Chapter 26: You Don’t Understand Anything!
Nie Qiu was there washing her necklace, separated by a plastic bag. All the garbage was separated by a plastic bag. In reality, it wasn’t that dirty, but if she didn’t wash it thoroughly, she felt it would still have a smell.
It was summer, and the midday sun was scorching. After the onlookers made some unpleasant remarks, they left with disdain in their eyes. This… was society and reality. Perhaps some people were kind enough not to look down on her, but if everyone around her looked down on her, that person would feel like an outsider, and then that person would also say mocking words, and that person would also look at her with disdain. This was the herd mentality.
The sun hung brightly in the sky, casting a golden hue over the large sports field. The school bell rang, and Li Kai, from a shaded spot, quietly watched the person by the faucet diligently washing her necklace. In the shadow of the building, that figure in the sunlight always gave a strange feeling.
He watched like this, and after an unknown amount of time, Nie Qiu finally finished washing her necklace. She wiped it with the front of her clothes, then put the necklace into the purse in her pants, preparing to return to the classroom.
Third grade, class 10 was on the third floor. When she reached the stairs connecting the second and third floors, she encountered Chen Li, who was waiting there.
“Yo yo yo, finished washing?” Chen Li saw Nie Qiu, looked her up and down, and then smiled. Nie Qiu glanced at Chen Li and ignored her.
Chen Li, however, froze there.
What kind of glance was that? Contempt? Scorn? Underestimation? Disdain? Yes, that was it, it was a look of looking down on her! Thinking of the setbacks she had suffered at Nie Qiu’s hands over the past three days, Chen Li became angry. She shouted at Nie Qiu, who was already walking up the stairs, “You stop right there!”
Nie Qiu acted as if she hadn’t heard.
“I said, you stop right there!” Chen Li said, and rushed forward. Nie Qiu dodged her hand, turned around, and looked at Chen Li with disdain. In Nie Qiu’s eyes, Chen Li was just a spoiled child who threw tantrums, and this person’s temperament would probably never change; she would only become a social degenerate!
Such a look, a look of disdain, made Chen Li furious. “What do you mean? Nie Qiu, what do you mean?”
“It means nothing.”
“Means nothing? You, you…” Chen Li didn’t know what to say for a moment, and finally cursed, “Don’t push your luck!”
Nie Qiu looked at Chen Li with pity, shook her head, and sighed softly, “You really don’t understand anything.” After speaking, she turned and continued upstairs.
Chen Li finally couldn’t hold back, let out a yell, and was about to go forward and hit Nie Qiu. “What the hell did you say?”
Nie Qiu dodged, grabbed Chen Li’s flailing hands with both of hers, “I said you don’t understand anything. Do you know pi? Do you know quadratic functions? Do you know calculus? Do you know when our country was founded? Do you know how many days you’ll be locked up if you hit me again? You know nothing, understand nothing!”
“I don’t need to know!” Chen Li felt that the person opposite her had great strength. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t even budge her. She was very surprised, but still said, “I have money!”
You have money? So you don’t need to know?
“You have money? Is that money yours? Have you ever earned a single cent? Besides having rich parents, what else do you have?” Nie Qiu’s disdain deepened. “If your parents didn’t give you a cent, what would you be? If you didn’t have money, would so many people still be willing to be driven by you? Would so many people still be willing to play with you? What are you?”
Chen Li opened her mouth, then opened it again. She tried to speak several times but couldn’t. She had never thought about these things. She had never thought about whether her relatives would still fawn over her if her parents didn’t have money. She had never thought about whether her friends would still be friends if she herself didn’t have money.
Seeing Chen Li stunned, Nie Qiu let go of her. “I can make a bet with you, Chen Li. If you pretend to be poor for a month, how many friends will genuinely treat you well.”
Chen Li looked at the purple bruises on her wrist, pondered for a moment, and then looked up at Nie Qiu. This person, this person… had really changed! She had the same face, yes, the same face. Except for pulling her bangs up, her features hadn’t changed at all, and she wasn’t particularly attractive. There were even a few pimples on her forehead, and she didn’t look pretty.
But she just stood there, with a confidence, with an air of certainty that she would win, looking incredibly dazzling! Yes, radiant. Her confident temperament added a brilliant splash of color to her, making this person, who didn’t look outstanding, so beautiful. This kind of beauty couldn’t be replaced by mere appearance.
Chen Li was stunned, staring blankly at Nie Qiu. “Nie Qiu… are you really the original Nie Qiu?” No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t imagine it. After all, she had been classmates with Nie Qiu for three years. She had always disliked this person. It was one thing that she didn’t love cleanliness, but she was also unsociable. She never paid for study materials, always kept her head down, and was a gloomy loner. She hated her! And this hatred erupted at the beginning of this semester when the seating arrangements were made! The teacher had clearly assigned Li Kai to sit with her, but Li Kai had walked straight to the ugly duckling’s seat!
Although she had a slight crush on Li Kai and was a little jealous of Nie Qiu, what she felt more was her pride! Li Kai’s actions were more humiliating to her than a slap in the face! So she vented all her dissatisfaction onto Nie Qiu, who was sitting with Li Kai.
Nie Qiu glanced at Chen Li and turned to walk towards the classroom. Chen Li stood there blankly, staring at the graffiti on the classroom security door, seemingly lost in thought.
Nie Qiu returned to the classroom. The teacher for the current class hadn’t arrived yet. She knew that the subject teachers were very lax with Class 10, but she hadn’t expected that the teacher still wouldn’t be in the classroom so long after the bell rang. This greatly disappointed her. For her, if a tutor in her tutoring class was late, it was a serious dereliction of duty, and she would immediately dismiss such a tutor. She glanced at Chen Li at the stairwell entrance, sighed, and returned to her seat.
Li Kai placed his mobile phone on his desk and looked up at Nie Qiu. “How is it? Did you find your things?”
Nie Qiu nodded, took out her necklace from her purse, and looked absentmindedly at the small white jade rabbit lying in her palm. It was very small, only about the size of a fingernail, and was inlaid with a layer of finely carved gold. The chain that went through the gold had already broken.
Nie Qiu had only seen this kind of chain craftsmanship when she was a child. However, modern jewelry was made with molds, and handmade jewelry by designers was very expensive, unaffordable for ordinary people. Nowadays, handmade items were rare in the marketplace, and she didn’t know where she could get the chain repaired.
