Change the world with entertainment with Yokai Girl

One morning, Qin Jing found a thick, thread-bound book on her bedside table. The cover, written in regular script, read "The New Classic of Mountains and Seas—Tales of Monsters and Strange Things." She smiled happily, thinking, "Dad is so old, yet he's still so proud and stubborn. There's just no way to deal with him."

Qin Jing turned the pages and found that this was not the Classic of Mountains and Seas he remembered, but a newer and more comprehensive vernacular version.

The preface states: ["Monsters: fairies and strange creatures refer to supernatural life forms existing in the world other than humans and gods; strange and unusual refer to all magical and unusual things and phenomena..."]

This book records various unknown and unexplained strange phenomena since ancient times, and explains them by the habits and behaviors of monsters and mythical beasts, as well as the mysteries of nature. Moreover, it is written in a reasonable and well-founded manner, as if it really happened.

Although the content is absurd, and even the reason why humans evolved is said to be related to monsters, it observes all things in the world from a perspective that transcends humans. It contains profound meanings in just a few words and is quite philosophical. Each time you read it, you will gain new insights. Qin Jing read it with great interest.

.................

In an era of soaring prices, raising two children is no easy task, and Qin's mother is not the type to stay idle. She discussed it with Qin's father and decided to go back to work.

Qin Ma was originally a tailor at the tailor factory belonging to a clothing design company. She brought high-end designs to life. High-quality clothes not only require machine sewing but also meticulous handwork. As a result, Qin Ma developed exceptional skills, and many of the clothes in her family were made by her, with designs and quality far superior to those on the market.

Then an elderly woman arrived at the house. She was Qin Jing and Qin Kui's grandmother. Since her eldest son's eldest grandson had grown up, Qin's grandmother, who was now free to help, came to Tokyo to take care of Jing and her younger sister Kui.

Grandma was a serious person who rarely smiled. She used to be a humanities teacher with high moral character. Although she was usually very stern, she was very intimidating when she was angry. Even Qin's father was afraid of her, and even the unruly Kui would restrain herself a lot in front of her.

Perhaps because she was a teacher, Grandma knew how to handle children.

She can perform some very unique games, such as weaving flower wreaths from the flowers and plants in the yard, making grasshoppers out of grass, and she also has a special skill: she can spin a wooden top smoothly and continuously by occasionally whipping it with a string.

Xiao Kui was utterly amazed by her grandmother, both delighted and adoring her. She was afraid that her grandmother wouldn't perform these amazing games for her, and she never dared to be willful or disobedient again.

Qin Jing, who loved reading and was quiet, was well-liked by her grandmother.

This elderly woman takes care of her family and dotes on her grandchildren in her own way. Although she likes to make decisions as the authority and often lectures her children, she also quietly takes on household chores and prepares hot meals for her family to return home.

Qin Jing really liked her grandmother, who was both gentle and strict, and full of wisdom.

One day, Qin Jing sat on a small stool, helping her grandmother pick vegetables.

Grandma asked, "Aren't you bored?"

Qin Jing then ran up to her grandmother with a smile and exclaimed, "No! Little Jing loves Grandma the most!"

Amused, Grandma smiled and said, "Okay, Grandma will give you a present tonight."

It was during this time that he began to hone his acting skills. So much so that when he filmed his first TV series, his superb and natural charm amazed the director and received unanimous praise from the industry and audiences after the broadcast.

This acting skill will accompany him as he conquers the human and demon realms, gathers partners, becomes CEO, and reaches the pinnacle of his life.

Section 6, Chapter 06: Grandma Qin is super cool.

When it was time for dinner, the family gathered around the table.

In front of Qin's parents, Grandma took out a brass key full of old-fashioned charm, threaded it onto a rope, hung it around Jing's neck, and said with a smile, "This is the key to the old library in the house. Since you like reading, I'll give it to you now."

"A library? We have a library at home! Thank you, Grandma!" Qin Jing's eyes lit up with surprise.

"Wait, Mom, why are you giving all of this to Jing? It's too valuable," said Qin's father. Of course, he also had the key, but judging from his mother's intentions, she clearly wanted Jing to inherit the library.

The library contains ancient books passed down through generations of the Qin family, many of which have become rare and precious items. These include first editions of Natsume Soseki's books, rare stamps, and the first issue of well-known magazines. What were once just ordinary reading materials have now become symbolic collectibles.

“If something isn’t used, even the most valuable thing is just an ornament. It’s only right to give things to those who need them. Since he understands it and likes to look at it, let him look at it. If a child has this kind of interest and talent, then the elders should nurture it properly,” Grandma said.

“But reading these idle books is useless,” Qin’s mother retorted. As a Chinese, the idea that attending tutoring classes and studying hard for exams was the right path was deeply ingrained in her.

'My son, a flower of the nation, shouldn't use his intelligence and talent for studying, exams, and earning a doctorate, but instead spends it reading novels?'

This is like letting the legendary physician Zhou Shuren (Lu Xun) abandon medicine to write novels, or the economic master Xu Zhimo abandon economics to write poetry—a complete waste of talent! Learning to write won't save the Qing Dynasty!

Qin Jing's face turned pale when she heard her mother's mutterings. "I don't even want to go to school, and you want me to get a doctorate? That would take 25 or 6 years!"

Grandma shook her head and, as someone who had been through it all, said earnestly, "Feeling joy, staying happy, and enjoying life are also very important."

"Mom, we're really worried that Jing's obsession with reading so many books will affect his social interactions and his future academic performance," Qin's father explained.

Grandma shook her head and said, "That's not right. Are you trying to tether a thoroughbred horse to a cargo hauling machine instead of letting it race? The worst thing for a person is to have no goal. Since it has a goal, let it go for it."

As a retired teacher, Grandma speaks with reason and evidence. Although her voice is not loud, she can still put on an authoritative demeanor that says, "You can listen to me! Otherwise, I'll call your parents." She makes a superior statement.

Qin's parents argued their case forcefully, retreating only as they fought, but they never gave up on their son's future, while also showing respect for their parents as children.

Qin Jing, standing silently to the side, knew that as a child, he only had the right to be cute, not the right to make decisions. Suddenly, he remembered an urban legend he had read in a book:

It is said that children are given a test before graduating from kindergarten, and those who pass the test become stronger and smarter.

In fact, this was a policy secretly implemented to reduce the number of NEETs and elevate the national elite. A backup was made for every baby born. The baby was raised at home, while an identical clone was being raised at the same time in the research institute.

The parents would secretly visit the research institute to meet another child from time to time, take him out to play, and cultivate a relationship.

Researchers and parents meticulously record each child's actions, scoring and comparing their performance in areas such as test scores, motor skills, reaction time, and artistic talent…

Until the day of the test arrives, they will be put to a final exam competition; the one who performs best will be taken home, while the other will…

By the way, it is said that the group of people who were taken home from the research institute had one thing in common: they could not recall any memories of their home life before the age of 4 to 6.

Can you recall anything?

Ah... Could this be... the truth of the world?

If you don't do well in school, you're not a good kid; if you're not good at sports, you're not a good kid... If you don't have the talent to become a PhD, will you be replaced? I haven't even had a chance to read more than a few books yet...

Qin Jing clutched her head in horror; the devastating news was like a bolt from the blue.

Qin Jing reached out and hugged her younger sister's shoulders, saying sorrowfully:

"Xiao Kui... little sister, I've always really liked you. I'm sorry for treating you like a toy to pass the time. Every day I spend with you is truly joyful..."

"Nini...don't leave me..." Xiao Kui cried out sadly, also moved by the situation.

"Waaah... Xiao Kui!"

"Waaaaah... Nini!!"

Jing and Kui hugged each other tightly, hoping that this moment could last forever.

"What kind of little drama are you two putting on?" Only Xiao Kui in this family can keep up with Qin Jing's bookish way of thinking. Won't both children become strange if this continues? Qin's mother is very worried about why her children are so different from everyone else!

"In short, I still think it's not good to spoil children too much," the dutiful father gently advised his mother, asking her to reconsider her decision.

"Parents can't give their children ideas, but they can give them love and role models for learning. When children make mistakes, they should guide them properly and tell them what is right and why it is wrong. For children, their parents' words and actions are role models. To teach children well, being a good role model yourself is the most effective way."

Having been a teacher for decades, I've seen many parents who always demand this and that from their children, yet fail to do so themselves. Children raised in such families often lack a sense of seriousness and responsibility.

When faced with a child's interests and hobbies, parents should not deny them or let them run wild. Instead, they should guide the child to find the balance between satisfying their desires and taking into account their own reality, so that the child can combine work and rest, rather than letting playthings ruin their life.

How many people have been ruined by their parents' initially strict and demanding monitoring of every word and action, and then their complete disregard for their parents' wishes?

Those children suddenly find themselves in control of everything, yet they don't even know what they truly want or what they truly desire. How much hardship will they have to endure to recover and become independent? And how many will fall into depravity, making mistake after mistake?

Seeing that her son and daughter-in-law still refused to agree, Grandma Qin got angry.

"Fine! Fine! I'm old and useless now, you won't listen to me anymore, will you... Fine... I'll go back to Kyoto tomorrow, so you won't be annoyed by seeing this old woman." With that, she turned to walk back to her room, her thin back looking very desolate and lonely.

"Okay, we were wrong, Mom... I'll open the library to Jing right away, please don't be angry." Dad didn't dare to argue back and lowered his head to admit defeat.

At this moment, Xiao Kui, who had slipped off the sofa and climbed into her brother's arms, tilted her head. Although she didn't quite understand, she felt that "Grandma is so cool!"

"Yes! Grandma is so cool!" Qin Jing, who had been saved, nodded in empathy and looked at her serious-looking grandma with stars in her eyes. She was like a god!

The grandmother, admired by her grandchildren, subtly revealed a triumphant smile, but quickly composed herself and put on a serious face, as if nothing had ever happened.

"It should have been done a long time ago." Grandma then stopped her steps to go back to her room. She seemed to be very good at switching between authority and gaining sympathy to achieve her goals. If the hard approach didn't work, she would use the soft one. She would reason with people who wanted to reason, and if reasoning failed, she would throw a tantrum and threaten them. She perfectly demonstrated the way of yin and yang, the way of combining strength and gentleness.

"Yay! Grandma won! We won!" Qin Jing clenched her fist and cheered. This was a great victory for intellectuals over dogmatism.

"Yay!" Xiao Kui followed suit, clapping her hands in celebration and cheering.

"Of course! Your grades can't fall behind after you start school!" Grandma then said coldly.

"Uh...yes." Qin Jing, who had just been cheering, froze on the spot as if she had choked.

"Yay yay yay!" Xiao Kui laughed and looked at her brother, continuing to cheer without a care in the world.

Section 7.07 A beautiful woman is found in the home.

"Hurry up and take me to the library!" Qin Jing picked up the brass key and ran quickly to her father, urging him on. What could be more exciting than owning a library?

"Wait a minute!" Qin's father turned to his mother and said, "The books in the library are too mixed now, there are even handwritten copies of Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng's works. It would be bad if Jing were to be influenced by them."

"Why don't you get rid of those books first? Cervantes would be fine," Grandma said.

Cervantes was a Spanish writer of the Renaissance period, who wrote what is considered the world's first modern novel, *Don Quixote*, and is hailed as the greatest writer of Spanish literature. In modern times, *Don Quixote* has evolved into multiple concepts, becoming a universally understood idiom, synonymous with being detached from reality, pedantic, stubborn, and immature, while also representing an idealistic spirit of never compromising or giving up in the face of harsh reality.

"Take Hemingway for example."

Hemingway's writing possesses an inspiring spiritual power, creating many tough-guy characters. He advocated telegraphic concise writing and the iceberg principle, which are of epoch-making significance and are perfectly embodied in his masterpiece, "The Old Man and the Sea."

He was a sailor, a soldier, a war correspondent, a double agent for both the Soviet Union and the United States, and he traveled to China. A few years after winning the Nobel Prize, he committed suicide by shooting himself at home. He was a writer with a legendary life.

His statement, "Man is not made to be defeated. A man can be destroyed but not defeated," can be considered the core spirit of his works and his life motto.

"Bacon's essays would also be acceptable!"

Francis Bacon was a key figure in the Renaissance and the founder of experimental science. Marx called him the first English materialist. His literary work, *Essays*, is also an excellent collection of introductory essays, highly suitable for teenagers just beginning to establish their worldview and values.

"Hmm, but we'll probably have to clear out most of the books in the library. Natsume can stay, but Dazai, Kawabata, Oe... well, let's just get rid of them first. Watanabe too, and Murakami too..."

"Huh? Murakami doesn't need it, does he?" the mother asked in surprise. Although she didn't read much, she was still looking forward to talking to her book-obsessed son about Norwegian Wood and 1Q84 in the future. These were the only books she had read carefully and had many feelings about.

Watanabe and Naoko, Midori; Tengo and Aomame—cruel youth, confusion and choices—she cried several times when she read those books back then. She's confident she could have a good talk with her son about these kinds of stories, but that'll have to wait until Shizuka is older.

"No, Murakami definitely has to be eliminated, right? Listen carefully, Jing, Murakami isn't some romance novelist who just wrote a few youth novels and likes to deceive beautiful young women like your mother!" Dad said righteously.

"Oh, you're so annoying!" Mom patted Dad Qin shyly. Although she said she was annoyed, few modern people would dislike such a beautiful and honest statement.

'No... I think it's strange that you don't care at all that your son reads romance novels, and don't feed Panda dog food!' Qin Jing thought to herself.

Murakami was once considered by many to be a bourgeois writer who was just starting out in the arts; those who liked him praised him highly, while those who disliked him belittled him relentlessly. But Norway was actually a good work he created specifically to break into the mainstream market, and Kafka on the Shore, The End of the World, and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle are all masterpieces rich in his thoughts.

This is an author with a unique writing style, capable of writing best-selling books in English that are loved by overseas readers, combining popularity with intellectual depth. At the same time, she also inherits the aesthetic of mono no aware (the pathos of things) shared by traditional Japanese writers, and her works are very pessimistic, filled with various suicides, murders, strange illnesses, and infidelity, and filled with loneliness and disillusionment.

Unlike Sartre, who devoted his life to existentialism, believing that the self precedes essence and that people have absolute freedom of choice in the face of fate, but the world is so absurd and life is so unsatisfactory, even so all the results, whether fortunate or unfortunate, are the choices made by people themselves.

Sartre objectively acknowledged the horror of death (evil), but subjectively believed that one could despise death (evil), and that humanity could bravely face death while trembling and upholding its beliefs, even if fate played a cruel trick on them.

But Murakami has his own unique strengths. Some people may not recognize the depth of his thoughts, but his writing skills are indeed first-rate. He has won the Kafka Prize to prove himself and has been a Nobel Prize nominee for many years. He may not be the best, but he can certainly be considered a world-class writer.

Qin Jing believes that only books that can inspire thought and provide insights can be considered good books; at least, that's his opinion.

Qin Jing snapped out of her reverie. By then, her grandmother had already taken the sleepy Xiao Kui back to the room to lull her to sleep. But she found Qin's parents still cuddling together. Jing waited another three minutes, but they still wouldn't separate.

Impatient Jing, no longer caring about being a third wheel, tugged at Qin's father's trouser leg and looked up at him cutely, calling out, "Dad, take me to the library!"

"I'm sorry, Xiaojing, Daddy and Mommy are busy with something very important right now," Qin's father said, barely managing to hold onto his pants that kept slipping down.

"I'm sorry, Xiaojing, Mom is so worried about your future grades that I can't bear to be separated from Dad's comforting embrace," Mom said with affected acting.

Qin Jing curled his lip in disdain. He could only give her a 5 out of 10 for her acting skills, with the 4 points being for the sake of the fact that she had given birth to a good child.

"Then hurry up and take me to the library, then come back and hug Mommy! You can hug her for as long as you want!"

"I'm sorry, Jing, Dad is absolutely not going anywhere right now!"

"Library! Library! Library!"

Jing had already squatted down, using her body weight to pull Qin's father's pants down. But unfortunately, a child's strength is limited, and it was nothing to a strong and powerful father.

This is too much of a bullying for a child! Helpless, Jing could only make a promise, "I know! I will try my best to balance my studies and make sure I'm in the top ten of the class in every exam after I start school, okay?"

"Hey, top ten? Isn't that too easy for Xiaojing? Don't you think so, honey~"

"Yes, honey~ Our son is a genius who could recite poems when he was only two months old. If he doesn't get first place, it's like he's fallen behind! It seems we need to find him a tutoring class first."

"Top three! Top three is enough! I don't need tutoring! Hurry up and take me to the library!" Jing stomped her feet impatiently.

"The whole grade?" Qin's mother continued to ask.

"The whole grade!!"

The couple exchanged a knowing smile, finally relieved to be separated.

"Oh! He truly is my good son!" Overjoyed, Qin's mother abandoned Qin's father and ran over to pinch the soft flesh on both sides of Qin Jing's cheeks.

"Don't release the beast!" Qin Jing slapped her mother's hand away in disgust.

"Xiaojing, Mom is looking forward to your performance."

"Okay, okay! Let's go!" Qin Jing couldn't wait to see the mysterious library.

Just as Qin's parents trusted Jing not to lie, Qin Jing never intended to break her promise to her family. Promises are sacred, and breaking them can leave an indelible bad impression. More importantly, it can hurt the hearts of important people, because the closer the relationship, the easier it is to be hurt, and the less room there is for breaking promises and betrayal.