CH 38.2

Chapter 38.2 – Evidence

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In mid-November, the year-one high school had their midterm exam.

The day after the exam was a Saturday afternoon. Chen Meixin came to pick her up from school to have dinner in the city and to incidentally discuss recruitment.

Chen Meixin’s family is well-off, and since Su Qin has helped her make a lot of money on Taobao, she has changed to a BMW recently. Chen Meixin started working out to lose weight after being jilted, so she is now slenderly tall. She was a picturesque standing beside the BMW with the sunglasses on and Su Qin could see her from afar.

Li Chuan usually comes to pick her up after school and he would stand in unnoticeable places that are normally not seen by her classmates. While Chen Meixin drove a BMW and simply stood in the most conspicuous place at the school entrance, she waved at Su Qin once she caught sight of her.

Su Qin came out with her classmates.

Yan Yixiao teased, “Su Qin, who is that? Your sister? She looks so pretty ah.”

Yun Fei was happy when he learned that Li Chuan would not come to pick up Su Qin today and he planned to ask his driver to take her home.

However, once he saw Chen Meixin, his heart sank and his plan to send Su-su home was foiled again.

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After Su Qin left with Chen Meixin, Yan Yixiao and Yu Wen waited for taxis by the roadside . Their parents were busy this week, so they had to take taxis home by themselves. But the road from the school to the foot of the hill was rather congested and taxis didn’t even want to come up.

Recently the school teachers and the dormitory superintendent aunty have been stressing about safety, and Su Qin had also told him about the ‘human trafficker’s transit hub’, thus he was a little worried about the two girls. So he stayed behind to accompany them at the school gate.

When Su Qin was not around, Yun Fei hardly spoke and he stood beside the two girls with non-presence.

About fifteen minutes later, the two girls still hadn’t gotten any taxis. Yu Wen turned and asked the boy behind her, “Yun Fei, isn’t that your family car? Why are you still here? Aren’t you leaving yet?”

Yun Fei looked passively at Yu Wen and his tone was quite indifferent, “What would Su-su think of me if she knew I left you two girls behind?”

It was getting late now. He took out his handphone to check the time and said, “It’s very late, I’ll send you gals off.”

Yan Yixiao hugged Yu Wen’s arm and spoke as she looked at Yun Fei, “But Yun Fei, doesn’t your family live in Xin’an District? Mosquito and my home are in two completely opposite directions. Moreover Yingnan Road there is under maintenance, so it will take you almost three hours to get home after meandering in circles.”

Yun Fei shook his head and beckoned the driver across the road to drive over. He then opened the back door for the two girls and beckoned, “Get in.”

The two girls looked at each other and got into the car.

Sitting in the front passenger seat after getting into the car, Yun Fei told the driver the girls’ home addresses, then put on his headphones and began listening to songs. He didn’t speak to the girls behind during the whole journey.

They were often with Su Qin and knew that Yun Fei liked to act spoiled with Su Qin. In front of Su Qin, he is like a child. But once away from Su Qin, he talked little and appeared aloof when facing other girls.

But it’s also such a Yun Fei that lets Yu Wen have a favorable impression about him.

Yu Wen peeked at the boy’s side profile and saw him leaning against the back of the seat with his eyes closed, his thick eyelashes were curvy and long.

Something quietly sprouted in the girl’s soft heart.

Downtown, in the private room of a Chinese restaurant.

After ordering, Su Qin handed Chen Meixin the recruitment form she prepared in her spare time.

They want to recruit two more customer service staff, who can work shifts with a salary of 1200. They also need to recruit 3 dependable warehouse personnel, responsible for packing, inventory taking, documenting the warehouse records etc, with a basic salary of 1200 too.

As for the artwork, Su Qin has entrusted all to Designer Li, who is now downtrodden. Since Su Qin does not hamper his style, Li Xian has designed unique advertisements for Taobao. As a result, as soon as others see this ad, they will know that this is a ‘Yunyi’ store’s ad.

Chen Meixin felt there was no problem and the recruitment matters were finalized. As the customer service department’s office, it was tentatively arranged in Chen Meixin’s retail shop. Chen Meixin had cleaned up the second floor which reluctantly became the customer service department. Bobo and Wang Lin would go work there every now and then, and also to train the newcomers.

The warehouse personnel were all ladies who were Wang Lin’s previous acquaintances and the three of them were all divorcées. After their divorce, they were servers and dish-washers outside, with extreme self-doubts. So Wang Lin recruited them and motivated them every day.

Originally they could only get 800 yuan a month being dish-washers, but here, they got 400 more, and the boss also promised to surely pay overtime for extra shifts. All will get bonuses if the sales volume increases and everyone’s interests are protected, hence everyone naturally works harder.

The Taobao store is on the right track, and Su Qin’s studies does not fall behind too.

On the morning of the midterm results, Teacher Tang walked into the classroom with a stack of report cards. Stepping on high heels into the classroom, she looked extremely serious.

The students in class all sat upright with apprehension. Seeing Teacher Tang’s expression, everyone could guess that their class’ results were not very satisfactory this time.

Dropping the stack of report cards heavily on the table, Teacher Tang’s eyes swept over the class and said, “I’m very disappointed with your results this time. Let’s not talk about the Whizz Classes. The average grade of our class’ language result is even lower than Class 12. Think about it yourselves, what does this mean?”

When the students in the class heard this, they all hung their heads successively, not daring to look straight at the class teacher’s gaze.

This means that they are not even as good as the second bottom class this year.

From the moment Teacher Tang got the overall report cards last night, she was so angry that she couldn’t sleep and didn’t even eat her breakfast. She had high hopes for this class, yet their language results were actually not as good as Class 12, wasn’t this too absurd?

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Teacher Tang still looked solemn, “You guys, are the worst students I have ever taught and none others.”

These words were like a nuclear bomb, exploding in the students’ ears.

Yes, not only Teacher Tang, even they themselves felt ashamed. Even the average score of Class 12’s language was higher than theirs, so they must be the problem.

This time, Class 12’s language grade ranked the highest, second only to the Whizz Classes.

Yunzhong is a major high school, with a large number of top students. The students in top classes are all inclined towards science subjects, and Class 1’s students are as such too. They themselves focus more on the science subjects’ results and are relatively weak in liberal arts subjects.

After criticizing the students, Teacher Tang began to hand out the report cards, “Next, I will hand out the report cards according to the class ranking, and the students whose names are called out will come up to take it.”

The most exciting moment has come.

This midterm exam was the exam since they started high school, and they were all eager to find out who ranked first.

Could it be Yu Wen?

Everyone was still in doubts when Teacher Tang called out,

“Su Qin.”

The students in class made an uproar and successively shifted their attention to Su Qin.

Some even started to whisper.

“Bottom first?”

Teacher Tang tapped the table with the blackboard eraser, “Quiet. Su Qin, first in class and ranked 67th in the whole grade.”

There was another commotion as everyone looked at Su Qin incredulously.

Su Qin walked to the podium under the entire class’ watchful eyes and accepted the report card with both hands. She returned to her seat with the report card and her deskmate, Guan Dongdong leaned over to see her results.

Seeing his own ranking at 24th, Guan Dongdong wanted to die and decided to punish himself by eating two less packs of spicy strips.

“Yu Wen, second place and ranked 89th in the whole grade.”

Yu Wen took a deep breath too. She did not expect her rival would be Su Qin and felt inexplicably excited.

The moment everyone in class got their results, they all felt unfathomable. Su Qin was twenty points more than Yu Wen. All those classmates who used to discuss Su Qin privately got slapped in the face.

The language lesson in the morning, Teacher Tang asked the students to analyze the reasons for the setbacks of this exam.

The conclusion was that this midterm Classical Chinese exam tested what they normally thought was not significant. They usually focus on math, physics and chemistry, and thought that language could be memorized. As a result, they did not expect the teacher to differ this time and came up with many unpopular as well as uncommon poems and classical texts.

There was even [Shu Dao’s Difficulty] which they will only learn next semester.

Someone complained, “Teacher Tang, you really can’t blame us this time. In order to compete with the Whizz Classes, our Class 1 focused mostly on physics and chemistry. Who knew the teacher would come up with those unpopular classical texts and we haven’t even learned [Shu Dao’s Difficulty] ah.”

The one who complained was none other than Long Xiaoxue who had privately bad-mouthed Su Qin.

Su Qin directly censured back, “This further shows that we don’t usually focus on the language subjects. In the future, whether we are divided to liberal arts or science, language is a compulsory subject. We should memorize the key points that Teacher Tang usually teaches us yet should we just skip those minor points? We should think of a way to improve at once.”

Teacher Tang added, “Su Qin is right. The points our class loses this time should be memorized and if you pay attention to this, you should have no problem in the next exam. How about this, you will recite two pieces of classical text every week from now on. If you don’t want to recite Classical text, then recite six poems. You can choose what you want to recite, within the high-school syllabus.”

All the students around wailed.

Long Xiaoxue, who is the language representative, bargained with the teacher for herself and for her classmates’ sake, “Teacher Tang, isn’t this a bit stressful? We have so much homework every day and we ….. “

This was indeed a problem. While Teacher Tang was still hesitating, Su Qin raised her hand and spoke as she stood up, “Teacher Tang, can I make a suggestion?”

“En?”

The whole class looked at Su Qin.

Su Qin said, “All the students in our class are partial towards science, so we should find a way to increase interest in language subjects. My suggestion is that we learn a classical pop song every week hereafter. So in the course of time, won’t everyone be interested in classical text and poems?”

“Classical pop songs?”

The students in the class were all dumbfounded, what kind of song was that?

Su Qin forgot that the classical pop songs were still not popular at this moment.

She explained, “It is simply using the classical text and old poem to sing a cover version of a popular song melody.”

The class started whispering again, thinking that it was a big project and they might as well memorize it by rote.

Only to hear Su Qin say again, “I did learn a lot of classical pop songs with my friends, and I can teach everyone.

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So for the next week during every lesson interval, resounding singing could be heard from the high-school year one Class 1.

“The silkworm bushes and the fish mallards, what a daze for the country’s founding! Forty eight thousand years since then, no connection with the Qin Dynasty. With a steep dangerous trail from Taibai in the west that could traverse to Emei’s peak. Crumbling the mountains and destroying the warriors, Heaven’s stairway is linked to the stony cliff …”

Passing by year-one Class 1 to the toilet, students of other classes would find a boy standing on the desks in class with a guitar as he swayed like rock and roll, singing the classical pop song [Shu Dao’s Difficult] when they looked through the windows.

Since the song was pretty good, many students crowded outside of Class 1’s door and window to listen and watch.

The melody was not difficult and the students with musical talent could directly make out the musical scores.

After another week, their class’ [Shu Dao’s Difficulty] song became [Everlasting Regret], and their chorus was extremely fascinating. Sometimes Teacher Yu, who was waiting to attend lessons, could not help but run back to the office to get his flute to play for this group of students.

After class every day, there was a resounding singing from Class 1 in the high-school building. The unique learning method of Class 1 amazed the entire grade. Many teachers who taught Class 1 would pick up their own musical instruments first and go to play for the students before their lessons.

Even … the PE teacher was no exception either.

The students were shocked. Their PE teacher can actually play the erhu!

Class 1’s unique learning method also alerted the school’s Academic Affairs Department. There was a cultural performance in Yunyang City on New Year’s Day and students from Yunyang High School were invited to perform. Originally the principal was still hesitating about which class to choose, but after listening to Class 1’s classical pop songs for two weeks, the school decided to let Class 1 participate in the performance.

Originally, some people in the class were still jealous of Su Qin ranking first place in the exam, but due to this, everyone’s view of Su Qin had changed. Because they realized that singing classical texts and old poems was much happier than memorizing them!

Long Xiaoxue as the language class representative was dismissed and everyone in class gradually inclined towards Su Qin, and they began to exclude those few who had spoken badly about Su Qin.

As they couldn’t stand the pressure of their classmates’ comments, those who spoke ill of Su Qin behind her back took the initiative to apologize to her.

Su Qin told them with a smile that she had long forgotten about those matters, so they should not worry about it either and study hard.

Most people, in fact, have more or less talked about others, and this is not an unforgivable crime. In Su Qin’s heart, it’s good as long as these children learn and correct their mistakes.

In November, Taobao store’s sales volume exceeded 4,000, and Su Qin got a share of nearly 50,000.

When Su Qin returned home on Saturday, it was already 1 a.m once she finished her homework. Feeling unsleepy, she took out the account book and calculated she had about 50,000 yuan that she could use.

The Taobao store has started to be on the right track, which is an assurance that their livelihood will be alright. Su Qin wants to buy a house.

Yunyang City has released the news of building Subway Line 1 and the housing price around Line 1 has risen about 4,500 to 5,500 per sqm yuan.

Su Qin didn’t consider that area. She intends to buy next to Line 2.

She briefly asked about the housing prices in Xinquan District which ranged from 2,800 to 3,500 per sqm yuan.

On Sunday, Su Qin took a leave of absence from Li Chuan and brought her mother to view houses in Xinquan District. She planned to buy an 80-square-meter two-bedroom apartment, where she and her mother could stay in one room while Bobo could stay in the other. Under the current policy, one could pay a 20% down payment for an 80-square-meter house and the 50,000 on hand should be enough.

In the prosperous Jincheng of Xinquan District, Su Qin settled for a 79 completed apartment, with two bedrooms, one living room, one dining room, one kitchen and a bathroom, which was completely enough for the three women to live in.

This property price will keep rising after the launching of Line 2, and once the subsequent purchase restriction policy kicks off, it will hype up to 30,000 per sqm.

Su Qin settled on the same day and paid a down payment of 46,000.

Next, Su Qin borrowed 40,000 yuan from Chen Meixin and used 20,000 to renovate the house while the remaining 20,000 was more than enough for furnishing.

In early December, Su Qin finally received feedback on matters she asked Xiao Shu to probe into.

Xiao Shu drove to Yunyang and placed a series of evidence into Su Qin’s hands before leaving.

Su Qin opened the thick envelope once she reached home, and beside photos, there were records of the woman renting-a-room with other men. Su Qin felt that the money was not spent in vain and Xiao Shu’s work was more reliable than she thought.

In one photo, Li Xiulan was having grilled fish at a roadside stall with several men and women, and Su Qin recognized one of the men.

It was precisely the man who was tracking Bobo with his dog in Sangzao Town at that time. Because of the close proximity with that man, Su Qin could not forget him.

Su Qin felt as if suppressed by a rock, suffocating that she couldn’t breathe.

Those human traffickers are actually still in Sangzao Town? And Li Xiulan indeed still has dealings with them? This also confirmed that in her previous and present lifetime, her abduction was related to this Li Xiulan.