Chapter 25

Su Xiaoxiao never imagined she’d become this popular.
Ever since she’d given her speech at the school’s midterm assembly, she’d been getting so many love letters her hands were sore from opening them.
Her classmate Sun Hao, who sat by the window, finally protested: “Su Xiaoxiao, Shen Hua, one of you has to swap seats with me! Delivering love letters and snacks for you two every day is more exhausting than studying!”
Shen Hua’s face turned bright red, too shy to even lift her head.
Su Xiaoxiao laughed. “Alright, I’ll treat you to something from the snack shop later, whatever you want. And if more show up, you can just politely refuse them for me, okay?”
Sun Hao grinned. “What if it’s from Zhang Peng again?”
Zhang Peng was considered the “school heartthrob” of the seventh grade, around 1.74 meters tall, decent-looking, stylish, and confident.
But to Su Xiaoxiao, he was just average. His charm came mostly from trendy clothes and an over-the-top personality.
A few days earlier, Zhang Peng had actually come to Class 1 to find her.
That day after school, Su Xiaoxiao had just stepped out of the classroom when a boy with a flashy hairstyle blocked her path.
He looked her up and down. “You’re Su Xiaoxiao, right?”
She frowned, wary. “Yeah. What about it?”
With a dramatic flick of his bangs, he said, “Zhang Peng, you’ve heard of me, right?”
Su Xiaoxiao stared blankly. “Never heard of him. Why? Are you Zhang Peng?”
The boy looked momentarily thrown off. “No, I’m not, but he asked me to come ask if you’d be his girlfriend.”
????
What the hell?
He sent someone else to ask for him whether she’d be his girlfriend?
Was this guy brain-damaged?
“No.” Su Xiaoxiao gave a cold little laugh.
Then she stepped around him and walked off.
The next day, Zhang Peng himself showed up.
Before she could even see his face clearly, he said, “So I hear you don’t want to be my girlfriend?”
Now, thinking back on it, Su Xiaoxiao could still feel secondhand embarrassment. Every word out of Zhang Peng’s mouth back then had been so painfully cringey she could build a two-bedroom apartment out of it.
She shook her head. “My answer’s the same for everyone.”
Zhang Dongshan perked up at that. Two of the prettiest girls in their grade, what kind of guy could possibly catch their attention?
“Alright, beauties,” he said, calling both Su Xiaoxiao and Shen Hua over. “Tell me, what kind of guys do you like?”
Shen Hua’s cheeks instantly went red. “I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it. Anyway, while I’m still in school, I definitely won’t be dating.”
Zhang Dongshan clutched his chest dramatically, as if heartbroken, then turned to Su Xiaoxiao. “And you, beautiful lady?”
Su Xiaoxiao smiled. “I guess I’m a little shallow, I like good-looking ones. But after that, it’s all about character and personality.”
“Wait, are you saying Zhang Peng’s not handsome?” Even Zhang Dongshan, as a guy, had to admit Zhang Peng looked good, his features were almost delicate.
Su Xiaoxiao said lightly, “He’s, average.”
“What?! Average?” Zhang Dongshan gaped. “What exactly is wrong with him, then?”
Su Xiaoxiao thought for a moment, then said casually, “He’s too short. Looks like a kid.”
Zhang Dongshan nearly fell off his chair. At a time when the average height for first-year boys was around 1.67 meters, Zhang Peng’s height was already considered decent.
“Then what height do you like?”
Su Xiaoxiao answered honestly, “Between 180 and 185 centimeters.”
Zhang Dongshan pursed his lips and nodded solemnly, pretending to take mental notes.
No one noticed that at that moment, Jin Qishan, who had been quietly working through math problems, had drawn a long, crooked line across his scratch paper. After a pause, he wrote a tiny number beside it: 20.
Zhang Dongshan suddenly slung an arm around Jin Qishan’s shoulders. “Hey, stop being such a study machine during break, will you? Xiaoxiao, who do you think is more handsome, me or Jin Qishan?”
Su Xiaoxiao grinned. “Obviously Jin Qishan.”
Jin Qishan brushed off Zhang Dongshan’s arm with an annoyed look. “You’re boring.”
But the corner of his mouth curved up ever so slightly right after.
“Hua Hua, what do you think?” Su Xiaoxiao called out to Shen Hua.
“I think, probably Jin Qishan too.” Shen Hua tilted her head thoughtfully. “If he were a little fairer, he’d be even better looking.”
Zhang Dongshan let out a dramatic wail, clutching his chest again. “How am I worse than him? I’m even taller by a few centimeters!”
Su Xiaoxiao said simply, “Your face isn’t.”
After that, news spread like wildfire that Su Xiaoxiao’s minimum height requirement for a boyfriend was 180 cm.
Half the boys who used to hover by the window every day suddenly stopped showing up.
…
During the winter break of their second year of middle school, Su Junhua finally fulfilled the promise he’d once made to Su Xiaoxiao, he bought an apartment in N City.
Back when Su Xiaoxiao had first asked her father to buy a house there, she’d said she didn’t want to live in the company housing. She wanted a big house, a real home of their own.
Su Junhua had thought she was just a kid talking nonsense and didn’t take her seriously.
But she’d brought it up again and again, under different pretexts, and each time he brushed her off.
Then one day, while watching the news about China’s Olympic bid, Su Xiaoxiao had declared confidently, “They’ll succeed on July 13.”
Her father hadn’t believed her, so she made a bet, if she was right, he’d buy that big house in N City.
He’d laughed and agreed easily, thinking it was impossible.
But when the official announcement came that the bid was successful, Su Junhua had jumped and cheered like a child, until he suddenly remembered their bet.
And then he’d groaned in dismay.
Money was tight, he was still studying, and they were living mostly off Wu Xinyu’s salary. Buying a second house on top of their staff housing felt impossible.
But Wu Xinyu insisted. A promise made to their child had to be kept, and their daughter wasn’t like other kids. She was determined and full of ideas. If she wanted something, they should support her.
So the Su family saved and scraped for years, pooling together enough money to buy their first home in N City: a spacious three-bedroom apartment, over 130 square meters.
Years later, when housing prices skyrocketed and the hospital dorms were scheduled for demolition, Su Junhua and Wu Xinyu would look back and thank their past selves for buying early.
For now, though, Su Xiaoxiao looked at the 60,000 yuan sitting in her bank account and wondered if she could buy another place herself.
A big one was out of the question, but maybe a small one?
The problem was, she wasn’t old enough to buy property. And if she handed the money to her father, how could she possibly explain where it came from?
The truth was, during her long, dull days, Su Xiaoxiao had gone back to her old trade, writing web novels.
By now, she’d already made a name for herself in the online fiction world.
Most of her readers would never have guessed that their favorite author was still just an elementary school kid.
But for the time being, she didn’t plan to tell her parents about it.
Since buying property wasn’t an option yet, she decided to invest instead. She took out 30,000 yuan and put it into the stock market.

Before long, there were only two months left until the high school entrance exams.
But what worried Su Xiaoxiao more than the exams, was Grandma Jin’s health.
In the original story, Grandma Jin had gone to a neighbor’s house to attend a banquet. During the meal, a little boy insisted on playing with the family’s large wolfhound. The dog was tied to a tree, lazily lying in the shade, but the child kept throwing small stones at it and poking it with a stick.
Eventually, the dog was provoked. It snapped the rope, lunged forward, and bit the child.
Grandma Jin, being a kind-hearted woman, rushed in to save him and was bitten instead. The wound wasn’t deep, so she didn’t think much of it. But not long after, she fell ill with rabies and passed away.
At that time, Jin Yongzhong was still serving in the army, and because of various circumstances, Jin Qishan didn’t get to see his grandmother one last time.
It became the greatest regret of his life, something that, whenever he remembered, made him wish he could destroy the lives of everyone responsible.
But as for the exact date when Grandma Jin was bitten, Su Xiaoxiao didn’t know. The novel hadn’t gone into detail, it had only briefly mentioned it in Jin Qishan’s memories.
The only thing she remembered clearly was that it happened about a month before the high school entrance exams. When Grandma Jin was hospitalized, the teachers had refused to let Jin Qishan take time off, saying the exams were too close, and because of that, he missed the chance to see her before she died.
Thinking of this, Su Xiaoxiao immediately turned to him and asked, “Qishan, have you called your grandma recently? How’s her health? Has anyone in the village had any big celebrations lately?”
Jin Qishan looked at her, surprised. Why was Su Xiaoxiao suddenly so concerned about his grandma?
Still, he answered honestly, “I still call her once a week. She’s fine. How would I know who’s getting married? Why are you asking all this?”
Su Xiaoxiao frowned slightly. “No reason, but maybe you should call her every day, just to check in?”
Jin Qishan gave her a puzzled look. “What’s up with you today? You’re acting weird.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you hiding something from me?”
“What? No,” Su Xiaoxiao said quickly, forcing a laugh and turning away, already racking her brain for any details she might’ve missed.
A few days later, on the night of April 30th, it began to drizzle. Not long after, thunder rolled through the sky.
That night, Su Xiaoxiao’s dream became hazy and strange. She was trapped in a thick fog, wandering aimlessly, when she suddenly heard a cry, “Grandma!”
Following the voice, she saw a boy kneeling on the ground within the mist, crying out through his tears, “Grandma, why didn’t you wait for me,”
She tried to reach him, but the boy kept backing away, always just out of reach.
Then the fog began to thin, and Su Xiaoxiao’s heart stopped. The boy’s face was unmistakable.
He looked exactly like Jin Qishan.
“Ah!” Su Xiaoxiao jolted awake, gasping. She grabbed her phone. The screen read 4:00 a.m., May 1st.
“Please, please let it be morning soon,” she whispered, clutching her phone tightly.
And then she remembered, the banquet where Grandma Jin was bitten had happened on May 1st. There’d been a wedding in the village that day.