Wei Jiaming met Mr. Jiang as soon as he got out of the car.
Both he and Mr. Jiang had a sleepless night, each with dark circles under their eyes. At first glance, they looked like a pair of pandas.
But neither of them could muster a smile.
Wei Jiaming nervously said, "Uncle, I brought breakfast for you, I, I’ll take it up to Nannan."
"No need."
Mr. Jiang waved his hand: "Nannan’s mom has already made breakfast."
He pointed to a small park in the community, "Let’s go sit over there."
So, Wei Jiaming followed Mr. Jiang into the small park with the breakfast in hand.
In the chilly early morning of the northern new year period, the outside was freezing cold and the small park looked dry and barren, completely lacking the beauty of spring and summer.
However, both of them were not in the mood to admire the scenery.
Mr. Jiang sat down on a wooden bench, and Wei Jiaming hurriedly sat down next to him, taking out a box of hot soy milk: "Uncle, have some to warm up."
Mr. Jiang did not refuse and took two sips of the soy milk before asking, "What are your thoughts?"
"Ah?" Wei Jiaming was stunned for a moment, then quickly said, "Nannan and I have agreed that we definitely won’t live with my mom after getting married. My mom isn’t old yet, her health is fine, she can take care of herself, and in fact, she has some money. My dad really didn’t mistreat her financially, she has saved quite a bit over the years, enough for her use. It’s just my sister... she will need care from Nannan and me... my sister will definitely live with us. If Nannan is willing to help I’ll be grateful; if not, I’ll take care of her myself. When I’m not available, I can hire someone to help."
He lowered his head, his voice somewhat somber: "Also, if my mom needs something in the future, like running to the hospital, I’ll be the one to do it. I won’t make Nannan take care of my mom. My mom is such that even her biological children can’t stand her, let alone someone else. Nannan isn’t her biological daughter, she hasn’t raised Nannan for a day, Nannan hasn’t eaten a single meal from her, she doesn’t have the responsibility to take care of her. If Nannan is willing to care a little, I would be grateful. If she doesn’t want to bother with her, I won’t say anything."
Mr. Jiang felt really distressed inside.
He patted Wei Jiaming’s shoulder: "Buddy, you’re clearer about this than I was."
At this moment, Mr. Jiang really felt that Wei Jiaming had a better grasp of the situation than he did when he was younger.
Back then, he was rather muddled, just wanting to be filial to his mom, and even making Mrs. Jiang be filial alongside him, causing Mrs. Jiang a lot of distress.
Thinking about it now, he really did the wrong thing back then.
His mom hadn’t raised his wife, hadn’t even said a single good word to his wife; why should his wife have to be filial to his mom? There was no such obligation.
Wei Jiaming chuckled dryly.
He felt dryness in his throat and also took a cup of soy milk to drink.
After a while, Wei Jiaming pleaded: "Uncle, if I swear to you that I’ll treat Nannan well all my life, and never let her suffer, you might not believe it as a lifetime is too long and people change. The things said now might sound like nonsense in a few years, but I really am sincere in my relationship with Nannan. No matter what the future holds, I will give my all to Nannan now."
He opened a black briefcase to show Mr. Jiang: "This contains the stock certificates from my factory, as well as the property deeds under my name. If you agree to marry Nannan to me, I’ll immediately transfer all these to her. If one day I wrong her, all these will be Nannan’s, I’m willing to leave with nothing."
Mr. Jiang was greatly shocked.
He hadn’t expected Wei Jiaming to be so decisive, not leaving any room for himself.
He hurriedly waved his hand: "That’s unnecessary, our family isn’t so poor that we can’t afford food. Nannan has her own properties, even if something happens between you two in the future, she can support herself. She wouldn’t want your things, you better put them away. Also, I know my own daughter, she doesn’t value material things. If she likes you, she would be happy even if she has to eat coarse foods with you. If she doesn’t like you, even if you build her a golden house, she wouldn’t give you a second look."
Mr. Jiang patted Wei Jiaming: "Buddy, tell me the truth, what do you see in my daughter?"
Wei Jiaming gave a bitter smile, "Since uncle has asked, I’ll speak honestly. Ever since my sister became mentally impaired, I’ve never eaten steamed buns again. I always felt that all the buns tasted off. But when I met Nannan during a blind date, it must have been fate. The woman who met me wasn’t interested in me but was interested in the guy who met Nannan. So, Nannan came to sit and chat with me for a while. She had come straight from a bun shop that day and still carried the scent of buns on her. When she sat opposite me, I could smell that fragrance, just like the buns I particularly wanted to eat when I was a child. I felt that Nannan was a nice girl, and sitting with her for a while made my heart warm."
Wei Jiaming continued to reminisce, "I met her again later, she was dressed up elegantly and beautiful, but she seemed a bit uneasy... Uncle, you ask me what I like about Nannan, I can’t even say clearly myself, I just like her, and I want to be with her. Whatever she does, I think it’s good."
What else could Mr. Jiang say?
He really couldn’t say anything.
Trying to persuade him, it really wouldn’t work.
The young man had laid all his cards on the table, willing to offer everything to marry An Nan. If he were to make it difficult for him, he would also feel guilty.
Thinking about his own stubborn daughter, if she really split from Wei Jiaming, she would probably never live a peaceful life.
Never mind.
Mr. Jiang sighed internally, letting them be, at most if they couldn’t make it, the family would help out a bit.
Perhaps, others might not think highly of them, but this pair might actually live a vibrant life.
Mr. Jiang stood up, "It’s cold outside, let’s go, go home and warm up for a while."
Wei Jiaming immediately stood up, his face brightening with a smile.
Anning watched the technicians optimize the game. She had been observing for two days and felt that the recruited team was really quite skilled, she could rest assured letting them handle the game.
She then discussed the publicity matters with Huo Wei and later stopped dealing with these trivial matters.
She started researching a new type of energy.
Anning once invented solar cells in a past life, but this time, she didn’t want to do that again. She wanted to work on microbial fuel cells.
Having once been an interstellar biochemist and having spent a lifetime specializing in biochemistry, she could say her technical mastery was years ahead of this world.
Anning had already made preparations before.
This time, she and Xiao Yuan set up a laboratory together.
Anning on microbial fuel cells, and Xiao Yuan was researching something in biochemistry.
He first researched a type of nutrient liquid.
He wanted to optimize crops, and this nutrient liquid he was developing, if used to water crops or fruits and vegetables, could enhance the taste and significantly increase the nutritional content of the plants; consuming these plants long-term could boost human immunity and resistance.
Anyway, the things the two of them were working on were quite sci-fi, the kind of stuff imagined in science fiction novels.
The two were planning to bring these inventions to life.
Xiao Yuan had been researching for a while and was close to producing a finished product.
While Anning had just begun her research, she felt confident that it wouldn’t take too long to yield results.
Anning even bought many books for this purpose, nearly filling up a whole room with just science and technology books.
She came to the lab every day these past few days to work on some things. Now that the company was on track, Anning could seriously focus on her experiments.
And just as Anning was engrossed in her experiments, some new issues arose.