“Do I need to guess?” Lin He could estimate her daughter’s movement patterns based on time. “You came back so quickly, you couldn’t have been just walking around the neighborhood. But isn’t Chi Yao away during the break? Something about visiting relatives because of some family matter? If he’s not home, what were you doing at his place?”
Chi Yao.
Her childhood friend.
The arrogant person from the chat earlier.
They had known each other since they were very young.
The Chi family lived in the building across from hers, less than three minutes away.
She could even see his curtained windows from her bedroom window.
Lin Zhexia slowly stuffed food into her mouth, genuinely embarrassed to admit she had gone to test Chi Yao’s new projector on her own. Plus, staying at home during the break often meant enduring various lectures from Lin He, so she made up an excuse: “He… he said he left in a hurry and couldn’t remember if he closed the windows, so he asked me to check.”
Lin He didn’t suspect anything.
As a “soon-to-be high school freshman,” Lin Zhexia was enjoying her break quite freely.
She had done well on her high school entrance exams, graduated from middle school, and naturally had no homework during the break.
Lin He clearly couldn’t stand seeing her daughter so carefree: “I bought you some high school textbooks. Start studying from this summer break, so you won’t fall behind after school starts.”
“…” Lin Zhexia swallowed her food. “High school… textbooks?”
“The early bird catches the worm, you should understand this principle.”
Lin Zhexia defended herself: “I got into the district’s key high school, the same as Chi Yao. I’m not exactly a slow learner.”
The results had already been released, along with each school’s admission score requirements.
Lin Zhexia’s previous mock exam scores had been fluctuating: rocketing up when she encountered suitable exam papers and remaining average with unsuitable ones, making it impossible for anyone to predict her final score until the very end.
Fortunately, the final exam paper suited her well.
Lin He concluded: “That was just an exceptional performance, a chance event.”
“Besides, how dare you mention being in the same school as Chi Yao?”
Lin He spoke slowly, with a hint of disbelief in her tone: “Although you’re in the same school, you barely made it past the admission line, while he exceeded it by over ninety points.”
“…”
Lin Zhexia felt the food in her mouth becoming difficult to swallow.
“But it’s strange,” Lin He changed the topic, “with such a high score, he could have gone to No. 1 High School. Why would he stay here?”
No. 1 High School was Lianyun City’s key high school.
Lin Zhexia hadn’t applied to the city’s school, firstly because she couldn’t get in, and secondly because it was too far from home.
Mainly because she couldn’t get in.
She had firmly applied to No. 2 High School. Though the two schools only differed by one stroke in their names, the score threshold differed by quite a margin.
Although she and Chi Yao were childhood friends, they had only attended the same elementary school. Back then, she always hung out with the boys, which made Lin He feel her personality wasn’t very girlish, so after elementary school, she was sent to an all-girls school.
Now that her all-girls school days were over, she would finally be attending the same school as him again after all this time.
Lin Zhexia thought for a moment: “Maybe it’s because it’s closer to home.”
After saying this, she tried to change the subject. Noticing only she and Lin He at the dining table, she asked: “Where’s Uncle Wei?”
The Lin family was a blended family. Lin’s father had left when she was very young, and Lin He had raised her alone with great difficulty. When she was seven, Lin He met Uncle Wei. It was also because of the family restructuring that Lin Zhexia had moved to this neighborhood at the age of seven.
“Your Uncle Wei has something at the company,” Lin He said, putting some food on her plate. “He’ll probably be back later.”
After serving the food, Lin He circled back to the previous topic: “Will three textbooks be enough? I heard high school is indeed much more difficult, and many people are hiring tutors.”
“Three books are… more than enough.”
“You have nothing to do during the break anyway; being idle is just being idle.”
Lin Zhexia held her rice bowl; the food had become too difficult to swallow—
In the days that followed, Lin Zhexia’s life became miserable.
The days of hiding in Chi Yao’s home to use his projector were gone forever.
Before her now were three textbooks: “Selected: Summer Enhancement Training,” “Early Entry to High School,” and “One Hundred Mental Training Questions.”
Twenty pages every day.
Every. Day.
555—
Life is pressuring me—
I’m suffering—
I can’t go on
During a break from her exercises, Lin Zhexia pressed her phone under the textbook and poked at the screen, typing character by character:—
I’m about to be crushed.
The person on the other end responded with his consistently arrogant attitude—