Chapter 79

The plane flying to Japan whistled across the night sky.

I wonder if it would fly past Lvshan City.

Da Dong saw that Qi Wei had been smiling silly since he got on the car and was still smiling silly on the plane, hugging his phone and taking a look at it from time to time. He was simply neurotic.

At this moment, Qi Wei was looking at his phone which had been switched to flight mode, but he still opened WeChat and smiled silly. There was one more friend in his WeChat.

Her name was just Seven.

He didn't expect to meet her by chance when he was looking for travel guides to Japan. She happened to be learning Japanese.

So she was also looking for some Japan-related books.

Not only did he add her on WeChat, but also chatted with her for a few sentences. She even told him that he could go to Kiyomizu Temple, and Ginkakuji Temple nearby was also good.

When she heard that he was going to Japan, she also said that if he saw any interesting places, he could share them with her.

He left a message to her that his name was Qi Wei and his WeChat name was a string of symbols followed by a word "time".

She also left a message to him with her name, Su Xiaoqi.

In fact, he already knew her name, but what she told him was different.

Da Dong peeked over to take a look, and saw that it was the interface of adding a new friend on WeChat. There was only their names and no content at all. What was there to see?

After a while, he suddenly reacted: "You added that girl's WeChat? Not bad! Showing her real face!"

Qi Wei just smiled silly and didn't care at all even being punched on the shoulder.

Lin Zizuo next to him had stayed up late playing games last night. At this moment, he was snoring, with saliva flowing out.

Outside the window was the endless night sky. Qi Wei wished he could immediately turn the plane around and fly back. But thinking of what she said about sharing anything interesting with her, he suddenly felt that this trip was like having a mission. His mind was filled with her frowns and smiles. He felt a little dizzy. Her voice was so nice. He should have talked to her earlier.

Xiaoqi jumped into the swimming pool. The pool water submerged her. She had a wonderful feeling of sinking down and floating up again, making her feel dizzy.

After practicing swimming for so long, Xiaoqi was no longer just swimming for the competition to win prizes. Now she felt that swimming was really a very relaxing sport that soothed body and mind.

When running, it broadened her mind and she could run away from her gloom. But it was also quite tiring. She felt exhausted every time after running, all covered in sweat, like tempering her tendons and bones through martial arts training.

However, swimming gave her a different feeling. Maybe it was more like practicing internal exercises. With the buoyancy of the water, her whole body and mind felt very relaxed.

The English tutoring class in the afternoon went smoothly. And Xiaoqi felt that because Jiajia liked filming, it also exercised her. She saw the Douyin videos sent by Jiajia. Jiajia filmed quite professionally. She didn't feel nervous at all in the videos. She was very relaxed.

At first, when she knew Jiajia was filming her, she still felt a little uncomfortable. But after a few times, she wouldn’t be so nervous and scared now. This was a very precious experience.

She remembered that when she was at school, she would get nervous even when standing up to answer questions. If she had to give a speech on the podium, her hands would shake. She also had the problem of frequent urination when nervous.

The same problem caused her to lose points in the college entrance examination. When nervous, she always wanted to go to the restroom. She didn't dare to drink water before the exam and went to the restroom several times, but she still felt like going to the restroom all the time. Her mind was distracted.

Recently, she increased exercise and didn’t have the problem of rushing to the restroom as soon as she sat down to study.

However, Jiajia said in the afternoon that her classmates wanted to come to learn English too. Xiaoqi thought about it and still refused. Although she really wanted money, tutoring money was very clear, relatively good. But teaching 7 students at the same time at Jiajia's house was already very tiring. It was greedy to take more. If there were more people, maybe no one could learn well.

In addition, the boy she met in the library this morning was very tall and handsome. Xiaoqi didn't expect him to take the initiative to chat with her and even ask for her WeChat.

This was the first time Xiaoqi had been approached. She added his WeChat inadvertently.

Then she heard that he was going to travel in Japan and felt very envious. She even boldly said that if he encountered anything interesting, she hoped he could share it with her.

Because Xiaoqi had started learning Japanese, she was very interested in these things at this time. She felt that it must be useless to cram vocabulary for language learning. She still had to learn more about other knowledge and humanities and customs.

That was what really learning a language was, not just for getting a certificate.

She had learned English for so many years in a muddled way. So when learning Japanese, she wanted to take the initiative.

However, that boy was quite handsome indeed. Xiaoqi thought he seemed even taller than Brother Lin Min, with a very sunny temperament.

She really envied that kind of people with sunny temperament and sunny smiles. She always felt that such people must have smooth lives since childhood without any hardships.

At the very beginning, she thought Liu Shaowei was like this, so she was unconsciously attracted to him.

After thinking about some messy things, Xiaoqi began to focus on swimming, one lap, two laps, three laps. Looking at her new watch and the interface in front of her, she felt that not only was she swimming smoothly now, but she was also a little faster than before.

Today was Thursday, the official Ghost Festival. Her parents also called her and told her not to go out at night. Dad said that Boss Huang called him again and asked him to do more work. Su Youfu was very excited on the phone saying that he could earn enough money for his daughter's tuition.

In fact, recently he hadn't been making winnowing trays, but making these bamboo baskets and bamboo boxes instead. There was a lot of gossip in the village because basically there were no secrets in the village. People would wander into anyone’s house after meals to chat. People said he had gone crazy for money. These things were useless, neither edible nor practical. They definitely wouldn't sell if made. Even his mother jumped out and scolded him, saying that he was useless and was wishfully thinking. He would starve to death sooner or later and drag the whole family down.

Xiaoqi’s next tutoring time was next Tuesday. But now she had to learn Japanese on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. She also needed to practice swimming. There would be a competition on the 20th. So she couldn’t go home either. Fortunately, it was convenient to call her parents now.

She was quite busy today. It was not easy to talk to her parents. She actually stayed in the swimming pool at night after swimming. The gym would close at 10 pm and start driving people out at 9:30 pm.

After Xiaoqi took a shower and waited for Coach Wu Peirong to leave together.

Coach Wu’s home was next to the gym. She remained single up till now and dedicated herself to sports education. She was also from the countryside, not as remote as Gumula Village which was an hour drive to Lvshan City.

In the village, she was considered a powerful girl. At a young age, she bought an apartment in the city by herself. Of course, there were also talks that she was stupid. What did a girl need an apartment for? Even her parents didn’t understand her and thought she should have bought an apartment for her younger brother instead. Anyway, because of this, she almost had a falling out with her family. They thought she was selfish, arrogant, ungrateful and unrighteous...

Today was Ghost Festival. Her family called and asked her to go back home. She originally thought it was for dinner. But then her mother brought up the house purchase on the phone again, asking her to help her younger brother. Her younger brother was going to get married and the bride’s family had an apartment in mind to buy.

Coach Wu became upset.

Years ago, just because the family had to pay high tuition fees for her brother, she was not allowed to go to university.

When Coach Wu saw her new student, who looked very energetic and scholarly, she was particularly envious.

"You're going to university in half a month. You'll be a college student soon. How nice."

Xiaoqi felt that the coach was a little upset today, very different from her usual encouraging and resolute manner. It was rare to hear such an emotional tone from her.

"Well, teacher is very powerful. I heard from my auntie that teacher bought an apartment near the gym by yourself. I really admire you, teacher." To Xiaoqi, it was true that there were too many college students, especially those like herself who got average grades. But few girls in their early twenties could buy an apartment by themselves.

"What's so powerful about it? It's a mortgage. Our swimming team happened to have a group purchase welfare of a little over 5,000 yuan per square meter. I saved some money myself over the years, and borrowed some from friends as down payment. Now I still have to pay back more than 2,000 yuan in loans every month."

"Coach, you really are powerful. Houses around here are almost 10,000 yuan per square meter now. The price would double if you resell it. That's money most people earn in a lifetime."

Wu Peirong was rather proud of this point. At first, many people in the team didn't want this quota, but she decisively bought it, even going to borrow money for it. She also asked her parents, who scolded her for a while and refused to lend her money. They said they would only be willing to lend money if she put the house under her younger brother's name. Gritting her teeth, she bought it herself anyway. Now her parents were urging her to sell the house, simply because housing prices had gone up and they felt it was useless for a girl to have a house. They thought it would be more sensible to sell the house and use the money to buy one for their son instead.

Originally when buying the house, she had not been willing to put it under her brother's name. Now being pressed to sell the house and use the money to buy one for her brother, she was even more unwilling.

But what was the point of telling a 17-year-old student all this? If she did, the girl probably wouldn't even understand.

"Focus on your studies, you're very fortunate to have the chance to attend university. I never had the opportunity, which is why I'm stuck with just the one property. Keep at it, your coach sees potential in you," Wu Peirong said, patting the girl's shoulder.

She seemed to have grown a little taller, Wu Peirong thought with a smile.

Xiao Qi bid her coach farewell at the crossroads. In her heart, she felt strangely heavy. So her coach had always dreamed of going to university. For most people, university graduates were worthless, yet for some, getting into university remained a dream.