The weekend went by very quickly.
On Monday, it rained again, and the air was cold and damp.
Sheng Tang wrapped herself in a thick down jacket, and saw Gu Shiting at the school gate.
Gu Shiting nodded lightly at her, "Good morning."
Sheng Tang smiled a bit, "Good morning."
Her smile was simple and perfunctory. Gu Shiting didn’t understand how she could draw such a clear line at school, as if she really didn’t know him.
Her acting was just too good.
If his sister had such good acting skills, she wouldn’t be getting scolded all the time.
Gu Shiting mentally grumbled about his sister, holding an umbrella and walking behind Sheng Tang, his gaze always fixed on her.
Her hair was very long, even longer than when he first met her, falling like a dark silk ribbon down her back, like a flowing waterfall.
A girl ran up, quickly catching up to Sheng Tang and squeezed under her umbrella.
It was Sheng Tang’s friend, Jiang Baocu.
Gu Shiting watched the two of them, quickened his pace, and walked towards his own teaching building.
"Sheng Tang, I’m so worried," Jiang Baocu leaned on Sheng Tang.
She was very thin, wearing heavy clothes and carrying a schoolbag, but didn’t weigh much.
Sheng Tang let her lean on her, "What’s wrong again?"
"Again? Do I worry every day?"
"Isn’t ’so worried’ your catchphrase?" Sheng Tang asked.
Jiang Baocu, "...."
It seemed like it was.
She didn’t mind, "No way. This time I’m really worried. Mr. Qiu Sheng passed away."
Sheng Tang, "Who?"
"Who?" Jiang Baocu was even more surprised, "How did you spend your childhood? The animated series ’Moon Fox,’ with over five hundred episodes, we watched it from when we were kids, it’s adapted from Mr. Qiu’s work."
Sheng Tang responded with an "oh."
She really didn’t know what animations were in this world; she grew up watching "Calabash Brothers."
"How old was he?"
"He was 91."
"At such an advanced age, it’s a happy funeral, why are you worried?" Sheng Tang asked.
Jiang Baocu said, "The editor-in-chief asked me to write a fairy tale to commemorate Mr. Qiu and post it on my public account. I don’t want to do it, but I have no choice."
Sheng Tang couldn’t help her.
During class, Jiang Baocu wrote from the morning reading class until school was about to end in the afternoon, not even taking a nap during lunch.
Almost at the end of the school day, she finally finished a three-thousand-word fairy tale and showed it to Sheng Tang.
Sheng Tang took it and looked at it, thinking it was like mush, the story was childish and uninteresting, just preaching through a fairy tale.
"It’s very conventional," Sheng Tang said, "Teaching kids to beware of bad people, not bad."
Jiang Baocu let out a breath.
Sheng Tang thought it was okay, so it should be okay, finally she could turn it in.
She sent it to the editor-in-chief.
She waited for the editor-in-chief’s reply.
The next day during the morning reading class, the editor-in-chief bombarded her with messages, saying this wouldn’t work, it was too old-fashioned and dry.
Fairy tales had developed over the years, and preachy fairy tales had long been despised.
This was an eighteenth-rate, shoddy fairy tale.
It seemed like the first time Jiang Baocu had faced such a big setback, she couldn’t help but lie on the desk and cry.
Sheng Tang comforted her, "It’s no big deal."
"What should I do, I’m good at writing everything else, but not this fairy tale!" Jiang Baocu cried, "I have no inspiration now, none at all."
"Think again," Sheng Tang said, "Take it slow, don’t rush."
After crying, Jiang Baocu started reading other fairy tales for inspiration.
She spent the next three days writing, not turning in her assignments, and not paying attention in class.