Chapter 12

She was waiting for her moment to shine, to amaze everyone with a single brilliant achievement.

But when the results came out, her mother was stunned.

418 points.

Her brother didn’t even reach the Third Tier cutoff.

It turned out that he had become addicted to the internet since his second year of high school, and his grades had plummeted.

The report cards he had brought home before were all fake; their parents had been kept in the dark all along.

All the money supposedly spent on buying study materials and tutoring had actually gone to his online activities.

Her mother’s eyes were swollen from crying.

She was like Xianglin, repeatedly questioning her brother:

“We’ve worked so hard all these years to send you to school, how could you do this to us?

“You took our hard-earned money just to go online.”

The relatives all blamed her mother for spoiling her brother too much.

Her brother was furious:

“It’s not like I begged you to give birth to me. Why aren’t you as rich as my classmates’ parents?

“I won’t take a single cent from you in the future. I’ll go find a job tomorrow, okay?

“Or maybe I should just die right now-would that make you happy?”

…

Her mother was terrified.

She didn’t dare cry anymore, and tried to soothe her brother in a low voice.

“How can you not study? You can’t carry heavy loads, can’t do manual labor, and your eyesight is five hundred degrees nearsighted-what kind of job could you do out there?

“You have a foundation, just pull yourself together and repeat the year.

“Dad and Mom will support you.

“If you don’t study, what future will you have? Do you want to farm for the rest of your life?”

Her brother didn’t want to study; his heart was already set elsewhere.

He wanted to go to some school to learn computers, saying it had a better future than going to college.

Their parents kept trying to talk sense into him.

The atmosphere at home was tense every day, and at this time, her own high school entrance exam results came out.

That day, the sun was blazing.

Her parents had gone out early to help build houses for others.

She squatted at the Village Party Secretary’s doorstep, praying over and over to all the gods and spirits that she could get into No. 1 Middle School.

This was about her future.

And about the promise she had made to Shasha.

When the time came, she dialed the number to check her results.