Chapter Eighteen

  Dad is not a talkative person except when he's teaching. Chen Huai-sheng has almost no impression of Pang Hua's character and isn't familiar with him, so he just focuses on eating.

  The two mothers chatted enthusiastically in Mandarin about the wonderful uses of aloe vera - Mrs. Pang didn't speak dialect.

  "...We Chen Haosheng also had long acne before, just one or two, cut the aloe vera 'meat' into thin slices and stick it on, that's all. She would also put the remaining aloe vera in green tea to eat away."

  "Aloe vera has the effect of clearing liver fire. You have a lot on your left cheek, and they're all whiteheads, so drinking some tea that clears liver fire might be effective. Also, use a sterilized needle to prick them, and after pricking, sterilize again, it's best to apply medical-grade Australian tea tree oil. Don't squeeze with your hands... Eat less of things that are easy to get angry or irritated about, body constitution and diet are the main reasons for getting acne." Chen Haosheng had eaten enough and decided to interrupt his mom's free talk.

  "Ah, Xiao Chen, Xiao Chen, speak slowly." Mrs. Pang took out a notebook, "What's that, 'medicine' tea?"

  "...I'm not very sure, it's best to ask a Chinese medicine doctor for a prescription. For example, like Astragalus, honeysuckle, bee pollen, tuckahoe...the specific dosage is best prescribed by a Chinese medicine doctor."

  "Should I apply some ointment then?"

  "Apply 'medicine' ointment on areas with acne. However, avoid applying this type of 'medicine' to good skin, it's very damaging."

  Pang Hua quickly lifted his head and glanced at Chen Huai's face before lowering it again to pick up the last few grains of rice.

  Chen Huaicheng saw his face up close... and felt a bit nauseous. She began to think that his family conditions shouldn't be as good as she had imagined, at most they were average, otherwise why wouldn't they even have 'medicine' or beauty treatments?

  "We were afraid that he would be affected by taking medicine, so we just applied some ointment. But the result was that it got worse and worse. This summer I also took him to see a traditional Chinese doctor, and he took that traditional Chinese medicine, but even after dozens of doses, there was no improvement! And it's still so painful..."

  "Chinese medicine is very hard to swallow, but Auntie, if you don't take it for a long enough time, it won't be effective. You can add some licorice root to the medicinal tea and then drink it for about half a year before you'll start to see results."

  "Half a year!"

  "Some of the whiteheads are almost ripe, and you can squeeze out the pus. However, be sure to pay attention to disinfection."

  "With a needle?" Pang Hua finally spoke his first sentence. His voice was still quite pleasant, what a pity about that face.

  "It's best to use benzoyl peroxide, 75% disinfectant 'essence'. Also, get good single-origin tea tree 'essential' oil, the 100% kind. 100% lavender 'essential' oil can also be used as a substitute. When washing your face, make sure to thoroughly clean it, the cleaning power of soap is actually not very good, it's best to buy cleansing products that clean pores, and you can also add a drop of tea tree 'essential' oil when washing."

  "Wait a minute, Little Chen, speak slower." Mrs. Pang said while writing quickly.

  "I remember." Pang Hua said coldly, but his statement was ineffective on his own mother.

  "Is tea tree the tree of mountain tea or the tea tree of green tea?"

  "...No, it's a specialty of Australia, with strong antibacterial properties. During World War II, it was used as a 'medicine' for golden wounds, and the price wasn't particularly expensive."

  "Price is no problem! Not an issue..."

  "If you have friends going abroad, they can bring back some products containing tea tree oil. Like the UK's The Body Shop, just buy two sets of tea tree products, which is only twenty or thirty dollars. You can look at the instructions yourself." Her last sentence was directed at Pang Hua.

  "Are there any other good foreign products? Little Chen, oh, your English is very good, you must read a lot."

  Very rich? Ha, okay! "I'll write it."

  Chen Huaixiang scribbled down not only the acne needle, disinfectant "essence", tea tree "essential" oil products, but also picked out Biotherm's acne gel, He-Po Sai's cleansing "milk", Ique and De's water, and even specifically noted "easy to be sensitive", "must-buy" and other words. In fact, she knew very well that there were cheaper and better alternatives, but those things had accompanied her until the end... However, it was clear that others were more obsessed with expensive and foreign products, so she just went along with it.

  "It's possible in the big shopping mall of S city, but it's better to buy at a duty-free shop, which is much cheaper and has more varieties."

  Mrs. Pang was so moved that she carefully put away the paper with tears in her eyes, and even Mr. Pang, who didn't talk much, thanked him repeatedly.

  "Niang niang ah, Pang Hua's undergraduate and master's degrees are 'pretty' good, coming out as a graduate student." Actually, Dad was just talking nonsense.

  "Oh? What major are you studying? Medicine?"

  "No, it's physical information. It doesn't count as a continuous reading, but there is an opportunity to be exempt from reading for a master's degree." Pang Hua seemed to have suddenly regained his confidence and politeness.

  "At least a master's degree is required in science to be useful." Chen Huicheng fully agrees.

  "Darling, are you going to pursue a master's degree?" Mom started calculating the expenses in her mind.

  "For the time being, I won't consider it. Law and English are mainly applied fields, unless, well, you specialize in a very professional field like maritime law, otherwise studying for three years is not as good as working in a firm for three years." She specifically looked for journals, newspapers, and books during her summer vacation, and there were definitely no judicial exams within at least one or two years. However, there were many articles with suggestions and discussions about it. So maybe by the time she graduates, it will be available? Thinking of the extremely difficult judicial exam from her previous life, she clenched her fists secretly, this time she must get it in the shortest amount of time!"

  "Oh, right, double degree is also 'pretty' good."

  "Mom, a minor is not really a double degree."

  "Is that so?" The old mother glanced at him without raising her head, the boy with a face full of acne and scars, ugly and introverted. How could he compare to her smart and beautiful "daughter"? And a master's degree! Humph! "Why don't you just get another bachelor's degree? Hmm, isn't there a self-study exam? This should be easy. Having two bachelor's degrees is equivalent to having a master's degree——Daddy, I think your English now is not worse than that of an ordinary English major graduate. There's a new kid in our unit who boasts about his good English, but when I listen to him, I feel his accent is very awkward and he stammers."

  "...Hmm, it's not difficult. However, I want to take the professional level 8 exam, which has a higher gold content than a bachelor's degree."

  "Then take the level 8 exam! Take it!" Mom said with great momentum.

  Chen Huasheng didn't think much about her mother's mindset. She thought that if she took a judicial examination and another self-study exam, it would probably take six or seven years, but it wasn't a bad idea. Two diplomas, two professional certificates with high gold content... plus real estate investment, even if the house wasn't hers, at least she could save on one room's rent, no matter how you calculated it, it was a good deal! "Hmm, I'll take them all."

  The mother of the Pong family opposite has a very high opinion of Chen Huasheng, and with professional subjects like law and English, it's impossible for her own son to become a competitor, so she nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes, it's good to learn more things while you're young. When Pong Hua's father..."

  A meal that lasted two hours. During which, two university freshmen cleared the table and each paid their own bill - they were six people eating relatively expensive stir-fried dishes - and even left behind a pager number.

  Oh, pagers! This old gadget is now very trendy, and Chen Huacheng absolutely rejects the grenade-like big brother, plus his family can't afford such an expensive thing. Pang Hua didn't get a big brother either, which made her feel inexplicably happy.