What Is to Be Done

"Yeah-yi-yeah-yi-yeah-ah-oh."

"I wish you prosperity, I wish you brilliance."

Pushing the shopping cart, Ye Shuang noticed that Liu Dehua's singing was already echoing through the mall. It seemed earlier than usual, considering there was still some time before the Spring Festival.

"I feel like Tu Hengyu is going to achieve cyber immortality; he shows up every Spring Festival," Tang Keke muttered as she followed behind Ye Shuang.

"What is Tu Hengyu?" Bai Yuyou asked curiously.

Keke grinned, "You'll know next time I watch a movie with you."

Chen Qin was also a bit curious at this point, "I don't know either."

"It's a movie character played by Liu Dehua," Ye Shuang explained to Chen Qin beside him. In fact, it wasn't just Chen Qin; Ye Shuang hadn't paid much attention to upcoming movie releases lately either, otherwise catching a movie during the Spring Festival holiday wouldn't be a bad idea.

Recently, he kept seeing so-called actors and directors claiming they had poured years of blood, sweat, and tears into their movies, only to receive little attention, while shoddily made films raked in high box office numbers, leading them to express disappointment in the domestic film environment and so on.

But at the end of the day, as a consumer, one only cares about whether they are interested in the movie. They have absolutely zero interest in how difficult it was to make or how much effort the director put into it.

Especially when they schedule tragedies or cliché animated films about Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie during the Spring Festival, expecting consumers to pay for these themes, and then condemn the audience for not understanding cinema when the box office fails. That feels more like moral kidnapping.

At this moment, Ye Shuang and Chen Qin were walking with Bai Yuyou and Keke, pushing the shopping cart. Whether it was an illusion or not, because Ye Shuang and Chen Qin were relatively tall and dressed maturely, it made Keke and Bai Yuyou following behind them look even more like children.

Not to mention Keke herself was a baby-faced slime anyway.

"Red melon seeds, watermelon seeds, sunflower seeds... egg rolls..." Ye Shuang sequentially placed items that might be displayed at home into the shopping cart.

Of course, Ye Shuang didn't actually like eating things like red melon seeds or watermelon seeds.

He just felt they needed to be set out at home during the New Year. Without them, it wouldn't feel like the New Year.

"Ye Shuang, this." Bai Yuyou suddenly held up a bag.

Ye Shuang took a look.

Five-nut mooncakes.

Ye Shuang: "..."

Why was this thing here?

"This supermarket seems to sell mooncakes quite often. The packaging looks festive anyway, want to buy a pack?" Chen Qin said.

"I'm afraid it's just unsold overstocked mooncakes wrapped in a Spring Festival skin to be sold again."

After having Bai Yuyou put it back, Ye Shuang bought some pistachios and other snacks. Soon, the shopping cart was piled high with various snacks, mostly food, though they really should have bought some couplets and festive little ornaments instead.

"Let's just get the spring couplets from the company. Every year we have the factory send some over as employee benefits, and the quality is pretty good," Chen Qin said, noticing Ye Shuang looking at the couplets.

"Yeah, that works," Ye Shuang said.

"Sister Chen Qin, does your company give away lots and lots of things for the Spring Festival?" Keke asked curiously.

"Not that much. Like last year, the gift for regular employees was a New Year gift box containing things like couplets," Chen Qin said, then added, "Oh right, last year, to celebrate a product breaking eight billion in revenue in the third quarter, we also gave the employees a new Apple phone."

"You even give away phones?"

"Yes, we spent tens of millions purchasing those phones. After all, there are several thousand employees in the group, and each phone costs over ten thousand," Chen Qin said with a smile, leaving Keke completely dumbfounded.

After all, a kid with only a few thousand in pocket money couldn't quite grasp the concept of tens of millions, although Keke's allowance was already much higher than that of kids from most working-class families.

You have to understand that many parents were poisoned by magazines, believing that children in foreign families move out and live independently as soon as they reach adulthood. So, the moment their kids turn eighteen, they cut off their living expenses, forcing the newly enrolled college students to fend for themselves.

However, with the popularization of short videos, many people finally saw the real situation abroad clearly.

There was no such thing as toilet water clean enough to drink, nor were there spotless streets. Even Chen Qin, who frequently traveled abroad, said that apart from a few countries, nowhere did it better than domestically.

"Is there anything else you guys want to buy?" Ye Shuang asked.

"Yes, yes, yes! I want to check out the designer toy store here. I saw a super cool Gundam last time," Keke raised her small hand.

"You like building Gundams too?"

"Yep, my tastes are very diverse." Tang Keke lifted her chin, though it was unclear if she was praising herself.

At this time, Bai Yuyou also raised her small hand. "Me too."

"What is it?"

"Snacks," Bai Yuyou said. "I don't know why... the snacks in the snack box are disappearing very quickly."

Ye Shuang: "..."

Uh...

Well about that.

Since he had fed them all to the dog, Ye Shuang coughed dryly and simply accompanied Bai Yuyou for another spin around the snack aisle. By the time they came out, there was even an extra shopping cart fully loaded with snacks that Yuyou and Keke loved to eat.

Originally, they only needed a few packs, but Chen Qin generously waved her hand and told Yuyou and Keke to buy whatever they wanted.

"Actually, it would be better to get them from my house," Chen Qin smiled. "Chen Hai previously converted a whole room specifically into a snack warehouse. It has all kinds of snacks and drinks inside."

Chen Hai himself was quite a glutton, so he set up a mini supermarket at home. However, because Qiaoqiao kept sneaking in to steal snacks, Uncle Chen issued a mandatory order, and they were eventually forced to clear out most of it.

After coming out of the self-checkout counter, Ye Shuang found that the two large carts of items had cost over three thousand yuan.

"Hmm..." Chen Qin stood to the side, looking at the price list on the receipt, seemingly verifying it.

Keke asked from the side, "Sister Chen Qin, you're so rich, do you still need to look at the prices?"

"Your Sister Chen Qin doesn't look at prices when buying things, but she will check to see if she was overcharged." Ye Shuang laughed. After all, one should save where they should and spend where they should. Both he and Chen Qin were the type to take the leftover napkins with them after drinking tea.

Right at this moment, his phone suddenly vibrated.

Ye Shuang merely glanced at the content on his phone, and the smile on his face slowly faded, followed by silence.

"Ah Ye, what's wrong?" Chen Qin also noticed the change in Ye Shuang's expression.

"Hmm, nothing." Ye Shuang shook his head and put his phone away.

It was a message sent to him by An Shiyu, and the content was very brief.

An Shiyu: Her health has gotten worse.

An Shiyu: I don't know what to do anymore.

Ye Shuang naturally knew very well who the so-called her referred to.

Did it really happen this fast?