CH 15.1

Two days of class after the Mid-Autumn Festival was the National Holiday. For the entire 7 day period, the students in the class had basically all already planned out where they were going for vacation. Even Qiao Mu was ready to leave. 

“Where are you planning on going?” Xu Youyou asked Qiao Mu. 

To City B*.” Qiao Mu said. 

“Are you going to climb the great wall?” 

“Probably not.” Qiao Mu shook his head, “Actually this trip is mainly to bring Grandmother to get a check up. Afterwards, we’ll probably walk around the city a little bit before coming back.” 

Grandmother Qiao was not in great health. Recently her illness had erupted again and Qiao Mu wanted to take Grandmother to the big city to get checked. 

“I also plan on visiting Qingbei* along the way.” Qiao Mu said. 

“Qingbei?” Xu Youyou thought it sounded familiar, “Qingbei University?”

She then remembered, in the past life she seemed to have heard Qiao Mu say that he graduated from Qingbei. 

“Yes.”

“Are you taking a look now because you want to apply to Qingbei?”  In her previous life, she had also visited a bunch of universities before applying. 

“That’s the plan, but it still depends on what I score on the Gaokao.” Qiao Mu didn’t say too much. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll definitely get in.” 

“Why do you sound like you have more confidence than me?” Hongluo High School was not the best high school. If one or two could get admitted that was pretty good. Although Qiao Mu’s grades weren’t bad, he wasn’t certain. 

“If you don’t have confidence, why would you bother applying?” Of course, it was because she met you ten years in the future. 

Qiao Mu nodded in agreement: “You’re right. ‘Enhance the aspirations of the moral, do not belittle yourself.’ The battle has not yet been fought. It is true that I shouldn’t lose confidence yet.” 

“That’s right. Besides, you don’t need to pay for confidence.” Xu Youyou nodded as well and asked another question, “But, what does enhance the aspirations mean? 

Qiao Mu was stunned, and reacted a little late: “That’s right, you never read ‘Chu Shi Biao’**”

Xu Youyou had a look of surprise. 

Qiao Mu laughed, and patiently explained: “‘Chu Shi Biao” was our first middle school lesson. One sentence was ‘Enhance the aspirations of the moral, do not belittle yourself.’ Basically it means that people should not belittle themselves and should have confidence. Since you came back from abroad, you didn’t learn about it.”

“Oh,” Xu Youyou understood. 

For the National Holiday, Xu Youyou had no plans. One, because she had no particular place she wanted to visit and two, because Madam Ji was afraid of letting her travel by herself. So during the entire break, she stayed cooped up in the pottery studio looking over the shop or doing homework.

Speaking of homework, Xu Youyou was going insane. She had finished college in her past life, yet she had never seen any teacher or school assign as much homework as she had now. 

In the afternoon, taking a moment of leisure, Madam Ji went to the milk tea shop across the street and bought a cup for her studious daughter: “Have a milk tea and rest for a bit.” 

“Thanks, Mom.” Xu Youyou put away the practice paper, afraid she would accidentally get it wet. 

“How many more papers do you have?” 

“Five.” Xu Youyou could not help but complain, “How can this be considered a break? This is just taking a break to do homework at home. And the rest of the class even went on vacation, I don’t know how they are able to finish it all.”

“You don’t have that much, do you know the High School No. 1 next to your school?”

“I know, the major high school.” Xu Youyou knew about High School No. 1. Li Xiuran was from there and their uniforms were much nicer. The girls in her class were very envious of them and would talk about it a lot. 

“Their homework is at least three times the amount you have.” Ji Leyao laughed. 

Xu Youyou’s eyes widen in surprise. 

“When I was choosing your high school, I specific chose High School No. 7 because their homework load was the lightest and the nighttime self study was only for Grade 3.”

“Ke!” Xu Youyou almost choked on her milk tea. After hearing about it, it seemed even scarier than climbing Mount Everest. 

“Although there is a lot of homework, the effort put in and the result are equal. No. 1 has the highest college acceptance rate in City J. But I don’t have much requirements for you, you can apply to universities abroad. You have a foundation in English so it shouldn’t be too hard.” Ji Leyao said. 

Xu Youyou wasn’t worried about college, she had experience. If she prepared a few months ahead of time she could definitely get into a pretty decent university in Country Y. However, the issue was her cold illness. Although recently she hasn’t feld cold to the point of shivering as she did when she was first reborn, her body was still colder than a normal person. She had to be close to Qiao Mu to get warm. If she were to study abroad and Qiao Mu went to Qingbei, what would happen if the cold illness got worse? 

Before her cold illness is fully cured, Xu Youyou thought it would be best if she stayed with Qiao Mu to avoid anything bad from happening. 

“Mom, what score is required for Qingbei?”

“Qingbei? Why are you thinking about them?”

“I was just randomly asking.” Xu Youyou wanted to calculate the difference to see if she would have a chance if she worked hard the next three years. 

“About the exact score, I am not sure. But it should be around the score of the best in your class.” Ji Leyao said. 

“Best in the class?” 

“Yes, in last year’s Gaokao, I believe only one student was admitted from Hongluo No. 7 High School.

Then what was the use in working hard. 

Xu Youyou threw down her pencil and thoroughly admitted defeat: “I’m going out for a walk. 

———————–Translator’s Note ————————–

* Qingbei is Tsinghua and Peking Univerity

**Chu Shi Biao is the name of a memorial by Zhuge Liang, a famous strategist during the Three Kingdoms.