Chapter 98: An Unexpected Gift ②
The next day, Nie Qiu got out of bed at just past five. After washing up and eating the breakfast Nie Aifang made for her, she hurriedly grabbed her schoolbag and left home.
When she arrived at the classroom, all the classmates were already there. Nie Qiu didn’t return to her seat; instead, she placed her schoolbag directly on the lectern, took out her notebook and workbook, and said with a smile, “When I was doing homework yesterday, I found a question that’s extremely easy to get wrong. I did this question three times in total, and each time I thought I was right, but every time I checked, I found I was wrong. That would be physics circuit diagrams and Ohm’s Law.” As she spoke, she turned and wrote circuit diagrams and Ohm’s Law on the blackboard with a smile. Then, she stood at the lectern and began explaining some of the problems she encountered while doing the questions. She also wrote a few similar types of problems on the blackboard and asked Peng Yu Yang, Huang Yan, and a few other classmates to come to the blackboard to solve them.
The first part of the morning self-study session is short, from six to six-fifty. Nie Qiu will stand at the lectern and study with the classmates. At seven o’clock, it’s the school’s morning self-study class. Before, Teacher Yang always came to the classroom during morning self-study. But later, after all the students in Class 10 started studying diligently, Teacher Yang arranged the morning self-study schedule. Usually, subject teachers would supervise the morning self-study, or the class representative appointed by Teacher Yang would stand at the lectern to lead the reading.
Generally, the morning self-study reading is for liberal arts subjects, as this is conducive to memorization and recitation. Therefore, Nie Qiu would try to explain some science problems before this. Then, ten minutes would be left for classmates to prepare for morning self-study and use the toilet.
The principal stood at the classroom window and sighed. They were working so hard; he wondered where they would be after next year. He simply shook his head gently and turned to leave.
After explaining the problems, Nie Qiu walked down from the lectern and returned to her desk, putting her schoolbag inside. Huang Yan, holding her notebook, came bouncing over. “I also spent a long time on that question yesterday. My brother told me to draw the circuit diagram, and then I would be able to solve it, but I drew it for a long time and was wrong every time. Nie Qiu, you’re really amazing; you got it right.”
Nie Qiu took out the book needed for the first class from her schoolbag and said with a smile, “How am I amazing? Didn’t I tell you? I also made mistakes.” In fact, she hadn’t made mistakes, but if she didn’t say it that way, she wouldn’t be able to attract their attention. This question is easy to get wrong, so they need to have a deep impression of it.
“But you still got it right in the end!” Huang Yan placed her notebook on Nie Qiu’s desk and pointed to the problem she did yesterday, smiling. “I copied this question from the extracurricular workbook I bought. Didn’t you ask me to help you find topics to discuss? I found this… Huh? Nie Qiu, why are the pimples on your forehead gone?” Before finishing her sentence, Huang Yan exclaimed loudly.
Nie Qiu couldn’t help but touch her forehead and said with a smile, “I bought some acne cream from the pharmacy yesterday, and I didn’t expect it to be so effective. I didn’t even notice until you mentioned it!”
“You couldn’t tell from far away when you were standing on the lectern. Now that I see you up close, I notice the pimples are all gone,” Huang Yan exclaimed in amazement. “It’s like the scabs have fallen off, and there’s a bit of pink, tender skin. It looks quite good? What acne cream did you buy? It’s so effective.”
When girls get together, they always discuss topics about beauty and clothing. Huang Yan seemed to have opened the floodgates and asked all her questions in a rush.
Nie Qiu gave an awkward smile. “I didn’t pay attention to what kind of ointment it was.”
Huang Yan touched her face, looking troubled. “I got a pimple the day before yesterday, but it was gone yesterday. I heard that once acne starts to appear, it will keep coming. It’s so annoying.”
Nie Qiu smiled and said, “You’re still complaining? Didn’t Teacher Tan say the other day that she wished she could get acne but couldn’t? This is a symbol of youth.”
Thinking of Bai Ya squeezing her pimples while looking in the mirror during class one time, and Teacher Tan saying those words, Nie Qiu and Huang Yan couldn’t help but exchange a look and burst into laughter.
Peng Yu Yang, who was doing his homework, heard Nie Qiu and Huang Yan laughing and glanced at them. He couldn’t help but shake his head and smile.
This day was no different from usual. Nie Qiu also accepted the kind offers of Peng Yu Yang’s brothers, letting them walk with her for a portion of the way each day. Usually, Huang Yan would join them. Before, after school, they would buy milk tea at a milk tea shop not far from the school gate. Typically, they would take turns treating each other. But since these boys came along, Huang Yan and Nie Qiu didn’t have to spend money on milk tea; it was always the boys who treated them.
Huang Yan was happy about it, while Nie Qiu was quite helpless. Another time, Huang Yan even told her that when playing with boys, it’s natural for the boys to pay.
After parting ways with Huang Yan and the others, Nie Qiu went to find an internet cafe. She didn’t want to go to yesterday’s internet cafe. To be honest, the small room was full of stale air and the smell of smoke, which made her very uncomfortable. But she didn’t have her ID card, so she could only go to such a black internet cafe. Therefore, the reason she didn’t go to that internet cafe was still because the boss lacked integrity.
City A is very large, but they happened to live in the most prosperous city center. Although it wasn’t difficult to find some secluded residential areas, the difficulty lay in the lack of small shops that had black internet cafes.
Nie Qiu searched for a long time and finally found such a small shop in a residential area. She paid as she did yesterday and entered the small room to go online.
She put on her headphones, turned on the computer, and logged into the two BBS accounts she had applied for yesterday. Upon opening the website, she saw hundreds of notifications in her message alerts, which startled Nie Qiu. Opening the alerts, they were all forum replies. Both BBS were the same. She opened them and saw that the posts initially had replies, but later, possibly because there were too many repliers, people had already started bidding.
Seeing such messages, Nie Qiu was naturally happy. She scrolled the mouse, moving down little by little. To her disbelief, the last floor of the post had already reached a bid of two thousand five hundred. She smiled and opened the BBS, finding that several people had sent her private messages. She smiled and opened the internal private messages.
Two thousand six hundred… two thousand seven hundred… two thousand seven hundred fifty… two thousand eight hundred… two thousand nine hundred… There was even someone bidding three thousand!
Seeing this, Nie Qiu was extremely happy. She added the account that bid three thousand as a friend, then applied to delete the post, and replied to that person’s private message: “Hello, are you sure you want to buy these shoes for three thousand? Please tell me your shipping address, and I will send them out immediately.”
