Chapter 18: A Chance Encounter

Qiao Lan sits in her room confused for a long time.

Qiao Lan is only sixteen now!

Are you crazy to find a husband at sixteen?

She thought that Qiao's family would treat her better if she did so well, but now she realizes that for these people, getting into Tsinghua University is not as exciting as marrying a rich man.

Qiao Lan had a profound sense of crisis.

Good books are of no use to them.

If they do find a so-called "good family" for Qiao Lan, and Qiao Lan disagrees, will Qiao's father and Qiao's mother stop her from studying?

Quite possibly.

No, it should definitely be this way.

She doesn't have the money to pay the tuition anyway, and if Qiao's family cuts off her tuition, there's nothing she can do about it, even if she insists.

Qiao Lan had thought that she would be able to survive until she graduated from high school and then go to a foreign university so that she could get away with it, but now she heard what Qiao's mother was planning to do.

Qiao Lan realized that she had to do something.

She had to have made her plans as fast as she could.

That night, Qiao Lan struggled to sleep amidst the yelling of Qiao's mother and her second sister.

The next day she went to school, walked into the classroom, which had only ten or so residents, and was greeted by a few of her classmates.

After being ostracized for almost a month, Qiao Lan had forgotten what it was like to talk to her classmates.

When I got back, I sat down in my seat, took out my political science textbook, went outside to memorize as usual, and then ran for morning exercise.

Back to the classroom and took a cup of water to get water under the building, when he came up after getting water, he unconsciously looked back and saw Tan Mo slowly rolling his wheelchair.

As a habit formed over the past month, Qiao Lan subconsciously wanted to say good morning to Tan Mo again, but the words came out of her mouth.

On the way home after talking to Tan Mo that day, Qiao Lan tried to put herself in Tan Mo's shoes, to understand what her initiative really felt like to Tan Mo.

A person who has been out of contact with outsiders for a long time will fear someone taking the initiative to greet her and will be very resistant when the phone rings.

Tan Mo, who grew up with Asperger's, only got worse, so what seemed to her like a gentle hello, Tan Mo probably rejected and overwhelmed.

Tan Mo also saw Qiao Lan.

He's sure Qiao Lan just saw him.

The movements of Tan Mo's hands, even he himself did not realize, sped up a little, but when he looked up again, the girl who would have stopped to talk to him when she saw him, was already gone.

Tan Mo's hand on the wheelchair froze for a moment.

No one knows that Tan Mo, at this very moment, actually wanted to take the initiative to say good morning to Qiao Lan.

Tan Mo hung his head, and after a long moment re-rolled his wheelchair and entered the classroom, returning to the patch of shadows he had been sitting in for over two months.

And Qiao Lan is sitting in the doorway, furthest away from him.

Tan Mo's light brown eyes looked fixedly in Qiao Lan's direction, and he saw that Qiao Lan, who used to be like him and never interacted with others, was now talking to her new classmate.

What did they say? They talked for a long time, maybe a minute, maybe two.

How much can you talk in two minutes? Tan Mo doesn't know.

After his mother's death, he never again interacted with anyone for more than two minutes.

All the words Qiao Lan had spoken to him in so many days might not add up to more than two minutes.

The sourness that had flooded his heart that day came back again, and more than that day Tan Mo couldn't say what it felt like, he couldn't describe what it felt like, all he knew was that he didn't want to see Qiao Lan talk so much to another person.

And it was words he would never have guessed.

Tan Mo has been in this seat for more than two months, and he has never felt bad about it, but now he has developed a sense of dissatisfaction.

It's too far.

It's so far away that you can't even hear a little bit of Qiao Lan's voice.

Qiao Lan's new classmate, Pei Ning, is a boy about the same size as Qiao Lan and has a very introverted personality.

It's not Tan Mo's kind of uninviting aloofness. It's just timidity. It's just introversion.

And Qiao Lan suspected that Pei Ning might like Song Yao.

Qiao Lan felt a little guilty, because if it wasn't for her determination not to sit at the same table with Chen Yaoyang, then Pei Ning's table would have been Song Yao's.

Pei Ning is an introvert, but if you have any questions for him, he will tell you everything.

Qiao Lan is now asking Pei Ning about grants and scholarships for the secondary school.

Yesterday, Qiao's mother and Qiao's second sister's conversation startled Qiao Lan so much that she didn't sleep well for a night, and she came to the classroom a few days later to find out more.

Pei Ning didn't know much either, but he was much better than Qiao Lan, and by the time Pei Ning was done talking, Qiao Lan had a rough idea of what was going on.

Qiao Lan herself is a poor student, so she has a two hundred dollar grant every month, which will be credited to her meal card, and a small half of the students in the grant class have it.

But scholarships are different. The scholarship system at the Annex is private to the school, and the criteria for first class scholarships are very simple and crude: the person with the highest final marks in the next and next semesters.

It's evaluated once a year at five thousand dollars a time.

The second prize is three thousand dollars for students who have final scores in the top four and do not qualify for the first prize.

Qiao Lan is stupid.

High school tuition is not too expensive, 800 yuan a semester and 600 yuan for boarding. If she can get a scholarship, she should not have to worry about tuition, and even if Qiao's father and Qiao's mother won't let her go to school in the future, she will be able to afford the tuition and boarding.

Of course, it's hard to say whether or not she'll get the money, and even if she does, it'll be near the end of her freshman year of high school, so in addition to the grants and scholarships, Qiao Lan will have to find a way to save up money again.

Not being able to count on Qiao's family, and relying on others is better than relying on oneself, Qiao Lan decided to go to work in the shortest possible time.

While it's freshman year of high school, there's still plenty of time, and when sophomore year starts with nightly study halls, there will be no time at all.

On weekends, Qiao Lan is going to go out to work and save up some money, otherwise she won't even have money to live on.

Qiao Lan is much more at ease with her plans, and in order to free up her free time, she takes her classes more seriously and doesn't waste her time after class.

Pei Ning used to study very hard, but after sitting at the same table with Qiao Lan, and seeing Qiao Lan's energy in studying, he had the illusion that I was not working hard enough.

So somehow he followed suit and began to work harder and harder.

The thirteenth class was already at the top of the grade, but since the midterm exams were over, the thirteenth class's energy to learn, visible to the naked eye, has become even stronger.

The students probably have this thought in their mind, even Qiao Lan's so poor background, now can get to the first grade, what else is impossible.

Chen Yaoyang, who was already too smart, doesn't want to be pressed down by Qiao Lan next time, and actually knows how to memorize books lately.

Lao Liu was very interested in such a strong learning atmosphere in his class, and was happy all day long. The homeroom teachers of the next few classes stood on the podium every day and scolded the students in their own classes.

"People's class 13 came first last time, and they're still fighting so hard, so who are you guys to not work hard!"

So when Qiao Lan woke up early to memorize, she found that there were many more students around her than before.

The last class of the afternoon was gym class again.

Again with class 5, Hao Ying's class.

Qiao Lan is actually quite fond of sports and doesn't exclude gym class. When she was in high school, she had close classmates who would often sit together and talk during gym class.

But now, even though there were gradually people in the class who were actively talking to her since the midterm grades had come out, they were just talking.

This kind of gym class is no fun for Qiao Lan.

As usual, Qiao Lan was ready to go back to the classroom to read after the dismissal as usual.

But today, the physical education teacher was suddenly interested, and instead of dismissing the class after waiting to do the activity, he organized the whole class to do the activity together.

A bunch of boys who had brought basketballs and were ready to play with Class 5 wailed in unison.

The gym teacher was completely unfazed and excited to take the class to the big playground, and was excited to "play games" with the students.

The boys looked at the fifth class on the field and the girls looked at the girls sitting on the lawn listening to music and chatting, all protesting with their whole body cells.

But the protests were ineffective.

The gym teacher didn't know what had gotten into him today, a forty-five-minute class, and when he finally finished his activity, he had five minutes left.

The fifth class next door has finished a game.

Qiao Lan had wanted to go back to the classroom to read, but after looking at the time, she didn't go back and waited for the bell.

There were only five minutes left, and there was no place for people to go, walk and talk, especially now, at this time of year, when there were several of the campus' star figures on the court.

For example, Song Yao, who is the favorite of many boys, Chen Yaoyang and Hao Ying, who are the focus of almost all the girls in the room, are the ones who attract attention wherever they go, who they are talking to, and who are the ones whose every move attracts attention.

But since midterms, there's been another Qiao Lan.

First in the grade, a title that always intrigues people. At first, a number of students came directly to the class to watch, but now that we're in gym class, knowing that Qiao Lan is there, a number of students are watching Qiao Lan as well.

"Qiao Lan, just that high ponytail over there."

"108 points shy of a perfect score, really awesome, just not very good."

"It's enough for people to study well, why do they need to be so good looking", someone retorted, glancing over to Qiao Lan, "It's not unattractive either, her features are very nice, and she would definitely be pretty if she were a bit whiter."

"He's so tall, over 5'7", his legs are so long..."

"It's too skinny..."

"God made me so skinny, I guess..."

The crowd chattered and talked until the teacher shouted dismissal before slowly making their way to the classroom.

Qiao Lan moved into the classroom along with the crowd. Suddenly, a person jumped up behind her, steaming hot, and Qiao Lan subconsciously dodged, but as soon as she turned around, she was met by Hao Ying's bright smiling face.

Looking at his white, straight teeth, Qiao Lan's first thought was that he could be in a toothpaste commercial.

Hao Ying, still familiar with himself, had just finished playing soccer, took off his uniform jacket and was only wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, holding the ball in his hand, ignoring the astonished expressions of the surrounding crowd, and said to Qiao Lan, "Thank you."

Thank you?

Thanks for what?

Qiao Lan found it puzzling, "You've got the wrong person."

"How can it be", Hao Ying said, last time he thought Qiao Lan lied to him, so he even looked for Qiao Lan's name, this time Qiao Lan took the first grade, how can he recognize the wrong one.

When I think of this Hao Ying mood is better, this time 123 points in math, his father gave him a lot of pocket money, mom gave him the latest Apple phone.

Li Fan Qin Yang patted Chen Yaoyang a few times, "When did Qiao Lan know Hao Ying?"

"I don't know", Chen Yaoyang frowned, he was also surprised, after all, Hao Ying and Qiao Lan were not the same people at all, Chen Yaoyang also could not think of any opportunity for these two people to get to know each other.

Some people were talking, some were playing with their cell phones, and no one noticed the teenager in a wheelchair on the first floor of the school building a few minutes ago.

The pale teenager looked at the smile on Qiao Lan's face and at the tall and handsome boy next to her.

That boy was smiling, sunny, lively, healthy, and nothing like the communication-impaired, brooding, disabled man he was.

No one knows how long Tan Mo, who never voluntarily steps out of the classroom, has been there, or what he's been looking at and what he's seen.

The sun is setting, and the sunlight spills over Tan Mo's empty table.

Qiao Lan returned to the classroom, and even though she had already decided not to bother Tan Mo anymore, she still subconsciously glanced over to Tan Mo's seat.

A silent frown knit his brow.

Tan Mo is not in the classroom.

But Qiao Lan didn't think much of it. Today's gym class, Tan Mo probably took advantage of the small crowd to leave early.

When we got home, Qiao's mother kept glancing at Qiao Lan, looking her up and down and saying with dissatisfaction, "All of our kids are white, but you're the only one who's dark."

Qiao's mother is a bit worried, because Qiao Er Sister said that she would introduce Qiao Lan to someone, but what if the person finds Qiao Lan ugly?

Qiao Lan: ......

She's just not white, but she's not black as hell either.

Besides, she is malnourished every day, so she must be yellow and skinny. If she is allowed to eat and drink well, she might be even whiter than Qiao Yuan, the little white fat man.

However, Qiao's mother suddenly starts to pay attention to Qiao Lan's looks, which is not a good thing for Qiao Lan, who can't wait for the weekend, and is going to see if there are any recruiters anywhere on Friday afternoon after school.

When she went to school the next day, Qiao Lan looked back several times until the first period was over, but she didn't see Tan Mo.

Tan Mo didn't show up today.

Why didn't you come?

Sick?

Or is there something going on at home?

The next day, Tan Mo still didn't show up, and no one in the class thought it was strange. When she met the homeroom teacher on the way after school in the afternoon, Qiao Lan asked the homeroom teacher about it, and the teacher said she didn't know either.

Tan Mo is different from other students in that he doesn't have to take a vacation to come to school.

Qiao Lan went back home, casually ate something, put down her school bag and left the house, going out to look for a place to work.

In the past, Qiao Lan did not have to worry about tuition fees as her high school was subsidized by well-wishers. However, if she had free time, she would still work part-time to earn some money, for after all, not having a source of livelihood would make one feel insecure.

Later, when I went to college, I even worked several jobs to support my tuition and living expenses.

Before college, she worked as a flyer distributor, a waitress, and all kinds of jobs. After college, because of her good grades on the college entrance exams and because it was the highest finance and economics university in the country, Qiao Lan was able to find a better job as a tutor.

Now Qiao Lan, only a senior in high school, and she can only work at night and on weekends, it's too hard to find a job where she can work long hours.

Qiao Lan strolled from seven to ten in the evening, with a bunch of recruitment sheets in her hands, and copied many addresses and phone numbers in her book, and only returned home at nearly eleven, with her ears automatically blocking out Old Lady Qiao's chatter, and went to bed early.

The next day he was out again at first light.

Take the hires that were selected yesterday and ask them one by one.

Qiao Lan is only a senior high school student now, it is really very inconvenient, after searching all morning can not be found, she is now not over eighteen years old, only a junior high school education. After nearly a day of wandering around without finding anything, gradually the day passed and it was evening, the lights around her gradually brightened, Qiao Lan went to the store to buy a piece of bread, sat down on a chair next to a small alley on a gravel road to survey the surrounding area.

Nearly ten minutes later, has not been lighted a Western-style restaurant finally turned on the lights belatedly, the elegant owner's wife gathered her hair and hung up the business sign, and a moment later posted a recruitment sheet on the glass.

Qiao Lan finished her bread in two bites, wiped her hands, and walked in.

Just passed by this side when I saw this western restaurant, two floors, the decoration is very exquisite, now a light is more chic.

After searching for a day, even the worst conditions could not be found, Qiao Lan simply find a better ask, anyway, it is difficult.

Part of the reason is that Qiao Lan once worked in a Western restaurant, learned to make coffee, and spoke perfect English.

The owner's wife looked at Qiao Lan as she walked in, "What's for dinner."

Qiao Lan pointed to the window, "I'm here to apply for a job."

......

After a long day of work, Qiao Lan has finally found another village in the dark.

The boss's wife said she didn't want a minor, but Qiao Lan said she was already sixteen, and the boss's wife said she wanted someone with a high school diploma or higher, but Qiao Lan said she had good grades.

After nearly half an hour of arguing with the boss's wife, the boss's wife saw that she was running out of patience, but today one of the store staff was on vacation and there were many customers, so Qiao Lan volunteered to make coffee herself, and the boss's wife let Qiao Lan give it a try, and then she worked all night.

The boss's wife didn't expect this little girl to be quite nimble, and most of all, quite skilled, no matter whether it was making coffee or ordering, all very skillful, the boss's wife finally believed Qiao Lan's claim that she had worked in a western restaurant before.

But Qiao Lan's time is a problem. Qiao Lan can only come in the evenings and on weekends, and Qiao Lan says she can be paid less.

The boss's wife stared at Qiao Lan for a long time, probably out of sympathy, and agreed to let her come to the store at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.

Qiao Lan went out for a day of shopping and finally found a job. It's only a thousand dollars a month, but it's satisfying!

When she started working the next day, Qiao Lan realized that even though the location of the store was quite remote and the food was very expensive, there were quite a lot of people coming to the store, and many of them were regulars.

Tan Mo doesn't like to go out, especially these past two days, but when Tan Mo's father arrives to pick him up, Tan Mo eventually goes out.

Tan Mo and his mother have always been abroad, Tan Mo's father thought that Tan Mo might like western food, so he took him to a western restaurant that he usually goes to. Although the restaurant is not very big, the environment and the taste are first class.

Tan Mo's father said to Tan Mo that something tasted very good here, and Tan Mo's expression was bland, not reacting at all.

Tan Mo's father asked Tan Mo why he hadn't gone to school in the past two days. His teacher called him specifically to ask him, and Tan Mo, sitting in his wheelchair, was expressionless, "He didn't want to go."

Father Tan frowned.

He had a hard time convincing Tan Mo to go to school, but then, without knowing what happened, Tan Mo suddenly stopped going.

Tan Mo had some free time today, so he took Tan Mo out for dinner and wanted to talk to Tan Mo.

Tan father is used to being a leader, and Tan Mo talk to, at first okay, later talk to become and subordinates talk tone, Tan Mo already annoyed, now more and more want to leave, but in the look up, suddenly saw a familiar back.