Chapter 445: 415 Chapter 445: 415 Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng’s wedding was held in May, Mr. Jiao and Jiao Ma brought Zheng Tan with them to attend the feast, Little Youzi was not available, and Jiao Yuan was in Beijing. There were quite a few school leaders who attended the wedding, with Buddha taking the lead, and it was because of this wedding that many people realized that Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng had the backing of some big shots in the school, so normally, no one would use their position to trouble Xiao Zhuo and them at school.

For Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng, there wasn’t going to be a honeymoon like those younger couples have; they had too much work on their hands and not much time for a vacation. They could only think about going on a holiday after completing a phase of their projects. Although they couldn’t take a long vacation, they still took Zhuo Xiaomao to the amusement park to have a good time.

When Zheng Tan was invited to Zhuo Xiaomao’s house for a meal again, it was already the summer vacation. Zhuo Xiaomao had caught some shrimp while playing in the countryside and brought them back to share with Zheng Tan.

Walking under the blazing sun from the courtyard in the East District to that in the West District, Zheng Tan strode into the courtyard under the watchful eye of the security guard.

Now that Yue Cheng was living with Zhuo Xiaomao and Xiao Zhuo, it wasn’t because Xiao Zhuo and Yue Cheng couldn’t afford to buy another house outside; it was purely for convenience and Zhuo Xiaomao was already used to this place. Yue Cheng had bought a four-wheeled sedan which was quite safe and must have cost a pretty penny.

Many people verbally say they don’t need that kind of four-wheeled sedan, but one day you realize that you indeed need that kind of vehicle with doors, not just buses and bikes, because there’s more to your life than just yourself, especially for families with children.

When Zheng Tan entered, Xiao Zhuo was busy in the kitchen, Yue Cheng was out in the yard, also covering some of Xiao Zhuo’s tasks to give Xiao Zhuo time to stay at home with the child.

Since it was just the start of the summer vacation, Zhuo Xiaomao wasn’t going to school and was lying on the bed in her own small room reading a book.

Zheng Tan wiped his feet on the carpet beside him and jumped up to take a glance at the paper Zhuo Xiaomao was holding.

In fact, it wasn’t really a book, but a thick stack of printed research papers bound together, including articles from undergraduates, masters, and PhDs, as well as papers published by other teachers from the school in scientific journals.

Zheng Tan completely failed to understand these, but he was very curious about the different colored highlighter marks Zhuo Xiaomao had made on them, such as “a statistically significant trend is observable”, “these results will be given in a series of reports”, “to a certain extent this is correct”, and so on.

It looked like note-taking, but the highlighted phrases didn’t seem to be any profound scientific knowledge.

When Zhuo Xiaomao saw Zheng Tan, she was delighted to finally have someone to talk to.

“Black,” Zhuo Xiaomao pointed to the printed papers with the marked phrases and said eagerly, as if she were about to share a joke with Zheng Tan, “do you know the implicit meanings behind these words?”

Zheng Tan shook his head, listening to what Zhuo Xiaomao would say next.

Zhuo Xiaomao, as if showing off a treasure, pointed at those sentences and said, “He told me that there are a lot of language traps in papers that you can’t just understand by their apparent meaning. That’s why I’ve highlighted them all, to see if there’s really that kind of hidden implication when I look at them in the context of the entire paper.”

The “he” that Zhuo Xiaomao was referring to in her statement was Yue Cheng. After more than three months of interaction, Zhuo Xiaomao and Yue Cheng were familiar with each other, but the names hadn’t been settled yet. Calling him “Uncle Yue” felt too distant, and directly calling him “Dad” was something Zhuo Xiaomao found hard, so for now she just used “he” to substitute.

However, Zheng Tan thought that it wouldn’t be long before Zhuo Xiaomao started calling Yue Cheng “Dad,” as Zhuo Xiaomao mentioned him quite frequently.

“Black, look, like this ‘a statistically significant trend is observable,’ well, its latent meaning is ‘this statistical data isn’t really meaningful,’ or like this ‘results will be given in a series of reports,’ which actually means ‘if this experiment could get more support like funding, we might continue with it a bit.’ Then there’s this ‘surveys indicate,’ which means ‘according to rumors,’…here, ‘based on the above results, we predict,’ actually conveys ‘sorry, we’re just guessing,’ and this ‘we hope this research will encourage scholars in the field to undertake further in-depth studies,’ really means ‘whoever wants to do it can, I’m out,’…”

Zhuo Xiaomao listed many examples, all typical expressions found in papers. Mr. Jiao had actually mentioned this before; it was like an industry jargon, clear to insiders but befuddling for outsiders.

Zhuo Xiaomao, as if playing a game of spot the difference, had marked all the sentences in the papers that had an underlying meaning, and then was laughing heartily to herself as though reading a compilation of jokes.

Zheng Tan stood by, quite helplessly, having no idea where the laughter was coming from.

After the laughter, Zhuo Xiaomao closed the folder and said to Zheng Tan, “Black, my mom used to talk about wanting to adopt a cat. Last month, she even took me to the Pet Center to look around, and we were planning to adopt one from there. The public service advertisement you starred in also mentioned it, right? To adopt instead of shop.”

Zhuo Xiaomao’s smile began to fade, revealing a hint of mild frustration.

Adopting a cat was something Xiao Zhuo had thought about for a long time, but now neither Xiao Zhuo nor Yue Cheng had the time. They basically spent all day at the Physics College, and even Zhuo Xiaomao had to go to school. After school, she went to the Physics College more often than directly going home, not to mention Zhuo Xiaomao was still a little kid, hardly coping with looking after people, let alone a little animal. Bringing a pet home meant an additional responsibility, which shouldn’t be taken lightly.