Chapter 11
Shen Shiwu had asked the question playfully, intending to tease.
So, when Jiang Siyi, with a straight face, uttered that single word, she was surprised.
Seeing the girl feigning composure, her earlobes bright red, she leaned closer. “What did Xiao Si just say? I didn’t hear clearly.”
“…”
Jiang Siyi hugged her backpack and turned away, letting the wind from the open window blow on her face, ignoring Shen Shiwu.
Saying it once was embarrassing enough.
And you say you didn’t hear!
She sneered inwardly, vowing to become mute from now on.
“Miss Jiang said she wants to call you,” Auntie Wang, ever helpful, chimed in.
Jiang Siyi’s lips twitched.
“Oh, is that so?” Shen Shiwu feigned realization. “Since it’s Xiao Si’s request, I naturally can’t refuse.”
She then lowered her head and messaged her assistant, instructing her to arrange it immediately.
Meanwhile, Jiang Siyi, sitting beside her, felt her face stiffening in the wind.
She stubbornly kept her face turned away, annoyed that the blush wouldn’t fade.
After dinner at home, seeing Shen Shiwu follow her into her room, Jiang Siyi knew she wouldn’t be able to freely use her phone again.
“I asked you to mark anything you didn’t understand. Did you do it?” Shen Shiwu asked, watching the girl slowly unzip her backpack.
Jiang Siyi took out the worksheets from class and hummed, “Of course.”
Shen Shiwu was wearing her glasses again.
She took the worksheets and nodded. “Mm, you corrected all the wrong answers. But where are the marks? You didn’t circle anything.”
“Don’t tell me you understand everything?”
That was obviously impossible.
Jiang Siyi slumped back in her chair and sighed. “If nothing’s circled, it means I don’t understand the whole worksheet.”
After all these days, she had figured out Shen Shiwu’s temperament.
It seemed no matter what she did, the other woman wouldn’t get angry.
Just like now, the woman only tapped her head lightly with a pen and said, “Then let’s start from the first question.”
Outside, the sky was pitch black, while inside the room, the girl filled two large sheets of scratch paper with calculations.
Just as she was about to start on the third sheet, Shen Shiwu, sitting beside her, finally spoke, “Finish this problem and then you can rest.”
Finally!
Jiang Siyi took a deep breath and started working on the last problem with tears in her eyes.
Another half an hour passed. The answer was finally correct. Jiang Siyi let out a triumphant yell and collapsed onto the desk, exhausted.
Shen Shiwu helped her put all the worksheets back into her backpack. Just as she zipped it up, she commented, “It’s really easy to pack your backpack, Jiang Siyi. You never even bring your homework home. Although, you did bring a hat.”
She chuckled softly. “And it’s my hat.”
Jiang Siyi immediately sprang up.
“I just wanted to return it to you… I keep forgetting.”
Seeing the other woman playing with the hat, Jiang Siyi cleared her throat, feigning indifference. “Here, take it.”
Seeing how late it was, Shen Shiwu nodded and left with the hat. She reminded Jiang Siyi to go to bed early and not stay up late.
As soon as the door closed, Jiang Siyi looked at her backpack, which contained only a few worksheets, and fell into deep thought.
When she was bored at school, she could at least stare at Shen Shiwu’s hat. Now, her only source of emotional support was gone.
Emotional support.
Jiang Siyi froze, startled by her own thoughts.
She smacked her head, trying to clear her mind, and then rushed into the bathroom to splash water on her face.
***
Every day after that, Jiang Siyi was tormented by various types of problems.
But hard work always pays off. For example, in the recent quiz, she had actually scored a 56 in math.
As soon as class ended, she rushed out, holding the new phone card Shen Shiwu had given her, and stood impatiently by the phone, waiting for the call to connect.
“Hello? Shen Shiwu!”
During this time, not only had Jiang Siyi not started calling her “older sister,” but she had grown bolder, calling her by her name directly.
Shen Shiwu was in a meeting. She signaled for her employees to pause and said into the phone, “What’s up?”
“Guess how much I scored in math?”
The girl’s voice was cheerful, suggesting she had done well, or at least was satisfied with her score.
“Forty?”
“Fifty-six!”
Jiang Siyi clutched the test paper, as if the other person could see it through the phone.
“So? Impressive, right? Fifty points higher than my previous score of six!”
Shen Shiwu chuckled and shook her head, then played along. “Mm, our Xiao Si is the best.”
The girl chattered on, and the woman listened patiently, responding to every sentence without a hint of impatience.
When the five-minute limit was reached, Jiang Siyi pouted. “Time’s up. I’ll tell you the rest when I get home.”
“Okay.”
Only after the call ended did Shen Shiwu turn around. She saw some of her employees still wearing shocked expressions, as if they had seen a ghost.
She tapped her fingers on the table and asked in a low voice, “Any problem?”
“No, no!” They replied in unison.
Jiang Siyi wasn’t doing much better.
As soon as she hung up, she saw the students queuing behind her staring at her.
Her reputation at school wasn’t good. Because of her constant wall-climbing and fighting in previous semesters, she had been reported countless times.
The students behind her, seeing her turn around, took a few steps back in fear.
Xiao Jiang: “…”
She looked away, pulled out the phone card, and walked back to the classroom, test paper in hand, her steps light.
After she left, the students couldn’t help but whisper amongst themselves.
—”Was that Jiang Siyi? Who was she talking to on the phone? Could it be her girlfriend?”
—”How would I know? Go ask her yourself if you’re so curious.”
—”She’s the big boss of No. 1 High School. Do you want me to die?”
And the “big boss” Jiang Siyi was kicked out of the classroom a few minutes later by the teacher.
“Looking at your math test during English class? Jiang Siyi, get out!”
The girl could only squat in the hallway, test paper in hand.
Out of boredom, she stared at the giant, century-old tree in front of the classroom building, lost in thought.
“Why can it live for so long?”
A few seconds later, her imagination ran wild—
“If I could, I would turn this tree into Shen Shiwu, and I would become a little bird.”
“But I can’t be two trees, because what if we get tired of each other one day?”
She lowered her eyes and mumbled, “Oh right, I’m so terrible.”
“It probably won’t be long before Shen Shiwu gets tired of me…”
A young girl’s heart is always sensitive.
And Jiang Siyi, who had lacked security since childhood, was even more so.
She leaned against the wall, her body slowly sliding down.
During the last class, Fu Jing announced that the parent-teacher meeting would be held the day after tomorrow. The classroom was filled with groans again.
“Quiet!”
“These are the last two parent-teacher meetings of your senior year. You’ll miss them after graduation.”
As if.
Jiang Siyi started packing her bag early.
She carefully folded the math test paper and placed it inside her textbook before putting it in her bag.
Then, instead of listening to Fu Jing’s announcements, she picked up a pen and started memorizing vocabulary.
Little Jiang, after spending a class squatting in the hallway, had finally seen the light.
Self-pity was pointless.
She had to study hard and impress Shen Shiwu!
So that day, she even held her textbook as she got into the car.
Auntie Wang exclaimed, “Miss Jiang, are you taking the college entrance exam tomorrow?”
The driver had a sense of humor. Jiang Siyi chuckled. “No, I just decided to study hard.”
Auntie Wang gave her a thumbs-up and encouraged her all the way home. By the time they arrived, Jiang Siyi felt energized, like she could solve hundreds of problems in one go.
Shen Shiwu was busy with work that day and had assumed Jiang Siyi would slack off without her supervision.
However, when she got home, she was surprised to find that the girl had not only finished most of her homework but had also marked the problems she didn’t understand.
Shen Shiwu was very pleased and ruffled her hair. “Where’s your math test?”
The girl, who had been eager to tell her about it earlier, was now silent.
“The teacher collected it after I corrected it.”
Shen Shiwu didn’t doubt her and sat down to help her with her homework.
That night, Jiang Siyi, who hadn’t had trouble sleeping in a while, couldn’t fall asleep. She got out of bed, opened her backpack, and hid the math test paper at the bottom, not even caring about the creases.
Only 56 points.
And you acted like a fool, showing off.
She hugged her backpack, scolding herself for being useless.
Then she secretly set a goal.
At least 90 points or higher.
Since she couldn’t sleep anyway, she might as well study.
Jiang Siyi turned on the desk lamp, took out the homework Wu Ying had assigned, and started working, quickly filling a sheet of scratch paper.
***
Perhaps to reflect the students’ moods, it rained heavily on the day of the parent-teacher meeting.
In previous years, Jiang Siyi would have definitely skipped school.
In such heavy rain, even climbing over the wall would be difficult.
Parents were gradually arriving at school, but Shen Shiwu arrived particularly early.
Jiang Siyi saw her through the window and twirled her pen faster.
Fu Jing was still talking non-stop on the podium. Seeing Jiang Siyi practically bouncing in her seat, she smiled. “Sit still.”
Finally, she gestured for the parents to enter the classroom. Jiang Siyi, who had been restless just moments ago, now tossed her pen aside, waiting for Shen Shiwu to approach her.
“All the other children are getting up to find their parents, why are you still sitting there?”
Shen Shiwu sat down on the chair next to her and asked, looking at her sideways.
“Because I’m not a child.”
Jiang Siyi hummed softly.
Soon, whispers and gossip came from behind.
“Is that Jiang Siyi’s older sister? So pretty.”
“She looks like a celebrity.”
Seeing countless eyes on Shen Shiwu, Jiang Siyi pouted and abruptly stood up.
“What’s wrong?”
Jiang Siyi couldn’t quite describe her feelings, but she wasn’t happy.
She looked down at Shen Shiwu, her voice unusually soft.
“Older sister,”
“You sit inside.”
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