Chapter 2323 [Update 1]
Jiang Bai, now 17 years old, is 1.79 meters tall, with long arms and legs, a thin body, fair skin, and some subtle freckles on his cheeks. He has a baby face that is very inconsistent with his cold temperament, round eyes, a straight nose, and a rosy cherry mouth. If it weren't for his height, short hair, and obvious Adam's apple, at first glance, he would have been mistaken for a beautiful girl.
Jiang Bai is very troubled by his own appearance.
Since he was born out of wedlock, Jiang's mother hid his gender from the outside world in order to have another daughter. She asked Jiang Song to call her sister, and Jiang Xi was called sister after she was born, until Jiang Bai started school.
His gender was hidden so well that even his cousin's family and grandmother didn't know that Jiang Bai was actually a boy. When people suspected that he was a boy, his cousin made a bet with them: "She is my cousin, how could I not know whether she is a boy or a girl?"
Later, he was severely slapped in the face by reality.
However, this happened several years after he made the bet, and because it hurt so much, his cousin often mentioned the bet.
Jiang Bai was also a naive little boy who loved to laugh when he was young. Perhaps because of the experience of being mistaken for a girl when he was young, Jiang Bai started to be serious and stern all day long after he knew that he was a boy.
He didn't know how long he had been waiting at the school gate. When he saw Jiang Xi, there was no smile on his face. He just reached out and took the quilt, straw mat and bag from her hands: "Let's go, I'll take you to register."
The registration place was in the Academic Affairs Building. The downstairs were all offices of teachers of various subjects, the second floor was the office of the principal and director, and the third floor was the computer room.
Since there were not many people who knew how to use computers at that time, the computer room on the third floor was only opened occasionally, and there was no Internet connection. There were only some very basic games. Usually, the class was just for students to practice typing.
After registering, I saw the class I was assigned to, and then I went to the head teacher of the class to line up to get a receipt to go to the finance office to pay the tuition, and then I went to get books, bed sheets, quilt covers, toothbrush cups, washbasins, and foot basins, and went to the dormitory building with Jiang Bai.
The dormitory building is mixed for both sexes. Since there are fewer girls, the top two floors are all girls. There are two iron doors at the staircase. The four floors below are boys' dormitories. Usually, boys go through the left staircase door and girls go through the right staircase door, so they don't interfere with each other.
When Jiang Bai sent Jiang Xi to the fourth floor, he was stopped by the dormitory auntie: "Boys are not allowed to enter the girls' dormitory!"
The dormitory auntie had a bunch of keys on her waist and was holding a bamboo chair. She sat on the staircase connecting the fourth and fifth floors.
Jiang Xi hurriedly said, "Hello, Auntie. This is my brother. He's a senior here. I have too much stuff, so he's helping me move it. He'll be down soon."
The dormitory manager looked at Jiang Xi, whose hair was shaved in a mess, and then at Jiang Bai, who was tall, fair, and clean, and looked more delicate than a girl. She waved her hand and said, "Come down quickly!"
Jiang Xi soon arrived at his assigned dormitory, 610.
She arrived relatively early. There were eight beds in the dormitory, two of which were already occupied. One maker was not there while the other was making the bed. When they saw her come in, the couple who were making the bed smiled warmly at Jiang Xi. Jiang Xi also smiled at them and greeted the shy girl with big eyes standing there: "Hello, my name is Jiang Xi, from Class 3."
The girl nodded slightly and smiled as well, "My name is Xu Xiuli, also from Class 3."
"This is my brother Jiang Bai. He's also from our No. 1 Middle School and is a senior in high school."
Xu Xiuli only nodded slightly. Instead, it was her father who turned around, held Jiang Bai's hand and shook it vigorously: "Hello, hello, hello!"
Jiang Bai was still holding a bunch of Jiang Xi's things in his hands, and he almost dropped the thermos because of Xu Xiuli's father's shaking.
Jiang Xi quickly put his things on a bunk bed near the window: "Second brother, here."
Jiang Bai quickly carried his things over.
Then he made the bed, hung the mosquito net, laid the mat, put the wash basin and foot basin on the washstand, and there was a cabinet with eight doors. Each door had an iron buckle, and you could buy a small lock to lock the door. At this time, the two cabinets in the middle were already full of things. Jiang Xi also chose a cabinet door in the middle and stuffed his things in. Jiang
Xi put down the mosquito net to make sure that no one would sit on his bed, and then he packed up his things, carrying the rice and snail sauce and followed Jiang Bai downstairs.
When going downstairs, the dormitory auntie said: "Why did you take so long? Don't do it next time!"
Jiang Xi smiled and thanked her: "Thank you, auntie."
Jiang Bai silently took the rice bag from Jiang Xi's hand. Jiang Xi handed Jiang Bai the 800 yuan that Jiang's mother gave her and the snail meat sauce she made: "This is your tuition and living expenses from your mother. Dad will send food to school in two days. This is the snail meat sauce I made. You can eat it with rice."
She didn't plan to go back. She brought all the snail meat sauce and clam meat sauce. These things are not durable. If you don't eat them early, they will go bad later.
She brought two cans of clam meat sauce and two cans of snail meat sauce for Jiang Bai. Jiang Bai thought she brought pickled vegetables and carried them in a net bag.
Jiang Bai sent Jiang Xiao to the canteen to weigh the food, and in exchange for ten kilograms of food coupons, Jiang Xiao handed three kilograms to Jiang Bai: "Dad, give me back the food after sending you!"
The remaining seven kilograms of food, if she didn't order any food, could barely last her a week.
In the canteen, you can buy food directly with money. The amount of food you can buy with half a kilogram of food coupons is the same as the amount of food you can buy with fifty cents, but one dollar is more valuable than one kilogram of food coupons. Therefore, except for the local students in Wucheng, the students who passed the exams from the towns below basically brought their own food to the canteen to exchange for food coupons.
Jiang Bai got twelve kilograms of food coupons a week, which is about fifty kilograms of food coupons a month. Jiang's father had to bring two hundred kilograms of food for him, and that didn't count Jiang Xiao's.
In her previous life, Jiang Wu had 30 kilograms of food a month. Now she entered school a year earlier than in her previous life. Her homeroom teacher, teachers, and classmates are all different from those in her previous life.
Jiang Bai took the food coupons without saying much. His food coupons were almost gone. If Jiang's father didn't send any more food, he was planning to go back tomorrow morning and pick up food himself.
The dormitory building for the third-year boys is not in the same area as the first and second-year students, but in the faculty and staff dormitory area further ahead. Because there are too many students, the dormitory building cannot accommodate them, so a two-story row building behind the faculty and staff dormitory area is used as the third-year boys dormitory area. It is quiet there and more suitable for third-year students.
Those who came earlier still had dormitories to live in, but those who came later had to find ways to rent houses near the school. Jiang Xi had shared a house with others outside the school in her previous life. School
officially started the day after tomorrow. After Jiang Xi arranged the bed, she lay on the bed and continued to write her "The Years I Was a Constable in the Song Dynasty". She had previously sent a 40,000-word manuscript to "Wuxia" magazine, but had never received a reply. Now Jiang Xi has written more than 30,000 words here, and is ready to submit to another publisher if there is still no news there.
Little did they know that Wuxia Magazine was also worried because they could not get through to Jiang Xi.
Wuxia Magazine was founded in 1980. In the early 1980s, it printed one million copies for the first time. Until the serialization of The Legend of the Condor Heroes became popular, the highest monthly sales reached 3.5 million copies. In the three years after its launch, the total print run reached more than 33 million copies. It was a glorious period. Until the middle and late period, it still maintained a monthly sales of 2 million copies.
However, as martial arts novels by writers such as Jin Yong and Gu Long became popular in the 1990s, more and more martial arts magazines hit the market. Coupled with the staff transfers within the magazine, by the early 1990s, the market share of "Wuxia" was inevitably reduced as more and more similar magazines impacted the market. This year was the most difficult year for "Wuxia" magazine. Many editors of "Wuxia" magazine were transferred away, and the higher-ups even held a meeting to discuss the cancellation of their Guangzhou branch.
Only the editor-in-chief and the founder of the magazine were still struggling to maintain the magazine.
Half a month ago, Wuxia Magazine received another manuscript. This manuscript was different from the popular martial arts novels. It was a detective and reasoning novel that also took into account the martial arts style. It was also a heroine perspective that was completely different from the current martial arts style.
When the editor first received detective and reasoning works, he was not very interested. However, the popular "Justice Bao" at that time made the editor stop his eyes when he saw "The Years I Was a Constable in the Song Dynasty" and started to read this new work.
Although the author of this work is unknown and not a veteran author of "Martial Arts" magazine, his writing style is quite sophisticated and his chapter breaks are even more sophisticated. Each chapter breaks at a point that makes people want to stop reading. When she finished reading the first 40,000 words, the case was just broken at the climax of revealing the truth. The editor-in-chief was so upset that she wanted to catch the author of this work immediately and put him in a small dark room to write another 100,000 words!
She quickly handed this work to the founder of the magazine. After he read it, the two of them unanimously decided to take advantage of the popularity of "Justice Bao" to quickly launch this work. At the same time, they sent someone to find the author of this work and let him quickly create the following content.
"Martial Arts" magazine is a weekly magazine. Since they received this manuscript, they have serialized it for two issues, each with 20,000 words.
The original monthly sales of "Martial Arts" magazine were only 500,000 copies. The sales were declining sharply. Unexpectedly, after this issue of the magazine was published, the sales were close to 500,000 copies in just one week. At this rate, it is only a matter of time before the monthly sales exceed one million. Many readers wrote to scold the author for stopping at such a critical point, asking the magazine to quickly publish the next issue. They want to know the follow-up.
After the second issue of the magazine was published, the weekly sales increased by hundreds of thousands, because the author was even more inhuman this time. He actually cut the plot off at the moment when the protagonist followed her father and was about to be beheaded. Suddenly, Zhan Zhao rode a horse with an imperial decree in his hand and shouted: "Spare his life!"
Cut!
It was over!
The readers were so anxious that all kinds of letters urging for updates and scolding the author and the magazine were sent to the magazine like snowflakes.
It was the first time for them to encounter such an inhuman and clumsy person. They didn't know whether it was the magazine or the author who was inhuman. Anyway, the readers scolded them as well.
On the magazine side, Editor-in-Chief Bao had already found Jiang Qi and went crazy.
Jiang Xi had no phone, email, or MSN except an address.
They just replied to the letter at first, asking the author to send the manuscript for the next issue as soon as possible. However, the letter fell into the sea without any response. After the first issue was published, they sent another letter to urge the author to submit the manuscript, but there was still no news.
"Has this Xi Meng not been found yet?"
Director Li Ang, the founder, was so anxious that even Jiang Xi didn't expect that she had used the pen name Xi Meng in the letter in order to prevent Jiang's father and mother from knowing that she might make money by writing. When
she went to the brigade headquarters to pick up the mail for the first time, the people in the brigade headquarters were busy and threw all the recently received mail to her, asking her to find it herself. Of course, she found the letter sent to Xi Meng, the author of Zhiyin magazine.
The letter from "Wu Xia" arrived the day after she received it because of the long distance. At that time, she had already registered for school and asked Grandpa Jiang to keep an eye on it. Grandpa Jiang went there several times and asked if there was any letter from Jiang Xi. The people in the brigade thought it was a letter from Jiang Xi, but of course there was none.
They found two letters with the name "Xi Meng". "Who is this Xi Meng? There is no one named Xi Meng in our village?" They all thought they had sent the wrong letter. When the postman came to deliver the letter again, the people in the brigade returned the two letters the same way they had sent them.
The people in the editorial department of "Wu Xia" were going crazy when they received the two returned letters.