8 Chapter Seven
I want to change the world.
Li Yingqiao's fame lasted until they graduated from Huacheng Elementary School. From that year on, the children of Huacheng rarely called her "Tank" anymore; they all unanimously started calling her their idol, and even made up a rhyme about her that could supposedly be carved out of a Disney castle on the spot—
My idol is Xiaofang.
Passing through the alley, chiseling through the light.
Her eyes were round and bright.
Bad people are terrified when they see her.
My idol is Xiaofang.
It can fight wolves and can pass through walls.
The two braids were very long.
All the human traffickers were caught.
...
At first, Li Yingqiao felt very proud, but later she felt very embarrassed. As soon as someone started to start, she would immediately run away with her tail between her legs. If there was a wall in front of her, she could really run through it.
Every time Li Shuli heard them singing like that, she would curse them out. That day, the police came to her door and said that with her daughter's help, they had successfully arrested a group of human traffickers who had recently been committing crimes in Fengtan. Hearing this, she was terrified and her knees went weak.
After the police explained the situation to her, they repeatedly praised Qiaoqiao's intelligence and resourcefulness. Li Shuli, who had seen those vicious criminals, couldn't believe that such a shocking thing would happen to her daughter. She was no longer rational and grabbed the officer, bombarding him with three questions: "Have the human traffickers been caught? Will they retaliate against my daughter? How much information do they know about my daughter?"
The police, of course, understood her feelings as a mother and quickly offered a few words of comfort, but could only smile wryly and say, "We can't possibly catch them all. However, all of the criminals who committed crimes in Fengtan have now been apprehended. We will also do our best to protect Qiaoqiao's information and safety."
However, two reporters still managed to find their address with the vague information, and from then on, people came to interview them in droves, almost reaching a height that ordinary people could never reach in their lifetime.
Li Shuli knew very well that Qiaoqiao was just a little clever and never thought of making her daughter a hero praised by everyone. Ever since the day the police came to her door, Li Shuli had to buy an extra newspaper every day to check if there were any human traffickers committing crimes in Fengtan recently. The TV was always broadcasting local news from Fengtan.
She hasn't had a good night's sleep since then, often staying awake until dawn. As soon as she hears the slightest noise from the roller shutter, she immediately gets up to check if her daughter is still in bed.
Li Yingqiao would still occasionally hide under the covers and eat potato chips, making a "crunching" sound in the quiet room. However, before, she was careful not to let her mother find out, but later she chewed them in big bites, afraid that her mother wouldn't notice.
Much later, when Li Yingqiao had gone to university in Beijing, Li Shuli was packing up her shop to reopen. Her knees, which were kneeling on the ground, were aching slightly. As she was about to get up with a pile of old Fengtan Daily newspapers, several sheets of yellowed sesame oil paper, some still stained with oil, suddenly fell out from these yellowed, worn pages.
When Qiaoqiao was little, she was mischievous. While others folded origami cranes from white paper for lung capacity tests in gym class, she insisted on using the oil paper used to wrap sesame cakes. She liked the oily aroma, which made blowing on them a satisfying treat. Li Shuli never imagined that her daughter would still treasure so many oil papers. Just as she was about to throw them away, she noticed two lines of childish handwriting written on the back of each piece of paper—
Wind-stopping talisman.
The roller shutter door remains stationary.
When Li Yingqiao was very young, she had nightmares for a while. Li Shuli got her a yellow talisman and stuck it under her pillow, and the nightmares were actually driven away. Li Yingqiao probably followed suit and even drew the same kind of scribbling on it, just like the original talisman.
I drew many, but they all failed.
There had to be one that was successful; she couldn't possibly draw a bunch of scraps of paper. She was always competitive. Sure enough, Li Shuli found the only successful drawing on the yellow paper under the stone behind the roller shutter.
Li Shuli rarely cried; she was very strong-willed. That was the first time she couldn't hold back her tears. Her knees buckled, and she couldn't get up from the ground. She simply lay on the ground and cried bitterly.
She couldn't recall for a moment when the stone had been placed there; she only remembered that they had moved away from the small painting town very quickly.
After finally getting Li Yingqiao into elementary school, unsurprisingly, she didn't get into the Experimental Middle School and would likely go to Xiancheng No. 2 Middle School. No wonder Li Shuli was on edge; as soon as the entrance exams for junior high school were over, reporters lurked around like beasts smelling blood, squatting at the entrance of Xiaohua City, trying to find out about Qiaoqiao's grades.
She was also very clear that Qiaoqiao's grades would cast a shadow over her heroic aura and become a point of contention for others. So, without saying a word, Li Shuli closed the grocery store and moved away from Xiaohua Town with her.
Li Yingqiao's heroic era has thus come to an end.
At Xiancheng No. 2 Middle School, no one knows that Xiao Fang, the hero who once made headlines throughout the city and appeared on the front page of the Fengtan Daily for helping the police catch a group of human traffickers, is actually Li Yingqiao.
Her classmates no longer viewed her with prejudice; she was just an ordinary student. She no longer tried to stand out or act like a hero. As long as they didn't cross her, she wouldn't bother with them.
Bullying is a serious problem at Xiancheng No. 2 Middle School. Students are frequently dragged into the toilets and bullied, subjected to vicious and outrageous acts such as slapping and tearing clothes. The teachers are helpless; they have tried reprimanding and scolding, giving daily instructions, but they cannot completely eradicate this trend.
Li Yingqiao spends her days reading novels, watching anime, and reading comics. She is half-hearted about her studies. As the adults in Xiaohuacheng said, once she entered Xiancheng No. 2 Middle School, her future was already determined. Whether she would go to a vocational high school or work in a factory tightening screws was just a matter of time.
She never returned to Xiaohua City and never saw Yu Jinyang and the others again.
All she knew was that Yu Jinyang ranked third in the county's entrance exam for junior high school and was admitted to the Experimental Middle School. Yu Renjie treated everyone in Xiaohua City to a meal at a large restaurant in the city. She and her mother moved away after the exam and missed the feast.
After Gao Dian was almost abducted, his grades plummeted, and he went to study in another city with his parents. Zheng Miaojia also got into the Experimental Middle School, just barely making the cut-off score.
To make it easier for her to attend school, Ms. Li Shuli insisted on moving to a farmers' market near Xiancheng No. 2 Middle School, almost spanning the entire Fengtan area. Her life was extremely monotonous; every day she would only travel between school and home, staying within a hundred meters of the farmers' market. She felt like a donkey tied to a millstone, just going around and around the farmers' market every day.
Let alone meeting up with Yu Jinyang and the others, even seeing classmates from No. 2 Middle School requires walking through two more intersections.
Until she met Teacher Liang Mei one day. Li Shuli never made any demands on her studies, she only hoped that she would grow up healthy and happy. The sentence she said to her most often was, "Even if you never work in your life, Mom will still support you."
She didn't have to do anything to get all of Li Shuli's love and attention, so naturally she wouldn't think of putting effort into her studies.
It was Teacher Liang Mei who somehow found them. Her mother was afraid that her information would be exposed and that she would be retaliated against by human traffickers, so she did not tell anyone around her their new address after moving, and even once thought about changing her name.
This was the only time in Li Yingqiao's life that she truly couldn't understand Li Shuli's extreme paranoia, and she yelled at her, "Why should I pay for your constant worrying?!"
She regretted yelling immediately, wishing she could scratch herself to death, though she still didn't understand why she had acted that way. But after that, Li Shuli never mentioned changing her name again.
The day Teacher Liang Mei came to visit, Li Yingqiao was curled up on the sofa watching a hot-blooded anime. The protagonist was shouting that she would change this messed-up world with her bare hands! Just as she was getting into it, the doorbell rang. Li Shuli thought it was the plumber coming to fix the pipes, so she told her to open the door without turning her head from the kitchen. But she found Liang Mei standing at the door.
It wasn't until she saw Liang Mei that Li Yingqiao realized how much she missed her carefree days in Little Painting City. Even the stench of dead fish and rotten shrimp in Madman's Harbor was something she longed to return to. It was like enduring a long rainy season only to finally be greeted by the blazing sun. When she saw Liang Mei, she exclaimed with delight, "Teacher Liang!"
That night, she didn't know what Teacher Liang Mei and her mother talked about, but her mother actually agreed to let Teacher Liang Mei take her out to play for a while. When Teacher Liang Mei led her away, she left an envelope on the table. Li Yingqiao noticed it, and only after the two of them left did she ask, "Teacher Liang, what did you put on our table?"
They hadn't seen each other for almost two years. Li Yingqiao was about to enter her third year of junior high school, and her figure was starting to grow taller. However, she still had baby fat on her face, which still showed signs of immaturity. Although she had delicate features and her hair was neatly styled in a high bun, she still had curly baby hair on her forehead. She was naturally curly like Li Shuli, which made her look even more charming than before.
In contrast, Liang Mei's transformation is truly shocking. In just two years, she has become almost unrecognizable, and her once angular jawline is now almost sharp. Conversely, her once sharp eyes have softened considerably.
Liang Mei was very glad that she made this decision today, because she met Li Yingqiao.
She didn't answer her question. Standing at the entrance of the farmers' market, filled with the pungent smell of various live poultry, she glanced around before finally settling on a stall owner selling live chickens and ducks. She asked her a question in return: "Li Yingqiao, have you ever thought about what you want to do in the future? Open a shop like your mother, or stay in the farmers' market for the rest of your life? Or let me ask you another question: have you ever thought about what kind of person you want to become in the future?"
“If you answer me, I will answer your question,” Liang Mei said again.
Li Yingqiao hadn't really thought about it, but a line from the shonen anime she'd just watched suddenly popped into her head. She figured that since the teacher had asked her that question, he must want to hear her passionate answer: "I want to change the world!"
"How to change it? Change it in the farmers' market? That's too general. Give me something more specific. For example, when shaving the feathers of chickens, ducks and geese, give them a more presentable appearance. That's also a way to change the world."
Li Yingqiao: "..."
Liang Mei knew she hadn't thought things through, but that didn't stop her from laughing out loud. Looking at her, she said, "Let me take you somewhere, and then you can think carefully about how to answer me. As for your question earlier, I can answer it first. That was your mother's salary for driving the refrigerated truck at the school."
Li Yingqiao only found out about this after she moved away from Xiaohua City. The school had asked her mother to help transport refrigerated trucks, but they hadn't paid her. She initially thought it was just a few days' work and wouldn't mind if they didn't pay her, but her mother worked there for a whole year without any compensation. Her mother was terrified of the reporters around that time, afraid that people would use it against her, so she endured everything and absolutely refused to let her go back to the school to cause trouble.
Unexpectedly, Teacher Liang still remembered. Li Yingqiao said, "Oh? You helped us get it back? Did the school give you any trouble?"
“I resigned a long time ago,” Liang Mei said without turning her head, leading her across the street. “Okay, don’t ask any more questions, I won’t answer them anymore.”
Back then, Fengtan didn't have any five-star hotels, but there was a rather grand, state-run hotel in the city center, decorated in a magnificent style. It seems that Uncle Yu held a graduation banquet for Yu Jinyang at this hotel last time.
Li Yingqiao followed Liang Mei out of the taxi. As soon as they crossed the road, she caught a glimpse of the huge Roman column at the entrance of the hotel, which was so large that the two of them couldn't wrap their arms around it. Several gleaming black official cars were parked next to it, as if some important people were having a meeting inside.
“Teacher Liang,” Li Yingqiao quickly called out to her, refusing to take another step forward, “No, please, I don’t have any money! And please don’t treat me to such an expensive meal, I suspect you have ulterior motives.”
"Don't doubt it, I do have ulterior motives towards you," Liang Mei smiled quite frankly, but glanced at the state-run restaurant. "I've also invited a friend you haven't seen in a long time. Would you like to go in and have a chat with him?"
[Author's Note]
Here I am! I'm updating early today, the next update will be the day after tomorrow!
Finally, it's almost time to get to the main content!! La la la la la~
I'm giving away 200 small red envelopes today as a reward to myself.
[Stand-up ear rabbit head][Stand-up ear rabbit head][Stand-up ear rabbit head]
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