Lin Zhao Xi thought that Lu Zhi Zhao’s unrequited love for Zhang Liang would end badly, therefore she should nip it in the bud before it’s too late.
She patted Little Lu’s shoulder and earnestly said, “Class Leader, Zhang Liang is not your type.”
Lu Zhi Zhao looked at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lin Zhao Xi traded her carefree demeanour for a solemn one and said, “Don’t hang out with Zhang Liang, he’s not a good person.” She’d purposely pulled him away so others wouldn’t hear their conversation.
“You’re acquainted with Zhang Liang too?” Little Lu was stunned
Lin Zhao Xi nodded and told him about her encounter with Zhang Liang in the corridor. Having been brought up by Old Lin, she too firmly believed that if something happened, you should not hide it from your children and instead, talk to them about it in detail.
Lu Zhi Zhao’s face wrinkled. “Zhang Lian is rubbish, not me! Wait till I see him again!”
The lad was full of vigour and determination, so much so that the windows in the classroom started to quake, and all the eyes in the classroom converged on him.
Lin Zhao Xi coughed lightly. “Class Leader, as one of the best three students in this school, you should pay attention to civilised etiquette.”
Little Lu swiftly corrected himself, cleared his throat, and said, “Look, if you’re staying to discuss then start discussing, otherwise you can go home!” His tone indicated that his words were final. “When I go home, I will report this to my mother, let Zhang Liang’s mother properly discipline him!” he declared, his tone full of righteousness.
Lin Zhao Xi shook her head. “You don’t need to say anything, children are a replica of their parents, the ones that find faults in others, specialise in shortcomings.” 1
If it weren’t for Lu Zhi Zhao’s interruption, the discussion would have finished earlier. Everyone chatted casually and in the end, decided to clean the central park as the chosen community service, it’s easy and environmentally friendly.
Before leaving school, Lin Zhao Xi was relieved that she wouldn’t be meeting Zhang Liang.
However, she never thought that the so-called fate was such that if something should happen will happen.
*
At that time, they were standing in the park management office.
On Saturday, there were many children that came to the park to complete their Young Eagle Community Service. There were many parents accompanying their kids. Looking around, the entire park was like a monkey mountain with children screaming and laughing all around.
For the sake of unity and safety, the park staff listed out all the available community services that could be done on an A4 paper. There were more than a dozen things that needed to be done, but other children had already completed most of them so most services on the list had been crossed out. By the time Lin Zhao Xi’s group arrived, there were only three things left.
Clean the playground equipment, clean the park equipment room, and the weirdest one: help the park staff plan the summer festival.
The festival would start at the end of July, the planning would go on for a whole month. Which primary school student would want to do community service in the heat for a whole month? Everyone except Lin Zhao Xi, of course.
“These activities all sound very exhausting!” The little girl in their group glanced at Lu Zhi Zhao and yelled, “It’s all your fault! If you haven’t slept till the afternoon, there will still be some simple work left!”
The park staff in the management office said, “Children, it doesn’t matter if the work is hard or not, hard work can train your heart.”
“Cleaning playground equipment, there’s way too much equipment and there’s only so many of us, can we even complete it in time? Lu Zhi Zhao asked bitterly.
“The park closes at 5:30, there will be a cleaning team coming, I suggest you start now.”
“Then we will wait till 5:30 so we will clean with them!” Lin Zhao Xi said.
Lu Zhi Zhao tugged her sleeve and said, “No we have to leave early today, remember? The results for the Summer Camp Jin Cup selection exam will be out this afternoon.”
Lin Zhao Xi nodded, she also wanted to know the results as soon as possible. She shamelessly pointed at the “Picking up cigarette butts” option and asked, “Uncle, can we do this task with the people that are currently doing it?”
The park staff was shocked by her shamelessness. He then considered it for a while before finally saying, ” No.”
Lin Zhao Xi was embarrassed. Just when she wanted to find Old Lin to help her find a way to solve this issue, the door of the office was opened. There was the sound of small leather shoes hitting the tiles.
When she turned around, she saw seven or eight students in western-style uniforms- white shirt, tie with spotless vamps3 The upper front of your shoes 4. They were the elite students from Experimental School.
She was shocked looking at the face of the student who was leading the group.
It was Zhang Liang.
Are you here to work or pose for a photo?
However, she reacted quickly. She immediately turned around as if she wasn’t looking at Zhang Liang at all and made a pleading gesture towards the park staff. “Uncle, which of the two jobs are the easiest?”
The park staff didn’t know what to do, so he pointed at the organising equipment room option and lightly coughed. “We had it sorted about a week ago, so it should be the easiest.”
“Then we will choose this one.”
Of course, Zhang Liang was already behind her and replied before she could. He pretended that he didn’t know her and cast her a condescending look. “You guys haven’t picked yet, so we can pick first, right?”
“We came here first, you know?” Lu Zhi Zhao sneered. His face was flushed, but it was definitely not from admiration.
Lin Zhao Xi was scared that he would beat Zhang Liang up, so she quickly held him down.
“Uncle, we are the Young Eagle Summer Vacation team from Experimental School,” Zhang Liang said to the park staff.
“Even if you’re from Havard it’s a no!” Lin Zhao Xi was furious, she also stared at the park staff.
“Um….” The park staff looked at the two groups of children, this was a tough situation. “How about I bring you guys to the playground equipment to have a look, I think cleaning the playground equipment is also easy since you don’t have to run around as much, but you will just go home at a later time.”
*
Park Playground
Under a big tree, there was another group of children from the Young Eagle Summer Vacation Team enjoying the shade. Among them was a curly-haired boy named Hua Juan; it was the exact same name as a certain type of Chinese food.5 In Chinese his name is 花卷(Hua Juan) which also means mandarin rolls 6.
After finishing his afternoon nap, he looked around. There weren’t that many people in the park now compared to the morning. Most of them were parents who brought their children to ride the merry-go-round or the toy train.
Hua Juan was wearing a red armband. His group arrived around noon and decided to help the park employees organise the queue for each park ride. It’s very hot now, there was no one playing on the ride assigned to him. He sat on a chair and looked at Pei Zhi managing the merry-go-round.
Pei Zhi was directing the people to the exit of the ride.
The park staff with Pei Zhi was resting in the operating room, so only Pei Zhi was working. It was obvious that he did not like slacking off.
He escorted the adults to the exits, patiently showed people the way to the toilet, helped a young child onto the carousel, and even helped take pictures for a family.
You’re a primary school student, you know?
Hua Juan couldn’t help but complain. Although it looked like Pei Zhi was working seriously, he knew the truth. Pei Zhi had never ever worked seriously, it’s like he found nothing in the world interesting. Perhaps because of this, he would never choose to lead. He was very talented, smart, and could do anything he wanted, however, he’s not really sociable.
Ergo, it had taken Hua Juan everything just to convince the guy to join the group.
In the end, he’d convinced him saying that it would be harder to do community service later in the holidays. It had indeed been an arduous task.
Hua Juan’s mouth opened for a long yawn. He was just about to call out to Pei Zhi when he heard a loud noise at the entrance of the playground…
*
Before she became young again, Lin Zhao Xi used to work as an intern in a school. As such, she’s quite aware of the individual disparities between children. Some still behaved like kids at the age of twelve while some others chose to act all mature and haughty. Such things were usually influenced by their family.
Take, for instance, Zhang Liang. She looked at the boy and his mother who he had phoned to come over.
Zhang Liang’s mother was dressed in the latest fashion of this timeline. She wore red high heels, held a bright red paraso,l and carried a purse of a luxury brand beginning with C.
She trotted to them with her son while talking on her Nokia phone. She hung up and asked, “Excuse me, who is the staff working in this park?”
The uncle who brought them here walked to the front and said embarrassedly, “It’s me.”
“Hello, I’m sorry for burdening you on a hot day today, my Zhang Liang has given you quite the trouble.”
“Don’t worry, this is my job after all,” said the uncle.
“I just heard that the two groups of children are fighting over who gets to do community service. It is wrong to be doing something like this. I’ve already scolded Zhang Liang on the phone.” She paused, her tone still sounding humble. “But you see, these children are elite students from a famous school, they have been studying non-stop and are very fragile. Cleaning the playground equipment will be too hard for them….”
Lin Zhao Xi pouted and looked at Zhang Liang’s mother. She implied that her team wasn’t that smart and had thick skins, so they were fit to do the heavy work. Every team had an adult as the leader and hers was Lu Zhi Zhao’s grandma. She was an honest old lady. However, she was stunned by Zhang Liang’s mother’s words and didn’t know how to respond.
Lin Zhao Xi was about to speak only to be interrupted by a righteous voice nearby.
“Zhang Liang’s mom, that’s going too far!”
She jumped, not knowing that there was a boy wearing a red armband and Experimental School uniform right next to her. She glanced at him; he had curly hair with light brown eyes, which she thought was very cute.
“Hey kid, mind your manners, the adults are talking,” Zhang Liang’s mother replied, voice showing restraint.
“And what if I don’t do that?” The curly-haired boy retorted.
Zhang Liang’s mom was shocked into speechlessness. She had never seen a kid this unreasonable. Lin Zhao Xi almost applauded him.
“Hua Juan, you don’t even know what happened, who gave you the right to interrupt?” Zhang Liang said with a straight face.
At the mention of the boy’s name, Lin Zhao Xi giggled.7 rem how his name means food
“What the f*ck, I was trying to help you and you’re laughing!” Hua Juan yelled, he was not happy.
“Ok, thank you.” Lin Zhao Xi happily said, “It’s all very simple, the only services that can be completed today are cleaning the playground rides or organising the equipment room. We arrived first, but they unreasonably jumped the queue saying that since they are prestigious students from a famous school and cannot do heavy work we should do it.”
“This is outrageous!” Hua Juan yelled, acting horrified.
Lin Zhao Xi caught on to what he(HJ) was doing and asked him, “Is this how you guys act as the students from the famous Experimental School?”
“H*ll no! I’m ashamed to be in the same school as them!” Hua Juan sternly declared.
Lin Zhao Xi laughed and turned to Zhang Liang’s mom. “Auntie, we are all here to help the park. Therefore, it is not right to be lazy and slack off. It’s not that we can’t clean the playground rides, and we would’ve probably done it if you and your son had kindly negotiated with us. But instead, you humiliated my group, therefore, we won’t agree to your terms.”
“Yeah, Auntie, the teachers have taught us that we have to treat other people with respect,” Hua Juan said as he dealt the final blow.
Zhang Liang’s mom no longer had a smile on her face, the delicate mask that she’d hung on shattered revealing the cold as ice countenance underneath.
And yet, this time, it was Zhang Liang who spoke. “So you’re saying that there is no difference between lowliness and nobleness among students based on their school backgrounds?”
“Yes.”
“But are you guys really smart enough to not do the heavy work?” Zhang Liang haughtily said with his chin pointed up in the air like a little peacock.
Lin Zhao Xi frowned while the guy(ZL) continued to ramble on.
“Let’s play a game, let me prove why this cleaning job suits you guys because of your low IQ.”
***
Lin Zhao Xi thought that Lu Zhi Zhao’s unrequited love for Zhang Liang would end badly, therefore she should nip it in the bud before it’s too late.
She patted Little Lu’s shoulder and earnestly said, “Class Leader, Zhang Liang is not your type.”
Lu Zhi Zhao looked at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lin Zhao Xi traded her carefree demeanour for a solemn one and said, “Don’t hang out with Zhang Liang, he’s not a good person.” She’d purposely pulled him away so others wouldn’t hear their conversation.
“You’re acquainted with Zhang Liang too?” Little Lu was stunned
Lin Zhao Xi nodded and told him about her encounter with Zhang Liang in the corridor. Having been brought up by Old Lin, she too firmly believed that if something happened, you should not hide it from your children and instead, talk to them about it in detail.
Lu Zhi Zhao’s face wrinkled. “Zhang Lian is rubbish, not me! Wait till I see him again!”
The lad was full of vigour and determination, so much so that the windows in the classroom started to quake, and all the eyes in the classroom converged on him.
Lin Zhao Xi coughed lightly. “Class Leader, as one of the best three students in this school, you should pay attention to civilised etiquette.”
Little Lu swiftly corrected himself, cleared his throat, and said, “Look, if you’re staying to discuss then start discussing, otherwise you can go home!” His tone indicated that his words were final. “When I go home, I will report this to my mother, let Zhang Liang’s mother properly discipline him!” he declared, his tone full of righteousness.
Lin Zhao Xi shook her head. “You don’t need to say anything, children are a replica of their parents, the ones that find faults in others, specialise in shortcomings.” 1
If it weren’t for Lu Zhi Zhao’s interruption, the discussion would have finished earlier. Everyone chatted casually and in the end, decided to clean the central park as the chosen community service, it’s easy and environmentally friendly.
Before leaving school, Lin Zhao Xi was relieved that she wouldn’t be meeting Zhang Liang.
However, she never thought that the so-called fate was such that if something should happen will happen.
*
At that time, they were standing in the park management office.
On Saturday, there were many children that came to the park to complete their Young Eagle Community Service. There were many parents accompanying their kids. Looking around, the entire park was like a monkey mountain with children screaming and laughing all around.
For the sake of unity and safety, the park staff listed out all the available community services that could be done on an A4 paper. There were more than a dozen things that needed to be done, but other children had already completed most of them so most services on the list had been crossed out. By the time Lin Zhao Xi’s group arrived, there were only three things left.
Clean the playground equipment, clean the park equipment room, and the weirdest one: help the park staff plan the summer festival.
The festival would start at the end of July, the planning would go on for a whole month. Which primary school student would want to do community service in the heat for a whole month? Everyone except Lin Zhao Xi, of course.
“These activities all sound very exhausting!” The little girl in their group glanced at Lu Zhi Zhao and yelled, “It’s all your fault! If you haven’t slept till the afternoon, there will still be some simple work left!”
The park staff in the management office said, “Children, it doesn’t matter if the work is hard or not, hard work can train your heart.”
“Cleaning playground equipment, there’s way too much equipment and there’s only so many of us, can we even complete it in time? Lu Zhi Zhao asked bitterly.
“The park closes at 5:30, there will be a cleaning team coming, I suggest you start now.”
“Then we will wait till 5:30 so we will clean with them!” Lin Zhao Xi said.
Lu Zhi Zhao tugged her sleeve and said, “No we have to leave early today, remember? The results for the Summer Camp Jin Cup selection exam will be out this afternoon.”
Lin Zhao Xi nodded, she also wanted to know the results as soon as possible. She shamelessly pointed at the “Picking up cigarette butts” option and asked, “Uncle, can we do this task with the people that are currently doing it?”
The park staff was shocked by her shamelessness. He then considered it for a while before finally saying, ” No.”
Lin Zhao Xi was embarrassed. Just when she wanted to find Old Lin to help her find a way to solve this issue, the door of the office was opened. There was the sound of small leather shoes hitting the tiles.
When she turned around, she saw seven or eight students in western-style uniforms- white shirt, tie with spotless vamps3 The upper front of your shoes 4. They were the elite students from Experimental School.
She was shocked looking at the face of the student who was leading the group.
It was Zhang Liang.
Are you here to work or pose for a photo?
However, she reacted quickly. She immediately turned around as if she wasn’t looking at Zhang Liang at all and made a pleading gesture towards the park staff. “Uncle, which of the two jobs are the easiest?”
The park staff didn’t know what to do, so he pointed at the organising equipment room option and lightly coughed. “We had it sorted about a week ago, so it should be the easiest.”
“Then we will choose this one.”
Of course, Zhang Liang was already behind her and replied before she could. He pretended that he didn’t know her and cast her a condescending look. “You guys haven’t picked yet, so we can pick first, right?”
“We came here first, you know?” Lu Zhi Zhao sneered. His face was flushed, but it was definitely not from admiration.
Lin Zhao Xi was scared that he would beat Zhang Liang up, so she quickly held him down.
“Uncle, we are the Young Eagle Summer Vacation team from Experimental School,” Zhang Liang said to the park staff.
“Even if you’re from Havard it’s a no!” Lin Zhao Xi was furious, she also stared at the park staff.
“Um….” The park staff looked at the two groups of children, this was a tough situation. “How about I bring you guys to the playground equipment to have a look, I think cleaning the playground equipment is also easy since you don’t have to run around as much, but you will just go home at a later time.”
*
Park Playground
Under a big tree, there was another group of children from the Young Eagle Summer Vacation Team enjoying the shade. Among them was a curly-haired boy named Hua Juan; it was the exact same name as a certain type of Chinese food.5 In Chinese his name is 花卷(Hua Juan) which also means mandarin rolls 6.
After finishing his afternoon nap, he looked around. There weren’t that many people in the park now compared to the morning. Most of them were parents who brought their children to ride the merry-go-round or the toy train.
Hua Juan was wearing a red armband. His group arrived around noon and decided to help the park employees organise the queue for each park ride. It’s very hot now, there was no one playing on the ride assigned to him. He sat on a chair and looked at Pei Zhi managing the merry-go-round.
Pei Zhi was directing the people to the exit of the ride.
The park staff with Pei Zhi was resting in the operating room, so only Pei Zhi was working. It was obvious that he did not like slacking off.
He escorted the adults to the exits, patiently showed people the way to the toilet, helped a young child onto the carousel, and even helped take pictures for a family.
You’re a primary school student, you know?
Hua Juan couldn’t help but complain. Although it looked like Pei Zhi was working seriously, he knew the truth. Pei Zhi had never ever worked seriously, it’s like he found nothing in the world interesting. Perhaps because of this, he would never choose to lead. He was very talented, smart, and could do anything he wanted, however, he’s not really sociable.
Ergo, it had taken Hua Juan everything just to convince the guy to join the group.
In the end, he’d convinced him saying that it would be harder to do community service later in the holidays. It had indeed been an arduous task.
Hua Juan’s mouth opened for a long yawn. He was just about to call out to Pei Zhi when he heard a loud noise at the entrance of the playground…
*
Before she became young again, Lin Zhao Xi used to work as an intern in a school. As such, she’s quite aware of the individual disparities between children. Some still behaved like kids at the age of twelve while some others chose to act all mature and haughty. Such things were usually influenced by their family.
Take, for instance, Zhang Liang. She looked at the boy and his mother who he had phoned to come over.
Zhang Liang’s mother was dressed in the latest fashion of this timeline. She wore red high heels, held a bright red paraso,l and carried a purse of a luxury brand beginning with C.
She trotted to them with her son while talking on her Nokia phone. She hung up and asked, “Excuse me, who is the staff working in this park?”
The uncle who brought them here walked to the front and said embarrassedly, “It’s me.”
“Hello, I’m sorry for burdening you on a hot day today, my Zhang Liang has given you quite the trouble.”
“Don’t worry, this is my job after all,” said the uncle.
“I just heard that the two groups of children are fighting over who gets to do community service. It is wrong to be doing something like this. I’ve already scolded Zhang Liang on the phone.” She paused, her tone still sounding humble. “But you see, these children are elite students from a famous school, they have been studying non-stop and are very fragile. Cleaning the playground equipment will be too hard for them….”
Lin Zhao Xi pouted and looked at Zhang Liang’s mother. She implied that her team wasn’t that smart and had thick skins, so they were fit to do the heavy work. Every team had an adult as the leader and hers was Lu Zhi Zhao’s grandma. She was an honest old lady. However, she was stunned by Zhang Liang’s mother’s words and didn’t know how to respond.
Lin Zhao Xi was about to speak only to be interrupted by a righteous voice nearby.
“Zhang Liang’s mom, that’s going too far!”
She jumped, not knowing that there was a boy wearing a red armband and Experimental School uniform right next to her. She glanced at him; he had curly hair with light brown eyes, which she thought was very cute.
“Hey kid, mind your manners, the adults are talking,” Zhang Liang’s mother replied, voice showing restraint.
“And what if I don’t do that?” The curly-haired boy retorted.
Zhang Liang’s mom was shocked into speechlessness. She had never seen a kid this unreasonable. Lin Zhao Xi almost applauded him.
“Hua Juan, you don’t even know what happened, who gave you the right to interrupt?” Zhang Liang said with a straight face.
At the mention of the boy’s name, Lin Zhao Xi giggled.7 rem how his name means food
“What the f*ck, I was trying to help you and you’re laughing!” Hua Juan yelled, he was not happy.
“Ok, thank you.” Lin Zhao Xi happily said, “It’s all very simple, the only services that can be completed today are cleaning the playground rides or organising the equipment room. We arrived first, but they unreasonably jumped the queue saying that since they are prestigious students from a famous school and cannot do heavy work we should do it.”
“This is outrageous!” Hua Juan yelled, acting horrified.
Lin Zhao Xi caught on to what he(HJ) was doing and asked him, “Is this how you guys act as the students from the famous Experimental School?”
“H*ll no! I’m ashamed to be in the same school as them!” Hua Juan sternly declared.
Lin Zhao Xi laughed and turned to Zhang Liang’s mom. “Auntie, we are all here to help the park. Therefore, it is not right to be lazy and slack off. It’s not that we can’t clean the playground rides, and we would’ve probably done it if you and your son had kindly negotiated with us. But instead, you humiliated my group, therefore, we won’t agree to your terms.”
“Yeah, Auntie, the teachers have taught us that we have to treat other people with respect,” Hua Juan said as he dealt the final blow.
Zhang Liang’s mom no longer had a smile on her face, the delicate mask that she’d hung on shattered revealing the cold as ice countenance underneath.
And yet, this time, it was Zhang Liang who spoke. “So you’re saying that there is no difference between lowliness and nobleness among students based on their school backgrounds?”
“Yes.”
“But are you guys really smart enough to not do the heavy work?” Zhang Liang haughtily said with his chin pointed up in the air like a little peacock.
Lin Zhao Xi frowned while the guy(ZL) continued to ramble on.
“Let’s play a game, let me prove why this cleaning job suits you guys because of your low IQ.”
***
