She probably wouldn't even be able to stand up after that slap.
"What...what are you going to do!" Xu Chacha gripped her backpack straps tightly, taking a step back in fear. "I'm warning you, you're not allowed to bully us, or else..."
Shi Cheng laughed out loud, finding her quite amusing, and then mimicked her tone, "Otherwise, what else?"
Xu Chacha looked at him, then at the group of menacing brothers behind him, "Don't think you can do whatever you want just because you outnumber them! This is a school, you are students, and students should do what students should do! Otherwise, when you grow up... you will regret it."
As she muttered to herself, her voice trailed off, and she blinked her watery, doe-like eyes, "So, you're not allowed to bully me or my friends."
"You're quite cute." Shi Cheng reached out his finger to pinch her cheek.
Xu Chacha had no idea what he was planning to do. She thought he was finally going to poison her, so she screamed for help, after all, she had a backup plan!
"Teacher Fangfang! Help! Someone's been hit! Someone's been hit!"
Two minutes later
It's the same grove of trees, and the same group of people.
Wang Fang stood on the steps, holding a roster in her hand, writing expressionlessly. In front of her stood a row of boys with their heads bowed.
"Growth, class, name, please state them one by one." Wang Fang pushed up her glasses, her tone devoid of emotion.
"Auntie...it's all a misunderstanding. You wouldn't really write down my name, would you? Please! If I lose another five points, my parents will be called in." Shi Cheng pleaded softly.
Auntie? Xu Chacha's eyes widened in surprise.
She said that when she complained to Wang Fang, she repeatedly confirmed whether Chen Qianqian had been bullied by Shi Cheng, perhaps because they were relatives.
Wang Fang lifted her eyelids and glared at him, "There's no aunt here, only Teacher Wang."
Shi Cheng was humiliated, his eyebrows furrowed into a V-shape. "It really is a misunderstanding, Teacher Wang. I didn't even touch them. How could you say I hit them?"
"Chen Qianqian said you threatened her this morning, telling her to bring Xu Chacha over to meet you in the grove after school. Is that true?" Wang Fang asked calmly.
Yes, but—
"No buts." Wang Fang ignored the explanation. "Then weren't you a bunch of people surrounding those girls just now, acting like you were threatening and bribing them?"
“They just happened to have finished playing basketball together and came down with me. We were just planning to leave after asking them questions, but they didn’t use any coercion or bribery.”
"What are you asking? Do you want to invite someone to the woods after school? Fifteen minutes between classes isn't enough time for you to ask such a question, is it?"
"Just...just some private things."
"Not going to talk?" Wang Fang pretended to start writing. "Extortion and intimidation are suspected of being school violence. Now you don't have to worry about your parents being called in. Pack your bags and prepare to drop out of school."
Shi Cheng knew that Wang Fang was probably just trying to scare him, but he was still scared, so he quickly stopped her, "No, no, I didn't mean to bully her. I like her too much!"
"I like her." Wang Fang pointed to the little one huddled behind her. "Her?"
Without a doubt, her eyes are practically screaming, "Are you an animal?"
"It wasn't her."
"Who is that?"
Someone nearby answered for Shi Cheng, "He likes Xu Yanshu in the first year of junior high school. He knows that Xu Chacha is her sister, so he asked her to come out to see if she could help him make a match. Teacher, please let us go. We are really innocent."
Xu Chacha: ?
"Like this?" Wang Fang turned her pen around, crossed out the original and wrote it down again, "Early romance, five points deducted from your conduct rules, your parents will be called in for a talk on Monday."
Chapter 36 Grown Up
This winter is a mild one. The sun is still strong in the morning and at noon, so Wen Mubai still has to apply a thick layer of sunscreen before going out. He wishes he could wear a turtleneck every day.
She has already called back the school in country Y to express her intention, and they hope she can come to school before the end of March next semester, so she has recently started preparing to go abroad.
Passing by that familiar dessert shop, Wen Mubai habitually stopped and went in to buy a box of mille-feuille. Just as he was paying, the ringtone he had specially set for Xu Chacha rang.
"Cha Cha?" she answered.
"Auntie, what are you doing?"
Wen Mubai picked up the cake bag, "I bought you some food, I'll be there in a bit."
"Great!" Xu Chacha said happily, then asked, "Is there anything you want, whether it's food or other necessities?"
She knew that Wen Mubai lacked nothing, but when she thought about her upcoming departure, Xu Chacha felt like an old mother, wanting to fill Wen Mubai's suitcase to the brim before she could feel at ease.
"There's nothing I want, just remember to answer your aunt's call." After the two had talked it out, Wen Mubai didn't shy away from bringing up the topic. "I'm leaving on the 25th, it's still early."
"Oh." Xu Chacha sighed softly, "I understand."
She hung up the phone, her expression completely written on her face. Her lips were so pouting that they could hold a kettle. Xu Yanshu, who was standing next to her, felt very uncomfortable watching this.
"It's not like it's goodbye forever, there's no need to be so sad." Xu Yanshu sat down and hugged the little bundle of joy. "Isn't your sister still here?"
Xu Chacha gently hugged her shoulder, still looking sullen, "Because I can see my sister every day. If my sister goes abroad, I will miss her."
Xu Yanshu paused for a second, then silently patted her back, "Don't be sad. She's not here, but your sister will take care of you."
Xu Chacha lifted her head from her arms, blinked twice, and said, "I've figured out what gift to give Auntie!"
Xu Yanshu: That's it?
The Xu family started out in the perfume business, and Xu's mother is also a working perfumer who participates in new product research. Naturally, a considerable space in the house was set aside for her to use as a perfumery.
Xu Yanshu occasionally uses the key for experiments, so her mother left it for her.
Xu Chacha told Xu Yanshu her thoughts and begged her for a long time before she finally agreed to let Xu Chacha into the perfumery room while she was there, but she would never give her the key.
Xu Chacha knew nothing about perfumery, but the perfumery room had many manuscripts and materials left by her mother, and with Xu Yanshu acting as a walking science popularizer, she inexplicably felt full of confidence in herself.
She set the tone for her perfume as gardenia.
The subsequent work involved adding fragrance materials little by little, adjusting the proportions, and constantly trying and failing to achieve the scent in my heart, with the assistance of Xu Yanshu.
The scent she wanted was the same as the gardenia field after the rain that day—a light gardenia fragrance in the refreshing post-rain air, neither overpowering the other, and not too heavy.
Gardenia perfumes on the market are generally quite sweet. Xu Chacha doesn't dislike the scent, but she always feels it doesn't match Wen Mubai's temperament.
After the perfume is made, it will smell better after aging for a month or two. But Xu Chacha couldn't wait that long. She barely managed to produce a small amount before the 25th. The bottle was not even as thick as her thumb.
She carefully labeled it, tied a white ribbon into a bow, and then gently placed it into the gift box.
On the day she went to see Wen Mubai off at the airport, she brought the small box to her in her backpack.
"Don't look so sad. I'll come back to see you as soon as I'm settled."
Mr. Wen didn't come to see her off at the airport today, so Xu Chacha asked Butler Zhang to bring her. The scene seemed a bit lonely. Her eyes were red, and anyone could tell that she had been crying all night under the covers.
"Okay." Xu Chacha raised her hand and pulled at the corners of her mouth, forcing a smile. "I'll send Auntie off with a smile. Auntie, don't worry about me. Get along well with your classmates over there, study hard, eat on time, and don't stay up too late..."
"Are you going to repeat what I told you to myself again?" Wen Mubai held her hand and said with a smile, "I know, Auntie remembers everything you said."
She raised her finger and pointed to her heart.
"good."
"It's time to board the plane." Wen Mubai squatted down, pointed to his cheek, and said, "Give Auntie a kiss, and then Auntie will leave."
Xu Chacha took two steps forward, gently hugged her neck, and gave her a quick kiss, saying, "Auntie, remember to miss me."
"Yes, I will." Wen Mubai patted her head one last time before turning and leaving.
Xu Chacha subconsciously followed her for a couple of steps, but was quickly stopped by reason.
She stood there, watching that slender figure gradually disappear into the distance, and her nose began to sting again. When she saw Wen Mubai turn around, she immediately put away her sad expression and waved to her.
Wen Mubai gave her a slight smile, and this time his turn was without hesitation.
As she watched her figure gradually disappear from sight, a sense of melancholy welled up from the bottom of her heart, though Xu Chacha did not yet understand the source of it.
She naively attributed it to reluctance to part, and naively categorized Wen Mubai in the same position as Xu Yanshu.
Much later, she realized that the feeling she had that day was like having a gardenia planted in her heart.
This seed needs a long cultivation period before it can bloom.
...
Wen Mubai has never broken any of the promises she made, not even the seemingly trivial promise to return to China every two weeks to meet; she kept them all.
When she came back for the first time, Xu Chacha was so happy that she was overjoyed, as if she had been gone for more than half a year. She dragged her to eat all the delicious food she could think of.
They claimed, "If you go out, you won't be able to eat it."
Then came the next time, and the time after that, and the two stayed in touch. The roaming fees were nothing to these two wealthy young women.
Wen Mubai tried his best to make Xu Chacha feel less disappointed, as if she was still the same as before, just going to school, only this time the journey back to school was a bit longer.
But Xu Chacha wasn't an ignorant child. She saw that Wen Mubai's complexion was getting worse day by day, and he even fell asleep from exhaustion during a phone call one night.
Xu Chacha searched online for Wen Mubai's school name, and after searching for a long time, she finally found a course schedule on Twitter from a student who seemed to be in the same major as her.
The grid above is almost completely filled. Just by looking at this picture, you can imagine Wen Mubai's busy life, where he doesn't even have time to breathe.
But Xu Chacha could tell she was happy; when people are busy with something they love, their eyes look different.
Wen Mubai needed more time and energy to deal with his own affairs, and Xu Chacha soon realized that she seemed to have unknowingly become a burden to him.
This was not what she wanted, so she took the initiative to cancel the agreement.
"When I grow up and earn money, I will go abroad to visit my aunt. For now, Auntie should focus on her own things. I will stay in China and work hard with her."
When she said this, Xu Chacha didn't expect that "growing up" would come so quickly.
After starting junior high school, her remedies seemed to finally work, and she suddenly grew to 1.7 meters tall, almost a head taller than Chen Qianqian, who was 1.5 meters tall.
Xue Miaomiao was about the same height as her, but this height balance was broken after Xu Chacha's unreasonable second growth spurt in high school.
Does drinking milk really help you grow taller?
It was summer vacation after the college entrance examination, and the three of them met up to have afternoon tea at Honeymoon Dessert Shop, a place they used to frequent when they were young.
The question came from Chen Qianqian. Xu Chacha stirred the coffee milk in her cup and slowly replied, "I don't just drink milk, you know. Going to bed early and waking up early is the key. If you and Xue Miaomiao stay up all night playing games, forget about growing taller. Before long, you two will have to go get hair transplants together."
"Ah!" Chen Qianqian covered her head, which suddenly felt a little cool, and her chubby face scrunched up. "How did you know I'm bald?"
Xue Miaomiao, who had been mostly silent, glanced at him sideways and said, "Do you know how tall people can see right up to you?"
Chen Qianqian: "You're attacking me personally! Chacha, please yell at her for me!"