Chapter 49
A headline on one page of a newspaper read, "Former CFO of the Concord Group was found hanged in his Vancouver apartment in the early hours of the 25th."
Mu Zhengxi stood in front of the door, his hand on the doorknob, hesitating for a long time before finally deciding to press the button.
"Are you alright?"
Hearing the sound, Zeng Yuan stopped in her tracks. She looked up and saw Mu Zhengxi standing by the railing. Her face darkened. "This is not something you should be concerned about. Go to sleep early."
Unsurprisingly, he received a cold, hard tone and a furrowed brow in an impatient expression. Mu Zhengxi sneered inwardly, turned around without hesitation, and stopped pursuing him as he had done before.
But soon another sound came from behind.
"It's all taken care of. Don't overthink it. Just focus on doing your own thing."
Mu Zhengxi entered the room and leaned against the door.
His own business, what counts as his own business, and what counts as someone else's business, so is he actually someone else?
The final closed training camp will begin in late June and last for a week.
The SAT scores are out, and Mu Zhengxi's total score is 2168. Zeng Yuan is not very satisfied with this score, as is he. However, due to his tight schedule in the first half of the year, he plans to retake the test in October.
Jiang Jiawei's final exam week also arrived.
The exam lasted two days, and the results were released one after another that evening. By the afternoon of the next day, the teachers' office was crowded with people.
Jiang Jiawei ranked fifteenth in the grade. She didn't move up, but she didn't fall down either, which is some consolation. This semester, her grades have remained stable in the top twenty.
Improving grades is like climbing a mountain; the closer you get to the summit, the heavier and slower your steps become, and you have to exert all your strength to lift your foot.
"Zhang Chao is really amazing, he made it into the top 100 this time." Chen Jingyu exclaimed with admiration, but also felt strange and regretful, saying, "But why did Xu Yue do so poorly on the test..."
What surprised the teachers most about this year's report card was that Xu Yue, who had always been in the top three of the grade, had suddenly fallen to outside the top thirties. This decline was undoubtedly like a slide. Today, although her mother tried to keep a calm demeanor in the office, everyone could feel the low pressure in her eyes, which was not a smile on her face.
"Aren't you two supposed to be taking classes together in the Elite Foundation Program?"
Jiang Jiawei: "We rarely see each other. I'm usually with Yiting, and she's usually with Yihua."
Yi Hua was the top student in their grade in humanities and was also Xu Yue's deskmate from junior high to high school.
The reason Xu Yue and I had any interaction before was because when she was dating Zhang Chao, it was sometimes inconvenient for her to act as a go-between to pass on messages. She and Xu Yue would greet each other and chat for a bit when they met on the street, but they would never go out for milk tea together.
Chen Jingyu took her arm and said, "But it's strange, Yi Hua said that Xu Yue has been spending less time with her lately."
Yi Hua lives upstairs from Chen Jingyu, and the two are quite familiar with each other.
Jiang Jiawei suddenly remembered, "She often asked for leave from the third period in the evenings during this period, and sometimes she didn't come on Saturday mornings either."
On another occasion, she even saw Xu Yue arguing loudly with her mother at the school gate because she woke up late. In the end, Xu Yue cried and walked away.
"If you dare not go today, don't even think about coming home again!"
After Xu Yue left, her mother sat by the flower bed at the school gate and cried. This was the first time Jiang Jiawei had seen Teacher Zheng, who was usually decisive and efficient, looking disheveled with her hair down.
Jiang Jiawei then entered the school through a different gate.
Chen Jingyu asked, "Did you notice anything unusual about her?"
Jiang Jiawei thought for a moment, "I didn't think so..."
"Forget it, one bad test result doesn't mean anything." Chen Jingyu changed the subject. "Do you have classes during summer vacation too?"
"It seems like it will start in early July, with half-day sessions for fifteen days, followed by another fifteen days in August." Jiang Jiawei asked, "When are you going to Haizhou for training?"
"My mom said she'll go on the 5th."
"Will she go and take care of you?"
"No, that area is a boarding school with unified management."
The two entered the classroom while talking.
In addition to the school's advanced class, Jiang Jiawei enrolled in another math tutoring class on her own. Xu Yue was also in the same tutoring class, and even Zhang Chao went there, but Zhang Chao was in the basic class and not in the same classroom.
The anomaly was discovered at this point.
Having met in the classroom, the two naturally became deskmates. However, Xu Yue only attended classes as usual for the first few days before frequently arriving late or leaving early.
Jiang Jiawei couldn't remember which day it was, but she happened to see Xu Yue sitting on a motorcycle downstairs, smoking and puffing away. He was clearly one of those high school dropouts and hoodlums. Then she saw Xu Yue, who had said he was going to the bathroom, appear. Xu Yue took a cigarette from one of the hands, lit it skillfully, and got on the back of the motorcycle and left.
The day after she arrived, she encountered Zhang Chao, who was injured, on her way home from get out of class.
The exhaust fumes from the motorcycles speeding past were pungent, and several people were whistling lewdly at her. Zhang Chao reached out and pulled her to the inside, glaring fiercely at them.
Sitting in the back seat, Xu Yue punched the person in front of her, "Why are you whistling at her? Are you out of your mind?!"
The person, grinning and shrinking back, said, "Jealous? Okay, okay, I bet she's your ex-boyfriend's girlfriend—"
"Stop spreading rumors!"
"Okay, okay~ I was wrong, I'm sorry~"
Zhang Chao lowered his head and remained silent.
Having been classmates for so long, Jiang Jiawei had never seen Zhang Chao like this before. She cautiously asked, "Are you alright?"
The person forced a smile and said, "It's alright, I'll take you home."
"Zhang Chao, let me treat you to some ice cream."
"never mind-"
Jiang Jiawei pulled him straight into the shaved ice shop they were passing by, saying, "You can order anything. My dad just gave me some pocket money today."
Zhang Chao chuckled as he looked at her, "How could I refuse the class representative's kindness? I'll definitely order the most expensive one!"
Jiang Jiawei readily agreed, "No problem!"
Order placed.
Jiang Jiawei started the conversation by asking, "Does your class have a lot of homework?"
"It's alright, not too many. Are yours difficult?"
Jiang Jiawei nodded, looking disappointed. The teachers who taught the courses were former students from No. 1 Middle School, and they were being taught at the level of top students from No. 1 Middle School.
Jiang Jiawei suddenly thought of something, "Do you want our practice? I'll organize it and you can print a copy."
“Okay,” Zhang Chao said. “Then you need it, but never mind, you probably don’t need the basic course.”
"Of course I want it! My classmates are all very quick to react, and I often can't keep up because my basic knowledge is not solid."
"Then I'll print out a copy of the information for you later."
Okay~
The staff brought over the smoothies they ordered.
Zhang Chao: "How is Chen Jingyu? Is she adjusting well to life in Haizhou?"
"She said it was more painful than going to school. They had to gather at seven in the morning, and some classmates would practice in the music room until eleven at night, which made her afraid to sleep."
"So how long is she going to stay there?"
"They said it would be until the end of August, but now they say it might be extended until after we start school."
Zhang Chao joked, "Then you're not alone."
"Haha, yeah."
"Why hasn't Zhengxi come back? It feels like it's been ages since I've seen him."
To be honest, Zhang Chao hadn't been in contact with Mu Zhengxi for a while because he'd been busy lately.
"He went to participate in a physics competition; he had been in closed training camp beforehand."
Have you kept in touch?
Jiang Jiawei, with a slushy filling her mouth, hummed in agreement.
Zhang Chao raised an eyebrow slightly, suddenly feeling a sense of relief.
Zhang Chao saw Jiang Jiawei raise her hand to greet the people outside the window. Following her gaze, he saw Liu Xinze passing by.
Liu Xinze's gaze lingered on him, a look of disdain as if he were looking at trash that shouldn't be there. Zhang Chao and Xu Yue had received that kind of look many times when they were together, and he could recognize it at a glance.
Liu Xinze did not respond to Jiang Jiawei's greeting and walked away.
Jiang Jiawei found it a bit strange; it shouldn't be that she didn't see it. But it didn't matter, since Liu Xinze's temper was different from others anyway.
"Student Committee Member".
Zhang Chao spoke in a hoarse voice, his head lowered, his demeanor clearly different from before.
He said, "Xu Yue is not a bad student. I led her astray. I'm sorry."
The subsequent apology was addressed to both Xu Yue and Jiang Jiawei.
Jiang Jiawei's hand holding the spoon froze in mid-air, her eyes wide with confusion.
"But I've never thought of you or Xu Yue as any kind of bad student."
These words made Zhang Chao, who was about to get up, sit down.
His unfocused gaze dared not meet Jiang Jiawei's eyes, who was sitting opposite him.
Until Jiang Jiawei smiled at him, the same friendly smile she gave everyone, just like always.
Xu Yue, who was labeled as decadent by adults, would tell her that smoking tasted bad when she asked curiously what it tasted like, and told her not to try it. When she missed her tutoring class because she was not feeling well, Xu Yue would not only help her get practice materials but also take notes for her. Xu Yue would also tell her to pretend that she did not know her when she went downstairs in the future.
Zhang Chao, whose grades were a headache for every subject teacher and whose future seemed hopeless, would seriously tell her not to study this subject when she was curious about what it felt like to skip class, saying that she was a candidate to get into a top university. He would help her carry heavy workbooks from the office, and would also run outside the school to buy her canned pineapple after learning that she had suffered from heatstroke.
Jiang Jiawei doesn't know if many people judge good or bad students solely by their grades, but she knows what kind of people can be her friends.
Jiang Jiawei lowered her head and stirred the melted ice water.
"Actually, I'm the unfit friend. I covered for you when you skipped class and even let you copy my homework. I didn't fulfill my responsibility to properly encourage you to study."
Jiang Jiawei said softly, "I'm sorry, Zhang Chao."
Upon hearing this, the person who had turned their head and smiled immediately raised their hand to cover their face, and Jiang Jiawei saw Zhang Chao's trembling shoulders.
The cicadas chirping loudly in the banyan trees along the street herald the height of summer.
Sometimes, growth is just a fleeting moment.
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