On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the weather was great, and the snow on the city streets had melted clean.
The first thing Xiao Xian did upon waking up was to open her passbook to reconfirm the zeros in the account. After confirming they were correct, she quickly made a phone call to Zeng Xuerou.
"Xiao Xian, I have something very important to tell you," Zeng Xuerou spoke, her breath still smelling of toothpaste foam, preempting Xiao Xian who was about to say the same thing. Early in the morning, while brushing her teeth, she scrolled through a forum and, to her surprise, found a new reply post.
The reply stated that the experiment to reformulate hangover medicine into Western-style pills had been completed, and the other party had left an MSN email address. Zeng Xuerou tentatively sent an email and unexpectedly received a reply soon after.
"That amazing expert is also from Beijing, it’s such a coincidence. I’ve arranged to meet him at 1 PM at the KFC in International Trade. Let’s go together," said Zeng Xuerou, both nervous and excited. This meeting was crucial for their hangover medicine and was even more thrilling than when she ran for the student council.
"You decide, I am just responsible for checking if the medicinal effect has been compromised. I have another favor to ask you, do you remember the cable recycling matter I mentioned last time? My grandfather has finalized it, we’ll order a batch of new cables and a batch of old cables," explained Xiao Xian. The old cables are for feeding the "sugarcane seedling," and the new ones are for village use.
After setting things, Xiao Xian then put away her passbook.
By noon, Xiao Xian had to cancel her plan to meet the expert with Zeng Xuerou.
Mao Yi called to inform her that the preliminary round of the Knei Cup, which had been delayed due to a blizzard, was officially starting at 1 PM today.
Zeng Xuerou didn’t blame Xiao Xian; instead, she jokingly said that if it weren’t for the reformulated effervescent agent, she wouldn’t bother meeting any expert. In the eyes of the two young girls, so-called experts are typically those who constantly talk about academics or those obsessed with money, unable to escape its lure.
However, what Zeng Xuerou didn’t expect was that the expert was neither an old pedant nor greedy for money; in fact, the expert didn’t show up at all, which led Zeng Xuerou to end up eating two pairs of chicken wings, a box of fries, and two cups of fluoride-containing red tea at KFC.
"Could it be a prank? Oh, it’s my fault for being careless. Met someone online, can’t tell real from fake, and just blindly trusted others," Zeng Xuerou said as she finished the last chicken bone, ready to leave.
"Excuse me?" A beautiful middle-aged woman approached Zeng Xuerou’s table, looking quite upset.
Zeng Xuerou, sharp-eyed, instantly noticed that the woman’s speech and dress were not inferior to her own mother’s. She quickly wiped her mouth and nodded, replying: "Aunty, can I help you with something?"
KFC was quite crowded, many were waiting for a table. Zeng Xuerou had occupied a table for over forty minutes, during which several groups of people tried to hurry her with their glares. Miss Zeng, however, didn’t care about them; she sat boldly, with the attitude of not leaving even if the emperor himself came.
Xi Lijuan was still puzzled about why she was standing there, just remembered Zhou Ziang rushed to a basketball game around noon, hurriedly left her a box of something, and mentioned this place, saying the recipient was someone named Snow, who would be wearing a red down jacket and glasses today.
"Oh, I am, that’s me," relying on an unclear sixth sense, Zeng Xuerou was certain that this elegantly beautiful middle-aged woman was the person she was waiting for.
"That’s good, this is for you, right?" Xi Lijuan pulled out a box of Sanjiu Cold Relief, unopened, wondering why her son had her travel such a distance just to deliver this box of cold medicine.
"Cold Relief?" Zeng Xuerou was confused as well, hurriedly opening the box to find neatly packed bag of pills inside, all sealed in a transparent bag, with a note left inside the box.
Due to receiving the competition news too late, Xiao Xian rushed to the venue located at Xiu Shui Square. That rush led to a problem; she didn’t bring her basketball outfit, and looking at her clothes, she was still wearing the new outfit Zhuo Feng bought her for the new year, a white sweater paired with Scottish plaid shorts, underlined with woolen socks, fortunately, her sneakers were already changed.