Little Xiang Ning left the table, diagonally carrying her small backpack and puffing up her cheeks as she stalked off towards the living room.

  Mrs Xiang said softly but still sternly, “Come back and sit.”


  Xiang Ning glanced back at her mother before turning away and leaving.

  Despite her fear, Xiang Ning actually did have her own stubborn side as she could not really be considered an obedient young girl. At least, Xu Tingsheng was aware that in his previous life, Miss Xiang had once angrily left home in a huff before……

  Even though this had ended up with her walking one round around the city area and finally crying very spinelessly as she made her way back.

  Mr Xiang tugged at his wife’s hand beneath the table, saying in a hushed tone, “What’re you doing? Little Ning scored so well, and you were smiling too earlier. How can you immediately turn cold and heartless now? Get a grip on yourself.”


  Mrs Xiang pinched his hand hard, venting all her anger on him.

  Their daughter had grown up, and was so pretty too……mothers would generally think and worry more about what had to be worried about than fathers.

  Some words could not really be said out loud to her husband.

  Such as when she as a mother would teach her daughter to use sanitary napkins and the like. What the hell would a father know about this……

  Still, Mr Xiang’s words, ‘Get a grip on yourself’, still proved effective. Mrs Xiang suppressed her anger and no longer continued pressuring Little Xiang Ning.

  In actual fact, she also dared not continue to do so, because two eyes were currently staring at her from across the table. Little Xiang Ning’s grandmother who doted on her the most, her own mother, was already looking very unhappy. This was precisely the ever-familiar prelude to the old woman blowing her top.

  While Mrs Xiang was very fierce as a mother, she was, in truth, much more submissive as a daughter than Xiang Ning was. She looked guiltily at her mother before looking down at the floor, no longer daring to utter a sound.

  Xu Tingsheng did not witness this scene, but if he had done so, he would know where the ‘breakthrough point’ was. He should ingratiate himself with this Grandma with all his might! Moreover, he had always been especially well-liked by his elders and old people in general.

  Meanwhile, not actually having dared to go far away, Little Xiang Ning was sitting alone in the living room, casually watching the rerun of the 2002 version of The Eleventh Son on television.

  Not long later, her cousin, Liu Yingru, came to the living room too as she sat down and accompanied her for a chat.

  Liu Yingru had just graduated from Yanzhou’s first-tier senior high while Xiang Ning would also be entering it very soon. Therefore, the conversation basically revolved around this school, its teachers, its canteen and whatnot. As they talked and talked, Xiang Ning’s mood eased greatly.

  Soon, however, the topic shifted to that of Xu Tingsheng.

  Liu Yingru intended to attend university in Yanzhou. Xiang Ning’s eldest aunt thought that if her daughter studied at their local university, there would be a much lower risk of her marrying far away. For the locals of Yanzhou, at least, there was still a strong emphasis on marriage being with others from their hometown.

  Actually, besides the comparatively backward Jiannan City, this was also generally the case in most other parts of Jianhai Province, this being especially so for Jianan City which was renowned throughout the entire country for wild speculation in housing prices. Xu Tingsheng had studied at Jianan University in his previous life. During his four years there, he had personally witnessed parents descending to separate starstruck lovers several times.

  Since she had decided to attend university back here in Yanzhou, the undergraduate schools actually only consisted of medical school, Yanzhou University and Jianhai Technological University. Next, regardless of which one she chose, it would be in Xishan Academy City for sure.

  With that, having previously done research on which school to attend, it would have been near impossible for a certain person to escape her notice, this person being ‘Xishan Tower’s Xu Tingsheng’.

  “That Xu Tingsheng, is he handsome or not? There were pictures online of him in a fight, but those were rather blurry,” Liu Yingru asked, full of curiosity.

  In truth, Xu Tingsheng had never once appeared at any official event or spoken with the media before. Thus, pictures of him really couldn’t be found easily on the internet.

  What people mostly saw were still those blurry photos from before of Xu Tingsheng and co fighting in the dormitory. Zhang Xingke had sent someone to provoke them. Huang Keshen had sneakily captured the photos and Zhang Xingke had uploaded them onto an internet forum, using them to attack Hucheng.

  Next, for girls, whether you discovered the Anyang Mausoleum or established some company, this is really still the first thing they will notice.

  Xiang Ning thought: Again? What now?

  She had already experienced another female cousin of one of her aunts, Li Meng, coming over to her house and blatantly trying to hook up with Uncle. Mrs Xiang had even been accomplice……

  As a result, Little Xiang Ning was especially sensitive toward this……it was still best for lifeforms like female cousins to stay further away from Uncle.

  “Oh, he’s super ugly,” Little Xiang Ning declared with firm conviction.

  On hearing this, her cousin looked slightly disappointed for a moment but soon recovered from this. For some men, their achievements could overshadow the issue of their outer appearance.

  “How’s he like then? How’s his temper? Is he fierce when he teaches you? Liu Yingru continued with her questions.

  “He’s very fierce and hateful,” Little Xiang Ning became submersed in her memories as she distantly said, “Still, no way I’d be afraid of him. He’s the one who’s afraid of me……”
……

  The two female cousins continued chatting in the living room.

  In the dining room, the topic around the dinner table had already changed. The faces of eldest uncle and his wife stung like they had been slapped as they were unwilling to speak any more on the topic of the senior high entrance examinations. It so happened that the auntie who was Li Meng’s mother and lived nearby now arrived with her daughter in tow. Sitting down, they filled the empty spaces that Little Xiang Ning and Liu Yingru had left behind.

  “Bro, what were you just discussing?” This auntie asked eldest uncle Shi Youshu warmly after sitting down.

  This auntie had actually been closest with Mrs Xiang originally. Still, after the incident back when Mrs Xiang had been a busybody and arranged for Li Meng and Xu Tingsheng to meet, this having gone badly in the end, their relationship had ended up souring.

  Li Meng had been completely unwilling to consider how perfunctory Xu Tingsheng’s attitude had been towards her as her embarrassment was converted into rage and she blamed it entirely on the Xiang family.

  After going home, she had added fuel to the fire regarding the specifics of her meeting with Xu Tingsheng at the Xiang family home. As she would tell it, she and Xu Tingsheng had hit it off very well at first. Afterwards, however, Little Xiang Ning had ruined things for her after coming home while Mrs Xiang had stood by her own daughter and not her……

  With that, this auntie had come to hate the Xiang family. The more she went online and saw news of how well Xu Tingsheng was doing, the deeper this hatred ran as she ground her teeth. It was as if this Xiang family had robbed her family of a ‘golden goose husband’.

  The things which had been said behind their backs and those truly unpleasant things Mrs Xiang had heard, such as ‘The Xiang family are just profound schemers. Their little slut’s only fifteen or sixteen and they’re already thinking of selling her to a rich guy……’ and ‘forcefully hogging him for herself, not even letting my daughter say anything at all……’ had mostly come from this auntie’s mouth initially.

  It could not be denied that apart from her own unease and worries, a major portion of Mrs Xiang’s ‘terrible’ attitude towards Xu Tingsheng thereafter could be attributed to these remarks.

  Mrs Xiang could not bear for her daughter to be spoken of like this at such a young age, could not bear the Xiang family being spoken of as badly as this. She could only maintain their innocence with a definite display of ‘determination’ in drawing that line between they and Xu Tingsheng.

  This auntie greeted everyone except for Mrs Xiang, who pretended not to have noticed anything as she remained silent.

  Shi Youshu replied to her question, “We were just talking about houses. Isn’t a new city being built over by the eastern riverbank? It just happens that my little son and Little Ning have both made it into a first-tier senior high. The new site for the school is over there, and the old site is also closer to the eastern riverbank. Talking about this, we ended up discussing buying houses there, to better take care of our kids as they prepare for the university entrance examinations on one hand. On the other, we may even get to see its value rise.”


  “Exactly,” Eldest aunt interjected, “When my daughter was in twelfth grade, I had to stupidly rent a flat next to the school for that year. Because of that, I think that it’d be best if both their families can buy a flat.”


  Li Meng’s family was quite well-off financially as her mother could be considered the person who was most familiar with investing in flats to make money here. She usually paid quite a bit of attention to this topic as she instantly adopted the air of a professional in talking about this.

  She said, “Oh, I’ve been to see that place a couple of times. I couldn’t be any clearer on it. It’s just this small district with around ten buildings in its first sale. It uses imported materials and will be sold only after thorough, intricate renovation. Word around is that it will be our Yanzhou’s number one small district, ranked highly even within the entire Jianhai Province itself.”


  “I predict that the price will definitely not be low. Also, the flats there are all not small. All combined together, their overall price will definitely be unspeakably high.”


  Now, eldest uncle Shi Youshu asked enthusiastically, “Price is not a problem. From what you just said, there’s no way we’d be making a loss, right?”


  Being of the ‘real estate speculation gang’, that auntie was really rather more knowledgeable in this area as she just laughed, “How could that be? Bro, really, if you can buy one of those flats, you’ll definitely profit. It’s lucky that you asked me. Let me ask you, what’re the surroundings there? It’ll definitely surpass the western riverbank in the future. Right now, the only thing to be afraid of is not being able to buy one. I’ve even finished preparing the money. All that remains is requesting the help of some connections.”