…
When Lin Wei got home, she washed the dishes first, let them dry, and stored them in the cupboard. Then she walked into the lounge and handed Aunt Song Jin the box of rainbow candy: "Aunt Song, this is a gift from our neighbour."
Song Jin, who was airing the clothes, glanced at the candies passed by Lin Wei and coldly answered, "You keep it."
"Thank you, Aunt Song." Lin Wei pocketed the candy and helped Song Jin with the clothes rack.
After helping out, Lin Wei obediently returned to her room to finish the unanswered questions in the Math Olympiad Exercise before dinner.
This paper was a bit challenging, and Lin Wei, who usually finishes a paper in forty minutes, took an hour to lay down her pen.
She corrected her answers and made a mistake in a multiple-choice question.
She also made a mistake in this type of question earlier, and this was her second time.
Feeling downhearted, Lin Wei sighed and started spinning her pen, planning to practice a hundred questions of this type after dinner.
As usual, only Song Jin and Lin Wei had dinner together.
Song Jin had just been married to Chen Nanzhou for half a year. Chen Nanzhou was a sea merchant and was often away from home for half a month at a time. Chen Nanzhou had a son, Chen Zhan, who was four years older than Lin Wei and studied at a mediocre university, barely returned home. So, it was usually just the two of them at home.
There was not much to talk about between Lin Wei and Song Jin, and they both ate their own meals. Song Jin was responsible for cooking, and Lin Wei was responsible for washing the dishes and cleaning the table. They had never arranged who would clean up after dinner; however, it had silently become their agreement as Lin Wei took the initiative and started doing it regularly.
The reason why Lin Wei's last name is different from Chen Nanzhou's is that Chen Nanzhou is merely her nominal father, just like Song Jin.
Song Jin was previously married, but due to infertility, she was forced to divorce by her ex-husband. She then met Chen Nanzhou at a blind date. As both of them were not old and didn't want to live the second half of their lives alone, they got together as they found each other compatible.
Before Song Jin, Chen Nanzhou had been married twice, first to Chen Zhan's mother, then to Lin Wei's mother.
Lin Wei came to Chen Nanzhou's house with her mother when she was fourteen. However, her mother died unexpectedly within two months. Chen Nanzhou then became her only guardian in this world. Having met her less than ten times, Chen Nanzhou was not her biological father, and he had no emotional attachment to her mother or the obligation to support her. Therefore, allowing Lin Wei to stay in his house was already generous enough, and she certainly did not dare to ask for more.
From then on, all she could do was to lower her presence, understand the rules, and be obedient, so as not to make Chen Nanzhou and Song Jin feel burdened.
Song Jin would give her cousin tutoring lessons every Friday night. When Lin Wei finished tidying up the kitchen and came out, Song Jin had already left the house.
She was accustomed to Song Jin leaving the house without saying anything, so she walked back to her room expressionlessly to continue her practice.
In all seriousness, she indeed found one hundred questions of the same type and spent the whole night practicing them. Once she could instantly come up with an answer upon reading the question, she finally stopped.
She picked up her phone and saw that it was already half past ten.
Being used to studying until midnight, Lin Wei felt no sleepiness. She swung her slightly sore wrist and reached for her phone in her pocket, but instead, she felt the box of rainbow candy.
Unexpectedly, she recalled the scar on the neighbor's wrist.
Bai Jian is a notorious gossip-monger from Class 1. After thinking for a while, Lin Wei took out her phone and sent Bai Jian a message.
I want to go to Tsinghua: My desk mate, the top scorer of the middle school entrance exam who missed class, did he almost kill someone?
Bai Jian: That's what everyone says. Some seniors even said that they saw Jiang Su leaving a mental hospital. So he's someone that you shouldn't mess with. Look at his old classmates upstairs. They have been in school for several days, and no one has been to find him yet. You can tell how unpopular he is.
Bai Jian: Weiwei, why are you asking about him all of a sudden? Weiwei, don't tell me you got interested in him because he's handsome? Weiwei, I advise you to stay away from him. He has a history of mental illness. If he does something to you, you will be completely defenseless.
Bai Jian: In short, it's better to avoid such a person as much as possible. Look at our class; everyone keeps their distance from him.
Lin Wei typed on her phone screen.
... Rumours can't be trusted. What if they're just making things up? I'm not interested in him. I was just curious, I noticed a scar on his wrist, he might have attempted suicide.
After thinking for a while, Lin Wei deleted that sentence.
The guy next door concealed his scar right after Lin Wei discovered it. He obviously did not want others to know about it, and Bai Jian loved gossip so much that if Lin Wei told her about it, it might spread throughout the whole class by Monday.
lin Wei typed a few more words and sent it.
I want to go to Tsinghua: No, I mean, didn't I get deducted points because I upset him? I'm a little scared he'll take revenge on me.
Bai Jian: Oh, oh, oh, that's right, that's highly likely.
After chatting nonsense with Bai Jian for a while, Lin Wei put her phone away.
She picked up her pen and took out an English paper. After doing two questions, her line of sight was drawn to the rainbow candy on the table.
And so her productivity dropped.
Not feeling full from dinner, Lin Wei put down her pen and decided to get some food from the supermarket near the entrance of the community.
Before leaving, Lin Wei took off her school uniform and changed into a pair of jeans and a black top.
She picked up a bread, a box of yogurt, and a sausage from the supermarket shelf. After paying for the items, she turned into a narrow alley next to the residential area.
After walking a distance into the alley, she bit onto the plastic bag, clung onto a wall, and agilely jumped onto the roof.
She picked a high spot, jumped and sat on it, opened her bread, swung her legs, and started munching slowly.
This place was an old district. After deciding to demolish it the previous year, the residents steadily moved out. Compared to the school and residential buildings on the other side of the street, this place seemed exceptionally deserted at night.
Lin Wei enjoyed this solitude. It made her feel relaxed.
Regrettably, this sense of relaxation did not last long before it was interrupted.
From the alley next to the roof she was on, she heard the sound of running.
Soon the running sounds stopped, and voices were heard.
"I've been fucking watching you run all this time, and I finally caught you," threatened a voice interspersed with the sounds of punches and kicks. "Without that cow-shit Jiang Su, you're just a chicken!"
Jiang Su…
Lin Wei stopped munching her bread.
Were they talking about the Jiang Su who got 22 points deducted by her?
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