Shengxia smiled, nodded, waved to Qin Ge, and got on the plane.
Feng Caiwei carried her schoolbag and walked in front to find her and Shengxia's seats.
After a while, the plane slowly headed towards the runway, facing the first rays of morning light on the horizon, and flew towards the other side of the ocean. The friction during acceleration produced a huge noise. Feng Caiwei felt uncomfortable and turned around to ask Shengxia how she was, but saw Shengxia holding her coat with tears streaming down her face.
It was already chilly in Berlin in early October.
Feng Caiwei came down the stairs, and Aunt Zhou, who was cooking in the kitchen, looked up and said, "Xiao Feng, the meal is almost ready. Ask Xiao Xia to come down and eat together."
"Okay, thank you, Aunt Zhou."
Aunt Zhou is from Guizhou and is in her fifties. She settled in Berlin decades ago with her husband, a carpenter. Her children are now grown up and work in the city center, leaving her with nothing to do at home. After seeing the job advertisement for a Chinese restaurant aunt at a job fair in Chinatown, she now comes here every day at noon and evening to help two international students from China prepare some home-cooked meals.
When they first arrived, Shengxia and Feng Caiwei originally lived in the student dormitory, but Shengxia couldn't get used to the food in the school. She had a Chinese stomach, and it was okay for her to eat one or two meals occasionally, but she couldn't stand eating it for a long time.
So Qin Ge asked her to move out of the student dormitory and rent a house not far from the school. The landlady and her husband were away all year round, so the house was empty anyway. They only rented the house to students who were studying nearby and could help look after the house.
Qin Ge paid the monthly rent, of course; the living expenses provided by the International Student Committee didn't include off-campus housing. Aunt Zhou, the cook, was introduced by Feng Caiwei through a Chinese-owned part-time job agency in Chinatown.
Feng Caiwei, carrying her schoolbag, asked Shengxia, who was changing shoes at the door, "Shengxia, do you have your cash and checks with you?"
Shengxia groaned and touched her empty pockets: "I forgot."
She said forgetting was as easy as saying hello or goodbye to a classmate. Feng Caiwei had no choice but to pick it up for Shengxia. Shengxia had never forgotten to lock the drawer where she kept her valuables.
She glanced at Shengxia again, who was wearing a sweater on top and shorts underneath. "You'd better wear something thicker when you go upstairs. The temperature has dropped recently. Brother Qin already scolded you once in the last video..."
Shengxia opened the door: "Feng Caiwei, why are you so long-winded lately?"
Although she said this, she still went upstairs to change her pants.
Otherwise Feng Caiwei will tell tales.
Although their English was already pretty good in China, and they would cram for it every weekend to catch up as quickly as possible, the graduate courses contained a large number of professional terms and complex concepts. After taking a class, Shengxia felt like she had listened to a chapter in the Book of Heaven. She had never encountered such a big setback in her studies. Before, she didn't want to learn, but now she can't learn. There is a complete difference.
It's not just studying. Even daily life has become a problem when she first comes to a foreign country. She feels it's very strenuous to go to the supermarket. She can rarely use what she learned in school. However, Feng Caiwei spends a long time running around in the classroom and library. Shengxia doesn't want to ask Feng Caiwei to sacrifice her study time to accompany her every time.
Being alone in a strange foreign country, the words around her were like birdsong, and she couldn't hear much. Without Qin Ge by her side, she had to endure the time difference. In the first month, Shengxia's mood was at its lowest point. She didn't even want to pay attention to Feng Caiwei and didn't want to communicate with anyone. Only after class, she would face Qin Ge on the other end of the laptop video in the room. She often burst into tears after just a few words, crying and saying that she wanted to go home.
She cried like this, so "isolated and helpless". Qin Ge felt distressed and even wavered several times. He wanted to take Shengxia home first, and let her take a leave of absence from school, regardless of whether she was studying abroad.
Zhang Xiaofen tried her best to persuade him: "Qin Ge, language skills are something everyone has to overcome when going abroad. Isn't it the same for Feng Caiwei? Aren't there so many other Chinese students studying abroad? You can't just ignore her when she cries. You have to let her learn and grow on her own."
Their company in Beijing had just started up, and there was a mountain of things to do, including financing, bidding, procedures, and managing relationships. Qin Ge managed to squeeze out a little time in the morning, getting up at 4:30 every morning and taking an hour to talk to Shengxia.
They were video chatting across a time difference of more than ten hours. Qin Ge's English was honed from discussing projects with foreign clients and designers, so his spoken English was pretty good. He guided Shengxia to talk to him in English and encouraged Shengxia to tell him in English about the trivial things that happened at school every day.
Whenever Shengxia doesn't know how to say a word, Qin Ge will remind her how to say it. If Qin Ge doesn't understand something, he will look it up in the dictionary and tell Shengxia when they video chat the next morning.
Zhang Xiaofen was completely enlightened. She couldn't figure it out. Was Qin Ge an iron man? Where on earth did he find the time? Didn't he need sleep?
No wonder sometimes even Shengxia herself can't stand her temper. Qin Ge loses all his principles when he sees her crying, and he wants to chew her up before feeding her. It would be strange if Shengxia could develop a temper that is not spoiled.
Qin Ge squeezed out his rest time to tutor Shengxia in English bit by bit, and Shengxia was willing to listen. After all, she felt at ease when she could see Qin Ge. Slowly, there were effects, and Shengxia also expanded her social circle. She no longer needed Feng Caiwei to accompany her to the supermarket.
Gradually, Qin Ge stopped her from talking about what happened today, and instead asked Shengxia to try to repeat to him what the professor had said in class.
The large number of difficult professional terms and theories was a new and difficult challenge. Qin Ge was not in a hurry. He listened to Shengxia's stumbling speech in the video, and his impression deepened again and again.
Shengxia was naturally smart, so she would study on her own after class, and when the professor's lectures got to a certain level, it didn't matter if she didn't understand something in the middle. What's more, she had Feng Caiwei, who had been recognized as the most hardworking student in less than half a year, by her side.
After practicing for a long time, Shengxia could only speak for five or ten minutes at the beginning, but later she could express the meaning of a lesson as fluently as possible. The courses she studied were at the forefront of knowledge and had long exceeded Qin Ge's knowledge scope, but when she forgot how to say it and wanted to fool around, Qin Ge could always find out in time.
Shengxia would always be particularly incredulous: "Qin Ge, how did you find out? Did you learn it too?!"
Qin Ge didn't tell her either, but asked her to go back, sort it out, and tell it again. He worked at the table, reviewing the drawings. Shengxia was very discouraged and felt that Qin Ge should be allowed to study, he must be better than her!
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