Chapter 104

Although in fact all teachers knew that only twenty students from the competition class would participate in the competition, everyone still had to go through a formal process. Except for Class 1 and Class 2 in the first year of high school, the teachers of mathematics, physics and chemistry in other classes picked out four students with the best performance in each subject to participate in the competition examination for selection.

The students selected from Class 3 include Jiang Ning, Xu Xiuli, Shen Xirong and others. A total of 32 people were selected from the parallel class. Anyone who wants to participate from the two key classes can take part in this selection exam.

The exam was held on Saturday. Other students could go home on Friday night, but students taking the exam could not go home. Xu Xiuli was very upset about this: "I am not in the competition class. Why do I have to take the exam too? I can't even bring food tomorrow."

Xu Xiuli is a typical mama's girl who is very attached to her family. Every Friday after school, she is the most active one to go home. The first thing she does when the school bell rings is to go back to the dormitory to get her backpack that has already been packed and go home. She is also the last one to return to the dormitory.

He Xiaofang was very happy, and said excitedly: "You two can go to take your exam without worry. I will take care of all the work of fetching food and water for you today!"

She knew that there was a limit to what she could do, so she tried to be more proactive when working. She was the one who cleaned the dormitory on weekdays.

Jiang Ning goes jogging every morning. After jogging, she goes to the cafeteria to get breakfast and brings it to the store to eat with Grandpa Jiang. She takes this time to clean, cleaning every corner of the dormitory, the table and the balcony, because if she doesn't clean during this time, Jiang Ning will come back and clean with her.

Although Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli didn't say anything, they saw everything He Xiaofang did.

This is the first time that Xu Xiuli has stayed in the dormitory on Saturday. Now there are three people in the dormitory, He Xiaofang, Xu Xiuli and Jiang Ning.

Seeing that He Xiaofang didn't go home every week, Xu Xiuli asked her, "You stay at school all the time, don't your family worry about you?"

These words made He Xiaofang silent.

"No, there's nothing to worry about." She turned her back, lay on the bed, and looked up at the ceiling: "They won't worry about me."

They only care about their brother.

He's mother gave birth to three daughters in a row, and she aborted one of them because of family planning. A few years later, she gave birth to a baby son. He's father and mother's hearts were full of their son. Everything in the family was earned for their son. They also taught the three sisters to treat their younger brother well, because they had no brothers before, and her eldest sister was divorced and no one wanted her.

"If you had a brother, how would that family dare to treat your eldest sister like this?" Before, because He's father and mother had no son, they couldn't hold their heads up in the village and dared not speak loudly. It was only after they had a son that He's mother spoke louder.

But He Xiaofang was puzzled. Her eldest sister obviously gave birth to a son. People say that having a son is important, but didn’t her eldest sister still get divorced even though she gave birth to a son? That family doesn’t want the son born to her eldest sister?

She was confused, but the environment and everyone around her told her that a woman must give birth to a son, and only by giving birth to a son can she stand up straight. However, her eldest sister's affairs were obviously inconsistent with what they said, and were wrong.

She didn't know how to resist such an environment and just instinctively wanted to stay away from it.

She is so happy at school that she doesn't want to go back.

She can still find time to study at school, but when she gets home she has endless farm work to do.

The winter was not bad, there were just some housework to do and it was a little cold at most. But it was soon to be the busy farming season during the summer vacation. Every day there was endless rice to harvest, endless seedlings to plant, endless meals to cook and endless pigs to feed. All the big and small chores at home and outside were done by her and her elder sister.

Because her eldest sister lived in her parents' home and had two children to take care of, she could hardly lift her head at home and had endless work to do from morning to night.

She is not naturally dark. Isn't it the result of doing farm work and being exposed to the sun since she was a child?

But she didn't want to tell others about her family affairs, for fear that others would look down on her.

She turned around, lay on the bed, supported her chin with her hands, and looked at Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli, her eyes full of envy.

Her lips were thick, which gave her a rustic look like Mother Earth. When she smiled, she showed her big white teeth. She said, "Just like you can't understand why I don't want to go home, I can't understand why you are so happy to go home every Friday."

Because I have never felt loved wholeheartedly by my family like Xu Xiuli did.

She wished she could stay in school forever so that she wouldn't have to live in fear all the time, worrying that she would be married off in exchange for a dowry.

In response to her, Xu Xiuli gave her a handful of pistachios and pecans.

Pecans and pistachios are very expensive. She had eaten all the ones her aunt brought her during the Chinese New Year. The ones she has now are specially bought for her by her mother from the city. She usually only shares them with Jiang Ning, and occasionally gives some to He Xiaofang. When there are many people in the dormitory, she will share some melon seeds, peanuts and the like with them.

Especially Liu Ping, who never gets enough of taking advantage and is very shameless. She knows that she is shy, so every time she shares some food, she reaches out and takes a handful, and still feels it is not enough, so she grabs it with both hands. She is really scared by the way Liu Ping takes advantage of others. Normally, when she is around, she doesn't dare to take out snacks to eat.

He Xiaofang only knew from Jiang Ning that these dried fruits were more expensive than meat. When she saw Jiang Ning grab such a large handful for herself, she was shocked: "No, no, no, it's too much!"

Xu Xiuli smiled and said angrily, "Eat yours~, luckily Liu Ping is not here, otherwise I would have taken it out!"

Thinking of Liu Ping's eating habits in the dormitory like a tiger pouncing on its food, He Xiaofang couldn't help but smile. She carefully put the handful of pecans and pistachios that Xu Xiuli gave her into a paper box beside her bed, saving them for her to eat slowly when she was hungry.

Jiang Ning said that this thing is good for the brain. Whenever her brain is tired from doing exercises, she eats two pills to replenish her brain.

The next morning, Jiang Ning and He Xiaofang went out for a run. Xu Xiuli didn't like running, but she got up with them. While the two of them were running, Xu Xiuli held a book and read aloud in the playground.

He Xiaofang can now keep up with Jiang Ning, and it is no problem for the two of them to run ten laps together. Jiang Ning reads quietly while running, while He Xiaofang reads loudly while running. She can only use this stupid method, reading over and over again, saying it with her mouth and listening with her ears, and then memorizing these knowledge points by rote.

After running ten laps, the two could still walk a few steps easily.

Every time He Xiaofang saw Jiang Ning's relaxed look, she was full of admiration.

She still has to do farm work at home, and her physical strength is not as good as Jiang Ning's.

This is normal. Jiang Ning has a lot of meat, eggs, milk, vegetables and fruits every day. She only has rice and salted radish every day. After finishing the salted radish, she eats boiled cauliflower or the cheapest lotus root slices. She is reluctant to finish them in one meal, so she eats them in two meals, at noon and at night. In the morning, she only has a white steamed bun.

Even if Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli were willing to give her some meat, she was too embarrassed to eat it often and only ate a piece occasionally.

When they arrived at the cafeteria, she still had a big steamed bun for one or two meal tickets, Jiang Ning had salty tofu pudding with egg buns, and Xu Xiuli had small wontons and eggs.

Jiang Bai's college entrance examination is over, and now he is the one who delivers meals to Grandpa Jiang every day. After Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli finish their meals, they go to the reading room on the top floor of the teaching building to take the competition exam together.

There were not many people taking part in the competitive exam. In addition to the 32 people from the parallel classes, there were also more than 30 people from the two key classes.

Although there is no limit on the number of students in the key classes, it is the end of the semester and many people have used up their food coupons. Some choose to go home for a snack on Friday, some bring rice and some bring vegetables. Only a small number of people who feel that they have good grades but were not selected for the competition class are not convinced and want to try their hand at the competition, so they come to take the exam.

After the exam, everyone seemed to have suffered a severe blow and walked out of the examination room in a daze.

Are the examination papers for the competition and their regular exams really the same?

Isn’t this too difficult?

The top students who had been somewhat unconvinced before, seeing Zhang Wenxue and Cheng Yufeng coming out of the examination room with smiles on their faces and asking Jiang Ning from the parallel class how she had done in the exam, they could not help but turn their heads away. They were careless and should not have brought shame upon themselves by participating in this so-called in-school competition selection exam.

Xu Xiuli also had a shocked expression. She walked out of the examination room with a look of doubt about her life, and walked outside holding Jiang Ning's arm.

Because her grades were balanced and she showed no signs of being unbalanced in any subject, she was selected in the three subjects of mathematics, physics and chemistry.

Today is clearly her day to be at home, eating all kinds of delicious dishes made by her mother and reuniting with her family. Why does she have to be locked up in school to take exams?

Did she not take enough exams? There are quizzes every week, major exams every month, and the final exams are coming soon. Why do I have to endure competition exams to torture me?

After two exams, she looked pale and dazed. She said to Jiang Ning, "I shouldn't have been allowed to take an exam like this."

She looked at Jiang Ning with eyes full of admiration!

How did she manage to handle such a difficult test with ease?

Woo woo woo, she misses her mother! I want to go home so much!

At this time, Xu Xiuli's parents were waiting anxiously at the gate of No. 1 Middle School.

Xu Xiuli did not come home yesterday evening, and they were so worried that they could not sleep well the whole night, fearing that something had happened to their daughter.

Previously, a human trafficker abducted a female student at the gate of their town’s middle school. The girl was fifteen years old. She was walking home from school, and after walking less than five hundred meters, she was dragged into a van and taken away.

It was not until later when the girl's family saw that she had not returned home for a long time and went to the school to look for her that an eyewitness said that they saw her being dragged into a car and taken away.

They dared to snatch people in the street in public. The human traffickers were so rampant. When Xu Xiuli's mother heard about this and her daughter had not returned, she was so anxious that she and her husband went to the gate of No. 1 Middle School early in the morning and asked the guard.

The guard said, "There are students in the school who haven't returned home. What kind of competition exam are you taking? Which class is your girl in? I'll go ask for you."

The exam was held in the reading room. The teaching building was now empty, but there were still teachers in the office building grading exams and homework. He went to the office building to find Teacher Wang, and after asking around, he found out that he had indeed stayed in school to take the exam.

After I came out and told Xu Xiuli's parents, they were relieved: "If she can't go home, she should at least give us a call, right? Her father and I were almost scared to death!"

The security guard smiled and said, "The school only has a phone in the office, and you can't leave the school. That's why I didn't call you, right?"

Xu Xiuli's family had a telephone. Her family opened an electrical appliance store in the town, selling televisions and electric fans.

This year, Changhong brought their newly developed 25-inch large color TV to compete with Japanese brands for the market together with many domestic brands. Her family's color TV business is also very good. Saturday is the peak business time. If they were not worried about their daughter, she and her husband would never have been willing to leave the shop.

Every day's delay is a day's gain.

By noon, the exam was over. The guard knew Jiang Ning was from the third shift, and when he saw her leaving the exam room with a girl, he called out to her, "Is Xu Xiuli here?"

Xu Xiuli turned around and looked at the security guard in surprise: "I'm Xu Xiuli, what's wrong?"

"You didn't go home yesterday. Your parents came to the school gate to look for you and have been waiting for you all morning. Go check on them!"

When Xu Xiuli heard that her parents were coming, she almost jumped up with joy. She took Jiang Ning's hand and acted coquettishly: "Ning Ning Ning Ning, will you come with me~~~~"

Then he took her hand and ran towards the school gate.

Seeing her daughter's figure, Xu's mother burst into tears. She held her daughter up and down, fearing that she was missing a hair. "If you didn't come home yesterday, you should have called me and your father, right? There was no news at all. We waited until eight or nine in the evening and didn't see you come back. We were so worried. Your father drove everywhere to look for you, fearing that you were..."

She bit her lip and didn't say anything bad afterwards.

Father Xu also reached out and touched his daughter's head. "Your mother was so worried that she didn't sleep well all night. She came to the school to look for you early in the morning."

Xu Xiuli hugged Xu's mother's arm and rubbed it again and again, saying, "I wanted to go home after the exam today and come over tomorrow, so I didn't call."

The main reason was that the only phones in the school were in the teachers’ offices, and she was embarrassed to borrow one to make the call.

Xu's mother said to her, "Don't do this next time, okay? No matter where you go, you must call home if you don't come home!"

Father Xu said to Mother Xu: "Give her more pocket money next time. Don't be so reluctant to spend money even if you call her."

It's not that Xu Xiuli was reluctant to spend the money for the phone call, but she was too shy to borrow a phone from her teachers.

She hugged Xu's mother's arm coquettishly: "I'll know next time~!" She stuck out her tongue at Jiang Ning a little embarrassedly.

Mother Xu then noticed Jiang Ning and said with a warm smile: "You are Ningning, right? You were still very small when I saw you last time. After a year, you are taller than Lili." She touched Xu Xiuli's hair with concern and said: "Are you picky about food at school? You should eat well, don't you know? Look at Ningning, she is taller than you." She said to Jiang Ning: "Thank you for taking care of my Lili at school. Every time she comes home, she tells us that she has a good friend named Jiang Ning and wants to invite you to our house. Auntie has been waiting for you to come. Come to our house if you have nothing to do during the summer vacation!" She said to Xu Xiuli: "You haven't had lunch yet, right? Come on, let's go to a restaurant outside to eat." She asked Xu Xiuli: "Do you have any other classmates at school? Invite them out to eat together."

Last year, when the couple sent Xu Xiuli to the school to register, they had met Jiang Ning. At that time, Jiang Ning left a deep impression on them. They also remembered the ill-fitting and shabby clothes Jiang Ning was wearing at the time. They guessed that her family was not well-off, so they wanted to take her out to improve her food.

She knew that the students were locked up in school every day and could only eat in the cafeteria. Every time Xu Xiuli came home, she would complain that the cauliflower in the school was cooked like pig food. Every week, she would cook a big jar of her daughter's favorite dishes and bring them to school.

Xu Xiuli said: "There is another one in the dormitory, I will go call her!"

Because she saw her parents, she was extremely excited and she was skipping as she walked with her arm around Jiang Ning.

Mr. and Mrs. Xu felt relieved when they saw the two little girls getting along so well through the big iron gate at the school entrance.

When He Xiaofang heard Xu Xiuli say that her parents came to the school to look for her and invited her and Jiang Ning to a restaurant for dinner, she was so scared that she shrank back and said, "No, no, I won't go~"

Whenever Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli had something delicious, they would take her with them, but she had nothing to return, so she felt very embarrassed.

Xu Xiuli was so happy that her face was full of smiles. Seeing that she refused, she deliberately put on a stern face and stamped her feet, "Are you going or not?"

He Xiaofang was very afraid of others getting angry. Seeing Xu Xiuli showing an angry expression, she said hesitantly: "Okay then..."

She was taller, stronger and fuller than Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli, with a dark and simple face, but she followed Jiang Ning timidly, holding her arm tightly.

Jiang Ning was like someone was kidnapped. On her left was He Xiaofang, and on her right was Xu Xiuli. The three of them lined up like a cell phone signal and walked towards the school gate.

Mother Xu was afraid that her daughter would be bullied in school and the dormitory because of her temper and small stature. Now that she saw that her daughter had such a good relationship with her classmates, she waved to them with a smile and shouted enthusiastically, "Come on, come on, come on. Your father has already gone to order the food. It just so happens that if we go there, there will be food!"

The small restaurant they went to was not far away, right next to Wuzhong School opposite No. 1 Middle School.

Today, not only No. 1 Middle School is holding an on-campus selection competition, but Wuzhong is doing the same.

Because it was Saturday, the curfew was not as strict as usual. Most of the students in Wuzhong came from wealthy families, so they did not eat in the school cafeteria at noon, but instead went to a small restaurant at the school gate for a bite to eat.

As soon as Jiang Ning entered, he saw Song Peifeng and Jiang Hehua were there too.

They were probably classmates who came out to eat together. They filled two large round tables. There were only bowls, chopsticks and water on the tables. The food probably hadn't been served yet, so they were all still waiting for it.

Among the group of people, she only knew Jiang Hehua and Song Peifeng, so she smiled and nodded to them.