On the first two days of the November holidays, Little Xiang Ning went back to help at her parents’ store, carrying the dishes, taking the orders, a bit of everything. As business was considerably good at the store, Xu Tingsheng naturally ended up going along with her.

  It really felt a bit like the future son-in-law was working hard to demonstrate himself.

  Just because of this, having previously been unwilling to dish out the cost for additional employees all along, Mr and Mrs Xiang hired someone and asked Little Xiang Ning to stop coming over. Additionally, they instructed Xu Tingsheng to make sure that she studied properly.

  In the end, with her time freed up, Little Xiang Ning spent all her time either using the computer or watching television and munching on snacks.

  Back when Xu Tingsheng had been her home tutor, he could still be fierce to her and manage her actions. Now that he was her boyfriend, however, his position had really been weakened.

  On 4th October, the dutiful form teacher of the first-tier senior high sent the results for the first examination in the adjustment period before National Day to Little Xiang Ning’s QQ account. Xu Tingsheng was sitting beside her at the time and thus saw this.

  Sixth from behind.

  While it was an experimental class, to be in sixth last place……

  As for the five people ranked behind her, having been a form teacher himself in his previous life, Xu Tingsheng was well aware that there were many rich or powerful people out there who might forcibly insert their good-for-nothing kids in the experimental class, making up the bottom of the pile.

  Now that he thought about it, perhaps he should really have requested that she go to a normal class back then.

  Xiang Ning had neither been so gifted in studying nor all that hardworking in his previous life. In this life, it was only thanks to the combination of two years of tutoring, the revision notes that he had prepared for her and her good luck as she had fortunately hit on quite a few key points that she had achieved such frightening results.

  At the end of the day, though, she was really just not top scholar material.

  Worried that she might have suffered too great a shock from her results, Xu Tingsheng dared not make a sound as he sat there beside her. He carefully observed her expression.

  Xiang Ning took a potato chip and put it in her mouth. Crunch, crunch……

  “Don’t tell my parents about this,” She said expressionlessly.

  That was all?

  Taken aback, Xu Tingsheng asked, “But I really should?”


  “If you do, I’ll tell them that we sleep on the same bed sometimes.”


  “Hey, Little Xiang Ning, you shameless……”


  “Hey, Xu Tingsheng, you dirty ruffian……”


  Defeat.

  Xu Tingsheng changed his approach and went into teacher mode. He told Little Xiang Ning about the importance of the senior high stage and the significance of getting into a good university. At the end of the day, his words could be summed up into a ‘study properly’.

  Looking at him, Little Xiang Ning asked, “But why do I have to study properly?”


  Was this really being asked?

  “To get into a good university and find a good job,” Xu Tingsheng said.

  “And then? Earn income? But however hard I work, I wouldn’t be able to earn in a lifetime what you earn in a short time……so, why must I study hard and get into a good university? ……Will you not want me and not upkeep me otherwise?” Little Xiang Ning rebutted with great conviction.

  Xu Tingsheng suddenly felt that……this really made a lot of sense. Actually, did Xiang Ning really have to study so hard?

  “I feel that it’s fine as long as I don’t do too badly,” Little Xiang Ning continued.

  “And this isn’t considered bad?” Xu Tingsheng asked.

  “I’d still be ranked in the top fifteen in a normal class. I just asked,” Little Xiang Ning said, “And that’s already enough for me to enter a university. Oh, how I wish I was in a normal class……can you help switch me over, Xu Tingsheng?”


  Xu Tingsheng was thinking: I’ve really never seen anyone with lower aspirations than you, girl.

  But in truth, the merry Xiang Ning of his previous life had just been as lackadaisical as this. In the end, she had only barely managed to get into an ordinary second-rate university. Even so, however, she had still grown up with such an enviable personality and disposition……

  In that case, was there really a need to change this?

  Xiang Ning took Xu Tingsheng’s silence as an indication to press further.

  “Also, I can start working hard again in my second year, just like when in junior high. You can help tutor me then. I’ll study Humanities just like you, and so you’ll be able to teach me then. You can even help me prepare a set of revision materials for the university entrance exams……”


  What the……why did it feel like these words made perfect sense?

  In fact, Xu Tingsheng would be able to provide much more help in senior high than for in junior high. Moreover, he had once led twelfth grade classes as a teacher in his previous life. Back then, it had not just been history alone that he had repeatedly researched, especially when leading classes that studied the arts.

  As had taken the university entrance examinations recently again in this life, that part of his foundation was even more solid.

  It really did not seem like getting Little Xiang Ning into university would be very difficult at all……

  “You find that my words make a lot of sense, right?”


  “Urgh……”


  “So, there’s no need for me to study so hard. I’ve also agreed with Lu Min to attend the same university as her. Her results aren’t so good. She says she spends too much time studying relationship problems. Sadly, there isn’t such a major in university. It’s really too bad, huh……”


  “.……”


  Xiang Ning was like a victorious rooster that day as she crowed around triumphantly.

  It was only when Xu Tingsheng was preparing dinner that evening that she came over to the kitchen with a face full of panic.

  “Dinner’s not ready yet. What is it?” Xu Tingsheng asked as he poured the prawns out of the pot.

  “Parent, teacher, meeting,” Little Xiang Ning bemoaned with a tragic expression on her face.

  “Ha, ha……hahaha……”


  “Don’t you laugh!”


  “.……”


  “Can you go, please? Xu Tingsheng, I’ll tell my teacher that Mum and Dad aren’t free. Well, they really aren’t free! So, could you go on their behalf?” Little Xiang Ning shook Xu Tingsheng’s arm and pleaded.

  “Nope……”


  “Then I’ll tell Mum and Dad that we sleep together sometimes.”


  “.……”
……

  After the 11th, the afternoon Yanzhou’s first-tier senior high resumed its lessons, Xu Tingsheng wore clothes as old-fashioned as possible and went to the parent-teacher meeting for Little Xiang Ning. He had certainly attended these before, but only in the capacity of a teacher.

  Besides a few who helped to serve tea, students were restricted from being present at these meetings.

  Little Xiang Ning’s form teacher was a young female teacher of twenty-seven. She had average looks and was surnamed Bao.

  For her to be the form teacher of an experimental class at this age, she must have led her first batch of twelfth grade students in a very outstanding manner. Xu Tingsheng sat at a corner of the room and listened. This Miss Bao did not embarrass anyone outright as she praised those who should be praised and left those who should be criticised for later.

  Only when the teachers for the other subjects came in to speak and better acquaint themselves with the parents did she begin looking for the parents of those ‘problem students’ and engaging them in private one by one.

  Little Xiang Ning was most certainly considered a ‘problem student’ as well. In a place like the experimental class of a city’s first-tier senior high, inferior results were themselves problematic.

  “Hello, may I ask how you are related to Xiang Ning?” Miss Bao and Xu Tingsheng sat across from each other by her office desk.

  “I’m her Uncle, no, I mean brother……” Xu Tingsheng said.

  Miss Bao looked doubtfully at Xu Tingsheng.

  “I’m her big brother,” Xu Tingsheng declared confidently and reaffirmed, “Hello, Miss Bao.”


  “Ah, I see. Well, you’ve probably seen Xiang Ning’s results?” Miss Bao asked.

  Xu Tingsheng nodded.

  “Actually, Xiang Ning is extremely good in all other aspects. I really like her,” Miss Bao smiled, adding, “This is not obligatory speaking.”


  Xu Tingsheng also smiled. He believed that these were not pleasantries, though he himself had once used a lot of that. When teachers talked to parents about their children, they would surely have to start off by saying that they were actually pretty smart, that they had potential etcetera……

  “She just isn’t very diligent and focused in her studies,” Miss Bao looked left and right and, upon confirming that there were no other teachers nearby, lowered her voice and told Xu Tingsheng in what was virtually a hushed whisper, “I suspect that Xiang Ning is……in an early relationship.”


  Xu Tingsheng gulped and swallowed his saliva.

  “That shouldn’t be, right……” He said with rather great difficulty.

  “Shocked, right? I know. Actually, whether it is you parents or we teachers, it’s always this that we’re most worried about. This already isn’t just a matter of studying alone. Xiang Ning is a girl, and pretty……it would be likelier for somebody to cheat her, and then……you catch my drift?”


  “Ah……yes, I do.”


  “So, you should really pay more attention to this when you get back. Let’s keep in touch.”


  “Alright.”


  “I’m actually quite certain of this. Sometimes, Xiang Ning falls into a daze when attending lessons, smiling to herself. As a teacher, I know that look is a hundred percent indicative of young girls in a relationship……you know what I mean, yes? You’ve been in a prior relationship?”


  “Oh, yes……yes, I know what you mean.”


  “Well, according to Xiang Ning, your parents are busy running a store. In that case, we will have to communicate more on this, work closely together to resolve this problem once and for all. We must not let this impede Xiang Ning’s future.”


  “Huh? Resolve? What do you mean by that?”


  “Split them up!”


  “.……Right, yeah.”


  When Xu Tingsheng narrated his interactions with Miss Bao to Xiang Ning afterwards, she was clutching her stomach and laughing as she rolled around on the ground……haha, asked an Uncle, and it was hilarious, hilarious!