Zhou Xiu treated livestreaming very casually. Once she started the livestream, she focused seriously on doing her homework. When she finished, she turned it off. She had no idea what had been happening in her livestream room during this time.
Zhou Xiu finished all ten sets of test papers Old Wang had given her in one go, and the system kept tipping her.
[Ding — completed Old Wang’s test paper with an accuracy rate above 80%. Reward: 200 RMB.]
[Ding — completed Old Wang’s test paper with an accuracy rate above 80%. Reward: 200 RMB.]
……
That day, Zhou Xiu was completely focused on doing test papers. She was so busy that she did not even have time to touch the money in her pocket. As soon as the RMB appeared, it turned into tips in the livestream room.
“‘YH’ tipped the streamer ‘Xiu Xiu Must Study Hard’ four planes.”
……
“‘YH’ tipped the streamer ‘Xiu Xiu Must Study Hard’ four planes.”
Within one day, “YH” sent Xiu Xiu forty planes. Every time she finished one test paper, it threw out four. It made other study streamers of the same type terribly envious.
Zhou Xiu’s hands were not particularly pretty. They were used to doing heavy labour, and no matter how much hand cream she applied, they could not return to their original state.
On top of that, Zhou Xiu never spoke. Even her fans assumed she was an ordinary-looking student.
The popularity of the female streamer who had recently gone viral for writing test papers had gradually faded. At first, her fans had come to watch her do homework because of her figure. But after the bonus period of showing her face and body passed, her popularity dropped very quickly.
She clicked into Zhou Xiu’s livestream room and saw that “YH” had actually tipped nearly ten thousand yuan in just one short week. She became jealous.
She could not help opening a side account to complain:
“Boring. Not interesting at all.”
“This is obviously someone getting relatives and friends to tip her.”
“She only shows her hands every day. She doesn’t dare speak, doesn’t dare show her face or figure. She’s definitely ugly.”
The fan “Work Hard to Reach National Gold,” who had come to camp in Zhou Xiu’s livestream to watch her solve biology competition questions, felt uncomfortable when he saw this and left a comment:
“Do you even know what the streamer is writing?”
Among the many study streamers, it was rare to see such a serious, refreshing stream of pure dedication, yet she was being scolded by the appearance-obsessed crowd? “Work Hard to Reach National Gold” felt upset.
As the saying went, outsiders watched the excitement, while insiders understood the skill.
People who did not understand competitions truly could not grasp how impressive the streamer was. People who were bad at maths also could not sit through a livestream like this.
The streamer was writing modified questions from the Mathematics League!
Students who had once given up because maths competitions were too difficult now saw this big boss still writing maths competition papers, and a surge of admiration rose in their hearts.
Among those who had signed up for the biology league, who wasn’t currently sharpening their minds and desperately memorising more than a dozen biology books?
Yet at this critical moment, the streamer still had time to write maths competition papers.
And she had started writing at noon, all the way until nine at night. Apart from resting and eating, she basically spent all her time writing. Someone who used her time so precisely and had such astonishing self-control was simply admirable to death, okay?
During his revision stage, whenever “Work Hard to Reach National Gold” slackened even slightly, he would come and watch Xiu Xiu’s livestream. After watching, he would feel filled with strength again.
Originally, he had not known how to revise during the final stage. But after watching the streamer’s videos, he felt like a ship sailing blindly across the sea had finally found a guiding light. He had found his own revision rhythm.
Watching the streamer memorise, write test papers, and do experiments felt as though he was revising everything once again himself. Where else could he find such an effortless way to review?
He was even afraid that this new streamer would be discouraged and stop streaming in the future. He wanted to recommend her to all his classmates.
“‘Work Hard to Reach National Gold’ tipped the streamer five planes.”
He and the streamer shared the same dream.
He was going to study.
……
That evening.
Zhou Xiu returned from school to the urban village. Zhou Cheng and his wife had not yet closed the stall. Liu Mei scooped a bowl of chicken soup and blanched a bowl of golden-thread noodles for dinner.
Zhou Cheng cheerfully finished eating the last remaining chicken drumstick. A customer who had just finished a night shift came to the stall and asked, “Boss, do you still have noodles?”
Zhou Cheng gave an “ai.” He had not even had time to eat dinner, but he quickly stood up and replied, “Yes, yes, we do. Wait a moment.”
“Dad, you eat.” Zhou Xiu walked over to the noodle stall, put down her schoolbag, and skilfully cooked a bowl of noodles for the customer.
The customer had originally been somewhat unwilling to let a secondary school student cook his noodles for him. Unexpectedly, as soon as he turned his head, he saw a pretty girl standing in front of the stall, rolling up her sleeves and putting on gloves before blanching the noodles in an orderly manner.
Under the incandescent light, the girl wore an apron. Her brows and eyes were cool and gentle, and her features were unexpectedly delicate, beautiful, and fresh.
She quickly handed him a bowl of noodles. “That’ll be eight yuan.”
He had not expected that the plain-looking noodle stall owner would have such a pretty daughter.
The customer flusteredly accepted the bowl of noodles and went to eat at the small table. While eating, he could not resist secretly taking a photo of Zhou Xiu and posting it on social media.
Zhou Cheng finished his dinner with the last bowl of chicken soup left in the pot. Zhou Xiu frowned.
“Why are you closing the stall so late today?”
She glanced at the leftovers they had eaten for dinner. If something did not sell out, they would make do with golden-thread noodles for a meal. Although eating meat every day was much better than life back in the countryside, Zhou Xiu could not bear watching them eat this for every meal.
Liu Mei smiled. “Your dad thought business was good today, so he made a little more noodles. Now they’re just sold out, so we can go home.”
Zhou Cheng waited cheerfully for the customer to finish eating before he began packing up the tables and chairs and pushed the tricycle home.
Zhou Xiu rubbed her tired, sore eyes. In her heart, she calculated that once she received the biology competition reward, she would definitely change her family’s stall into a shop.
Only with a shop would things not be so hard.
After taking a shower, Zhou Cheng sat under the light and began calculating the day’s accounts.
He happily said to his daughter, “We’re getting ready to move to the pedestrian street and open a shop there. In the future, we won’t have to brave the wind and rain to set up a stall anymore.”
The pedestrian street?
Zhou Xiu’s movement of drinking water froze.
Although the thought of renting a shop had just emerged in Zhou Xiu’s mind, she had never dared imagine opening one on the pedestrian street.
That was the busiest area in the entire city, where every inch of land was worth gold, and it was difficult to get even one shop.
Leaving aside the expensive rent, the transfer fee alone was an astronomical sum that would make people shrink back. How could such a good thing possibly fall to Zhou Cheng?
Zhou Xiu was afraid that her parents’ hard-earned money would be cheated away, so she asked Zhou Cheng about the shop’s situation.
Zhou Cheng confidently took out the lease contract and said with a smile, “I bargained it down by fifteen thousand. The shop is a little over forty square metres.”
After Zhou Cheng finished speaking, he still felt very pained. Fifteen thousand yuan was the profit they could only earn after painstakingly running the stall for a month and a half.
But in the end, they would no longer have to suffer wind and rain. Once they had a shop, business would be easier to do.
Zhou Xiu suspiciously read through the contract several times, called the number on the contract, and searched online for information about the shop. She did not find any problems. The procedures were complete, and there was nothing wrong with the owner either.
But a shop of more than forty square metres, located on a pedestrian street with explosive foot traffic, only costing fifteen thousand yuan — how was that possible?
Zhou Cheng had not been in the city for long and still did not understand the market. Zhou Xiu searched on her phone and showed him. Zhou Cheng froze.
For a shop of the same type and size, the transfer fee alone was already as high as over two hundred thousand yuan, and the monthly rent was more than fifty thousand.
He scratched his head and thought for a long while. “Then maybe that classmate of yours wanted to help our family.”
That day, Tan Ming’s parents had thought over and over again about how to repay Zhou Xiu’s life-saving kindness, but all their proposals had been refused by Zhou Cheng.
Forget it. Zhou Cheng regretfully put the money he had just counted into the money bag.
“We’ll open a shop once we’ve saved enough money.”
Zhou Xiu put away the unsigned contract.
At the Xi family residence.
The housekeeper called Xi Shaoyuan. Xi Shaoyuan answered and gave an “Mm.”
The housekeeper said awkwardly, “Zhou Xiu’s parents had clearly agreed earlier, but when it came time to hand over the contract, they suddenly didn’t want it anymore. Should we still keep this shop?”
Xi Shaoyuan said, “Keep it.”
In any case, they were not short of this bit of money.
……
At the beginning of March, the spring was warm and flowers bloomed. The peach blossoms and cherry blossoms on campus began blooming one after another.
Each class in the Grade Two department began planning their spring outing.
In previous years, Yude High School’s spring outings were freely arranged by the students of each class, with the class teacher leading the group. This year was the same.
Because their class funds were especially abundant, Class 24’s spring and autumn outings had always been organised particularly wonderfully.
Class 24’s arts committee member, Lan Xin, began to worry again.
“Where should we go for the spring outing this year?”
Last year’s spring outing had been to a countryside resort to soak in hot springs, pick grapes, and ride horses. The autumn outing had been to an island to go diving and surfing. Lan Xin had no idea what they should do this year.
It seemed as though the class had already played every activity that could be played.
There were no more fresh, interesting programmes.
So Lan Xin once again began collecting opinions. She asked everyone to write little slips of paper, and she would choose the spring outing activity based on public opinion.
Aside from the Christmas celebration last time, Zhou Xiu had never participated in any other class-organised activities. In her mind, a spring outing was probably about the same as at other schools: simply going to the suburbs for an outing and breathing fresh air.
As a child from the countryside, Zhou Xiu was not very interested in the suburbs.
She thought about it extremely seriously and finally wrote down the free “Forest Botanical Garden.”
The biology league was close at hand, and Zhou Xiu no longer had any desire to play. But if she had to go out, she was more inclined to collect some plant samples and fill in gaps in her knowledge.
When Hua Xu saw Zhou Xiu write “botanical garden,” she was startled.
It seemed very boring, but the other options were even more boring, so she copied Zhou Xiu’s answer.
Tan Ming, sitting at the desk behind, relied on his height to glance at the words Zhou Xiu had written on the small slip of paper. He subtly connected it with the recent news that the “Forest Botanical Garden” had opened to the public for free.
Tan Ming thought of Zhou Xiu’s father’s lame leg. He stared blankly for a while, then picked up his pen and also copied this answer.
Xu Qing also wrote “Forest Botanical Garden.”
He recalled the experimental requirements of the biology competition class and easily guessed Zhou Xiu’s purpose in writing it. Xu Qing also happened to want to collect some specimens.
When the rest of the class saw the choices these people had handed in, they were all surprised.
This was practically identical to those uncreative spring outing projects Rocket Class chose every year. Such a down-to-earth way of playing would normally be purely a joke.
Many students had even gone to that botanical garden in the city so many times as children that they were sick of it.
But since Hua Xu and Tan Ming had both written it, the other underachievers followed their lead. In the end, “Forest Botanical Garden” actually won by an overwhelming margin and became Class 24’s spring outing destination for the year.
Du Feiyang said, “Let’s just go have fun. Anyway, it’s just changing places to chat, mess around, and play games.”
It would be even better if they could get the day off.
After Lan Xin announced the spring outing arrangement and location, Zhou Xiu listed a series of plants she wanted to collect on paper and closed her notebook in satisfaction.
Class 24 chose to go to the Forest Botanical Garden. Winner Class hesitated for a long time. Their arts committee member thought that a class as good at having fun as Class 24 definitely would not randomly choose an activity, so Winner Class, too lazy to make their own decision, followed them and also chose the Forest Botanical Garden.
Whether it would be fun this year, no one knew.
But at least it would definitely save more money than in previous years.
Going to the Forest Botanical Garden for the spring outing even saved them the cost of admission tickets.
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