The landlord has multiple personalities and wants everyone to pay him.

In the Cloud Garden, the celebrities on the variety show were still laughing in a very fake way. Fortunately, the volume wasn't turned up high, so it just served as background noise.

Potato Chip was fast asleep in its little nest, occasionally twitching its little paws; who knows what it was dreaming about.

That's how puppies are; when they're awake, they're incredibly energetic, like they've been wound up and are running around having fun.

But once that little bit of battery is used up, it immediately goes to sleep and can't be woken up.

Potato Chips is sleeping here, while Ye Shu and An Suxue are sitting on the sofa opposite.

Ye Shu held an apple in one hand and a fruit knife in the other, his expression very serious, as he slowly pushed the knife forward along the apple peel.

He was undertaking a delicate task: peeling a whole apple.

Actually, he used to disdain peeling things because he thought it was too much trouble.

Apples are easy to eat after washing; what's wrong with the peel? It's not like it's indigestible.

Later, I saw a video online with a rather tense background music. A middle-aged woman, claiming to be an expert, spoke confidently to the screen:

"Apple peels contain a lot of pesticide residue, which can't be washed off by hand; you have to peel them!"

Back then, Ye Shu was just a kid who had just gotten a cell phone and hadn't experienced the internet yet, but he believed it and started peeling skins too.

But I had only been in this habit for a short time when I came across popular science articles.

The same tense music, the same expert, but this time it's a balding middle-aged man, speaking indignantly to the screen:

Stop peeling your apples! Most of the nutrients are in the peel, so peeling them is like wasting your time eating them!

You've said all the right and wrong things, which made Ye Shu think about the apple for a long time before deciding that he would eat it however he wanted.

This was probably one of the earliest instances of the internet brain engaging in internal conflict.

A long apple peel trembled and fell onto the coffee table. Ye Shu breathed a sigh of relief and handed the peeled apple to An Suxue next to her.

Then he picked up the apple peel and showed it off to Ansu Xue:

"See? Isn't it amazing?"

"Hmm, impressive."

An Suxue took the apple and took a small bite.

Seeing Ye Shu happily carrying the apple peel, she didn't know what use it was, but still complimented him.

But for Ye Shu, being praised for his skill was enough to justify the value of that apple peel.

He casually tossed the apple peel into the nearby trash can, then picked up another apple and began the second challenge.

An Suxue was munching on an apple, but her eyes were fixed on Ye Shu's face.

His anger over that phone call seemed to have subsided, but An Suxue still couldn't shake it off.

She hesitated for a moment before tentatively calling out in a low voice:

"Ye Shu..."

"Um?"

Ye Shu didn't look up; her attention was still on the apple and fruit knife in her hand.

An Suxue carefully considered how to bring it up so that Ye Shu wouldn't get angry:

"What kind of person is Auntie?"

"Aunt?"

Ye Shu turned to look at her and asked:

Which auntie?

An Suxue's personality is such that if someone suddenly stares at her, she will take the initiative to look away. She doesn't dare to make eye contact with people, even Ye Shu, she will subconsciously look away.

"It's...your mother."

Ye Shu didn't react much. After hearing An Suxue's words, he simply turned his head and continued to slowly peel the apple in his hand.

"Why did you suddenly ask that?"

An Suxue secretly observed his expression, and seeing that he didn't seem to have any aversion, she softly said:

"Because you were so angry just now, I wanted to find out more about you, Auntie."

After saying that, as if afraid of touching on Ye Shu's painful memories, she quickly added:

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, it's okay."

"There's nothing I don't want to say."

Ye Shu's apple-peeling speed seemed to slow down a bit; he was recalling:

"My mom is just a very ordinary person."

He began to tell An Suxue about her mother-in-law, whom she had never met:

"My hometown is located near the mountains, and the industries there are basically all related to timber. There used to be a pretty big timber processing factory there, and my mom worked there. Specifically, it was a workshop that produced pencil boards. Do you know what a pencil board is?"

Ye Shu glanced at An Suxue, and seeing that she looked a little confused, explained:

"She worked in that factory for many years, cutting the wood into thin slices and then processing it. Because of that, I basically never bought my own pencils when I was in elementary school."

An Suxue gave a soft "hmm".

Ye Shu then turned back to look at the apple in her hand and said:

"My mom's personality... uh, it sounds a bit like she's swearing, doesn't it? Her personality is a bit hard to describe. Sometimes she's very energetic, efficient in her work, and speaks quickly. But other times, she's incredibly patient, especially with me."

He had gained a small piece of apple peel in his hand:

"What impressed me most was that every evening after get off work, she would ride her bicycle home and stop by the convenience store to buy me some snacks."

His eyes were fixed on the apple, but his gaze seemed to be looking into the distance:

"Sometimes it's pretty candy, or a bag of shrimp crackers, jelly, or something like that. I buy different kinds every day. My mom isn't too strict about what snacks I eat because she loves them too."

At this point, Ye Shu slowly stopped peeling the apple, placing the knife on it:

"However, she wasn't so lenient with my studies. Back then, there was no concept of reducing the burden on children, no, we didn't have that concept in our small town either. When we had a holiday, the teachers would assign a huge amount of homework."

"But I was even worse off. Besides the homework assigned by the teacher, my mom had to give me extra tasks. She went to the bookstore herself and bought me several sets of test papers to do, and she also made me memorize them."

Ye Shu spoke, a hint of helplessness and nostalgia on her face:

"History, geography, biology—you had to memorize all the knowledge points exactly as they were written in the book, without making a mistake. And English vocabulary—you had to memorize them no matter how you spelled them. Back then, when I had a holiday, I didn't want to have fun, I wanted to die."

Ye Shu chuckled softly, a laugh that contained both nostalgia for her tragic childhood and a bittersweet feeling that she only now understood.

The long apple peel finally gave way and broke.

Ye Shu looked at the half-peeled apple in her hand, paused for a moment, and then continued to peel off the remaining bit of skin with the knife.

"But thinking about it now..."

Ye Shu placed the fruit knife on the coffee table, took a bite of the apple, and said while chewing:

"If she hadn't been so strict and pushy back then, I probably wouldn't have been able to get into our small town, let alone come to Nancheng, and I wouldn't have... um."

He turned his head and glanced at An Suxue beside him. He didn't say anything more, but his eyes said it all.