Su Meimei and Song Yitang were from the same village but different production teams, the two places being at quite a distance from each other.
"And why, pray tell, have you not come to visit me anymore?"
Su Meimei was the master at acting spoilt, clinging to Song Yitang for a ten-kilometer walk to her home, only to end up doing farm work for Su Meimei once she got there.
Looking back, Song Yitang from her past life felt she had been so weak that she deserved to be bullied!
"I told you to get up!"
Song Yitang grabbed Su Meimei and pushed her to the side.
The pushed Su Meimei's eyes were filled with disbelief.
Had the soft persimmon, always at her beck and call, changed its nature?
"What's gotten into you?" Su Meimei persisted, continuing to act like a spoiled child toward Song Yitang. "Didn't we agree that you would take more care of me?"
How could someone say such shameless words with such a serious face?
"That's only what you think, treating me like your servant."
For the sake of being able to study properly, Song Yitang cut to the chase: "If you still consider me a friend, don't cling to me anymore, I need to concentrate on my studies."
Su Meimei felt worse than death when she heard Song Yitang wanted to focus on her studies.
She collapsed onto the ground, starting to sob.
"I thought we were the best of friends, but now you're not only unwilling to help me, you even disregard my feelings."
Song Yitang ignored her and busied herself with her stuff.
The other roommates arrived one after the other, and Su Meimei cried even louder upon seeing them.
"Meimei, what's wrong with you?" Sure enough, their roommates Zeng Zhi and Xu Xiao arrived, dropping their luggage to comfort Su Meimei.
Su Meimei sobbed, her body convulsing, choking out: "Tangtang... she doesn't want to be friends with me anymore, she even said she wants to cut ties."
"I don't even know what I did wrong." As she finished, her tears fell like broken strands of pearls, large drops splashing down.
Xu Xiao took up her cause: "Song Yitang, weren't you and Su Meimei the best of friends?"
"Not anymore."
Zeng Zhi followed: "You must apologize to Meimei!"
Song Yitang, almost finished packing up, was ready to report to the office and not willing to waste any more time.
"You want to stand up for her?"
"Then I hereby announce that you are her new best friend. Here, her bed isn't made yet, you take care of that for her."
Song Yitang gestured for Zeng Zhi to go make Su Meimei's bed.
Song Yitang paused for a moment, then looked at Xu Xiao: "As for you, you can help her fetch her meals, wash dishes, do laundry, and bring water for her footbath."
Both of them immediately looked disgruntled and stopped paying attention to Su Meimei.
Stepping out of the dormitory, Song Yitang felt great relief; seeing that there was no one around, she couldn't restrain herself from shouting loudly: "Awesome!"
After reporting in, the afternoon was time to clean up the dormitory.
Song Yitang had already finished tidying up, so she took the opportunity to hide in the library and enter the space for meditation, ready for the upcoming start-of-term exams.
She didn't rush back from the library to the classroom until self-study time that evening.
Su Meimei, who had been waiting in the classroom for a long time, beamed with joy upon seeing Song Yitang.
It was as if she had completely forgotten all the events of the morning in the dorm room.
"Tangtang, where did you go?"
The first decision Song Yitang made inwardly was to change seats!
"To the library."
Upon hearing 'library', Su Meimei's face turned sour for a moment, but she quickly recovered.
"Ah~" She dragged the note, ready to start a pitiful cry, saying, "Can you please study with me, I have no self-discipline at all, but I also want to go to college..."
Song Yitang showed a look of utter speechlessness.
"I've gotten used to being by myself, find someone else."
But Su Meimei was not willing to give up and continued: "But who else could be as kind to me as you are?"
Yes, and how did you repay me in your previous life?
Song Yitang didn't plan to continue chatting with her, which was a complete waste of her precious time.
As the bell for class rang, the homeroom teacher entered the classroom with a water cup in hand.
First, there were a few perfunctory words urging everyone to cherish their time, and then the teacher announced the new school notice.
"There will be a start-of-term exam tomorrow. Take advantage of the fact that the books have not yet been moved, and have the class president arrange the classroom tonight."
"The exam room will be the same as the one for last semester's final exam. Those who don't remember can come up and see."
Hearing the announcement of the exam, Su Meimei's lips curled up, and she asked intentionally, "How much did you score last time at the final exam?"
Seeing her ask knowingly, Song Yitang bent her head to read and ignored her.
"I remember you were like eighth from the bottom in our class."
Mixing feigned admiration with actual condescension, Su Meimei continued, "I'm really looking forward to our Tangtang's start-of-term exam scores, you will definitely improve this time."
"I believe in you!"
While marking key points in her book, Song Yitang coldly replied, "Yeah, I'm eighth from the bottom, and you're seventh, right?"
Su Meimei's expression was as if she had swallowed a fly.
Before evening self-study, the class president arranged for a few students to stay behind to set up the exam room, while the rest of the students could go back to the dormitory early.
Song Yitang washed up early and lay in bed to rest, preparing for tomorrow's exam.
The other roommates had been forced to work by their parents at home and had no time to study; they could only cram under the lamplight tonight.
Seeing Song Yitang resting, Su Meimei also tidied up and went to sleep in good conscience.
After all, with someone covering for her, she wasn't afraid at all.
Song Yitang closed her eyes for meditation, wishing she could enter the space with her soul or mind!
"[That is possible, the host just needs to unlock it later.]"
Song Yitang was delighted in her heart, genuinely not expecting the system to respond to her.
After a good night's sleep, Song Yitang woke up early, grabbed her aluminum lunch box, and headed to the cafeteria.
Because of the exam, there was no morning self-study today.
Everyone else was getting up and complaining there wasn't enough time to review, but Su Meimei was still sleeping.
Having checked her stationery, Song Yitang went to the classroom early to wait for the exam, while the late Su Meimei arrived with resentment on her face.
"Tangtang, why didn't you wake me up?" she asked.
"None of my business."
"You!"
The bell for the exam rang, and everyone sat in their seats waiting for the proctor to enter.
Hmph, she truly wanted to see how well Song Yitang would do.
Today's morning was for Chinese and politics, the afternoon for math and physics, and the evening for biology.
After filling in her own name information, Su Meimei kept peeking at Song Yitang, noticing her pen never stopped moving.
Jealousy was driving her crazy inside!
But soon she comforted herself; she must be bluffing.
No matter how hard a laggard tries, they can't score high marks, after all, Song Yitang wasted two years with her.
Once Song Yitang received the paper, she first flipped through to get a rough idea of the types of questions.
She hadn't expected them to be all basic questions, how could she have scored only in the 50s last semester?
Everyone in the exam hall was giving it their all, hoping to get into a good university through the college entrance exam and emerge from their peasant fates!
The college entrance exam had been reinstated only in 1977, and since then, many people had been scrambling to get into high school and then college.
At that time, the only ways to change one's peasant fate were to get an education or join the military.
The proctor, patrolling and seeing everyone working hard, smiled with satisfaction.
But his eyes stopped on Su Meimei, and he felt impatient, not expecting that next to her, Song Yitang had changed from her past self.
From the start till nearly the end of the exam, her pen had never stopped moving.
Time flew by and the start-of-term exam passed in the blink of an eye.
The results would be released in two days.