“Wow…really…”

“Don’t stare at weird places, you guys!”

Mei Fang pushed Xia Yuanlin Youxi upstairs and said, “Go check the other rooms. My mother said that all the things in the house are in the rooms on the second floor.”

Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi followed Mei Fang to a utility room filled with all kinds of dusty junk. Xia Yuan immediately spotted a tattered baby walker and hurried over to squat down to take a look. Then he turned around and looked at Mei Fang:

“This car is the one you used when you were a kid, right?”

This type of walker puts the baby in the stroller, and has a bib at the bottom so that the baby can maintain a standing and moving posture, and will not fall while walking in the walker.

“I don’t remember that…but it’s all here, so it must be.”

“I miss this thing so much. I remember I also used a walker like this when I was a kid. It seems that this kind of walker is no longer popular when Xiaoya and her friends are their age. They mostly play with sleds.”

“That’s not the same age…rolling a sled is something that only kindergarteners can do.”

At this time, Lin Youxi’s eyes fell on a small cardboard box, and she took out a thick stack of books from the box.

“These are the texts we studied in elementary school… and Ah Fang’s homework book.”

The two girls took Mei Fang’s homework book and started reading it.

Xia Yuan smiled and said, “Come to think of it, when Ah Fang was little, he could write a lot of words, and they were very beautiful. Everyone else’s handwriting was crooked at that time. When I was the Chinese class representative, I was very jealous of Ah Fang, and I was afraid that Ah Fang would compete with me for the position of class representative.”

“You’re jealous of me sometimes…”

“You were a kid back then, so of course you would. My mom would often praise you in class, and I would feel jealous.”

Lin Youxi flipped through what Mei Fang had written. Seeing that she was absorbed in reading, Mei Fang asked curiously:

“What are you looking at so intently?”

“Afang seems to be different from other boys since he was very young. Whether it’s the way he treats people or the handwriting and writing style in his homework, he always feels like a little adult…”

“That’s why I liked playing with Ah Fang when I was a kid. Youxi, aren’t you the same?”

Lin Youxi shook her head. “I like playing with Ah Fang because Ah Fang is willing to play with me.”

“You always have to attend cram school or learn piano on weekends, so I often go to Ah Fang’s house to play computer games, and Ah Fang will patiently teach me how to play.”

“Come to think of it, you two were playing games secretly behind my back. You must have been playing for many years, right?”

Lin Youxi nodded, “I have been playing games with Ah Fang since the first grade of elementary school. We didn’t tell you this secret until the fourth grade.”

“Now that I think about it, I was really easy to talk to!”

Xia Yuan muttered, “You two have kept a secret from me for four years. If it were me now, I would be so angry.”

“Yuanyuan was very angry at that time.”

Lin Youxi tilted her head and thought, “I remember that I was scared to death at that time. I was so afraid that you would break up with me because of this. If you broke up with me, I wouldn’t be able to go to Ah Fang’s house to play.”

“I’m angry, but I won’t break up with you.”

Xia Yuan smiled and said, “Actually, I’ve figured it out now. Even if we are close friends, we can’t say that we have to share all our secrets with each other…”

“Hmm… so now you must be hiding a secret from me, right?”

Xia Yuan broke out in a cold sweat upon hearing this. Lin Youxi’s powerful gaze made her feel a little overwhelmed. “Uh… well… I can’t say there is no… but anyway…”

“It’s okay. I have a secret from you too.”

Lin Youxi patted Xia Yuan’s shoulder to tell her not to be too nervous. “I won’t deliberately ask. I will tell you everything I think I should tell you. You should do the same, right, Yuanyuan?”

“Yeah… yeah, yeah… let’s look at something else…”

The three found a lot of magazines in the utility room. Mei Fang’s pile of books was filled with magazines and periodicals such as “Youth Digest”, “Reader”, “Story Club”, “Kung Fu Heroes of the Past and Present”, “Sprout”, “Fireworks”, and “Zhiyin Manke”.

These were the things he read when he was daydreaming in class or after class when there were no smartphones. They also helped Mei Fang gradually recall the trends of that era, and it is very interesting to look back at them now.

In his previous life, Mei Fang could only borrow magazines of a certain period or parts of novels from his classmates or rent them from bookstores. After becoming rich in this life, he could read all the books he wanted to read, and the endings and beginnings of many stories that had been bothering him in his childhood were all completed.

In fact, Mei Fang had made up for the little regrets of the past many times in his childhood. For example, he bravely stopped a boy who cut in line, stopped a senior elementary school student from asking a junior elementary school student for pocket money, and raised his hand to point out if he felt the teacher was biased, etc.

There are many things that Mei Fang didn’t dare to do in his previous life because he was young and inexperienced, but now he doesn’t have any psychological burden.

Like in his previous life, he suffered from a certain degree of inferiority due to his family’s debt. His mother always advised Mei Fang not to cause trouble outside and to be honest and abide by the rules.

He also knew that his family was poor and powerless, and could not stand his misfortunes, so he never dared to stand up for others, and silently endured any injustice or unfair treatment.

Looking back on these experiences, I feel a little sad…

Just as Mei Fang was sighing, Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi dug out a set of CD boxes from the box. The CD boxes contained many CDs, but there were no prints on the CDs, as if they were burned CDs.

“Fang, do you know what this disc is? It’s labeled “Childhood Memories” and there are some weird numbers written on the disc.”

“Ah, that… it should be a recording of a cultural performance in elementary school, a sports meet, or a wedding. My dad used to like to do that. He would take a camera and record it everywhere.”

“I want to see, I want to see!”

Xia Yuan said excitedly, “Since this is such a precious childhood memory, you must let me take a good look at it!”

“I want to see it too.” Lin Youxi nodded.

Mei Fang reminded, “Maybe there are pictures of you two as kids in there, don’t you mind? I remember there is a DVD player in our ancestral home that we can use.”

“Take it now and let it out and see!”

Xia Yuan is very interested in memories of the past.

Chapter 197 The Iron Box of Memories

Xia Yuan couldn’t wait to pull Mei Fang to watch these treasured memories of the past. Mei Fang fiddled with the DVD player for a long time before connecting it to the closed-circuit television in the ancestral home. The square-headed TV in the ancestral home displayed the brand name of the DVD player.

“It should be playing now… do you want to watch all of it?”

“Of course… I’ll see as many as there are.”

So Mei Fang took the wiped CD from Lin Youxi and put the first CD in.

Sizzle. Sizzle.

There was a constant crackling sound while the CD was being read, and the TV screen was filled with garbled images.

“These discs have been stored for too long, and the sectors are probably bad…”

“Try them all, there must be one that can be broadcast!”

Xia Yuan said as she handed Mei Fang another disc. This time she wiped it more carefully. Mei Fang tried them one by one, and finally the TV showed 270P ultra-low-definition video images.

The living room of a house in Meifang Community appeared on the TV screen. On the coffee table was a cake with candles on it. A little boy was sitting right in front of the cake with a birthday hat on his head.

“It’s Fang from elementary school! Is he celebrating his birthday? How old is his birthday…”

“Six years old, you can tell by the number of candles.”

As soon as Lin Youxi finished speaking, Mei Lijun’s voice was heard in the video.

“Mei Fang, look here, camera, look here! Smile for daddy!”

Mei Fang, who was only six years old, looked towards the camera. When Xia Yuan saw Mei Fang’s appearance when she was six years old, she immediately held her chin with her hand and made an infatuated expression.

“So, so cute! I really want to hug and kiss six-year-old Fang and lift him up high!”

Before Xia Yuan finished praising Mei Fang, Mei Fang on the screen suddenly looked stern and made an international friendly gesture to Mei Lijun.

Lin Youxi and Mei Fang couldn’t help laughing when they saw this scene, only Xia Yuan was still screaming.

“Fang, you are so rude! How can you make such a gesture to your father?”

Halfway through Xia Yuan’s complaints, a childish voice appeared in the video.

“Mei Fang, you are so rude. How can you make such a gesture to your father?”

As Meilijun’s handheld camera shifted, a little girl with double buns appeared in the picture. She was patting Mei Fang on the shoulder and scolding him.

“It’s me, it’s me! Wow, I was so cute back then too.”

“You are amazing if you say the same thing ten years ago and ten years later.”

Xia Yuan was lecturing Mei Fang, and then raised his head to look at another place outside the camera: “Lin Youxi, don’t suck your snot back. That would be like eating your snot and it would be so dirty. Use toilet paper and pay attention to hygiene!”

Xia Yuan trotted towards Lin Youxi, whose hair was disheveled. The six-year-old Lin Youxi looked like a wild child picked up from a garbage dump, looking extremely sloppy. Xia Yuan and Mei Fang couldn’t help but hold back Lin Youxi, who was about to turn off the TV, when they saw her.

“What’s so good about this thing? Hurry…turn it off…”

“No, no, no! I have to watch it! If I don’t watch this, I will almost forget what Youxi looked like when she was a child!”

Mei Fang hugged Lin Youxi’s waist from behind, while Xia Yuan grabbed Lin Youxi’s arms. Everyone watched on the TV screen as little Lin Youxi blew her nose under the guidance of little Xia Yuan. Then, she was led by Xia Yuan to the coffee table, where she looked at the cake and sucked her fingers. Then her nose slowly flowed down again. The voice of Mei’s father Mei Lijun came from the camera:

“Xia Yuan, Lin Youxi has a runny nose again, help her wipe it.”

“Oh, good.”

Xiao Xiayuan always takes the trouble to wipe Lin Youxi’s nose.

“Puhahahahahahahahahaha!”

Xia Yuan and Mei Fang kept laughing as they watched Lin Youxi walking past like a wild child. Lin Youxi, who was always aloof in front of others, was extremely ashamed and angry at this moment. Taking advantage of the opportunity when Mei Fang hugged her from behind, she kept rubbing against Mei Fang from behind, trying to force him to surrender. At this time, the video also came to the end.

“Come on, Mei Fang, make a wish!”

Xiao Xiayuan reached out and put Xiao Meifang’s birthday hat on her. “Remember, when you make a wish, don’t speak it out loud, or it won’t come true. Okay, now close your eyes, put your hands together, and start making a wish…”

At this time, Xiao Meifang always obeyed Xiao Xiayuan’s arrangements obediently. Xiao Xiayuan also clapped his hands at this time, and Mei Lijun turned off the lights.

Under the bright candlelight, Xia Yuan began to sing a birthday song.

“Happy birthday to you–happy birthday to you–“

Xia Yuan clapped her hands and sang at the same time, and Lin Youxi beside her also hummed along, but she kept her head held high and looked at Xia Yuan.

Then the video recording on the CD ended.

“This photo is of Ah Fang’s 6th birthday party, and also shows Youxi’s dark history of eating snot when she was a child… I want to record it again.”

“There’s no need to record this again.”

Lin Youxi said coldly, “Don’t you think this kind of thing should be buried along with the memory?”

“I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”

Xia Yuan held the CD and refused to hand it to the stubborn Lin Youxi, “This is our best memory, I don’t want to destroy it!”

“Yuanyuan, if you keep doing this, I’m really going to get angry.”