When he got up the next day, the house was already empty.
After washing up, Jiang Cheng looked at the empty dining table and once again couldn't help but miss his old school days.
Although his mother's cooking was average, at least every morning she would buy soy milk, fried dough sticks, buns, or noodles from downstairs for him to eat.
He hadn't expected that now that he had become rich, this home would become so devoid of warmth.
Just as Jiang Cheng was lamenting, Li Yan and Jiang Jianming opened the door and walked in.
"Why the long face?" After saying this, Li Yan handed him the takeout box she was carrying: "Breakfast, take it and eat."
Happily taking the white plastic bag from his mother's hand, Jiang Cheng couldn't help but say joyfully, "Thanks, Mom!"
It seemed he had been overthinking; whether they were rich or not, his parents still cared about him to some extent.
Just as Jiang Cheng began eating happily, Li Yan suddenly said, "Your father is really something, wanting to pack up even this little bit, wasting two yuan of my packaging fee."
Hearing this, Jiang Cheng's eating movements suddenly stopped.
Seeing Li Yan's smile at Jiang Cheng's frozen back, Jiang Jianming shook his head and walked over to him, pointing at the somewhat messy breakfast in the box: "Your mom is teasing you on purpose. To let you try different flavors, she ordered over a dozen items. I was wondering what was wrong with her today, but before I could even pick up my chopsticks, she was already picking through them to pack for you."
Jiang Cheng clutched his aching chest: "Mom, I almost got hurt..."
Li Yan gave Old Jiang a coquettish glare: "Old Jiang, you talk too much."
After calming his fluctuating emotions, Jiang Cheng asked, "Aren't you going to work today?"
Jiang Jianming sat down at the dining table and replied, "There's a dinner meeting at noon, I'll go over with your mother later. By the way, is the design for your Hope Primary School out yet?"
Jiang Cheng nodded and told Jiang Jianming about his previous ideas.
Hearing this, Jiang Jianming frowned slightly and then spoke earnestly, "The idea is good, but I suggest you reduce the scale of the school. Of course, this isn't because I want to save money, but you have to understand that the better the infrastructure, the more maintenance personnel the school needs. Based on the scenes you saw in the mountains, there aren't many people going there for volunteer teaching to begin with. No matter how large you build it, for them, it's just an increased workload—a vanity project. Without teaching staff, everything is for naught; it won't have much impact on the children's quality of education."
Jiang Cheng listened patiently, nodded, and asked, "Then what is your suggestion?"
Jiang Jianming thought for a moment and spoke slowly, "If you really want to do something for them, I suggest the infrastructure should just follow the basic configuration of a town school. The focus should be on building the roads leading to the school and the introduction of teaching staff."
"My original thought was to improve the construction to attract volunteer teaching personnel."
Jiang Jianming continued, "Again, your starting point is good—wanting to attract more teaching staff by improving infrastructure—but this is a long process. It won't be very effective for the children in the next few years. Instead of spending that much, it would be more practical to use the money to hire a few teachers."
Jiang Jianming's words woke Jiang Cheng up. He looked at Jiang Jianming as if waking from a dream, his heart filled with gratitude and admiration.
Jiang Cheng recalled that some of his actions since his rebirth were indeed too much of a given.
In the past two months or so, he had been buying cars and watches, hanging out with various Second-generation rich kids, to the point where whenever something happened, he thought about just throwing money at it to fix it.
Moreover, although he felt the children in the mountains were pitiful at the time, his mind was more focused on the system's tasks.
He considered more how to complete the system's tasks.
Jiang Jianming saw through Jiang Cheng's thoughts and continued, "Once a person has ability, every decision you make is more likely to affect the fate of many people. Do you know that being a teacher actually has many conditions? First, whether it's a private or public school, you need a teaching certificate. This is just the most basic requirement and is relatively easy to achieve. But the difficult part is the teaching Establishment Quota."
Jiang Cheng hadn't paid attention to this issue, so he asked curiously, "Does this Establishment Quota have anything to do with volunteer teaching?"
Jiang Jianming nodded and explained, "From the situation in big cities, only those teachers who can't pass the exam for the Establishment Quota will have no choice but to teach in private schools."
"An Establishment Quota is equivalent to a Career Post; the work is relatively stable—to put it bluntly, it's an 'Iron Rice Bowl' and you generally won't lose your job. This quota is like the civil service exam; it's not easy to pass. But if you have a few years of volunteer teaching experience, you are 100% guaranteed to get into the establishment. This is a great opportunity for those who really want to get in. In fact, this is considered semi-insider information; many ordinary people don't know about this channel. You can go to some private schools or normal universities to find these teachers. Once the school is built, release this news at the normal universities. I believe it will attract many newly graduated college students."
"I understand, Dad. I'll have someone get on it immediately."
Looking at Jiang Cheng taking out his phone to send messages, Jiang Jianming felt both gratified and a bit lost.
His child was like an eagle flying high in the sky, growing up suddenly without needing to rely on his strength.
As a father, he felt he had missed out on much of the joy of accompanying his child's growth.
"Have you thought about where you want to buy a house? If you need, I have the business cards of several real estate developers here that I can recommend to you."
Jiang Cheng shook his head: "I'll go look myself. It's a hassle to have people hosting me."
After all, he still had to buy one for Zhou Ying. If it were his father's friend, wouldn't that mean everyone would know?
Jiang Jianming nodded: "Alright then, you decide for yourself; I won't interfere."
After chatting for a while, Jiang Cheng headed out and drove toward Zhou Ying's place.
On the other side, Fang Yuan saw Zhou Ying picking out clothes as if she were about to go out, and asked, "Are you going out?"
Zhou Ying nodded: "Mom, let me tell you, I'm going to look at houses with Jiang Cheng in a bit."
Hearing this, Fang Yuan couldn't help but frown: "Looking at houses?"
"Yeah, he said he wants to buy us a house."
Hearing this, Fang Yuan's eyes widened: "Buy a house for you??"
"Yes, he saw our place didn't have an elevator when he came up yesterday, so he said he'd buy me a house with an elevator so we wouldn't have to climb the stairs anymore."
Seeing Zhou Ying's matter-of-fact attitude, Fang Yuan immediately became serious.
She looked at Zhou Ying with a bit of a headache: "Ying'er, do you know how much a house in Chengdu costs?"
Zhou Ying nodded naturally: "Of course I know. Even our old, broken place must be worth several hundred thousand, right?"