Just when she was thinking of taking advantage of the autumn breeze, she found the doors shut and nobody home, leaving her so mad that she didn’t eat well for days. Now she couldn’t benefit from the situation, and she shouldn’t even think about asking Qin Xiangyang to help with the fieldwork anymore.
Now, she regrets ever letting that damned girl out of the house; otherwise, she wouldn’t need to do the household chores herself.
Qin Pengfei is now in high school, and this year Qin Xiangmei has just started middle school. With such a long journey, Hu Li really doesn’t feel at ease about her daughter. She and Qin Guohua went to send their daughter to middle school together. Illiterate, they stared at the class list for a long time but couldn’t find their daughter’s name.
Qin Xiangmei felt extremely embarrassed. Hu Li kept saying, "Look, this one looks like Xiang Mei’s name," but Qin Guohua would nod one moment and shake his head the next. "I think that one looks like it, Qin Xiangmei, yeah, three characters," obviously clueless about reading but still pretending to understand.
The students around them laughed, and Qin Xiangmei couldn’t tell whether they were laughing at something else or at her parents. Her face became more and more disgruntled. She thought it would have been better if her parents had said nothing at all, and let her sort it out herself.
She quickly found her class on the list of names and went to register.
As soon as the teacher saw Qin Xiangmei, he couldn’t help his eyes light up; the young girl was quite pretty.
"Do you have any special talents?" the teacher asked her while flipping through Qin Xiangmei’s file.
"I can sing and dance," Qin Xiangmei tilted her chin up proudly as she spoke.
"Yes, that’s right," Hu Li immediately chimed in, "At her school, Xiang Mei is always involved in cultural activities. She participates whenever there’s a program."
The teacher was secretly delighted upon hearing this. It seemed their class had gained a promising student.
"Have you been a class leader?" the teacher asked again, showing much more enthusiasm towards Qin Xiangmei than towards the average student.
"Yes, I was the class president," Qin Xiangmei’s chin tilted even higher.
Very good. The teacher circled Qin Xiangmei’s name heavily, indicating that this student was a candidate for special cultivation.
"Nuannuan, what are you looking at?" Qin Xiangyang tugged at his little sister’s hair from behind, jokingly. The silly,azed girl couldn’t be looking at some dumb boy, right? That would not do. His sister was so beautiful, and with her excellent calligraphy skills, those rotten boys better not get any ideas about her.
"Nothing?" Qin Xiangnuan turned around, her porcelain-white complexion exuding a scholarly aura. These past few years, under systematic training and though not starting from beauty, her vast reading and improving embroidery skills had given her a graceful presence. Her features had matured significantly, and Granny Lu said she resembled Du Ping, while Qin Xiangyang thought she looked like their mother. In this life, Qin Xiangnuan’s appearance had indeed blossomed.
She was not stunning, but the aura around her was likable, giving her a unique charm that could be described as having "quality" in later eras.
Beauty is bestowed by parents, but quality is not something everyone possesses.
Qin Xiangyang straightened his sister’s hair, "Today’s the big cleanup, let’s finish early and go help Granny."
"Okay," Qin Xiangnuan waved the cloth in her hand. It was the same every year, a thorough cleanup at the end and start of each term.
But finally, Qin Xiangmei has made it to middle school. They had dodged Qin Peng, but with Qi Xiangmei only a grade below them, Hu Li, with her greedy nature, would never let their family’s lotus leaf pancake business slip by if she found out.