Seven o'clock, at the entrance of No. 1 Middle School.

Xia Minmin and Tang Meng saw Xi Ang and Gu Fei standing at the school gate from afar.

"Good morning, class monitor!"

Xia Minmin got angry as soon as she heard Gu Fei's voice. Not long after the monthly exam results came out, and shortly after Teacher Chen called, Gu Fei called home to ask about her grades. Anyone who didn't know better would think he was showing off his high score.

Xia Minmin walked past him and greeted Xi Ang, "Good morning!"

Tang Meng, determined to avenge her best friend, ignored Gu Fei. Ever since middle school, she'd had this question: how could two people with such different personalities become friends?

Gu Fei looked at the two people who walked past him, pointed at their backs, and said, "Hey, what's wrong with you two? Can't you see me standing here? I'm a grown man."

Xi Ang also felt that Gu Fei had brought this upon himself. Gu Fei had said he would call the class monitor that day, but the monitor hung up on him as soon as he received his grades. Now the monitor deserved to treat him this way; anyone else would have beaten him up.

Gu Fei said smugly, "What's wrong with you two girls? You're ignoring me. Let me tell you, you'll be taking my car later. If I don't give you the address, you won't know how to get there."

Xia Minmin was a little annoyed. She didn't know what she had done to offend Gu Fei, who was always picking on her. "Fine, I won't go then. I don't want to study anymore anyway."

"Gu Fei, how can you be like this? It wasn't us who forced you to take us to the equestrian club to learn to ride. Since that's the case, Xiao Min and I won't go with you."

"Xi'ang, Xiaomin and I are going home first. See you when school starts." Tang Meng said goodbye to Xi'ang, and the two turned around and walked back the way they came.

Gu Fei looked bewildered. He often teased Xia Minmin before and never saw her get angry. What was wrong this time? He said loudly, "That's not what I meant."

Unfortunately, Xia Minmin and Tang Meng ignored what he said. Appropriate jokes can enhance friendship, but long-term boring and nasty jokes will only make people disgusted.

"I've reminded you many times to be careful with your jokes and not go too far. I asked Teacher Chen about the class monitor's ranking in the exam this time, and you still deliberately called her to rub salt in the wound. In my opinion, the class monitor doesn't plan to talk to you anymore this time. You deserve it!" Xi Ang said calmly, standing next to Gu Fei.

As Gu Fei watched the two people walk away, she realized how much harm the jokes, big and small, had caused her over the past year.

Xia Minmin really never wanted to talk to Gu Fei again. After entering high school, he acted like a lunatic, targeting her out of all the other students in the class.

"Among the boys in our class, Xi Ang is alright, the others are all too immature, especially Gu Fei. Xiao Min, if he tries to talk to you in the future, just ignore him and give him the cold shoulder. Once he gets bored, he won't tease you anymore," Tang Meng said.

"I'm fine, Mengmeng. I'm sorry, I made it so you couldn't learn to ride a horse."

Tang Meng had been looking forward to learning to ride horses for a long time. She originally planned to go to the grasslands in July to escape the summer heat and learn to ride horses, but her tutoring classes delayed her plans.

Tang Meng put her arm around her best friend and said, "Hey, it's okay! It's the same whether we learn early or late. We can learn after the college entrance exam. These few days we can go to the beach to swim, play tennis, box, and skateboard. We haven't had a chance to play these things properly since we started high school."

"Shall we play tennis first today?" Xia Minmin asked.

"Let's go!" Tang Meng smiled happily, pulled Xia Minmin all the way home, changed her clothes, put on her tennis bag, and took a taxi to the tennis court.

Tennis is thriving in Shenzhen, with many stadiums having tennis courts. Tang Meng became a member of a tennis club, but due to her heavy academic workload in her first year of high school, she didn't have many opportunities to go. She still had a considerable amount of money in her card.

There were few people at the tennis court in the morning, and the courts were empty everywhere. The two of them finished their warm-up exercises, and the match was about to begin.

The two, who hadn't played tennis in a long time, were out of breath in less than twenty minutes.

"Mengmeng, I can't go on, I need to rest for a while."

"Me too."

The two sat on the ground, and Xia Minmin handed Tang Meng a bottle of purified water that had been placed to the side.

Xia Minmin wiped her sweat with a towel and said, "I feel that my physical strength has dropped a lot in my first year of high school. I used to be able to play for an hour without any problem, but now I have to take a break in less than 20 minutes."

"Don't even mention you, me too. I doubt I'll be able to last even ten minutes after finishing high school."

When they were in elementary and middle school, the two of them had a lot of time to exercise and did all kinds of sports every day without interruption. After entering high school, they only had morning and evening self-study sessions every day. The weekend was supposed to be a two-day rest, but there was so much homework that they didn't have time to exercise at all.

"After the college entrance exam, I will pick all of these up again and practice them every day."

“Let’s do it together. We’ve been studying for so many years, it would be a waste if we didn’t pick it up again.”

After resting for ten minutes, Xia Minmin had almost recovered her strength. "Shall we continue?"

Tang Meng stretched out her right hand, and Xia Minmin pulled her up. The two practiced for another half hour before leaving the tennis hall.

Xia Jianguo rarely returned home before noon. On the coffee table was a stack of hundred-yuan bills, which looked to be several thousand yuan. She remembered that there was no such money on the coffee table when she left in the morning.

Click...

The sound of the front door opening preceded him, and before he even reached the entrance, Xia Minmin pushed the door open and entered.

"Dad, why are you home so early today?"

Xia Jianguo has been busy expanding his home textile factory business lately, leaving early and returning late every day, and sometimes even staying at the discount supermarket.

"Not much to do today." Xia Jianguo took his daughter's tennis bag. He had heard Chunmei say that she would be going to horseback riding lessons today, so why was his daughter carrying a tennis bag back?

"The registration fee for horseback riding lessons is on the coffee table, did you see it? I didn't register." Xia Minmin walked to the dining table, poured herself a glass of cold water, and drank it.

Xia Jianguo's intuition told him that something was definitely going on. Generally speaking, his daughter would try her best to complete anything she decided to do, but this time it was strange that she took the registration fee but didn't register.

He looked at his daughter's face and asked cautiously, "Can you tell Dad why you didn't register?"

"I just feel like there's not enough time right now, and we can't bite off more than we can chew. We're planning to pick up all the sports we've learned before this summer. Dad, you have no idea how exhausted I was after playing tennis with Mengmeng for less than 20 minutes today."

Xia Jianguo listened to his daughter's explanation and could tell from her little actions that this was not the real reason. However, since his daughter did not want to talk about it, he could not force her. Let her learn it if she wanted to!

"Tell your dad whenever you want to learn, or we can go to the grasslands to learn horseback riding after your college entrance exam."

"Dad, you're like a mind reader! How did you know that Mengmeng and I wanted to go to the grasslands to learn horseback riding after the college entrance exam?"

Xia Jianguo ruffled his daughter's short hair until it was a mess. This unlucky child even has roundworms; it's time to teach her a lesson.