Seventy-seven Gathering Meal
When they arrived at school in the morning, Li Wei and Luo Da were among the latecomers. Although they weren't late, they barely made it.
Ms. Liu glanced at the two of them but didn't say anything. Although she really wanted to say something, considering that the parents, the principal, and even the students hadn't had any negative reactions, she decided to refrain from doing so. She didn't want to end up worrying unnecessarily or becoming the bad guy and annoyed people.
Li Wei had just sat down in her seat, and before she even opened her bag, Zhou Xiaoyan leaned over and whispered, "Hey, I saw Shen Tao and Yuan Jiawei this morning. What do you think?"
Li Wei kept taking books out of her bag without stopping, and asked without looking up, "How was it?" This paparazzi was pretty lucky; they ran into them right after they came back from the hospital.
Zhou Xiaoyan continued gossiping: "I saw that Shen Tao's arm seemed to be injured, and it was in a sling around his neck. Yuan Jiawei was with him, and she didn't seem to be in good spirits. I think Shen Tao might have gotten into a fight with his love rival again."
The girl's imagination was also quite eagle-eyed. Li Wei put down her books, took out her pencil case, and looked at Zhou Xiaoyan with a half-smile: "You're quite the observer. Do you know who you're fighting with?"
Zhou Xiaoyan pursed her lips and shook her head: "I don't know. I guess that person is pretty powerful, able to do such a thing to Shen Tao. I wonder who he is. But I think Yuan Jiawei seems to have a pretty good relationship with Shen Tao. So, I don't think that even if that person deals with Shen Tao, it doesn't necessarily mean that Yuan Jiawei will like him. He might even get a severe beating from the school. Just you wait and see, the school has been itching to teach Shen Tao a lesson for a long time, and this time he just happened to walk right into their trap."
Li Wei couldn't resist teasing Zhou Xiaoyan: "I don't think so. If Shen Tao accidentally fell into the roadside ditch while walking, and ended up with a bruised face, broken leg, and broken arm, who would the school punish? Oh, right, his leg wasn't broken."
This isn't entirely Luo Da's fault. He spent so much money, and if Shen Tao were to turn around and bite back, that would be incredibly unfair. Besides, Luo Da doesn't have such a bad reputation. Who knows who the school will punish then? Shen Tao wouldn't be that stupid.
In Li Wei's mind, Luo Da was still a law-abiding person. Although he got into fights, he still knew his limits. Little did she know that Luo Da had earned that sense of restraint through countless blows and kicks.
Little did they know, Luo Da's fearsome reputation was already well-known.
The teacher had already started noticing the two of them. Li Wei finished speaking and lowered her head to flip through her book. She didn't see Zhou Xiaoyan's disapproving eye roll.
The first period was geometry class taught by our homeroom teacher, Ms. Liu. After class, she called Li Wei, Zhou Xiaoyan, Yang Liqiu, Wu Feng, and the class monitor, Wu Zhibing, who was also the tallest and strongest boy in the class, to her office.
Li Wei looked at the group of people. She figured nothing bad was going on. As long as they weren't with certain habitual offenders, generally speaking, there shouldn't be any major problems.
Sure enough, good news was on its way. In the office, Teacher Liu told five people to each write an application to join the Communist Youth League. Considering their usual performance, the school planned to admit them as the first batch of members. She then gave them a general outline of the format and sent them on their way.
Li Wei was also among the first batch of students to join the Youth League. She was genuinely excited back then, just like Zhou Xiaoyan and Wu Feng are now. But now she's much calmer. It's a bit surprising that her homeroom teacher, Ms. Liu, would still think of her when such a good thing happens. Since the incident with Luo Dadi, Ms. Liu hadn't been as enthusiastic towards her for quite some time. The fact that she was chosen to be among the first to join the Youth League makes Li Wei feel a bit more favorably towards her.
As for her qualifications, Li Wei had never doubted herself. While her strengths weren't particularly outstanding, she also had few obvious weaknesses. Besides, good academic performance could compensate for many strengths, couldn't it?
The other four were writing applications for the first time. They didn't know where to begin and were quite perplexed. Li Wei, however, had no such worries. She took out some paper, picked up her pen, and quickly wrote her application.
Zhou Xiaoyan was incredibly envious: "Can I learn from this?"
Li Wei handed it to her: "You can borrow from it, but don't write exactly the same thing as me. That won't show your sincere longing for the Youth League and your determination to join it. Remember that!" Hehe.
Zhou Xiaoyan, naturally inexperienced, said irritably, "Don't worry. I'll just look at the general idea. It's not like I can't write it myself, why be so verbose?" During lunch break, Li Wei, finding the sun too strong, was too lazy to go out for lunch and asked Wu Feng to bring her some bread, while she ate an apple instead. Zhou Xiaoyan, who sat next to her, usually ate lunch with her aunt, who was a teacher at the school, at the teachers' cafeteria.
Students who live far away usually rent houses near the school or commute to school. They usually bring their own lunch boxes, and the school provides steamed rice and side dishes.
Like Wu Feng and Li Lin, Wu Feng usually buys her lunch at school and rarely goes home for lunch. Li Wei, on the other hand, is more relaxed and only needs to be on time, so she sometimes goes home for lunch as well.
However, since I started taking cheaper buses, I don't go back much anymore.
At that time, there were no places to buy boxed lunches near the school, only small shops near the school gate, which were said to be run by family members of school leaders. So lunch consisted of dry food such as bread and biscuits sold in the shops. The only bright spot was that they also had steamed buns, bread, and other wheat-based foods wholesaled from Li Wei's family's food factory. This held no appeal for Li Wei. She just ate something to make sure she wouldn't go hungry.
Li Wei was munching on an apple while reading a history book, looking as if she had forgotten to eat or sleep, when Xiao Huang ran in and called to her, "Hey, Li Wei, um, Boss Luo asked me to come and call you to get something good to eat."
Luo Daneng didn't know what good food he could get. He was a dry-food-only person at lunchtime, you know. He swallowed the apple and said, "Where are we going? What good food do you have? Tell me first." Xiao Huang was a cousin of Xiao Hei. Unlike Xiao Hei, he wasn't very mischievous. He didn't talk much and was quite arrogant. He said dismissively, "Go if you want, don't go if you don't. Anyway, I've delivered the message. We're in the mimeograph room." After saying that, he turned around and ran away.
If it were somewhere else, Li Wei might actually be curious enough to go and take a look. As for the mimeograph room—forget about it. That place was dilapidated and unappetizing. Even the finest delicacies would make one lose their appetite.
Li Wei and Wu Feng were eating bread together. The water in the bottle was long gone, and Li Wei regretted not saving the apple to eat with the bread; then she wouldn't be choking like this.
Unable to eat any more, Li Wei put down the half-eaten bread and looked at Wu Feng, whose voice seemed bigger than hers: "Xiao Feng, stop eating. I'll take you to see if there's anything good to eat."
Wu Feng shook her head: "I don't want to go to a restaurant."
Li Wei glared at her: "What restaurant? There's one even if you want to go. It's right here on campus, and it's free. Let's go!"
Wu Feng quickly stuffed the last bite of bread into her mouth before Li Wei pulled her away.
As the two stepped out of the classroom, a beautiful woman walked towards them and immediately recognized Li Wei: "You must be Li Wei. Luo Jianhua asked me to come find you; we've been waiting for you for ages."
Li Wei glanced at the girl opposite her a few times, not recognizing her. However, the girl was quite pretty, with a well-developed and attractive figure. Somewhat puzzled, she asked, "You are...?"
When did Luo Da meet such a beautiful woman?
"Oh, I forgot to mention, my name is Yuan Jiawei, I'm in Class 2, Grade 3." Yuan Jiawei already knew about Li Wei from Class 6, Grade 7. She'd caused quite a stir since she first came to school, and what's even more impressive was that the two of them were now practically inseparable at school. The teachers and parents didn't seem to care! I heard even the principal didn't care!
Yuan Jiawei had heard that Li Wei's parents were very supportive of their child. Moreover, Li Wei not only came from a well-off family, but she was also good-looking and academically excellent, which made Yuan Jiawei secretly both envious and jealous.
I've always thought to myself, those kids from the supposedly prestigious urban intellectual families are probably nothing special. Unlike me, who's neither loved by my parents and has no one to care if I stay out all night.
Li Wei quickly realized that Yuan Jiawei seemed to be the girlfriend Zhou Xiaoyan had mentioned for Shen Tao. The school beauty, indeed, lived up to her reputation. But… didn't Luo Da just break Shen Tao's arm? What's going on here?
Li Wei noticed that Yuan Jiawei seemed a bit distracted, just as Zhou Xiaoyan had said that morning, that she didn't seem to be in good spirits. However, since they weren't familiar with each other, she didn't say much, and simply said politely, "Then it's really troublesome for you. Wu Feng and I were just about to go over there too. Let's go together."
"Oh... okay." Yuan Jiawei suddenly came to her senses and hurriedly went to the mimeograph room with Li Wei and the others.
Li Wei pondered as she walked, "Could this be the legendary 'no fight, no friendship'?" After their intense, close-quarters physical encounter, Luo Da and Shen Tao sparked a friendship—did the gorillas develop a mutual respect?
She had known all along that she couldn't understand a creature like Luo Da!
The doors and windows of the mimeograph room were still as dilapidated as yesterday. Yuan Jiawei led the way, opening the door to the room, and Li Wei followed her in. Hmm, having a girl move in made a difference; it was much cleaner and tidier than when she had seen Luo Dayin's printing papers yesterday afternoon. Paper, ink, and other miscellaneous items were all neatly stacked in the corner, and the floor was spotless. In the middle, two old-fashioned double desks were pushed together to form a dining table, which was piled high with delicious food.
When Luo Da saw Li Wei arrive, he greeted her, "Come and have something to eat. There are grapes and crabapples here." Luo Da didn't think that chicken, duck, fish, or meat would be very appealing to Li Wei.
Li Wei went over to take a look, and sure enough, there was a lot of food, including cooked food, snacks, fruits and drinks, and most importantly, beer!
Li Wei glanced at the people sitting around the table. Besides Xiao Huang and Xiao Hei, there was a boy with a sling on his arm. He had a bruise around one eye and on his chin. His features were so distinctive that it was hard not to recognize him.
The boy gave Li Wei a somewhat awkward smile: "My name is Shen Tao. I know you. Your name is Li Wei, right?"
Li Wei nodded, unable to hold back any longer: "Since you're having a get-together, why don't you find a nicer place, like... that grove of trees behind the school?"
That place, since it's suitable for secret rendezvous and kissing, should be even more suitable for picnics; it would create such a wonderful atmosphere.
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