Chapter 11
After taking a shower that evening, Song Qiuxuan walked back to her bedroom with her half-dry black hair. Bored, she picked up her phone and sat on the bed, scrolling through a few videos. She quickly swiped through several videos that didn't interest her, until she came across a girl holding a badminton racket and taking pictures next to the stadium.
After instinctively swiping past the comment, Song Qiuxuan quickly went back and gave it a thumbs up.
The last time they played badminton was a week after the middle school entrance exam. Sun Shan accompanied her to the gymnasium, but because Sun Shan wasn't very enthusiastic about badminton and didn't like physically demanding sports, she declined when Song Qiuxuan invited her to go again a week later.
Badminton is a rare sport that Song Qiuxuan enjoys, a hobby that was introduced to her by her neighbor.
During the summer before entering junior high school, she often played badminton with her neighbor after sunset when the sun wasn't so strong. However, after her neighbor got into university, her whole family moved away, and no matter how much Song Qiuxuan loved playing badminton, no one accompanied her anymore.
Song Qiuxuan hovered her fingertips over the phone screen, her eyes sparkling as she looked at the photo. Suddenly, she had a strong urge to play badminton. Her gaze fell on the badminton racket in the photo; it was a very beautiful racket. She knew a little about it and that this brand of badminton racket was not cheap.
Song Qiuxuan exited the chat app, opened the chat application, and scrolled around on the screen, but couldn't change the fact that she had very few friends. She opened the chat interface with Sun Shan and sent her a message asking what she planned to do this weekend.
Sun Shan quickly replied: I'm watching TV series at home and I still have to do my weekend homework (crying emoji).
Song Qiuxuan: Okay.
Song Qiuxuan couldn't think of anyone who would be willing to play badminton with her. She walked to her desk, put down her phone, picked up her schoolbag, unzipped it, and planned to take out the workbooks and test papers she would take to the library tomorrow at noon.
Song Qiuxuan placed her math workbook and English vocabulary book on her desk. She rummaged through her schoolbag, frowned in confusion, and muttered, "Where are the unit test papers that the English teacher handed out?"
Song Qiuxuan thought for a moment and vaguely remembered that she had casually slipped it into her textbook. At the time, she thought she would definitely remember to put it in her schoolbag. However, she was overconfident and forgot when school was over. The teacher said that this unit test paper had to be handed in during Monday morning reading. Helpless and a little annoyed, she threw her schoolbag on the chair, picked up her phone and asked her classmates for help. She asked her classmates to take a picture and send it to her. She wrote the answers on the draft paper so that she could quickly copy them when she got to school.
But in reality, Song Qiuxuan didn't add many classmates as QQ friends. There was only Lu Chengzhou who took the initiative to add her on the first night of school. Given Lu Chengzhou's carefree personality, he probably added all the classmates.
If it weren't for the little argument with Lu Chengzhou on Thursday, Song Qiuxuan might have asked him for help. But after that, the atmosphere between the two became a bit strange. Song Qiuxuan was resentful and didn't take the initiative to talk to him, and he deliberately avoided making eye contact with her. When passing her homework and test papers, he would just raise his hand and hand them to her without leaning back even slightly.
Song Qiuxuan opened WeChat and her eyes fell on Cheng Xun's profile picture. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if Cheng Xun would bring his weekend homework home. In the end, she decided to ask first.
Song Qiuxuan typed: Did you bring your English unit test paper home? I forgot to bring it back. If you did, could you take a picture and send me a copy?
At the same time, Cheng Xun was playing a game intensely. Because he lied and said he had eaten dinner at the mall, he hadn't eaten anything after returning home, which made him very hungry. After the game ended and the screen showed that he had won, Cheng Xun took off his headphones, rubbed his slightly messy hair, picked up his phone and walked out of the bedroom, thinking of going to the supermarket downstairs in the community to buy a cup of instant noodles.
Stepping out of the bedroom, Cheng Xun saw Zhang Yuyun cleaning up the mess in the living room after the birthday celebration. She was taking down the colorful balloons stuck to the living room wall, which she had probably stuck there while standing on a chair, and now that she was standing on the floor, she was clearly struggling.
Cheng Xun walked over and deftly took down all the remaining balloons.
Holding a balloon, Zhang Yuyun looked at Cheng Xun standing beside her in surprise. It was only because of this distance that Zhang Yuyun realized that Cheng Xun was a head taller than her. She was a little dazed. Had she not paid much attention to Cheng Xun's growth, or had he grown too fast? In her memory, he was only half a head taller than her.
"How is high school? Is there any major difference compared to junior high?" Zhang Yuyun suddenly asked him this out of the blue.
Cheng Xun flicked the balloon to the ground, paused, and said casually, "Isn't going to school always like that? I'm sleepy in every class."
Zhang Yuyun frowned slightly. This answer instantly wiped away the guilt she felt for neglecting and failing to care for Cheng Xun as a mother.
She said with a hint of annoyance, "Don't stay up late playing games at night. Your grades are already bad. If you keep dozing off in class and continue to study inefficiently like this, your grades will be a mess in three years, and you won't even be able to get into a second-tier university."
Cheng Xun stood in front of Zhang Yuyun, looking at her expression, which seemed to be both angry and helpless because she had foreseen his incompetent future. It seemed that saying these words had exhausted her, and her face showed signs of fatigue.
Cheng Xun looked at her silently. After his phone was confiscated by his homeroom teacher in the third year of junior high, Zhang Yuyun had stopped nagging him about his grades. So he found it strange today, and this feeling even overshadowed his other feelings.
Looking at Cheng Xun's unyielding and silent demeanor, Zhang Yuyun lowered her head and murmured to herself, "Your grades were so good back in the first year of junior high, why are you becoming more and more disobedient? Before, I hoped you would be like Cheng Ting, but now the feeling that you can't catch up with Cheng Ting is becoming clearer and clearer."
As soon as he finished speaking, Cheng Xun's lips curled slightly, revealing a hint of mockery.
They hoped he would be just like Cheng Ting, ideally just as outstanding, with the same sensible, obedient, cheerful, and outgoing personality. Through comparison and suppression, they didn't allow Cheng Xun to have his own personality, and they wholeheartedly hoped that Cheng Xun would grow up to be like Cheng Ting.
This idea was so strong that Cheng Xun seemed to have lost its meaning until she became another Cheng Ting. So when a neighbor casually remarked that if Cheng Xun hadn't been born, if the second child had been a daughter, and without the troublesome Cheng Xun, the family would have been happier and more harmonious, she didn't utter a single word of objection, and even nodded in agreement.
Cheng Xun disliked being compared to others. He lowered his eyes, thinking that he should be communicating with Zhang Yuyun properly at this moment, but he just said indifferently, "What's so good about having two identical sons? No one would choose to raise two identical cats."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
