As it's already nearing 11PM, I reluctantly stand up, pack my bags and go out of the library with a bag full of books. I realised that these books that probably weight a tone, are a good way for muscles exercise, and so I decided that from now on, I will walk from school to the library and from the library, back to my home with these books in my hands.
As I walk, I gradually see my house which still has the lights on and finally begin to feel my hands getting tired from this trip.
I walk towards my house and try to open the door but realise that it's locked. I don't know what to do as I never needed the keys so they are usually in my balcony room. I knock on the door a few times and wait but no one is coming even after 3 minutes. I knock again, and all I get is silence.
"Tsk, tsk, is that how you want to deal with me? Then don't blame me for not being polite Auntie" I smirk as I mumble to myself.
I know that they did this on purpose to punish me for this morning. So instead of quietly waiting for a few hours until they feel merciful as long as I admit my mistakes, I start knocking on the door very loudly, without stopping and shout, my voice getting higher and higher.
"Bang, Bang"
"Aunt! Aunt! Why did you lock the door!? Hello??? Aunt! Are you there?!"
I still hear nothing from the house so I continue.
"Aunt! If you don't open the door for me, I will have to keep on knocking! I don't wish to wake our neighbours up and be the talk of the neighbourhood community tomorrow morning!"
'Hehe, I do know how much my aunt enjoys the good reputation of a lovely aunt who took her orphaned sister's child into her arms with no hesitation' I thought. 'She will not let her reputation be smeared'
This sentence probably finnaly poured some reason into this stupid brain of hers as she braced herself and opened the door.
"Stop shouting you brat! The door is open now so stop! Do you want to embarrass your aunt so badly? How did I even raise you to be such a horrible boy!"
As soon as she sees me, she starts complaining in a loud voice like she always does, about how ungrateful I am to her. Usually, I would just ignore anything she says but today, I'm in a good mood so I want to anger her a little.
Inside my mind, I smile deviously while on the outside, I pretend to look cute and innocent as I say, "But Aunt, it was you who locked the door even though you knew I was coming home late. Aunt, tell me, did you want me to stay and wait for hours until you remembered to unlock the door for me?"
I tilt my head to one side curiously like a cute and obedient student who seeks knowledge from an aleder and continue, "What if I caught a cold because you locked me outside of the house? I would be very pirful then and would have go to the neighbour's house to seek shelter!"
While I pretend to be innocent, every word in my sentence is full of malice, since if I really did go to the neighbour's house, everyone would know by morning that Aunt Lu, a government worker, locked her child outside of the house in the mode of a cold night.
I'm not sure if she understood what I meant with this tiny brain of hers, but she suddenly went silent, took a step back to look at me, surprise and confusion hidden in her eyes and then she went back to her room, looking like she has no more energy to deal with me.
I walk into the house, full of smiles and reeking of happiness as I place all my books on the desk in my room. I then go to take a quick shower and change into my pajamas, and quickly drown in an abyss of dreams while thinking that today was a very successful day...
******
For the next 3 months I, Han Xue Wei had a very peaceful life. I started waking up at 6AM, made breakfast and lunch for myself everyday and slowly nourished my body until there was indeed some effects shown, as my pale complexion gained some rosy colour and my thin build was a bit more chubby, making me look even cuter (if it is even possible to be cuter than I already am, (^o^)).
After eating breakfast, I went out of the house pretty quickly and walked to school everyday just so I can avoid contact with the people I'm living with and it worked most of the time. Even when I had to face them sometimes, they would just grumble under their breaths and ignore my existence as if they know that this happy period in my life won't be so peaceful much longer.
So aside from these small encounters, I basically didn't talk with any of them for 3 months since when I came back home from the library around midnight, they all slept in their rooms soundly.
I also finally made up a plan on how to get my hands on the will my mother left me. However to do this, I will need some more capital and time. So i will be putting it off until later when it's time to enter high school.
Everyday I went to school, listened to classes and took notes, ate my lunch while reviewing what I learned, had counselling sessions with Teacher Rong, and ignored the astonished gazes of my classmates who thought I have gone crazy to start revising only 3 month prior to high school examinations.
After school I went to the library everyday, excluding Fridays on which I always got a long lecture from Teacher Rong about where I can improve with my additional weekend homework.
We always looked through my notes and the revision plan to see if we are not falliing behind and if we're still on schedule and surprisingly, I was often ahead of my revision schedule so Teacher Rong, who was often annoyed but also astonished at my revision speed, had to carefully plan new schedules every week since I jsut couldn't stick to the ones he made beforehand.
Everyday before going to the library, I went and ate my dinner at some stalls or noodle restaurants that sell cheap but healthy food and wolfed down enormous portions under the shocked gazes of the bosses and passerbys.
In the library, I always sat down in this one quiet corner and revised until my eyes got too tired. I then rested a bit and got back to revising until 11PM.
Sometimes, I could swear I felt someone's gaze on me, but whenever I looked around, I either found no people or just people who never paid any attention to me, so I never took it seriously. I saw this mysterious good looking boy in here a few times but then he either stopped coming or I was just too focused on revision to look around for him, so I never bothered myself with him anymore.
In a blink of an eye, 3 months have passed and even though my revision plan should have finished in 2 and a half months since I memorised all the subjects and their curriculums, Teacher Rong said that I could still increase my knowledge if I have two weeks of spare time and so I had to spend another 50RMB while crying about my poor, empty wallet and buy year 1 high school books to practice from as some teachers said that the hardest questions on the exam papers are probably for students who study the hardest and know some basics of Year 1 High School.
This uneventful, yet peaceful 3 months have allowed me to gain more confidence in myself and to sharpen my body slowly. At the start I could only run for 12 mintutes, now 1 hour and 30 mintutes of exercise are not a problem for me. I also gained some muscles, although they don't look very obvious, I feel a lot stronger and both my arms can carry more weight. My looks have also gotten better. I am not a sickly beauty with pale skin anymore, but a cute, beauty with soft and plump skin hahaha :333.
I am now sitting in Teacher Rong's counselling office as I listen to him babble about tomorrow's examinations.
"Ayioo, Xiao Wei, teacher is sad that we will not see each other after this summer holiday but I am also proud of you no matter how you do in the exam."
"Teacher will not blame you if you can't do good, I know that you have tried your best so I won't blame you. After all, 3 months of revision is a bit rushed if you want to learn all 3 years of middle school. So just do your best okay?"
I nod at him and smile while thinking 'Hehe, teacher don't be surprised when you see my name as a 1st place in our middle school. I will definitely make you proud of having taught a student as handsome and amazing as me!'
"Teacher, don't worry, I definitely won't dissapoint you! You will definitely be amazed by my handsome knowledge hehe" I laugh together with my teacher and my smile is already so wide that you can see my tiger teeth popping out from both sides.
"Haha, good, good, it's amazing that you can still be so silly instead of being nervous about the exams like every other student! I definitely didn't dote on you for nothing haha!"
"Okay, you can now go home, and rest. Don't revise today. I want you to be in your best condition tomorrow when you go into the hall. Goodbye Han Xue Wei" Teacher Rong says, his eyes filled with some reluctance towards our parting.
"Goodbye, Teacher" I smile at him one last time and bid him a goodbye.
After walking out of school, I plan to go shopping for some art supplies. Since today is the day before the exams, I should spoil myself a little.
In my last life, I have always loved art since I was small. When I had no money for food, I took my old art supplies, made hundreds of paintings and drawings which I would then sell to fill my stomach... of course, that was on the premise of seeling them cheaper and anonymous since I could not stand out from the crowd in fear of being retaliated.
In this life, I want to make art for fun and lesiure so my first stop is an art shop which has relatively cheap but good quality products. I walk into the art shop as my nose is suddenly hit with a sudden smell of paint, paper and wood.
I slowly inhale and exhale as I walk around the aisles in the shop. I take a look at the paper section and buy a notebook with relatively thick pages.
I then take some oil, watercolour and acrylic paint and look at the brushes. I decide to take a brush set bag with 40 different brushes that have 10 brushes for different styles each. 10 for oil painting, another 10 for watercolour paint, 10 for acrylic paint and the last 10 for calligraphy. Although this one is on the more expensive side, since I decided to spend money, I should at least spend it practically and this set is indeed a very good choice for someone who loves to paint as all the brushes have very fine and professional hairs. This set itself is 300RMB but it's definitely worth the price since it also includes a mini brush washer, a brush holder and a small speckling brush. I bought another sketch book, some pens and pencils of different thickness as well as colour pencils, markers and erasers.
After I filled my shopping cart to the brim and walked towards the cashier, I started feeling someone's gaze, but when I turned around I saw no one but a few customers minding their own business.
'It's probably someone shy who got bewitched by my looks and gazed at me for too long kekeke'
I counted the total I will have to pay and deduct from my wallet again...Every time I got 1,000RMB for 3 months, I only withdrew 500RMB so now in my bank account there is still 1,500RMB for emergency purposes while in my wallet, I still have around 850RMB left as I tried not to be wasteful throughout this time and to be honest, I'm quiet proud of myself since I saved up a large amount for a high schooler like me. I also decided that this will not be enough for my expenses when I'm in high school so I will efinitely look for a job or a way to make some money during this summer break.
I snapped out of my thoughts as I heard the cashier talk "Hello sir, the total is 650RMB"
I take out the money from my wallet that has now become dangerously thin, to the point that if this was a person, it would be seen lying on the hospital bed, dying from malnutrition!
Yingyingying...This daylight roberry!
After this painful but at the same time fullfilling purchase I walk towards the city's library, but instead of walking inside, I walk towards an empty bench that faced the front of the building and make myself comfortable.
I then my pull my hair and tie my bangs up to have a better field of vision, take out a sketchbook and some pencils with some black pens used for sketching and slowly enjoy the atmosphere as I start drawing.
It's already quiet late by the time I start drawing so there isn't many people walking around the city centre which means that there is practically no one to disturb my field of vision as I sketch the city's library, taking in both the major and minor details of the building and putting them on paper. I draw like this until it got a bit too cold for me and decide to come back here tomorrow after my exams to finish the drawing.
I pack up all my stuff and head home, ready to take a quick, hot shower before slipping into my bed and falling asleep earlier than usual in order to have enough energy for tomorrow as it will definitely be a long day that is followed by 4 exams.
*********
When he was shopping in the art shop, Han Xue Wei was right when he felt someone observing him. He was also right when he felt someone's gaze on him many times in the library. And the person who has been silently watching him all the time, is the mysterious boy he met on his first night in the library.
After their fist meeting, they boy started frequenting the library and soon figured out the time when Han Xue Wei comes visits. He started observing this skinny child as he weakly took all his books in his hands and walked towards the library every day. He looked at him every day and soon, he realised that the boy's complexion and strength are getting better everyday, and for some inexplicable reason, he felt happy and relieved which are both emotions that are not very frequent in the boy's heart.
The mysterious boy thought that this is the first time he saw such an interesting person so he continued to observe him and realised how funny and clumsy this child can be and so, decided to observe him for a bit more. This 'a bit more' then changed into 3 whole months, and today, he started walking towards the library as he was thinking, 'This will be the last day I will observe the little puppy for. I feel creepy for stalking him like this just because he caught my interest'
But before he could feel determined enough to leave the boy alone and stop his feverish stalking, he saw something peculiar and different in the boy's routine. Instead of walking towards the library like always, Han Xue Wei went into an art shop?
'Does he also enjoy art? If he does then we indeed have a lot in common' Thought the boy as he chuckled to himself.
After observing the boy for some time, seeing him coming out with bags full of art supllies and sitting down in front on the library building, the boy himself founf a bench in a quiet corner as he looked at this different yet familiar sight.
Seeing the boy concentrating on something so seriously seemed to have a calming effect on him. He could relax himself as he observed the boy's serious and concentrated look, determination filled in his eyes as he moved the pencil in his fingers on a sheet of paper.
Before he knew it, it was already 11PM and the boy suddenly stopped drawing and started to pack up, ready to go home, making the relaxed boy realise that he once again got lost in though while looking at Han Xue Wei.
He then quickly stood up and stealthily left, going back in the opposite direction of the boy and as he walked towards his house, the eyes that were once filled with curiosity and joy while looking at the boy, where now just like a deep, dark and empty abbys. He came back to being like an emotionless puppet as he headed to meet the people he has to call a 'family'...