The room went quiet for a few seconds after Gao Longwei revealed this piece of information. He was planning to make his child complete the syllabus of eight years in two days. The fact that he had the confidence to say that out loud was mindblowing in itself.

It was a ridiculous proposition to anyone who heard it, and even the very kind but nosy old lady had her mouth wide open in shock. She didn't know what to say without bashing Gao Longwei's intellect and maybe questioning his thought process.

"Oh-" she stuttered for a couple of seconds.

There was nothing she could say to that. There was really nothing she could say. What does one say to someone who sounded as delusional as Gao Longwei?

Gao Longwei had some confidence in his teaching abilities, and a little bit of inherent fate in his mate. There was no way that the moon goddess would pair him up with someone who couldn't do fourth grade math after a little bit of help.

The moon goddess would have to be drunk to do that.

"Mister, I'll tell you what." the grandma snapped Gao Longwei out of his daze, "You buy the fourth and fifth grade textbooks. If your child finishes them, we will personally deliver the books to your address."

Gao Longwei thought about it for a couple of seconds and then paused for a moment. It sounded fair enough.

"Okay."