Chapter 32: The Friendship of Four People (Part One)
As soon as the winter vacation arrived, everyone was overjoyed. Qiao Anyu won with a narrow margin of 0.5 points over Xu Xiao, taking first place in her age group, which could be called a "narrow victory". Whenever relatives and friends came to her home, they couldn't stop praising her. But she felt it was meaningless. This 0.5 points, she had won too laboriously, and also too anxiously. Xu Xiao's strength far surpassed hers, she knew this all too well.
"Jade is cool."
"Jade is cool."
"Jade is cool."
After the third day of the Lunar New Year, Gu Siyan, Yu Shuang and Leng Ning's voices rang out in unison as Qiao Anyu opened the door.
After entering the house, Qiao Anyu was busy serving tea and pouring water. Her mother, An Yan, seeing that her daughter's classmate had arrived, also warmly entertained them. In front of her daughter's classmates, she still gave her daughter the face she deserved. Not long after, An Yan returned to her own bedroom, leaving the girls chatting in the living room.
"How come you didn't give us a heads up before coming, and it's so late at night too. I was right in the middle of watching my favorite TV show." Qiao Anyu spoke bluntly to them, not treating them as guests at all.
"It seems that we are not welcome here after all. Girls, the master doesn't want us, let's leave! It would be better than being seen by this heartless person and feeling annoyed." Leng Bing pretended to want to leave.
"With your sharp tongue, Xue and Siqi are not as petty as you." Qiao Anyu pretended to be angry and didn't try to stop her.
"What are you watching on TV? So you're not completely devoid of entertainment activities after all. I thought your mom had locked up the TV at home."
"Occasionally take a look, recently I've been watching 'Dream of the Red Chamber', and after watching the TV series, I have an urge to read the original book. Among the Four Great Classical Novels, it's the only one I haven't read yet."
"What a artistic young man! The TV dramas you watch are so artistic. Won't your mom object? I heard many parents disapprove of us teenagers watching 'Dream of the Red Chamber', after all, it contains love stories. At our current level and mindset, we can only treat it as a romance novel. This book is too profound in its learning, even experts in the field of redology can't fully understand it." It seems that Leng Ning has paid attention to 'Dream of the Red Chamber' before, otherwise she wouldn't know so much about it.
"Hurry up and stop, you two literary giants. Once you start talking about literature, Yu Shuang and I, two illiterates, can't understand the conversation between you two literary giants. We didn't come here tonight to hold a literary seminar." Gu Siqi timely suppressed the two people's tendency to discuss literary works.
"Where's Yu Nu? Isn't she at home?" Leng Bing changed the subject self-consciously and asked curiously.
" Went out to play with classmates." Qiao Anyu replied lightly. It can be seen that the two sisters seem to have some discord.
After three rounds of tea, Leng Jing pulled Qiao Anyu and Liang to find An Yan.
"Auntie Anyan, I'm asking for your approval to borrow Yuliang for two hours so we can go out together. We'll return her in exactly two hours, without a single hair out of place. Is that okay?" Leng Bing and Qiao Anyu had been especially close since elementary school, often visiting Qiao Anyu's home and becoming familiar with Anyan as well, so she dared to make the request.
"You're such a smooth talker, little girl! Auntie has approved, go out and play, just remember to come back early." An Yan rarely allowed Qiao Anyu to go out with her classmates at night, mainly because she was afraid that Qiao Anyu would make some unsavory friends. Leng Ning was an excellent student, so if it was with Leng Ning, she felt much more at ease.
Four people walked out of the door hand in hand.
