“It’s no worse than the playgrounds outside. Anyway, it has all the things that small children like to play with.”
Zeng Xiaoya laughed. “Poverty has limited my imagination.”
Ordinary people have to pay to enter amusement parks and play. But the Zhan family builds a whole playground right at home for the children. They can enjoy all kinds of activities without ever going outside.
“If they play the same things every day, it will get boring after a while and lose its freshness. When the children grow a bit older, we can take them to the riding stables to learn horse riding. We always need to give them something new and exciting.”
“Xiaoya, do you know how to ride a horse?”
Zhan Yue asked her.
Zeng Xiaoya shook her head. “No, I don’t know how to ride. Apart from seeing horses on television, the only other place was the zoo. But we rarely went to the zoo either. The adults at home were too busy and had no time to take us.”
“When I was little and wanted to go to the zoo, I had to wait a whole year. Only during the New Year holiday, when someone at home had time off in rotation, would they take us to the zoo for one day. When I got a bit older, schoolwork became heavier, and there was even less time to go out and play.”
Zeng Xiaoya thought back to her own childhood. It seemed to consist of nothing but studying, still studying. It was not that her family forced her. They studied on their own initiative because they had clear goals to strive for from a young age.
They knew that if they did not work hard at their studies, they would only drift further and further from their goals.
So they studied very diligently. They never needed the adults at home to supervise them or tutor them. They maintained excellent grades through their own hard work.
Before she knew Zhan Yue, she had assumed that the childhood of children from wealthy families was spent attending all sorts of classes and learning all kinds of arts. She thought people from prominent families were proficient in music, chess, poetry and painting.
But those skills were not innate. They required day after day of hard practice to achieve any real mastery.
After getting to know Zhan Yue and seeing how the Zhan family treated their children with such freedom, she realised they emphasised a balance between work and play. They arranged plenty of study for the children, yet they also gave them plenty of opportunities to play freely and wildly.
They would even join the children in their mad fun. When the children grew up, their memories of childhood would be full of happiness. It would not be like hers, where childhood was recalled as nothing but studying.
In her mind, Zeng Xiaoya quietly raised the Zhan family’s score to 90 points. And this was not the final score. It would surely keep rising in the future.
“Do you want to learn horse riding? My family has a riding stable too. If you want to learn, come to our stable. I’ll teach you for free. Others have to pay quite high fees for lessons.”
Zhan Yue smiled. “We’re neighbours now, and you’ve helped me so much. My grandma especially likes you. I won’t charge you any lesson fees. Free horse riding lessons. How about it? Are you interested?”
“If you’re interested, every time you have a holiday, we can go and learn riding skills.”
Zhan Yin and Zhan Yichen exchanged a glance, then looked at their eighth brother. They silently walked away to watch the children playing, not wanting to disturb their eighth brother’s pursuit of a wife.
Zeng Xiaoya said: “Free lessons make me feel a bit embarrassed. How about you charge me at least a little fee?”
“Alright then. I’ll give you a discount and charge you very little. Whenever you want to go, just let me know. I’ll take you there and teach you personally. The riding skills of us brothers are all pretty good.”
After all, their family owned a riding stable, so it was easy for them to learn.
“Do you want to go to the zoo? Some day when I’m free, I’ll help my brother and sister-in-law look after the kids and take them to the zoo. Do you want to come along?”
“Let’s talk about it later. It’s hard to say right now. I can’t be sure when I’ll get time off.”
“Fine. Whenever you’re free and want to go, we can go together. Quite often on weekends my brother and sister-in-law drag me over to babysit so they can go out on dates and enjoy their happy couple’s world.”
“If I complain a couple of times, they just say, ‘Who told you to be a single dog? You don’t have a wife or kids yet, so you’re stuck being an uncle who babysits.’”
Zeng Xiaoya laughed. “Then you’d better hurry up and find a girl to marry. Have a few kids. Later you can ask your younger brother to look after them while you and your wife go out on dates.”
