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With the help of the study group, Wang Yao was no longer studying alone. She could ask group members questions about new knowledge and get help with reinforcing her basic junior high school knowledge. So, when the final exams came, although Wang Yao was still a little nervous, she was much better off than during the midterm exams.

Of course, the final results were also very good.

On the day they went to school to pick up their report cards, Wang Yao's group members gathered together and exchanged their grades. Because Wang Yao's initial ranking was too low, her improvement was the most obvious. She jumped from fourth from the bottom to twentieth in the class.

This tremendous progress not only surprised the members of the same group, but also the homeroom teacher, Fei Nan.

It's worth noting that Wang Yao has been submitting articles non-stop since the midterm exams. Now, the county newspaper has even created a special column for Wang Yao's articles, publishing one of them every week, which shows how high the quality of her writing is.

With such high-quality manuscripts, and producing one every week, Wang Yao's academic performance improved by nearly twenty places. Even Fei Nan, who initially didn't think highly of Wang Yao, now felt that Wang Yao was a promising talent, and that she had been held back by the backward education level in the past!

Among the members of the same group, there were several who ranked higher than Wang Yao, but Wang Yao made the most progress, so everyone clamored for Wang Yao to treat them to a meal.

Since her family owns a restaurant, hosting guests is a piece of cake. Wang Yao waved her hand and told everyone to decide what dishes they wanted to eat.

"Braised pork, braised pork, I want to eat braised pork!"

"Yes, I didn't get to eat it last time. I was thinking there would be a next time, but your family hasn't made it since."

"Wang Yao, please ask your mom to order braised pork more often, please!"

This statement was agreed upon by everyone!

Liu Xiangmei wasn't deliberately keeping everyone in suspense. The reason she wasn't making it was to control costs. Last time she made braised pork, she basically lost money to gain publicity. How can you run a business without making money?

It's impossible to make it every day, but since there are fewer people today, Wang Yao assured everyone: "There's plenty of braised pork today!"

Niu Ling thought this was the most beautiful thing Wang Yao had ever said!

Everyone agreed to meet at Hao Zai Lai Restaurant that evening, where there would be not only braised pork but also all kinds of grilled skewers.

After this gathering, we won't see each other again until next year. While eating, we complained about our teachers, talked about gossip that we didn't have time to share during the week, and discussed how we wanted to spend our winter break.

Some people said they would go to her grandparents' house, others said they would go to the provincial capital for a visit, but Wang Yao didn't plan to go anywhere, nor could she go anywhere.

With students on holiday and many tenants in the vicinity returning to their hometowns, the business of nearby restaurants, including Hao Zai Lai Restaurant, has temporarily declined. Some restaurants have even closed down and plan to reopen after the students return to school.

Fortunately, the restaurant didn't have to close down completely. Although the number of customers has decreased, some people still patronize it every day.

When the students first started their winter break, Liu Xiangmei originally planned to close the shop for a few days to let everyone rest, but the customers disagreed and insisted that Liu Xiangmei stay open until Lunar New Year's Eve.

Some people asked if it was possible to book a banquet on New Year's Eve, and Liu Xiangmei shook her head vigorously. Even a donkey shouldn't be working on New Year's Eve!

So now, besides doing her winter vacation homework every day, Wang Yao helps out at the store, making things she wants to eat and giving lessons to Liu Xiangmei and Chen Xiu.

As the Lunar New Year approached, Liu Xiangmei gave Chen Xiu and Liu Huahua a holiday in advance so that she and Wang Yao could prepare fried snacks for the New Year.

This is the first New Year without Wang Tianmiao in so many years, and Liu Xiangmei feels a little lonely.

But Wang Yao has already experienced many such New Years and is used to it. She has spent thirty New Year's Eves without her parents, and this year she still has her mother by her side, which she feels is lucky enough.

It wasn't just the two of them whose families couldn't all get together; the Li family grandfather and grandson were also separated. Li Jin was also unable to go home for the Spring Festival this year, so the four of them huddled together for warmth, and the Spring Festival passed by in a lively manner.

The new year brings new busyness. Since the second day of the Lunar New Year, Hao Zai Lai Restaurant has been receiving calls every day asking if they can book banquets.

The banquets at Haozailai Restaurant are now well-known among some people in Zhou County, mainly public officials and real estate bosses of all sizes. The former are mainly thanks to Section Chief Ji and Zhang Wei, while the latter are of course thanks to Liu Hai and his brothers.

Liu Xiangmei figured she had nothing better to do, so she opened a shop to cater banquets on the third day of the Lunar New Year.

It's Chinese New Year, after all. Everyone has money and free time, so the private rooms at Haozai Restaurant were packed from the third day of the Lunar New Year to the fifteenth. Everyone had a different reason to entertain relatives and friends every day.

In just over ten days, Wang Yao went from a kitchen enthusiast to a kitchen stressor, and didn't step into the kitchen for half a month.

The two banquets held in the past two weeks were both prepared by Liu Xiangmei and Chen Xiu. The two of them are now working together very well. After being carefully taught by Wang Yao, Chen Xiu's dishes are now almost indistinguishable from Wang Yao's.

Meanwhile, Wang Yao's school has already started. In the new semester, her homeroom teacher Fei Nan's catchphrase has changed from "This is the first semester of high school, which is of utmost importance" to "Next semester we will have to choose between arts and sciences, so this semester is of utmost importance."

The choice between arts and sciences is also the most discussed topic in the class right now. Some people think that studying science is better today, but tomorrow they feel that they are more talented in arts, like Niu Ling.

Wang Yao, on the other hand, is a staunch liberal arts student. Although she really doesn't understand monsoons and ocean currents in geography, she is even more clueless about force analysis in physics, not to mention circuits and electromagnetism, which she hasn't even learned yet.

Although Wang Yao doesn't have to worry about choosing between arts and sciences, she still has her own troubles.

After the start of the school year, she continued to submit articles to the newspaper once a week, but recently she has been lacking inspiration and wants to write a novel to change her mind.

However, writing novels is completely different from writing short stories of a few hundred words. At this moment, she misses the Internet age very much. If she wants any strategy guide, she can just search for it online. Now she can only go to the library to find relevant books.

However, the school library had virtually no books on novel writing, so Wang Yao had to learn by reading novels.

In the school library, most of the novels are pure literature and serious novels, while Wang Yao wants to read popular literature. Of course, there are such novels, but they are always checked out.

Wang Yao had no choice but to buy books from bookstores or roadside stalls. Fortunately, her mother increased her allowance last semester, so she wouldn't be short of money when buying books.

When Niu Ling learned that Wang Yao had bought more than a dozen novels in one go, her eyes lit up with excitement. "My God, what kind of divine books are these?" she exclaimed, and then immediately immersed herself in the world of the novels.

Of course, Niu Ling would never be the type to take advantage of others. Her two greatest hobbies in life, no, her three greatest hobbies, are eating, reading novels, and Cheng Hao.

Since Cheng Hao couldn't have it for the time being, he tried his best to make up for it with the other two. So Niu Ling had a big box of novels under her bed, of all kinds.

With Niu Ling by her side, Wang Yao no longer had to worry about not having any novels to read, so the two of them would spend all their time reading and discussing novels together, except for their study time.

Niu Ling reads novels simply for the plot and to swoon over the characters, while Wang Yao also considers the novel's structure, character design, and so on. Through discussions with Niu Ling, Wang Yao also learned about the things that Niu Ling and her friends find objectionable when reading novels.

After half a semester of research and brainstorming, Wang Yao finally decided to start writing.

Of course, as a novice in the world of novels, Wang Yao found it very difficult to start writing, unlike when she wrote her previous short stories.

Because when she was a nanny in her previous life, the old man liked to put several books and magazines within easy reach in order to make a good impression. His favorite thing to read was all kinds of food reviews. He would read them and then discuss them with Wang Yao. Wang Yao would read them along with him. So when it came to writing short food articles, Wang Yao had a good foundation.

As for novels, although she had read a few before, she really didn't understand them. So for the first dozen or so chapters, Wang Yao wrote and revised repeatedly, pondering them over and over again.

Niu Ling was incredibly impressed when she learned that Wang Yao was reading novels in order to write them herself. She couldn't wait to read Wang Yao's novels, so she became the first reader of Wang Yao's first novel.

Wang Yao is indeed a very good learner, summarizing popular novels on the market and identifying the reasons for their popularity. She is also a very good practitioner, selectively applying what she has summarized to practice.

In addition, she has the imagination of a teenager and the experience of a man in his fifties, so in just a dozen or so chapters, she won the tears of Niu Ling, a seasoned novel reader.

"Waaaah, you bastard! Lian'er is so good, how could he still cheat on her? Lian'er is so pitiful."

"My God, my God, Lian'er has actually been reborn! Can a person really be reborn after death? Wang Yao, you're amazing! How could you have thought of bringing Lian'er back to life?"

"The concept of rebirth has existed in Chinese literary history for a long time, for example, in 'The Peony Pavilion'," Wang Yao explained.

Even so, Niu Ling still thought Wang Yao's novels were amazing. Regardless of whether she had read them before, she thought Wang Yao's writing style was excellent, and it made her heart ache.

Although Wang Yao felt that Niu Ling had a bit of a performance syndrome, seeing how supportive Niu Ling was, Wang Yao felt her confidence soared. So, during her lunch break, she took her handwritten manuscript and went to find Wang, the editor in charge of her at the newspaper.

Editor Wang initially thought Wang Yao was there to deliver her column manuscript, but when she heard Wang Yao say that she didn't want to write short food articles for the time being, she quickly encouraged Wang Yao to persevere, saying that it's normal to lack inspiration and not to be discouraged.

However, Wang Yao insisted on pausing and handed her a stack of manuscript paper, saying that she had come up with a novel idea and asked her to take a look.

Editor Wang hadn't expected this, so he quickly opened the column to take a look, thinking that changing the content of the column might not be a bad idea.

Wang Yao had to attend class, so she left the manuscript with Editor Wang and returned to school first.

I thought it would take a long time to get a reply, but the next day, right after I finished my last class in the afternoon, I heard a shout at the door: "Wang Yao, the editor from the Daily News is looking for you."

Wang Yao looked up and saw it was Editor Wang, with a very fashionable woman next to him.

After being introduced by Editor Wang, Wang Yao and Editor Chen got to know each other and learned that Editor Chen came from the Shexu Magazine in the city.