Chapter 132 Small Transition
It wasn't until after school that Xiong Jie finally found an opportunity to talk to Shi Qiu Shui. He ignored Zhao Ran who was right beside him and grabbed Shi Qiu Shui and said, "Boss, you must stay away from that scheming man Zhao Ran from now on. He's really too much, seriously!"
He rattled off all the things he thought Zhao Ran had done that were excessive. Shi Qiushui just frowned and said, "Xiong Jie, are you overthinking this?"
"I, I'm overthinking it? No, Boss, you, why do you say that?"
Xiong Jie felt aggrieved. He thought Shi Qiu Shui would not be fooled by Zhao Ran's conspiracy and tricks, but he didn't expect that even Shi Qiu Shui was deceived by Zhao Ran, this scheming man!
Shi Qiushui patted Xiong Jie's shoulder and said, "Okay, okay, I know you're jealous of how well Zhao Ran and I get along, but you have to accept this fact. We were good friends when we first met, so of course I'd be close to you."
At this moment, Xiong Jie suddenly understood what it meant to be the only one sober while everyone else is drunk.
He was not jealous of Zhao Ran and Shi Qiu Shui's good relationship!
No way!
Well, maybe a little bit, just a little jealousy.
But no matter what, shouldn’t the focus be on Zhao Ran, this scheming man!
Xiong Jie pouted and wanted to say something to Shi Qiushui, but before he could open his mouth, Shi Qiushui said, "But no matter what, I don't want to hear you say bad things about Zhao Ran anymore."
Shi Qiushui said seriously, "Zhao Ran and I are good friends. If you continue to say bad things about Zhao Ran in front of me, I won't play with you anymore!"
Seeing that there was no trace of joking in her eyes, Xiong Jie immediately shut his mouth.
After all, he had been with Shi Qiu Shui for a while, and he knew that if Shi Qiu Shui said he didn't want to play with him anymore, he would really not play with him.
That won’t do, Shi Qiu Shui is the boss he recognizes!
In order not to be abandoned by the boss, Xiong Jie endured it!
He thought to himself, isn’t Zhao Ran just a scheming man? It’s not like he can’t deal with him!
Zhao Ran is good at scheming to win favor, and he can do that too!
Xiong Jie glanced at Zhao Ran with great scheming, and said to Shi Qiushui, "Okay, okay, boss, if you don't let me talk about Zhao Ran, then I won't say anything."
He looked at Shi Qiushui eagerly, and the meaning in his eyes was clearly saying to Shi Qiushui, "See, I'm obedient, right?"
Shi Qiushui: ...
She pursed her lips and felt that this was not a good way to go. After thinking about it, she stood up and pulled Zhao Ran over so that Zhao Ran and Xiong Jie stood face to face.
She put her hands on her hips and said to the two people, "You two are both my good friends. I hope you two can become good friends in a peaceful and friendly manner!"
Xiong Jie glanced at Zhao Ran, snorted, and said nothing.
Although he could tolerate Zhao Ran in order to play with Shi Qiu Shui, it did not mean that he was willing to become good friends with Zhao Ran.
Xiong Jie was reluctant, and Zhao Ran wasn't very willing either. When his eyes fell on Xiong Jie, a trace of disgust flashed across his usually expressionless face.
When Shi Qiu Shui looked at the two of them, he knew that they definitely could not become good friends as he had hoped.
She pursed her lips and said, "Forget it, since you don't want to be friends with each other, then forget it. But, but you absolutely can't do what you did today! Xiong Jie, especially you, you can't say bad things about Zhao Ran anymore, and you can't say bad things about others either! We are a study group, and we are not allowed to fight among ourselves!"
"Boss, why are you only talking about me? He, he..."
Xiong Jie was interrupted by Shi Qiushui just as he was about to say something. Shi Qiushui glared at him with dead eyes: "What's wrong with him? Tell me, what happened to Zhao Ran? He didn't say anything. You're the one who's causing trouble."
Hearing Shi Qiu Shui's words that were almost protective of his child, Xiong Jie quickly shut up.
It’s not okay if he doesn’t say anything!
Anyway, he believed that sooner or later everyone would discover the true face of Zhao Ran, the scheming man!
He firmly believes it!
With this idea in mind, Xiong Jie took every opportunity to slander Zhao Ran in front of Shi Qiu Shui and Xiao Taozi.
Of course, he also learned to be smart and knew that he couldn't say bad things about Zhao Ran openly, otherwise Qiu Shui would be angry. So every time he was sarcastic to Zhao Ran secretly. He felt that what he did was quite subtle, at least Qiu Shui and the others didn't realize that he was secretly targeting Zhao Ran.
Did Shi Qiu Shui and the others really not notice?
Of course not, they were just too lazy to expose Xiong Jie.
It would be strange if they didn't hear his words that were so blunt and divisive that they couldn't be more blunt.
They pretended not to notice that Xiong Jie was targeting Zhao Ran because he had not done anything other than occasionally saying a few bad things about Zhao Ran.
-
After the midterm exams, all the students and teachers of the Machinery Factory Primary School entered a busy period.
What are you all busy with? You are busy participating in the competition!
Various competition performances.
The first thing we welcomed was the rope skipping competition. Although there was a special rope skipping competition during the previous sports meeting, this rope skipping competition was different from the one held during the sports meeting.
The rope skipping competition in the sports meet is divided into grade groups, with students from each grade competing against each other. The school has prepared very well for this competition, and everyone competes together to decide the first and second place.
The difficulty suddenly increased several times.
Xiao Taozi, who had previously won first place in the rope skipping competition at the sports meet, was a little hesitant. Now it was Shi Qiushui's turn. Just as Xiao Taozi had encouraged her, Shi Qiushui encouraged Xiao Taozi with all her heart. She actually thought Xiao Taozi was quite capable, and even if she were to compete with older kids in rope skipping, she wouldn't necessarily lose.
With Shi Qiu Shui's encouragement, Xiao Taozi was no longer as timid as before, and she decided to participate in the school's skipping rope competition.
In fact, Xiao Taozi's ability in skipping rope is really outstanding. Among the six grades and more than ten or twenty classes in the school, Xiao Taozi finally got a good result of second place.
Seeing her get such good results, both Teacher Cai and the students in Class 2, Grade 1 were extremely excited. You know, Xiao Taozi was the only kid in the lower grades who could enter the finals, and the others were either in the fifth or sixth grade. It was quite remarkable that Xiao Taozi could defeat them and finally get the second place!
Shi Qiu Shui felt a little sorry. If only there was a rope skipping competition in the Olympics, she would definitely send Xiao Taozi to be an athlete!
A few days after the skipping rope competition ended, the school started holding a chess competition. For most of the children in Class 2 of Grade 1, chess was relatively unfamiliar, and only a few knew how to play it. Therefore, Teacher Cai had to select the contestants from among the few who knew how to play.
Shi Qiu Shui, who knew a little bit, and Zhao Ran, who knew a little bit more, were forced to sign up by Teacher Cai.
Shi Qiushui knew a little bit, really only a little. She knew that the knight moved in a straight line, the elephant moved in a field line, and the pawns moved horizontally and vertically across the river, but she didn't know much more. Luckily, she was assigned opponents who were generally of her level, and those who were slightly worse were even worse than her. This was how she stumbled into the finals of the chess tournament.
As for Zhao Ran, what he knows is not just a little bit, but billions of things. He started from the first game, defeated all the generals all the way, and successfully fought to the finals.
Hey, don't think that just because Shi Qiushui and Zhao Ran made it to the finals, their levels are similar. The gap between the finalists is quite large. In the first round of the finals, Shi Qiushui was defeated by her opponent as soon as she entered the court.
Zhao Ran triumphantly advanced to the final championship competition.
As luck would have it, the person competing with Zhao Ran for the championship was the opponent that Shi Qiu Shui met in the finals.
Unlike Shi Qiu Shui who was unilaterally crushed, Zhao Ran was evenly matched with that man. The two of them fought back and forth for a long time, and in the end Zhao Ran won the championship with a slight advantage.
After the chess competition, the school also held a poetry recitation competition and a campus singing competition. As one competition after another ended, time quickly came to the end of December.
December was also a busy month for Shi Qiu Shui. The school was going to hold a cultural performance on New Year's Day, and each class had to perform. Shi Qiu Shui's class chose the chorus, and Zhao Ran, who had difficulty singing and was not good at singing out of tune, was once again taken over by Shi Qiu Shui.
During the kindergarten's June 1st art performance, Shi Qiu Shui had a breakdown once because she was teaching Zhao Ran to sing. She thought that with the experience from last time, Zhao Ran would at least not go so far out of tune this time.
But the reality dealt her a heavy blow. When she sang a new song, Zhao Ran's voice seemed to be used again, and it was so out of tune that the composer didn't even recognize the song.
Shi Qiu Shui could only teach as before, little by little, starting from the pronunciation of each sentence.
After spending half a month, Shi Qiushui finally managed to sing the song smoothly with Zhao Ran. She breathed a sigh of relief and said to Zhao Ran, "I won't sing with you this time. Sing it yourself for me to hear."
Zhao Ran nodded and began to sing: "The little conch trumpet blows, drip by drip, and the seagulls hear it and fly away—"
Zhao Ran had a tense face and sang such a cheerful song with an expressionless face, which always made Shi Qiu Shui feel weird.
After Zhao Ran finished singing, she said, "No, no, Zhao Ran, your expression is wrong."
Zhao Ran: "Expression?"
Shi Qiushui: "Yeah! This is a cheerful song, don't have such a stern face and expression!"
Zhao Ran humbly accepted Shi Qiushui's advice and offered a solution to the crime: "Then should I smile more?"
Shi Qiushui nodded heavily: "Well, smile. You are so beautiful, and your smile is also beautiful!"
Zhao Ran raised the corners of his mouth to reveal a bright smile, and as the smile appeared, two shallow dimples appeared on his face.
Shi Qiushui: "Hey! Zhao Ran, you actually have dimples!"
She stared at the dimples on Zhao Ran's face and said, "Look, you should smile more often. It's because you usually smile so little that I never noticed you had dimples!"
As she spoke, she stretched out her hand and wanted to poke Zhao Ran's dimple. Zhao Ran didn't react for a moment, and the dimple on his cheek was gently poked by Shi Qiu Shui. He was stunned for a moment, and just as he was about to push away Shi Qiu Shui's hand, he heard Xiong Jie's voice.
"Boss, boss, have you and Zhao Ran finished rehearsing? Teacher Cai said that when we have time later, we can go over the program together as a class!"
Shi Qiushui moved his hand away from Zhao Ran's face and shifted his gaze from Zhao Ran to Xiong Jie who came over to call for help.
She said, "Okay, okay, Zhao Ran just sang it for me and it's not out of tune anymore."
Xiong Jie glanced at Zhao Ran and began to slander Zhao Ran secretly.
"I've been practicing for half a month and I've finally gotten it right. What a waste of your time, Boss! I think it's not just because he's off-key, but also because he hasn't put enough effort into learning. Boss, if you teach me, I guarantee I can learn this song in two days!"
Shi Qiu Shui glanced at him and was too lazy to respond.
She waved to Zhao Ran and said, "Let's go. Teacher Cai has called us. Let's go back to the classroom."
"Walk."
Xiong Jie forced his way between Shi Qiu Shui and Zhao Ran. He smiled and said, "Come on, Boss, I'll go with you."
Shi Qiushui: "...Well, let's go."
When Shi Qiushui and the other two returned to the classroom, Teacher Cai was already preparing for rehearsal with the rest of the class. Seeing them return, she waved and said, "You three, hurry up and take your seats."
She was talking about the chorus lineup. In order to make the performance look good on stage, she arranged the chorus lineup very carefully.
"good!"
Shi Qiushui and the other two responded and quickly joined the queue.
Shi Qiu Shui's position was the most conspicuous, in the middle of the second row, the most central position in the choir. She stood here not only because she was the class monitor, but also because Teacher Cai arranged for her to be the lead singer of the choir this time.
Next was Xiong Jie, who stood behind Shi Qiu Shui, while Zhao Ran's position was a little inconspicuous, at the far right of the third row.
Logically, he was tall and good-looking, so the teacher should have put him in the middle, but who made him sing out of tune? And his out-of-tune wasn't just ordinary out-of-tune, it was completely out-of-tune. Previously, Teacher Cai had put him in the middle, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he would distract most of the class. To prevent this from happening again, Teacher Cai had to move him to the far corner.
Everyone stood in their positions, Teacher Cai pressed the play button on the tape recorder, and the melodious prelude of "The Little Conch Trumpet" sounded. Shi Qiu Shui listened to the drum beats and silently counted the beats in his mind.
"Little conch, blow it, beep, beep—"
She kept the beat perfectly and started singing loudly at the right time.
Under her leadership, other students in Class 2, Grade 1 also started to sing along. They were swaying their heads while singing, which was very cute. Teacher Cai, who was watching from the side, couldn't help but smile like an auntie.
"I blew the conch shell, and I felt so happy—"
Shi Qiu Shui's sweet voice ended the performance of this song. After the chorus ended, the students in Class 2, Grade 1 looked at Teacher Cai eagerly, expecting Teacher Cai's comments.
As everyone watched, Teacher Cai smiled gently and said, "Well, our class's performance was very good!"
"yeah!"
After receiving the affirmation from Teacher Cai, the students in Class 2, Grade 1 cheered happily.
Teacher Cai: "Ahem, but, there was still a little imperfection just now."
Everyone blinked and looked at Teacher Cai. She said, "Didn't we agree that when we sing, we should turn our heads first to the left and then to the right? I saw several students turned their heads in the wrong direction just now, right?"
She paused and said, "As for which students turned the wrong way, I won't name them. Anyway, those of you who turned the wrong way know that you did. Just remember this for your next performance."
Xiong Jie whispered to Shi Qiushui, "Boss, I turned the wrong way when I saw Fatty just now!"
The fat boy next to him clenched his fists and said, "This damn Xiong Jie actually told tales in front of Xiaoqiu!"
He gritted his teeth and chose to retaliate by telling tales about Xiong Jie.
"Xiao Qiu, let me tell you, Xiong Jie almost turned the wrong way just now. He turned the other way after seeing me turn towards him!"
"Ahem." Teacher Cai at the front of the group cleared his throat and said, "Alright, let's end today's rehearsal here. It's getting late, so hurry up and pack up and get ready to go home. Your parents are still waiting for you outside."
Shi Qiu Shui cheered and immediately went back to his seat to pack his schoolbag.
The other students are similar. After all, who doesn’t like to go home after school?
Shi Qiu Shui packed up his things, put on his backpack, and skipped out of the classroom with Xiao Taozi. It was almost dark outside the classroom, and the air outside the room was filled with the smell of cold air unique to Beijing. A gust of cold wind blew, and Shi Qiu Shui and Xiao Taozi, who had just walked out of the warm classroom, subconsciously shrank their necks.
"Xiao Qiu!"
Shi Yue, who was waiting at the gate to pick up his daughter, saw Shi Qiu Shui from a distance and waved to him.
"dad!"
Hearing Shi Yue's voice, Shi Qiu Shui quickly ran towards the gate with her short legs. She rushed straight into Shi Yue's arms like a small cannonball.
Shi Qiushui: "Dad, have you been waiting for me for a long time?"
Shi Yue: "No, Dad just got here too. Didn't you tell me yesterday that you guys have to rehearse tonight and will be late after school, so I went home and cooked dinner before coming out."
Shi Qiushui rubbed his belly and asked, "Dad, what did you cook?"
Shi Yue: "I steamed the rice and then used a pressure cooker to stew a pot of mutton. Didn't you say you wanted to eat braised mutton? I saw that the mutton in the market was quite fresh today, so I bought some."
"Wow! Braised lamb!" Shi Qiushui swallowed and said, "Then Dad, let's go home quickly. Braised lamb won't taste good if it gets cold."
Shi Yue: "Don't worry, it won't get cold. I didn't open the lid, and the mutton is still in the pot."
Although he said so, Shi Yue still took Shi Qiu Shui's hand and walked towards home.
After taking two steps, another gust of wind blew, blowing the dry leaves on the ground into a small whirlwind.
Shi Qiu Shui hissed softly.
Shi Yue lowered his head: "Hey, girl, where's your scarf?"
Shi Qiushui touched her neck and realized that something was missing. She slapped her forehead and said, "Oh, I forgot my scarf in the classroom."
Shi Yue knocked on Shi Qiushui's head and said, "You, if I don't tell you, will you still not remember it?"
"Hehe, I forgot." Shi Qiu Shui smiled and scratched his head.
Shi Yue: "Forget it, forget it. It's getting late tonight. Don't go back to get it. Just leave it at school for now."
He took off the scarf around his neck and put it on Shi Qiu Shui. The big scarf for an adult was a little too long for a little kid like Shi Qiu Shui. He wrapped it around Shi Qiu Shui's neck several times, almost covering Shi Qiu Shui's face.
Shi Qiushui waved his arms and said, "Dad, Dad, the fence is too high. I can't even see the road."
Shi Yue: "It's okay, it's better to go higher to keep out the wind, so that the wind won't make your face chapped."
Shi Qiushui: "But I can't see the road!"
Shi Yue: "It's okay, Dad is taking care of you."
He quickly wrapped Shi Qiu Shui tightly with the scarf, and then he zipped up his coat to the top. After everything was done, he picked up Shi Qiu Shui and strode towards home.
Shi Yue strode quickly back to the compound. He opened the door with his key and found a stove burning inside. Unlike other families, his family kept the stove on low to save on coal. As long as someone was home, the stove would be burning brightly. Although Shi Yue had just gone out to pick up the children, he hadn't turned off the stove because he was close. When Shi Yue and Shi Qiushui entered the house, they felt a warm breeze blowing towards them.
Shi Yue closed the door, rubbed his hands, and said, "It's still warm at home."
He took the kettle off the stove and fiddled with the fire while saying, "It's been unusually cold these past two days. I think it might snow."
"Is it going to snow?"
Shi Qiushui finally freed her head from the scarf. The braids she had carefully braided that morning were now a mess. She stared at her messy hair and said, "Can I have a snowball fight now?!"
Shi Yue looked up: "Hey, stop it, you're still playing snowballs. It's so cold, you might catch a cold just standing outside for a while. You still want to play snowballs? I think you want to get sick and drink bitter medicine soup, right?"
Shi Qiu Shui quickly shook her head. She didn't want to drink the bitter medicine soup!
Shi Yue stared at the little girl for a long while. To avoid the possibility that she would hide her snowball fight from him when it snowed, he said, "Xiao Qiu, don't forget that your class will have a chorus performance on New Year's Day in two days. If you catch a cold and your voice is hoarse and you can't go on stage, your class will have no one to lead the singing. Think about it, which is more important, your class chorus or the snowball fight?"
Speaking of this, Shi Qiushui didn't hesitate at all. She simply said, "The chorus is important."
Shi Yue: "Then just be obedient and don't even think about going out to play snowballs."
Shi Qiushui pursed his lips: "Okay."
But the little girl still wants to have a snowball fight.
So she prayed silently in her heart, hoping it would snow again the day after tomorrow.
Because the day after tomorrow is New Year's Day, after New Year's Day and the cultural performance are over, she won't have to choose between playing snowballs and singing in chorus!
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