Chapter 26 The Smell of Rust
As for what kind of person she would be in the other person's eyes, Su Xia no longer dared to think about it.
When did I say I was going?
Zhao Siyu paused for a long time before another question mark popped up.
[…Where else would you go if not to Lan Lake?]
Su Xia replied, "Tutoring class, make up lessons."
The other party just took her words as a polite refusal not to pay, and beat around the bush and sent a lot of soft words.
Su Xia didn't want to watch anymore and turned off the screen.
When she returns home from vacation, she will have the monthly exam, and she really wants to study hard.
At least she had to review the textbooks that she hadn't read for ten years, so that Su Xiaojuan wouldn't be scared by her shockingly low scores and be sent back to the liberal arts department.
The tuition fee didn't matter, and since it was a cram school that He Miao had recommended with confidence, Su Xia was very happy to sign up.
What made her pay immediately was that the tutoring class was located near the old campus of Jiangnan University.
It’s not far from the Conservatory of Music, and the Jiangda Night Market is just downstairs. If you’re lucky, you might even run into Xu Jiqing.
The news about the physical education class spread so far that she is still worried about it.
Even if you can't help in any way, packing a couple of extra bowls of fried noodles for a midnight snack is better than doing nothing.
Breakfast was served, and Su Xia ate while flipping through a pile of study plans written for her by Xu Jiqing, concentrating fully on it.
Su Xiaojuan held her face up and looked at it for a while, and couldn't help but rub her puffy cheeks. "Look at this little girl who loves to study. Who can believe that this is my daughter, Su Xiaojuan?"
"You organized the notes yourself? Why are they neat one moment and sloppy the next?"
Su Xia moaned as she rubbed him, and shook her head honestly, "That's definitely not it."
Su Xiaojuan looked up the name, "Who is that, He Miao?"
Su Xia was vague, "My deskmate is a new math competition student. You don't know him."
Flipping through the study plan to the end was the homework that Xu Jiqing wrote first.
A line of comments written in black pen was written across the top of the white paper. The handwriting was neat and beautiful. Su Xiaojuan took a closer look and curled her lips. "Oh, another little boy."
"It's okay to envy someone's academic performance, but don't let me fall in love with someone else."
Su Xia was convinced, "What are you thinking about?"
Could Xu Jiqing date her in high school?
Not to mention liking her, she was already very touched that he didn't hate her now.
-
Holidays are the busiest time for snack streets.
Lin Yuezhen put the soaked noodles away, took the dishes handed to her by Xu Jiqing, and poured them into the fresh-keeping box according to categories.
There was no elevator in the old tube-shaped building, so Xu Jiqing carried the things downstairs one trip at a time.
After the last bucket of oil was drained, Lin Yuezhen looked over guiltily and said, "It's vacation now. I'll take Jiaojiao to the stall. If you can go out and play with your classmates, go out more often."
"No, I'm not familiar with them."
Xu Jiqing casually lifted the collar of his black T-shirt and wiped the dripping sweat. "I have a class this afternoon, so I'll take Xu Jiaojiao to KFC. I made an appointment with her last night."
Lin Yuezhen was stunned for a moment. "Big cities have such strict regulations. How can you teach a class when you're not even an adult yet?"
"Not an institution, but the head coach's nephew."
Xu Jiqing said, "It's not a lot of money, but I didn't take any commission. I can take on more expensive ones when I achieve good results in national competitions in the future."
As soon as she finished speaking, the little girl with mushroom hair came running out from the stairs. She was wearing a light yellow dress, carrying her small schoolbag and water bottle, and holding a bigger black bag in her hands.
Xu Jiaojiao was so excited to be able to go into the city to play that she swung towards Xu Jiqing and said, "Brother! I'm taking your stuff down too!"
“So energetic.”
Xu Jiqing rubbed the little girl's hair, took out his coat and put it on.
The woman was still standing there.
He turned aside and said goodbye, "We're leaving first. Call me if you need anything."
Lin Yuezhen took out two coins from her apron pocket and hesitated, "Take this. It's hot today, and Jiaojiao can't walk too far..."
"Let's take the subway. Xu Jiaojiao has a transportation card."
Xu Jiqing pushed the money back.
The woman paused awkwardly, a little ashamed, and said, "Then come back early tonight and be careful."
Xu Jiqing responded, adjusted Xu Jiaojiao's sun hat, and pulled her out.
In his peripheral vision, Lin Yuezhen's hair was slightly gray, and her beautiful eyes and eyebrows were still staring at him.
He stopped taking the bus to school when he was in junior high school in Ontario.
The old house is closer to the school and can be reached on foot.
Later, Xu Wenyao owed a lot of gambling debts and ran away. In order to hide, the mother and her two daughters had to rent a house. Xu Jiqing always got up early to run to the bus station, which was nearly 20 stops away.
Lin Yuezhen just thought he was frugal, but he had his own secrets.
Children who grow up in violence don't need to learn bad things from anyone. Pain has long been an instinctive emotional outlet.
When the neighbors looked at him with pity and regret.
Xu Wenyao accidentally deafened Xu Jiaojiao's ear. After he sobered up, he kowtowed and slapped himself to swear.
Lin Yuezhen cried and promised again and again that she would never forgive him again.
In order to pay for Xu Jiaojiao's hearing rehabilitation, he was so tired that he fell asleep while moving goods in the cold storage and almost froze to death but no one came to pick him up.
Xu Jiqing has tried self-harm.
But he was born cold-hearted and cold-blooded. Even if it hurt himself, after a long time, he began to rationally calculate the gains and losses.
What can you get by cutting yourself?
Will things get easier, or will he grow up faster?
When people are extremely poor, they don’t regard their bodies as tools, but as their only remaining resource.
He had nothing but himself, and any unnecessary wounds were a pointless loss and extremely stupid.
In the year when he was most depressed, Xu Jiqing started running.
Ontario is inland, and the cold wind in late winter is dry and biting, and it feels like a hook when it gets into the lungs.
The suffocating feeling caused by the violent beating of his heart gradually replaced the razor blade. Whenever the sweet and fishy taste of rust spread through his throat, he would feel that he was still alive and didn't want to die so much.
Unfortunately, muscles will grow and the heart and lungs will become stronger.
The original running distance no longer caused him to have similar physical reactions. Xu Jiqing ran farther and farther, and this habit never stopped until he came to Jiangcheng.
There have been rumors circulating in the school these days, saying that he cut his arm himself and that he had been in jail.
Zhang Jianyuan was worried, so he kept him for a long time after school, saying that he wanted to suppress the matter.
Xu Jiqing didn't care, and even liked the peace and quiet brought by these rumors.
But what about Su Xia?
She said she was not afraid of his hands, and had applied ointment to him, given him chocolates, and wiped the greasy table in the cafeteria.
Once she knows the truth, even a girl with such a good temper will avoid him, right?
-
Su Xia signed up for a basic math, physics, and chemistry class.
Classes start at 1:00 p.m. and last one hour each, with a ten-minute break in between.
She was a supreme student who had paid a huge price. The cram school paid special attention to teaching students in accordance with their aptitude and divided them into small classes according to their test scores. Almost all the students in the same classroom with her were arts and sports students with similar academic performance.
The boys and girls were all dressed up very beautifully, but each one was more sleepy than the other in class.
Su Xia was also sleepy, but because she tried hard to keep her eyes open, she was forced to become the MVP of the game.
Every teacher of each subject paid special attention to me, and I would be called upon to ask questions every ten minutes.
Her brain was forced to work overtime for the entire afternoon. When school was over at 4:30, Su Xia's hair was messed up by herself.
My eyes were dizzy and my stomach was rumbling.
I originally wanted to go to Xu Jiqing's fried noodle stall for dinner, but now I was so hungry that I couldn't even walk. I sent a text message to Su Lijun, put on my backpack and went to the KFC in the same building.
After inhaling a heavy meal of fried chicken and burgers and drinking half a cup of Coke, I felt a little calmer.
Turning my head, I saw a familiar little girl in a yellow skirt sitting on a high stool by the window, drinking milk and flipping through a picture book.
It was Xu Jiaojiao whom I met at the night market last time.
Children can't concentrate for too long, and Xu Jiaojiao became distracted after reading for a while.
A pair of light brown eyes rolled around and met Su Xia's gaze. She blushed, pursed her lips, spread out her five little fingers, and waved at her shyly.
This is still remembering her.
In her previous life, she had been someone's sister-in-law for a few years. Although she was not very dedicated, Su Xia had an inexplicable sense of responsibility towards this child.
I looked around but couldn't see Xu Jiqing.
She put on her bag and walked over, sitting down opposite the little girl in a very familiar manner.
"Where's your brother?"
The little girl said in a thin voice, pointing to the distance, "Brother is a teacher."
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