Chapter 27 The Young Lady in a Wheelchair 27: Early Romance?
At 4:30 pm, Ni An went to the restroom to fix her makeup, reapplied her lipstick, admired herself in the mirror, and nodded in satisfaction.
This makeup is suitable for going to the movies tonight; I can just change my clothes when I get home.
She returned to her workstation, unplugged three fully charged power banks, her laptop, two mobile phones, and the power cord of her wireless earphone case, and neatly packed them into her bag.
Standing in front of her desk, she thought for a moment and then put the two unopened packs of tissues next to her computer into her backpack.
Ni An: "I almost forgot about this. We've run out of tissues at home, and the ones I ordered haven't arrived yet."
After tidying everything up, she hummed a song as she headed to Xi Congshuang's office, waiting for her boss's order to leave work.
Xi Congshuang sat behind her desk, staring silently at her phone.
After being refused pick-up and drop-off from school for three consecutive days, Xi Congshuang finally realized that Cheng Zhishu was intentionally avoiding her.
The phone screen displays the chat history from the past few days.
[Orange]: Sister, go home first after get off work. I'm going to buy new workbooks with Shangguan Yin today.
[Snowflake]: Okay, be careful on the road.
The next day.
[Orange]: Sister, go home first today. I'm going to Shangguan Yin's house to explain a few problems to her.
[Snowflake]: Okay.
today.
[Orange]: Sister, go home first.
Two days ago I had a reason to fool her, but today I don't even have a reason anymore.
[Snowflake]: What does Shangguan Yin want with you today?
My phone beeped; a message had arrived.
Shangguan Yin, who was correcting mistakes on the test paper, suddenly felt a chill down her spine, sneezed loudly, rubbed her nose, and asked in confusion, "Huh? I have a cold?"
Cheng Zhishu, staring at her phone: "..."
She glanced at Shangguan Yin next door, who was completely unaware of what was happening, and nervously typed: "Recently, the teacher formed English groups based on students' grades to practice speaking with each other. I have to wait until the other group members finish their tasks before I can leave."
Not wanting Shangguan Yin to bear the burden unknowingly, Cheng Zhishu reluctantly deleted the three characters "Shangguan Yin" and typed her as a group member.
The so-called English group consists of two people per group, and the group member who fails to complete the task is Shangguan Yin, who is good at one subject but not the other.
She can score 148 in math and 120 in Chinese, but she's terrible at English, no matter what, which is why she's at the bottom of the class.
“Um… Aba, abandon, yes, abandon…” Shangguan Yin scratched her hair and struggled to spell out the word.
A moment later, Cheng Zhishu received a message.
[Snowflake]: Okay.
"..."
For some reason, Cheng Zhishu suddenly felt uneasy.
She almost wanted to edit a message to persuade Xi Congshuang to stay, then abandon Shangguan Yin, who could only ever spell "abandon" fluently, and get on the bus home with her schoolbag on her back.
But no, she was afraid that seeing Xi Congshuang would reveal her feelings, so she couldn't help but ask her about the progress of her marriage plans.
In what capacity could she ask this question?
"Sigh..." Cheng Zhishu turned off her phone.
*
Meanwhile, inside the office.
Just as the song in her heart was about to reach its climax, it was interrupted by Xi Congshuang's sudden question.
“Ni An”.
Ni An: "I'm here."
"If your adopted child is always very attached to you, wants to tell you everything, and you have a good relationship because of it, and then one day, without any warning, she becomes distant from you, what would you think is the reason?"
adoption?
Ni An, keenly aware of the keywords, thought of that sun-like little girl; the boss must be referring to her.
That must be my younger sister, right?
Ni An, an only child without a younger sister: "Um, this..."
She racked her brains, but as an all-around assistant, she should take on the responsibility of solving any problem her boss might have.
Xi Congshuang, also an only child, raised her head, waiting for her answer.
Ni An racked her brains: "Maybe it's because I'm growing up and I feel like I need some privacy. Besides, a high school student like Xiao Cheng must have a lot of friends to play with."
Xi Congshuang: "..."
Ni An's confidence gradually waned: "Then, because I was hanging out with friends, I gradually squeezed out the time I spent with my family. I spent the least amount of time with my family during high school and college."
Xi Congshuang: "...Were you like this when you were in high school?"
Ni An's confidence rose slightly: "Yes."
There was no reply from the other end, only a long silence that made Ni An feel breathless.
Finally, Xi Congshuang's voice came from the other end of the desk: "So that's how it is."
"It's time to go home."
Ni An's heart, which had been pounding, quietly calmed down. She was glad that she hadn't blurted out the word "puppy love" in a moment of carelessness.
High school is a time of rich emotions and teenage romance, so it's perfectly normal for girls to fall in love early.
However, it was unexpected that the boss was a strict person when it came to family education, which can be considered as saving Xiao Cheng's life.
Xi Congshuang walked ahead and, together with her assistant, took the elevator downstairs, heading directly to the underground parking garage.
Inside the elevator car, Ni An's assistant clenched her fist, feeling that she had had a very reliable day.
Back home, Xi Congshuang ate her usual meal, went upstairs to wash up, finished her remaining work, and then read a book.
Cheng Zhishu hasn't been coming home for meals for the past few days, so Xiao Liu hasn't left any food for her, but has prepared desserts and fruits in the refrigerator.
According to her schedule, Xi Congshuang would take a shower after resting for half an hour after dinner.
She usually reads before bed, but it's not time yet; she's currently working on her tedious computer tasks.
"Buzz—" A message has arrived.
Xi Congshuang reached for her phone, the screen lit up, and after seeing the three words "Xi Hanran" on it, she put the phone down immediately.
I don't feel like opening it.
A new project was recently assigned to her, and Xi Hanran was furious about it for several days.
So these past few days, the other person has been sending her messages and talking to her about nothing, as if chatting with people for too long would delay Xi Congshuang's work and make the project less complete.
The buzzing of her phone annoyed her, so Xi Congshuang switched it to silent mode.
“I need privacy.” Xi Congshuang leaned back in her chair and whispered, repeating what Ni An had said.
She closed her eyes, letting the light from the computer screen shine on her face.
I almost forgot, people need privacy, and no one will expose everything about themselves to others without reservation.
"What are you doing, Shuang? How could you watch this kind of video? It's all my fault for not educating you properly, and you've gone astray."
"What did I see, Mom? I just clicked on it by accident."
"But your account history shows that you watched for more than an hour, and you skipped the climax three times. Who recommended this to you?"
"It's something I want to watch myself. No matter how many friends you ask, I only have one answer: I watch it myself."
“Okay, very good. I will contact the engineers to fix the home network and have them filter out all this useless stuff. The future heirs of both families don’t need to watch this kind of pointless stuff; it will ruin you.”
What happened next?
A hot-tempered young girl got into an argument with her mother, and the footage from the security camera attracted her father, who was working overtime at the company. The two of them then started criticizing her for her recent behavior.
You've regressed, you're disappointing. You were our pride, you shouldn't be like this.
If it were the current Xi Congshuang, she would coldly tell the bodyguards to ask them to leave, and politely and distantly say that she would visit them again next time.
But if it were Xi Congshuang in her teens, she would be much simpler. She would throw away everything in sight and try to prove her resistance with a hysterical attitude.
Then everything crashed to the ground with a heavy "thud!"
"Thump!"
Xi Congshuang opened her eyes and looked at the wall connecting the next room. She quickly realized that Cheng Zhishu had returned.
The evidence is the illuminated balcony, where the lights in the next room are on.
Cheng Zhishu bent down and carefully lifted the chair that had fallen to the ground and righted it. She listened carefully, but could not hear any sound.
She sighed, straightened the chair, and wondered how her backpack, which wasn't that heavy, had caused the chair to fall over.
Separated by a wall, Xi Congshuang put her hands back on the computer keyboard and began typing.
That's fine, that's how it should be.
Maintaining the status quo is fine.
*
At some point, Xi Congshuang stopped messaging Cheng Zhishu after get off work to pick her up and take her home.
At first, Ni An was a little unaccustomed to it, and accidentally let the question slip.
With Li Mi's expression that seemed to say, "Are you out of your mind to ask anything?", Xi Congshuang gave her answer expressionlessly: "Didn't you say that teenagers need to have their own privacy?"
"Huh?" Ni An asked, confused.
The boss's confident tone made Ni An react for a while before she remembered the question her boss had asked her earlier. For some reason, she had the illusion that she could hear a complaint in her boss's tone.
However, Xi Congshuang remained expressionless, so it was probably just an illusion.
Ni An: "Yes, at this age, I just like to have fun. Being too restrained and repressed will limit my nature."
"..."
Li Mi wondered what Ni An was saying that warranted the boss's "no mercy" attitude.
To everyone's surprise, Xi Congshuang remained silent and did not refute.
Li Mi: "...!"
She suddenly turned to look at Ni An, wanting to ask her what she put in the boss's lunch every day!
Ni An panicked: "Watch where you're going!"
From that day on, Li Mi waited for Ni An to realize that something was wrong.
Every time Li Mi drives, when she sees Xi Congshuang and Ni An, her mind automatically plays the song: "How can I bear to blame you for making a mistake? I gave you too much freedom."
As late autumn began to show signs of approaching, and Li Mi added another layer to her coat, she drove to the Xi Group headquarters as usual.
She parked the car at the designated spot, then opened the door and got out at the appointed time. While standing still, she added a long trench coat over her suit jacket.
It has indeed gotten colder these past few days, and the boss has even extended the working hours, which is a real pity considering her previously excellent habit of being late and leaving early.
However, she had made thorough preparations and turned on the car's heater before getting out of the car.
Five minutes later, the elevator descended not far away, and Xi Congshuang and Ni An came out of the elevator. Li Mi stepped forward, opened the car door, and helped Xi Congshuang sit down in the car.
Everything was as usual, without any problems.
As Li Mi closed the car door, she was still thinking about how Cheng Zhishu had to attend two hours of evening self-study these past few days, and her boss had asked her to pick him up and drop him off, which was great because of it.
I should be able to squeeze out a week of annual leave this year to travel to the places I want to go.
Li Mi was feeling great, her mind filled with travel plans, until a phone call shattered her peace.
"What brings you here so late, Ms. Wu?" Xi Congshuang asked in a deep, cold voice. "Oh? You mean puppy love?"
Ni An: "?!"
Li Mi was shocked. My background music has such a wide range of applications?
A few minutes later, Xi Congshuang ended her call with the class teacher.
She said, "I'm not going home, I'm going to No. 1 Middle School first."
Li Mi couldn't help but straighten her back, bearing the low pressure from her boss alone: "Okay."
As for Ni An, who should have been in the passenger seat, she had already made a quick getaway before realizing something was wrong, even at the cost of ten yuan in transportation fees.
Recently, in late autumn, the sun sets early, and it gets dark as soon as we finish eating.
At school, the buildings for senior students were brightly lit. It wasn't time for evening self-study yet, and the students were free to do whatever they wanted, either eating snacks or chatting about the interesting things that had happened that day.
Wen Yan was also sleeping on her seat, while the other students in the class were making a lot of noise.
Her deskmate, who had gone to get water, suddenly returned and shook her awake: "Wen Yan, Wen Yan, big news! Wake up, there's some juicy gossip to tell you!"
Unable to bear the shaking any longer, Wen Yan forced herself to sit up and squinted as she asked, "Tell me, which member of your favorite idol group's rival group is secretly dating again?"
My deskmate got emotional: "No, no, it's not me who's against them, it's yours!"
Wen Yan: "I don't follow celebrities, so where would I get any rivals from?"
My deskmate said, "Mulan was caught by the teacher while she was reading a love letter. She's already been called to the office, but she still won't tell the teacher who wrote her the love letter."
"..." Wen Yan sat up straight. "You mean, Cheng Zhishu?"
My deskmate was still saying, "The homeroom teacher of Class 1 is practically the only one who loves every student. She absolutely forbids early romantic relationships from existing. She's definitely going to get her parents called in."
Hearing Wen Yan's question, her deskmate nodded: "Yes, it's Mulan."
After the summer vacation, before officially entering her senior year of high school, Wen Yan even sought tutoring, hoping to secretly study and achieve a shortcut to success.
Moreover, her biological parents somehow moved out of the Xi residence and into a nearby community, which made things more convenient for her. She no longer had to travel back and forth between her two homes in the south and north of the city, allowing her to focus on her studies.
However, once the exam started, Wen Yan's dream was completely shattered, and Cheng Zhishu firmly occupied the top spot, always widening the gap with the students behind her with scores of five points or more.
At first, the top five were unwilling to admit defeat and were determined to surpass each other. However, they later found that no matter how hard they tried, they could not surpass Cheng Zhishu. She still had a five-point lead over the second place.
That's talent.
And coincidentally, the second place winner was none other than Wen Yan.
As for Cheng Zhishu's nickname, it originated from her fighting four people alone in an abandoned building and single-handedly causing them to drop out of school, thus making her famous.
The students in Class Two, who initially disliked the transfer student, suddenly changed their opinion of Cheng Zhishu.
They all genuinely believed that this wasn't a cuckoo usurping someone else's nest, but rather a truly kind person. Moreover, since Wen Yan herself didn't care, how could they possibly care for her?
Anyone focused on studying would appreciate someone who disrupts discipline.
Class Two has been putting up with those two troublemakers who drag down the average score and love to play games during class for a long time. Every day they hope that the two of them will suddenly realize their mistake and drop out of school.
However, family scandals still need to be resolved by outsiders. In no time, those two troublemakers were expelled from school.
As a result, Cheng Zhishu's fame increased with each exam she made it onto the honor roll. She was well-known in school and was called the "War Goddess Hua Mulan".
Cheng Zhishu, whom everyone was curious about, was indeed in the office.
She didn't stubbornly defend her lover, nor did she reveal who wrote the love letters; instead, she wept and promised it would never happen again.
Cheng Zhishu was even numb with calm, and tried to explain to the teacher: "Teacher, I really don't know who wrote it."
Teacher Wu didn't believe it: "I don't know who wrote it, why did you open it to look at it?"
Cheng Zhishu: "..."
Actually, the situation was purely accidental. After returning from dinner, Cheng Zhishu sat down to tidy the table and discovered that someone had stuffed love letters into her drawer again.
The cover was pink, the handwriting was neat and elegant, and there was no signature. It was a completely unfamiliar book.
But judging from its appearance and the sweet-smelling envelope, it was a love letter.
"..." It seems to have been written by a girl.
Cheng Zhishu held the love letter tightly, staring at the cover in silence for a long time. For the first time, she didn't just throw it into the bag; she decided to deal with it after school.
Thinking that if her sister came to her senses and decided to remarry, she might also have a chance to be selected, but before that, she should learn how to date. So she opened the love letter for the first time.
She studied it with an academic mindset, but she was so engrossed in her research that she failed to notice the danger quietly approaching behind her.
Cheng Zhishu was reading love letters, and Teacher Wu was also watching her read love letters, appreciating the tender and delicate feelings of a young girl together.
Seeing that Cheng Zhishu was becoming more and more engrossed, Teacher Wu took the love letter and skimmed through it, and immediately exploded.
Hey! Where did this little vixen come from, trying to seduce my prized disciple and corrupt his Daoist heart? This threat must be eliminated.
In front of the whole class, Cheng Zhishu was called to the office, where this question and answer took place.
Cheng Zhishu: "Because I receive more than a dozen love letters every day, and I don't read the others. I put them in my milk tea bag and deal with them all on my way home."
Teacher Wu was even more skeptical: "Since you used to ignore the dozen or so love letters you received every day, why did you choose to read this one? Didn't you open it specifically because you knew who wrote it?"
Cheng Zhishu: "..."
The teacher's words made so much sense that she couldn't refute them.
Ms. Wu looked distressed: "No, I need to talk to your parents about this. You're already in your senior year of high school, Zhishu. You can't let temporary feelings caused by hormones ruin your most important time."
"When you get to university and enter the workforce, there will be many more and better people waiting for you."
"Your teacher just doesn't want you to have any regrets because of this relationship. I've seen too many people regret it."
but.
Instead of completely eliminating the factors that corrupted her favorite student's moral character, the homeroom teacher summoned the people who had corrupted her favorite student's moral character!
It was still done by calling the parents.
Regarding this early romance that had already fizzled out, Teacher Wu was determined to make a decision. Considering Xi Congshuang's mobility issues, she even changed the meeting place to the first-floor conference room in order to call her parents over.
First, there are no other teachers nearby, so it won't embarrass Cheng Zhishu.
Secondly, Xi Congshuang's wheelchair can enter.
This issue needs to be discussed properly. Teacher Wu is aware of Cheng Zhishu's family background and also knows that Cheng Zhishu doesn't actually have that many choices in life, and her margin for error is less than that of other students.
Studying hard and getting into a good university is her best way out right now.
Ms. Wu was moving too fast, and Cheng Zhishu was powerless to stop her. After a series of illogical questions and answers, the security guard informed the parents that they had arrived at the door.
The previous security guard was dismissed for dereliction of duty, and the new one is much more responsible than the previous one, so the same thing won't happen again.
"Zhi Shu, go and bring Miss Xi over. I hope you can take the initiative to explain the situation to Miss Xi."
Teacher Wu asked Cheng Zhishu to pick up the parents in person, and she went.
Her slender figure walked through the night, leaving the teachers' lectures in the classrooms behind. Then she saw the familiar car again.
The first time I saw this car was on a rainy day.
A beautiful woman, exuding the scent of medicine, sat in the car and reached out her hand. She vaguely felt that this must be the very beginning of her heart fluttering.
When Cheng Zhishu saw the person getting out of the car and met Xi Congshuang's gaze, she realized that she hadn't looked at her closely in a long time.
When exactly did it begin?
Everything began in this tacit understanding, with each side drifting apart, only to unexpectedly collide again.
Has she already chosen a marriage partner?
Xi Congshuang's beauty mark under her eye was captivating. She opened her mouth and asked, "Who is that person? Is it Shangguan Yin again?"
Cheng Zhishu: "..."
No, it wasn't her.
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