"Let me go!" Wen Qing struggled.
Ji Yanjun remained unmoved.
"Let go." Wen Qing struggled violently, but Ji Yanjun held her waist with one hand and grabbed both of her wrists with the other, keeping Wen Qing tightly in his arms.
No matter how hard Wen Qing struggled, she couldn't break free, forcing her to curse loudly: "Ji Yanjun! When you get into a thuggish act, you're worse than a pig or a dog!"
Ji Yanjun: "Hmm."
"Let me go!" Wen Qing shouted.
"Let me hug you."
"Get out!"
"Qingqing..."
“You’re hugging me too tightly,” Wen Qing said.
Ji Yanjun loosened his grip slightly and asked, "How about this?"
Wen Qing knew she couldn't break free, so she calmed down, took a breath, and said, "Ji Yanjun, go. Go to Xia City, start well, and you will succeed again."
"And you?" Ji Yanjun asked.
“I have Fengqing, I have my mom and my brother, and I will have…”
"Am I no longer here?" Ji Yanjun asked.
Wen Qing paused, then looked up. In the dark stairwell, there was no light, no direction, just pitch black: "No, never in this lifetime."
Ji Yanjun's body stiffened.
Taking advantage of the situation, Wen Qing broke free and stood on two steps, becoming almost the same height as Ji Yanjun.
She looked at Ji Yanjun at eye level.
Ji Yanjun turned his head, his bright black eyes fixed on Wen Qing: "We can go to Xia City, or we can stay here. Don't worry about my family."
"It's too late," Wen Qing said. "Ji Yanjun, I don't want any of this anymore."
"What do you want? I can make anything you want."
"I want you to stay far away from me, preferably never to see you again in this lifetime, including your family."
Upon hearing this, Ji Yanjun swayed slightly, lowered his head for a moment, and then looked up to ask, "Do you really hate seeing me and us that much now?"
"Um."
Ji Yanjun subconsciously reached into his pocket for a cigarette, only to find that he had just finished the last one. He stood helplessly at the top of the stairs and said, "Qingqing, this... I can't do it."
"Do you really have to be so persistent?" Wen Qing asked again. "Is there any point in this?"
Ji Yanjun was taken aback.
Wen Qing stared intently at Ji Yanjun, then took out her key, turned around and opened the door, slamming it shut behind her. She leaned against the door for a while.
She didn't want to know if Ji Yanjun was still around. She didn't want to think about anything. When she went to the bathroom to wash her face, tears suddenly started falling uncontrollably, and images from her past life flooded back.
"Qingqing, stop fooling around and go to sleep."
"Qingqing, can you please listen to me?"
"Qingqing, I'll be back the day after tomorrow morning. Don't wait for me at the four-way intersection."
"Qingqing, let's go live in Xiacheng."
"..."
The ringing of the phone interrupted Wen Qing's thoughts. She washed her face, grabbed a towel to dry it, and answered the phone.
"Wen Qing." It was Yao Shiling's voice.
"Mom," Wen Qing called out.
Yao Shiling noticed something was wrong with his voice and asked, "What's wrong? Is your nose stuffy? Did you catch a cold last night?"
"Um...no, I just took a shower and I'm covering my face with a towel, so...my voice sounds a little off."
"Why are you covering it with a towel?" Yao Shiling asked.
"I heard it can make your face whiter."
“Nonsense, take your face off right now, you’re going to burn yourself out,” Yao Shiling said on the other end of the phone.
Wen Qing responded and asked, "Mom, what's the matter calling so late?"
“I called you earlier because you weren’t there, so I’m calling now. I wanted to tell you that Wenpeng got a perfect score on his math exam!” Yao Shiling said happily.
Wen Qing listened attentively. In fact, Yao Shiling didn't have anything else to say. She just chatted like a parent, telling Wen Qing that Wen Peng got a perfect score on his math test this time, and she was very happy.
As Wen Qing listened, the sadness she had felt earlier was instantly swept away by Yao Shiling, and she felt an extraordinary warmth in her heart.
Wen Qing smiled involuntarily, then chatted with Yao Shiling, finally saying, "Mom, tell Pengpeng to be the reporter, I'll give him a reward later."
"What kind of reward is this? Earning money is not easy. It's what he should do to get good grades. Don't spoil him, or you'll only hurt him."
"Okay, okay, I'll listen to my mother," Wen Qing replied with a smile.
After hanging up the phone, Wen Qing's mood returned to normal. She glanced at the door and then began to read, pondering Jin Ling's "spectacular" outfit before going to bed.
When Pete was asked about it, her first thought was of a 21st-century actress's queen-like aura and clothing. However, times have changed, and things that are too avant-garde have low acceptance.
So she came up with another idea.
Lost in thought, she drifted off to sleep again. The next morning, she rushed off to her early morning study session. As soon as she opened the door, she thought of Ji Yanjun from the previous night. She stopped in her tracks, stood at the door and looked around for a while, but didn't see him. However, she remembered that the pile of cigarette butts at the door from the previous night was gone.
It couldn't have been swept by the cleaning lady this early.
She glanced at the clean floor, closed the door behind her, and then went to her morning self-study session.
Although the morning self-study session wasn't spent amidst the loud reading aloud, it still passed by with the buzzing of reading sounds.
After morning self-study, Wen Qing had just finished breakfast when her homeroom teacher, Teacher Zhao, called her to his office.
"Wen Qing, the countdown to the college entrance examination for senior high school students has already begun. How is your study going?" Teacher Zhao asked.
Wen Qing thought for a moment. In this era, the college entrance examination started on July 7th, which was a month earlier or later than after 2003.
But whether it's early or late, there will be exams. However, Wen Qing personally believes that compared to students in the 21st century, studying in this era is generally not as tiring, at least Wen Qing didn't feel tired.
"I've finished reading it," Wen Qing said.
"That's good." Teacher Zhao smiled and said, "In the next two or three months, try to attend evening self-study sessions whenever possible. Although you are a junior in high school preparing for the college entrance examination, if you can pass the exam, why not skip a year and pay less tuition?"
"Yes, Teacher Zhao, I understand."
"good."
"Go to class."
"Um."
After Wen Qing left, another teacher approached Teacher Zhao and asked, "Is this Wen Qing, the student who will be taking the college entrance examination this year?"
Teacher Zhao nodded.
How is she?
Teacher Zhao smiled mysteriously: "I have high hopes for her." Teacher Zhao didn't say it, but she gave Wen Qing several mock college entrance exam papers, and Wen Qing's scores steadily improved each time, at a rate that pleased her.
"That's not necessarily true," the teacher said. "If you can do well on the college entrance exam if you take it in your second year of high school, then why would anyone go to their third year? It's a waste of money."
"In short, I have high hopes for her," Teacher Zhao said with a smile.
The teacher stopped talking, thinking to himself, "Maybe not."
Just then, the school bell rang.
Apart from the teachers' voices emanating from the classrooms, the entire campus of Nanzhou No. 1 Middle School was quiet.
Meanwhile, the train carriages bound for Xia City were also quiet.
Ji Yanjun sat by the window, turning his head to look out at the lush green fields.
"Want to smell the green?" Gangzi asked.
Ji Yanjun remained silent.
Gangzi said, "Let me think about it. We can't even afford three meals a day now, so I can't think about anything else."
Ji Yanjun remained silent.
Gangzi added, "Although we have some influence in Nanzhou, this incident in Dawu has greatly damaged our reputation. Fortunately, we had some connections in Xiacheng before, so it won't be too difficult for us to get by, right?"
Ji Yanjun did not respond.
“I think we brothers will get up quickly, right? We can’t recite cheesy poems to Wen Qing on an empty stomach,” Gangzi said again.
Gangzi was about to give up and close his eyes to sleep when he saw that Ji Yanjun didn't react, when he heard Ji Yanjun say, "There are still more than three months until the college entrance examination."
"Then what?"
“Wen Qing is also participating this time,” Ji Yanjun said.
How did you know?
"I asked her homeroom teacher."
"so……"
Ji Yanjun looked at Gangzi and said, "Get ahead of her before the college entrance exam and come back."
"Will it work?"
“Okay!” Ji Yanjun said firmly.
Gangzi, however, was skeptical.
But Ji Yanjun stopped talking, and Gangzi stopped talking too. Soon after, Gangzi got sleepy, lay down, and fell asleep snoring.
Ji Yanjun remained seated by the window, gazing outside, his mind filled with Wen Qing.
"No, never in my life."
"No, never in this lifetime." Ji Yanjun began to repeat this sentence in his mind, causing him unbearable pain, until some words that Wen Qing had once said automatically popped into his mind.
"I'll marry you."
"I will follow you for the rest of my life."
"..." His headache subsided, and he gradually fell asleep, but his dreams were filled with all sorts of things. Unconsciously, he called out, "Qingqing..."
Wen Qing had already finished school. She had been daydreaming during class and had roughly figured out what Jin Ling's outfit would look like. When she returned to Green Garden, VCDs and cassette tapes were not yet popular, at least not in Nanzhou City.
She had no choice but to stay glued to the 10-inch black-and-white television, watching Jin Ling's TV dramas on time, and going to see her movies by herself whenever they were released.
Finally, she drew three very down-to-earth outfits and faxed them to Pete. Pete said that after receiving them, he would wire her another two thousand dollars, and then he never heard from her again.
Wen Qing was able to focus all her attention on her studies, and as the days went by, the weather changed from cold to warm, and then from warm to hot.
As Fengqing Garment Factory's sales improved, Wenqing's studies became increasingly demanding.
The homeroom teacher had high hopes for her, and Feng Qing was in high demand every day. Wen Qing was so busy that she sometimes didn't even have time to eat. Until a week before the college entrance examination, the senior year no longer had classes, or rather, no longer formal classes. She still went to the classroom every day as usual, but every teacher would say, "Everyone, study on your own."
Then every day, senior high school students would climb over the school wall to go out and play.
Every day, some senior high school students skip morning and evening self-study sessions, and so on.
At this time, Wen Qing's homeroom teacher, Ms. Zhao, granted her a special leave to go home. It was then that everyone realized that Wen Qing was going to take the college entrance examination this year!
The students were shocked.
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