Chapter 49

The whole day was spent in exams, and Zhai Da's energy was almost exhausted.

Fortunately, the food at home is the most soothing; when he returned home, Yu Xiaoli was already serving dishes to the dining table, while Lu Wei was setting the bowls and chopsticks.

Washing hands, putting away the backpack, sitting at the dining table.

Zhai Da served Ms. Yu a bowl of soup and said: "Received a notice today, evening self-study will be extended by another half hour, and morning self-study will be moved up by half an hour; if you two are hungry in the future, just eat first, I'll eat the leftovers when I get back."

Yu Xiaoli frowned slightly: "Extended again? Son, are you really planning to study?"

Zhai Da glanced at his mom and thought, otherwise what do you think Lu Wei and I are doing every night? Researching androids?

Yu Xiaoli said seriously: "Actually, if you want, I can go to the school and tell the teacher you won't participate in evening self-study."

She quite liked the recent atmosphere.

In fact, as the college entrance exam approaches, the difference between those who don't study and those who do will become greater and greater; with this new round of rules, it's estimated that many people will ask for leave from evening self-study.

If parents strongly request it, even the school can only agree; half of those who don't come have hired tutors or are going to cram schools, and the other half might just be staying home to help with chores.

Zhai Da remembered that in his previous life, in the last month, there were at least ten fewer people in the classroom, and some even went to work early to avoid a month of detours.

This included Wu Yue and Fan Junwei; the former was serving dishes at his family's restaurant, and the latter, he didn't know.

Don't say they don't value their children's education; for three years, if there had been even a hint of hope for them to do well, the families wouldn't have called them back to serve dishes.

People in small towns are not quite the same as in big cities; they value education, but they aren't that stubborn.

In this province, there are many who have no culture but have made money.

Zhai Da originally wanted to shake his head and refuse Yu Xiaoli's suggestion, but then he thought... it didn't seem impossible.

Recently, the textile factory has been idle, and Lu Wei gets off work early; if he comes back early from evening self-study, doing all the tutoring might be even more efficient; if he learns a little, he can have at least six hours of free time every day.

"Alright then, you can go to the school when you have time, but I still have to study when I get home... um, with Lu Wei."

Yu Xiaoli gave him a look but didn't refute; Zhai Da's study situation was in a Schrödinger state for her.

It seemed like he was studying, but it also seemed like he wasn't...

After eating and washing the dishes, Zhai Da wiped his hands and looked at Lu Wei's room.

Usually at this time, it was basically time to call Lu Wei to be his tutor.

But today, he had something else he wanted to tell Lu Wei.

Time was running out, and Zhai Da decided to change locations.

He knocked on Lu Wei's door; the fragrant tutor seemed to have been prepared, coming out with a notebook already in her arms.

Zhai Da shook his head and said: "Accompany me for a walk?"

Yu Xiaoli, who was watching TV, pricked up her ears.

Lu Wei didn't understand, but still nodded.

Zhai Da took Lu Wei and just went out, but at the end of the corridor, instead of going down, he chose to go up.

This weird residential building only had four floors, and the end of the stairs was an iron door leading to the rooftop.

There was nothing on the rooftop; in the beginning, an old man raised pigeons there, and at that time it stank to high heaven, but later it was basically stewed by the neighbors, so he stopped raising them.

No one managed the dilapidated small residential area without property management; a lock that wouldn't close hung on the door, just to prevent the wind from blowing it open; after Zhai Da entered his rebellious phase in middle school, he would occasionally come up to pretend to be deep, lamenting the shittiness of the world and how it couldn't understand a teenager's heart.

The month after reading "Three Chong Gates" was the worst period.

If those thoughts were recorded in writing, the level of embarrassment could probably surpass the content in [Joker Love Letters].

There were no young people in this building, mostly old people; after no one raised pigeons, basically only he would come up.

Zhai Da brought Lu Wei to the door, preparing to take off the loosely hanging lock, but saw a sticky note stuck to it with writing on it.

"Little Da, Mom loves you."

The sticky note was already a bit dusty.

Zhai Da was confused at first, then suddenly realized.

It must have been posted by Yu Xiaoli right after the "fainting in the exam room" incident; what she was worried about went without saying.

Zhai Da chuckled a little, but also felt a bit warm in his heart.

Pulling open the iron door, his vision suddenly opened up.

There was wind tonight, and he bumped into the girl behind him.

Lu Wei was too thin and couldn't stand steadily, subconsciously grabbing Zhai Da's clothes.

And Zhai Da took Lu Wei's hand.

The cold and delicate touch made Zhai Da think of a word.

Soft hands.

Zhai Da looked at the empty rooftop with some emotion; for him, who had been reborn, the last time he came up here was one night when he was dealing with the "tenant business being caught" issue in his previous life, which had been four or five years ago.

At that time, he sat alone on the rooftop for an hour with a beer, witnessing the sunset getting colder and the people becoming distant.

Facts proved that even if you returned to your hometown in a Maybach, if there was no right person waiting for you, it was meaningless.

Revisiting old places, in the end, can only be an adult's futile attempt to hold onto the past.

Zhai Da turned and climbed onto the protruding structure where the stairs were, about 1.5 meters high, then pulled Lu Wei up as well, and the two sat side by side.

Lu Wei looked at the thousands of lights in the distance and was fascinated for a moment, thinking that if she had come up earlier, would she have been able to see the sunset?

She hugged her knees tightly and rested her chin on them.

Only a girl with long legs and a soft body could do that.

Zhai Da appreciated the legs... and the night view for a while, and said: "You've been a tutor for a few days now, how does it feel?"

Lu Wei came back to her senses: "It's quite good, your progress is fast, your memory is strong..."

"Do you think, if I continue to develop in this direction, I can get into college?"

Lu Wei said firmly: "Definitely."

"What about a first-tier university?"

"There's a good chance."

"What if it's a key university? The ones with numbers in their names."

Lu Wei was a bit more cautious this time: "You need to work harder, and you need some luck and performance."

Zhai Da nodded, which was consistent with his judgment.

Of course, if you consider the chaos in admissions and the mismatch of quotas caused by the first year of the 08 new regulations, this probability could be magnified quite a bit.

"I originally thought, you be my tutor, and I'll pay you..."

Lu Wei immediately said: "I don't want money."

"I know, you are very repulsed by money, thinking money is a dirty thing? This is the most bizarre personality trait I've ever heard of; for a vulgar person like me, it's simply a fantasy."

Lu Wei didn't speak; the 1.7-meter-tall girl curled into a small ball.

Zhai Da leaned back slightly with his hands supporting him: "So I don't plan to give you money now either; I've changed my approach: you tutor me in science, and I tutor you in liberal arts, how about that?"

Lu Wei's eyes were full of confusion.

Zhai Da pointed to himself: "My Chinese is still pretty good, especially essay writing; English is mainly about memorizing words, and I have a unique learning method; as long as you add a little tool, your learning efficiency will be very high."

Lu Wei shook her head: "Learning these... is useless."

"Learn it, there is no useless knowledge."

"Why? Doesn't this delay your time instead?"

Zhai Da reached out his hand, passing behind Lu Wei's ear.

With a flick of his fingers, an A4 paper folded into a small card appeared in his hand, as if it had been taken out of thin air from behind her ear.

A small magic trick, actually hidden in the wide school uniform sleeve.

Lu Wei was very surprised, but unfortunately, the system still didn't prompt him that the "close-up magic" was successful.

Zhai Da curled his lips and placed the small card in Lu Wei's palm.

"Open it and see."

Lu Wei opened it and took a look; it was written "Notice for Compulsory Subject Grade Test."

It was exactly what Ding Rong had distributed at school today.

She had never come into contact with the 08 new regulations, so she was very unfamiliar with these, and there was so much content on it that she didn't know where to look for a moment.

Zhai Da pointed to a line of small print and said: "Look here."

Borrowing the moonlight and the light, Lu Wei managed to see the content on it.

"Registration and information modification for this exam... deadline is April 15th; for specific information, please log in to the official website of the Provincial Examination Institute..."

But she still didn't understand what this had to do with her.

Zhai Da said sincerely: "You know, the college entrance exam is everyone's right, right? Don't you often see news about university security guards getting into their own schools, or a forty-year-old uncle taking the college entrance exam for the twentieth time?"

"It just so happens that this year is the first year of the 08 new regulations, and the authorities anticipated that problems might arise, so all processes related to the college entrance exam, registration, and modification deadlines have been significantly postponed."

In those big eyes that lacked emotion, there was finally a ripple.

"Lu Wei, let's take the college entrance exam together this year."

A night breeze blew.

The girl's worries were messier than the hair on her forehead.