Effort and grievance.
Zhao Xi hadn’t even started yet, but just hearing those words already made her feel aggrieved.
When she was abroad, the divide between rich and poor was stark, if the wealthy wanted, they could live completely insulated from the poor, aside from the servants who worked for them.
The restaurants the rich frequented, the parties they attended, the stores where they shopped—all were places the poor wouldn’t go, even their children didn’t ride school buses from a young age… if they were richer still, they wouldn’t even attend public schools, like two parallel lines that never intersected.
Zhao Xi didn’t have a single poor friend abroad!
Her friends, at the very least, were middle-class.
Compared to Rongcheng in 2004, America’s middle-class families could be considered affluent.
The thought of having to主动 reach out and befriend a girl from a poor family, lowering herself to accommodate the other, how could Zhao Xi not feel aggrieved?
Seeing his sister’s expression, Zhao Dong could guess her thoughts, to make Zhao Xi obey, he even resorted to provocation, “If you can’t do it, I won’t force you, you like Xie Qian, but Xie Qian doesn’t have to choose you, he has other options, like that girl Wen Ying.”
Zhao Xi let out a marmot-like screech, “Absolutely not!”
She would never, ever let Xie Qian go to someone else.
The Zhao siblings reached a consensus.
They analyzed Xie Qian’s preferences at length.
The two racked their brains but couldn’t figure out that Xie Qian had confronted Jiang Youjia directly because of an untouched plate of skewers and some disparaged braised lobster.
According to Zhao Dong’s analysis, Xie Qian didn’t like people approaching him with overly strong motives, as an adult, Zhao Dong would make Xie Qian wary, so this task could only fall to Zhao Xi alone.
“Don’t bother with Xie Qian for now, focus on Wen Ying, learn from her strengths.”
There must be something unique about Wen Ying, something other girls her age lacked, that drew Xie Qian to her and made local Rongcheng rich kids like Qin Jiao and Wang Shuang willingly gather around her.
If Zhao Xi could master this quality, it wouldn’t just help her win Xie Qian, it could benefit her for life.
Of course, no matter how much she imitated, Zhao Xi couldn’t become Wen Ying, their upbringings were too different, Zhao Xi could lower her posture, but she couldn’t turn herself into a poor person.
“You need to learn, but not to become exactly like Wen Ying, with her as the ‘pearl’ ahead, if you just copy her, you’ll never surpass her, you have to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses!”
A pearl ahead?
Zhao Xi glared.
She thought her brother’s Chinese was terrible, using words all wrong.
—Someone like Wen Ying, a pearl ahead?!
…
For some reason, when Wen Ying woke up that morning, her nose felt itchy, constantly on the verge of a sneeze.
Chen Li even asked if she’d caught a cold, Wen Ying touched her forehead, it felt normal, her limbs strong, no signs of a cold.
“Auntie, I’m fine.”
Chen Li scrutinized Wen Ying, “A lighter diet really works, you’ve barely had any pimples lately.”
For a teenage girl to have no acne at all, aside from natural beauty, it had to be tied to healthy habits.
Some blamed spicy food for acne, but Wen Ying knew that wasn’t the whole story.
In Sichuan, few girls avoided spice, and plenty ate spicy food without breaking out, whether acne appeared depended more on individual constitution, diet-wise it was heavy oil and excess sugar, lifestyle-wise it was lack of exercise and late nights… to fix her skin, reborn Wen Ying had ditched her teenage bad habits from her past life, watched her diet, and ran almost daily for weight loss and fitness, after a month, changes were visible.
Weight-wise, she’d gone from over 120 jin to 118 jin.
Losing a few jin in a month wasn’t fast, but it was healthy and less likely to rebound.
Her face stopped sprouting new pimples, old acne scars were fading, Wen Ying went makeup-free now, if needed, her current scars could be covered with foundation.
Looking at herself in the mirror, Wen Ying was pleased, a girl didn’t need to be stunningly beautiful, but discipline in life would at least make her look healthy and vibrant.
Wen Ying basked in her progress until she saw Xie Qian during tutoring, snapping her back to reality.
Look at the male god, skin so smooth you couldn’t see a pore, did he ever get proud about it?
Xie Qian handed her a few test papers.
“Math still has room for improvement, physics and chemistry… you figure it out.”
“I get it, I get it!”
Wen Ying wailed.
Her strongest subject now was English, followed by math, she was self-studying Chinese, history, and politics, but physics and chemistry were still on the list, and in high school, biology would join them.
Though Wen Ying dreamed of literature, she’d never considered being a humanities student.
—In her last life, choosing humanities would’ve meant missing out on being Xie Qian’s classmate.
This life, was there even a choice?
She had to nail math, physics, and chemistry!
Wen, the academic struggler, suffered and rejoiced.
When tortured by tutors, glancing at Xie Qian beside her gave her the drive to keep going.
If a top student worked this hard, what excuse did a struggler have?
That afternoon, when Wen Ying and Xie Qian arrived at the night market street, the city TV crew filming a food festival promo had long been there, Qin Jiao had been cooperating since morning, shooting school uniform scenes at school.
Wang Shuang got some screen time too, though he was more of a background figure.
Spotting Xie Qian, Director Yan’s eyes lit up, “Little Xie, you’re finally here, quick, quick, get some shots of Little Xie.”
Director Yan was overly enthusiastic, Deputy Director Lü stepped in to hold him back, Xie Qian himself didn’t want to be filmed, anyway, Yan’s focus was all on Xie Qian and Qin Jiao, leaving Wen Ying and Wang Shuang sidelined.
Wen Ying turned to Wang Shuang.
Shuang Shao had changed a lot lately, never complaining, stepping up with responsibility, he was fully committed and serious about the “startup” Wen Ying had proposed.
As Wen Ying thought this, a girl who seemed out of place in the night market street’s vibe approached her, stopping in front of Wen Ying, extending a fair hand, “Hi, I’m Zhao Xi, I knew Xie Qian before you did, this is our first meeting, I hope we can be friends.”
Wait, was this girl joking? Had she watched too many melodramatic idol dramas? Saying she wanted to be friends while her face screamed battle-ready… Wen Ying felt this scene belonged on TV, it was too jarring in real life!
Before Wen Ying could respond, Shuang Shao demonstrated a Sichuan opera face-change, eyeing Zhao Xi from head to toe, not missing a hair or shoelace, despite his delicate manga-like face, his mouth dripped venom, “Who are you? Popping up out of nowhere saying you want to be friends, so random, like some weirdo!”
