Chapter 26: Old Zhao's Worries

  Old Zhao sighed and said, "I'm worried about my precious granddaughter now. She's going to college soon and her grades are great. Her dad says she can get into some famous university called 'Longlong Tree Root University' or something."

  It's a bit strange for Gu An to say something like that, so he immediately added, "It must be the Ivy League."

  Old Zhao nodded hastily and said, "Right! Right! It's that kind of vine, the name is weird and it's easier to remember if we just call it a foreign locust tree. University should be called university, why do they have to call it some kind of league? These foreigners are all the same, always trying to cheat people."

  "Uncle Zhao! That's a famous American Ivy League, it's an alliance of several schools, not just one school. Each university in this league is world-class, and in the US, they're on the same level as Tsinghua University and Peking University back home. What are you still worried about? Your granddaughter is amazing!" Jū ān said with a smile, flattering him.

  Lao Zhao sighed and explained, "I'm not afraid that the child will study poorly, but rather that they'll be led astray. I've heard that in those foreign universities, if they're not doing drugs, they're either getting drunk and messing around or holding dance parties all day long. They don't focus on their studies at all, just thinking about...you know, that thing in their pants. And the university president doesn't care, just letting them do whatever they want. If it were a boy, I'd be less worried, but with this daughter of mine, I'm always on edge, afraid something will happen."

  The restaurant owner also nodded and said: "I'm worried that my son will learn bad things from a group of young devils. Thirteen or fourteen-year-old kids have boyfriends and girlfriends, and their families don't care. Last time, he brought a little devil who claimed to be his girlfriend, and I almost invited this kid to eat stir-fried bamboo shoots with me on the spot. For several days, I didn't give him a good face, and finally, when I mentioned it to some friends, they all said that kids around here are like that, and it's okay for them to have boyfriends or girlfriends. Then, my wife and I had to beat around the bush and mention to him not to do anything in bed, it was so embarrassing.

  What's even more outrageous is that when I went to school again, they were actually distributing condoms! The school doesn't teach kids how to study, but instead focuses on this kind of thing. It feels like I've entered a nightclub or something, and my mind has been tangled up for days."

  Jū ān shook his head and smiled, explaining: "That's just the way it is here in America. It's gotten a bit better in recent years, I read in the newspaper that in the past decade or so, about 7% of high school girls got pregnant, with tens of thousands of teenage girls getting pregnant unexpectedly every year. I guess schools handing out condoms also emphasizes personal protection."

  The boss said, "If my son lets me become a grandfather in these few years, I'll break his leg. He's always thinking about nonsense in his head. Young people should focus on studying first, and then they can become lawyers or doctors, which are good professions. I don't expect him to take over this tiring and bitter business of mine." Old Zhao nodded in agreement upon hearing this.

  The three of them chatted for a while, and when they saw it was getting late, this guy got up after eating for two hours and bid farewell to the other two. Old Zhao saw that Ju An was leaving and also stood up to leave, preparing to return to his own small farm, and kindly sent Ju An back to the hotel before driving away in his own small pickup truck.

  Standing at the hotel entrance, Ju An saw off the old man who had worked hard all his life. Even though his son had achieved success, he insisted on living by his own hands. The hardships of the older generation were a microcosm of their immigration to the US. This reminded him of an article in a Chinese American newspaper, which reported that during the current economic downturn, many Americans had been laid off by companies, but some Chinese employees had kept their jobs due to their hard work and down-to-earth lifestyle. The article noted that Chinese people rarely boasted or talked nonsense, most were diligent and hardworking, and women in Chinese families often worked outside the home, so they were less affected by unemployment compared to whites and other ethnic groups. The article acknowledged that racial differences were unavoidable and called on all Chinese people to face this reality.

  Turned into the hotel, went upstairs, and arrived at his own room. The empty house had nothing but a large thing in the water, looking very empty, with only groups of bees working hard on the fruit trees, taking out some fruits from the space and putting them on the table, eating while watching TV boredly. After watching for a while, he felt very bored without Teddy's big butt wagging back and forth in front of him, without Wu Song's loud shouting, suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable, especially missing the guys at home.

  Made a phone call home, asked Da Zhuang about the little ones, and waited for Da Zhuang to reply that everything was fine. After listening to Teddy's roar, Wu Song's cry, and the sharp voices of the two small mountain lions, Ju An finally put his mind at ease.

  Continued to watch the boring TV, then turned it off and opened his own notebook, went online to search for some information about thoroughbred horses, preparing to buy a small horse at a suitable price and raise it in space. From the message on the internet, Kentucky has a large number of top-notch thoroughbred horse farms, the article also praised the advantages of the land, pasture, etc., which were all ignored by Jū ān, who thought that no matter how big the advantage was, it couldn't be stronger than his own space advantage. With full confidence, he clicked into the homepage of a farm called Spindletop Thoroughbred Farm and took a look, suddenly scaring Jū half to death! Oh my god! The small horses were all priced at tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, scaring Jū ān's little heart into a frenzy. Then he switched to two more farms, the prices had some differences but were all about the same.

  After searching around in a big circle, he found a cheap horse from the famous horse farm, but was splashed with cold water and muttered to himself: "Brother, this is really ignorant and fearless, thinking that one or two hundred thousand can buy a small horse, it seems like a fantasy". He had to take out Brad's card from his pocket again and looked at it: "It seems I still have to go to your horse farm to take a look around."

  He put the card back into his pocket and began to learn about some of the major American races online, including the Kentucky Derby in May, the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes, as well as the Breeders' Cup. Looking at a string of small zeros behind each big race, it was like a smiling face waving at him.

  Just as I was enjoying the excitement of winning, my mind still lingered on the thrilling horse racing game, and when I was about to put a large sum of green bills into my pocket, the door opened, and a tired-looking Jasmine walked in.

  Saw Ya sitting on the sofa, staring blankly at her laptop in front of her, and smiled as she said: "Hey! Dear, I'm back."

  Ju An heard Jasmine's voice, quickly turned his head around, closed the laptop with one hand, and smiled at Jasmine: "Have you had dinner? If not, I can help you call room service."

  Molly walked over to the sofa and sat down, looking at some fruit on the coffee table. She picked up a grape and put it in her mouth: "No need, I'm dieting now, luckily there's fruit, eating some fruit is fine. Today we had an NG take so many times it exhausted me. By the way, just now you were staring at your laptop with such concentration, weren't you watching adult videos?" Molly said with a smile full of meaning.

  "No! I'm looking at some thoroughbred horses, I plan to buy one and raise it then send it to the track to run. What do you think?" Ju An asked with a smile.

  Jasmine listened to Ju An's words and advised: "If you want to play, buying a horse is no big deal, but if you want to send your horse to the racing track, just a good bloodline horse costs tens of millions, and a champion horse at least over a million US dollars. Moreover, accidents can happen anytime, purebred horses are too expensive, your ranch facilities can't keep up, even if you update your stables, there are at least 20-30 million purebred horses in the whole United States, how easy is it to be one of the few champions every year?"

  He nodded and said to Jasmine, "I just want to have some fun, if I can get on the track that's great, if not it's no big deal, just consider it a pet." Of course, he didn't really think so in his heart. Even if he couldn't win several championships, winning a championship at a single station shouldn't be a problem, after all, Space had raised several Tibetan mastiffs from puppies, raising a small horse should be no problem. But this was obviously something that couldn't be said to Jasmine, so he just laughed along with her.

  Jasmine held a bunch of grapes in her hand and ate them while facing Ju An, saying: "Where did you buy your grapes, they're really delicious."

  Jū ān smiled and said: "After playing for a day, I happened to enter a fruit shop and bought some. It's the one in front of several intersections." Jū ān casually teased Mò lì.

  Jasmine finished eating grapes and got up to take two bottles of beer from the refrigerator, handed one to Ju An, then sat down beside him, kicked off her shoes, curled up her feet on the sofa, leaned against Ju An's shoulder, turned on the TV, watched TV while chatting with Ju An about some small interesting things that happened during filming today, and also mentioned that the director praised her for having a lot of talent.

  After chatting for a while, Jasmine said: "Okay, I won't say anymore. My favorite TV show is starting, and I've been following it for several seasons." As soon as the opening credits came out, she saw that it was "Gossip Girl". She had watched two episodes before, and overall, didn't know what it was about. The whole thing was just a bunch of male and female leads from good families, dressed fashionably, and then got entangled in complicated relationships. Although she only watched two episodes, Jasmine felt like her head was going to explode, and it had a bit of the style of "Qiong Huang Da Ma".

  Forced herself to watch for a while, then thought of going to the toilet. Just as she was about to pull her arm out from under Jasmine's head, she found that Jasmine had fallen asleep. She gently picked up Jasmine and put her on the bed in the bedroom, helped her take off her clothes, covered her with a quilt, and then went to the bathroom to wash up. After turning off the light, she got into bed as well.