summer
Xu Changjia loosened her grip on the phone, and it slipped to the ground. Whether in her past life or this one, she longed for the love and care from her parents.
I thought that during her three years of high school, her parents would take her to school, she would be picked up on weekends, and she could eat the food she liked. But it seems that all of that was just a fleeting moment.
Her parents didn't care about her college entrance exam results, and they only casually asked about her going abroad. Now that she's been slandered, her family members are the last to know.
She had been holding back her grievances for so long, and suddenly found a reason to vent them. Accompanied by her mother's gentle greeting, she collapsed like a cake being crushed.
Hearing her daughter's soft sobs, the person on the other end of the phone was at a loss and could only soften her voice as much as possible, "Jiajia, don't cry, Mommy's here."
"I'll be coming to South Bank in a couple of days. Can I come to the school with your dad to see you?"
She wiped away her tears with both hands, picked up her phone, sniffed, and said, "No need, Mom, I'm renting a place to live outside now."
Ms. Xu felt even more sorry for her daughter whom she had raised. She not only found out from the trending topics on Weibo that her daughter was being bullied at school, but she also didn't know that her daughter had moved out of the school.
Isn't this a tragedy for a mother?
In the workplace, she is an undeniable powerhouse, but she is still a novice when it comes to her own daughter. Even after raising her for nearly twenty years, she still feels indebted to her.
This was the first time she had ever talked to her daughter on the phone for so long. Several secretaries tried to come in, but she waved them away.
I promised to visit the child in a few days. This was a request that my daughter couldn't refuse, and of course, the child's father couldn't refuse either.
After hanging up the phone, Xu's mother called her father again, asking him to adjust some of his work schedule so that he could go to Nan'an with her to see their daughter.
Mr. Xu was initially hesitant and wanted to refuse, but when he saw the screenshot of the trending topic that his wife sent him, he suddenly realized what kind of life his daughter had been living all these years without his company, and he agreed to his wife's request without hesitation.
Xu Changjia let out a heavy sigh, as if something weighing on her heart had suddenly been removed, and she was no longer troubled by it.
The next day, when I went to the school, I knocked directly on Professor Xu's office door, agreed to be his student, and brought back a bunch of books to read.
Next, she had to go to the department to explain the situation to her advisor, saying that she wanted to give up her guaranteed postgraduate admission and choose the path of folk culture and ethnic minorities.
Originally, she wasn't supposed to get a spot in the postgraduate entrance exam; there were four or five people ahead of her. But they all participated in the competition and got the opportunity to study abroad as exchange students, which allowed them to go abroad directly to study. That's how this opportunity ended up in her hands.
Now that she has given up this opportunity and chosen another major, the postgraduate recommendation spot has fallen to someone else.
The girl who was one place behind her heard about this from the counselor and even found some excuse to treat her to a meal.
Xu Changjia originally wanted to refuse, but since this was one of the few classmates who showed her kindness, she picked out two books as a return gift.
After having lunch with her classmates, she saw Ou Liyao, whom she hadn't seen in a long time, at the school gate. Ou Liyao was standing under a tree with her head down, one foot swinging back and forth, kicking small stones.
The warm autumn sun shone on her. Xu Changjia stood not far away and watched for a long time until the person on the other end smiled and waved to her, "Why don't you come over? I've been waiting for you here for a long time."
Upon hearing this, she slung her schoolbag over her shoulder and ran to the person who had been waiting for her for a long time. "Yaoyao, you're back?"
A pair of resentful eyes fell on Xu Changjia, and the words that came out of her mouth were tinged with heartache and dissatisfaction.
“If Zhang Yuning hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known where your new apartment was.”
His tone held a hint of reproach as he casually shoved the bag he was carrying into her hands, saying, "Here, this is for your housewarming."
After handing her the gift, Ou Liyao turned and walked away haughtily, hands on her hips with her back to her. "Don't think that just because those bad women ruined the gift you brought me from the US, you can refuse to give me one. You owe me one, okay? I remember it all."
She caught a glimpse of Xu Changjia out of the corner of her eye, then coughed twice, "What are you doing? Come and lead the way, I don't know where your little apartment is."
The person whose name was called fell into the hands of someone who knew how to appreciate her, like an autumn ginkgo leaf. She ran over, took the hand of the person who loved her, and walked towards a place called a resting place.
At this moment, Ou Liyao realized that Zhang Yuning's phone call to her was not only to tell her that his best friend had died, but also to say goodbye, because he was going to study abroad and she expected not to see him for two years.
She took a shallow bowl from the refrigerator from Xu Changjia, her eyes lighting up. "That's great, Jiajia, you can make mung bean paste now."
She sat on the other side of the sofa, holding another small bowl. "I was wondering when you'd be back, and if you could make it to the airport with us to see him off."
"Has the time been set?"
Xu Changjia, with a small wooden spoon in his mouth, looked somewhat dazed. "I want to know too, but he won't tell me, and the senior student in the Literature Department doesn't know either. I can't just block him from the Finance Department, can I?"
Believe it or not, Ou Liyao actually had this idea, but she was just too tired.
I took a bus for five or six hours from the suburbs of Nan'an back, and waited for my best friend at the school gate for the whole afternoon. My phone was dead and I couldn't contact her, so I just waited and counted the fallen leaves all afternoon before she finally showed up.
Before we could even exchange a few words, she fell asleep on the sofa. If Xu Changjia hadn't taken the small bowl from her and gently placed it on the table, the soup would have spilled onto the carpet.
Knowing how hard she had been working these past few days, she quietly brought a blanket from the bedroom to cover her, then opened a corner of the bedroom door, moved her computer over, and began gathering information.
Although Professor Xu agreed to take her in, he still required her to pass two hurdles in the postgraduate entrance examination: the national minimum score and the university minimum score, before she could come to him.
Having never been exposed to these things before, it's not easy to switch majors based solely on interest, so the first step is to gather information.
One of the most important lessons she learned from her two lifetimes was the importance of information asymmetry; sometimes, just a little bit of insider information could make a lot of money.
For example, a small set of past exam questions can be used to generate a lot of materials and then be resold several times to make money;
The same thing happened a couple of days ago when Zhang Yuning and Wenxue helped her rent an apartment. None of them knew which neighborhoods near the school were available for rent, and when they asked a real estate agent, another sum of money was spent.
Therefore, by choosing a university and major, she has already gained an advantage over many others. By filtering out useless information, she can stay ahead of others and increase her chances of getting accepted.
She didn't really know many people at school, and she couldn't even remember all her classmates' names. After thinking it over, the only other way she could do besides finding some useful information on Baidu Tieba and Weibo supertopics was to ask her senior, Wenxue, since he had worked in the student council before and must know a lot of people from other colleges.
She also sent another message to Zhang Yuning, asking again on behalf of Ou Liyao when she was going abroad, since there had been no reply to her previous question.
Then I copied down the reference list given by the senior students on the forum, and compared it with the one given by Professor Xu, highlighting the overlapping parts, which were the most important to prepare.
She was working hard to prepare for her postgraduate entrance exam when Wen Xuanyi, who had just finished his internship, called her.
He said that Zhang Yuning was leaving the country early this morning and he was worried about her safety going back to school alone, so he asked her if she had any messages or things to bring to him so he could pass them on.
Then he asked her about her postgraduate entrance exam. Wenxue had a wide circle of friends and actually knew a senior in her major. He gave her her WeChat and told her to ask her herself, adding that she didn't need to repay the favor, as he had helped this senior before.
Xu Changjia didn't make a decision himself. After confirming the flight time, he said that Ou Liyao was also with him and that she would reply to him later after she woke up and confirmed the details.
The girl was thoughtful, so he didn't say anything more. He just reminded her not to be late before hanging up.
The person at the center of the conversation was still fast asleep on the sofa, having slept from 3 p.m. until dark, and had only eaten a small bowl of mung bean soup.
She glanced at the time; it was already 7 p.m. She put down her laptop, and this time she didn't bother to keep her voice down as she walked. She squatted down in front of the sofa and gently poked Ou Liyao's face with her finger.
"Get up, Yao Yao, don't sleep anymore."
She reached out and poked him here, then there, not even sparing his face. She kept calling out to him and even made herself laugh. But the person in his sleep just reached out and pushed her away, refusing to open his eyes.
Hsu Chang-Chia then tried a different tactic, taking out her phone and playing a dance song she had performed on a talent show a few days ago.
This trick really works.
The intro had barely started, and before even the first line of lyrics, when she saw someone jump out of bed and land directly on the carpet. If the coffee table hadn't been a little distance away, they probably would have bumped into something and fallen.
"Yaoyao, you're awake."
The tone was concerned for her, but to the person being cared for, it sounded somewhat gloating: "Xu Changjia, I'm just saying, can't I get some sleep?"
She naturally knew that apart from practicing singing and dancing day and night, nothing would easily disturb her during the talent show. So she got straight to the point, "Zhang Yuning's flight abroad is tonight, and she doesn't have much time left. Do you want to go see her off?"
He was initially in a daze, still half asleep, but as soon as he heard about the important matter, he immediately opened his eyes wide, dragged her to a nearby shopping mall to buy a gift, and then took a taxi towards the airport.
Outside the car window, the moonlight and the shadows of the streetlights intertwined, making their shadows mottled and indistinct. The two girls ran to the airport with their small backpacks on their backs. All that could be heard was the deafening roar of suitcase wheels shuttling between the boarding gates, making their suppressed breathing all the more noticeable.
Countless times they turned around at the airport, seeing faces half-lit and half-shadowed, but they couldn't find a familiar face.
Until the phone rang in their hands, it gave them hope at first glance.
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