CH 23

Jiang Xiao has a pair of beautiful round and sparkling eyes, so that after Lin Heyuan returned home, he always remembered the pair of eyes that looked at him. He used to go to school with heavy steps, as if he had to complete a task, but after having Jiang Xiao as a friend, it seemed that he looked forward going to school everyday.

Jiang Xiao was really an interesting person.

Jiang Xiao went back wearing his new scarf. He was always smiling. After he was reborn, he seemed to had become younger altogether. He was still bouncing on the way back home. He carefully hung his scarf on the hanger, clearly in a good mood.

He always cared and appreciated every sincerity.

Wasn’t it weird, they were all gifts, but some people’s gifts make him feel disturbed at a glance.

Hypocrisy?

Houlin was too far away from Liujiang. Jiang Xiao didn’t even have a cellphone now. He used the landline of the convenience store downstairs to communicate with the shops in Liujiang. Lin Chengyu couldn’t get in touch with him remotely, but whenever he had a chance, he still ran to Houlin once a week or two. However, Jiang Xiao didn’t want to see him. It was useless to come, Jiang Xiao didn’t even look at the things he sent, as if he didn’t exist.

Sometimes, when he opened his window to let in the air in, he could see Lin Chengyu standing downstairs. The weather in Houlin was very cold. Jiang Xiao didn’t know how long he had stood there. At most, he just glanced at him, and then stopped looking.

Lin Chengyu was able to see Jiang Xiao at that moment, it was not in vain. His beloved boy was very lively. Even if he just looked at him coldly, it would cheer him up so he could deal with the complicated things at home.

Fortunately, Jiang Xiao was still there.

The weather in Houlin was getting colder and colder, it’s about to snow. Jiang Xiao bought a lot of plush gloves and earmuffs last time, but he didn’t put them on his shelves when he came back last time. It’s time to sold them.

Many students went to school by bus, and it got colder when the wind blows. People would be in need of heating items and the gloves he bought from Liujiang were quite different from those sold in other stores in Houlin. The materials used were much thicker. The most important thing was to look good, especially for girls!

The earmuffs was fluffy, with a pair of small ears on it, and it looks like various small animals. It was also very comfortable and soft to touch.

Jiang Xiao had a good relationship with Lin Heyuan recently. Before he put these things on the shelves, he thought about it and sent a set to Lin Qingyu, of course through Lin Heyuan’s hands.

Lin Heyuan had just finished talking to him about the exam, opened the bag and took a look. He then frowned and stared at Jiang Xiao for a while. “You still have thoughts about my sister?”

He was a little angry.

“No, no, no,” Jiang Xiao quickly waved his hands, his eyes were sincere, “I really don’t. If I still have thoughts about her, I’ll just send it off myself. How can anyone in the right mind would pass it through her brother?”

Lin Heyuan also realized this, and his mood calmed down a lot. “Then you are…?”

Lin Heyuan carefully looked at the things in his bags, as if they looked familiar. He had seen similar ones on Jiang Xiao’s shelves. He sort of got it.

Seeing that his face has softened, Jiang Xiao took out another bag from behind. He leaned forward and handed it to him with a bright smile on his face.

“This is for you, I won’t definitely miss this one,” he said, “Look, I’ve been picking this one for a long time.”

Lin Heyuan took it and opened it to have a look. It was also a complete set, much fancier than the one for Lin Qingyu. A electric hand warmer, a hat, and many other things, including a whole set of stationary. Even the gloves were carefully divided into two parts, one was thicker, which could be worn when going out, and the other was thinner, which’d showed his fingers. It could be worn while doing homework in the classroom.

Seeing Jiang Xiao’s flattering puppy eyes, Lin Heyuan couldn’t help but felt moved. He gave him so many things, his heart was softened already.

“December is almost over, so consider it a New Year’s gifts?” Jiang Xiao looked at him and then said, “Thank you. You have really helped me a lot during this time. As for Lin Qingyu’s share, please take it as my apology, okay?”

Jiang Xiao, you clever ghost, you probably didn’t just want to made amends right?

He was still wearing the scarf that Lin Heyuan gave him earlier today. The weather was cold, and the school uniform jacket was too thin. Their middle school was reasonable. Seeing that it was going to snow, students were not required to wear school uniforms that day, they just had to keep themselves warm. God, Jiang Xiao was wearing a long white jacket today, looking dazzling as he smiled. He has this little canine teeth that are pointed, like small animals, like a warm glutinous rice dumpling.

Lin Heyuan opened his mouth, trying to piece his small thoughts, but he didn’t say it in the end.

Forget it, let him just do it, as long as he liked it.

In the end, he just stretched out his hand and rubbed Jiang Xiao’s hair.

His hair was also very soft.

Lin Heyuan came home with the two bags, yet seemed to still had the touch of Jiang Xiao’s hair on his hands. Lin Qingyu was reading in the living room, when she saw him came in. She greeted him first, and then asked strangely, “Gege, what are you smiling at?”

Her brother, who usually had no expression on his face, seemed to be in a very good mood today.

“It’s nothing,” Lin Heyuan quickly adjusted the expression on his face, and handed Lin Qingyu a bag, “It’s for you.”

The bag was pink, with a very beautiful bow tied on it. Lin Qingyu took it over and saw there were scarves, gloves, and an earmuff inside. All of them were very cute.

“It’s so beautiful!” Lin Qingyu was pleasantly surprised, “I’m palnning to buy this recently. Gege, how do you know I want this?”

But after she asked this question, she also felt strange. Their family usually didn’t pay much attention to these decorative things. The clothes their parents bought for them were common and lowkey, focusing on quality, and not very stylish. How could Lin Heyuan think of these little things for girls?

What an anomaly.

Lin Heyuan didn’t explain anything to her. He turned around and went back to the room, leaving a last sentence, “Use it if you like it.”

It was strange.

Lin Qingyu looked at those things carefully again, and the more she looked at them, the more she liked them. Anyway, they were already given away, so there was no need to refuse.

Lin Qingyu was indeed a good looking young woman, those things on her actually complements her looks, making her face looked smaller and cuter, like a doll.

Jiang Xiao found a pretty good model for himself, and the school flower catwalk show was very successful.

In addition to male classmates, many girls in school stared at her. Most of the junior high school girls in small counties were dressed plainly these days, and it was really not easy to have one or two fashionable items. Although other stores in Houlin had similar items, but after some comparison, you could tell that it was incomparable with Jiang Xiao’s items in terms of style, usability, and cost-performance.

As a result, many of the stocks he prepared for this winter had sold quite well under this trend. They are almost sold out in just a month and it wasn’t enough. Some of the better-style items had already sold out. Jiang Xiao then contacted the boss, asked him to packed more and mailed it to him, and he settled the payment via bank transfer.

The courier industry were underdeveloped at this time, it took some time to deliver and the shipping fee wasn’t cheap, but it was always much more convenient than picking up the goods himself.

This method could be used once or twice now, but after all, it was not as developed as the online shopping in the later generations. It was so convenient to saw each products with pictures and videos and the delivery of such small items were very fast, but this time, many items still had to be examined by Jiang Xiao personally for its quality before he purchased them. Currently, his customer’s preferences and the business relationship had already been established, even though he had to try several times before succeeded. Overall, there were not many deals, but not to mention the twists and turns in each process, Jiang Xiao couldn’t help but to complain for the progress.

In the end, it was achieved anyway. From another point of view, it was because of these hardship that Jiang Xiao was able to earn money.

The winter in Liujiang was very long. Although it took some time for the goods to be delivered, it was delivered just in time during the coldest time of the year. The price of these items were not cheap. When it snowed the most for this year, Jiang Xiao already had 20,000 yuan in his account.

His way of reducing costs was really successful. No one would probably imagined that a junior high school student would be able to achieve this to such extent.

Jiang Xiao was in a good mood when he had money. As he was going to the school, he happened to see Lin Heyuan at the door of his house.

Jiang Xiao wore the scarf Lin Heyuan gave him today, and the other happened to wore a similar one. Seeing each other wearing really similar-looking scarf, they couldn’t help but smile.

“We are like twins,” Jiang Xiao walked up to him, and asked, “Are you waiting for me here?”

“Yes,” Lin Heyuan handed him a box of sweet milk, which was warmed up.

“Is there something wrong?”

“I’m looking for you, let me talk on the way.”

Jiang Xiao took the milk from his hand as usual, poked the straw in, and took a sip. This brand of sweet milk, for breakfast, was so sweet that it could scare people to death. Lin Heyuan didn’t drink it. Every time he brought this, it was only for Jiang Xiao. The warm and sweet taste was exactly what Jiang Xiao likes.

“It’s about changing classes. Jiang Xiao, I have read your monthly exam papers in December, and you have made great progress,” Lin Heyuan said. “I went to discuss it with Director Li, and he has also seen your progress. At school, there is a rolling mechanism. If you can enter the top 100 in the final exam this time, Director Li wants to transfer you back to Class 1.”

Director Li is the teaching director of their school.

Jiang Xiao was stunned and forgot to drink the milk, “I—”

“Although you said before that as long as you study hard, you can study everywhere, but the atmosphere in the Class 1 is very good, at least much better than in Class 15. Before long, it will be the senior high school entrance examination. If your grade can pass to top 100, you can mention this to Director Li again.” Lin Heyuan said. “And now, Ye Yingying spends a lot of time learning to draw, so you can say that you don’t have a deskmate now. Jiang Xiao—” when he said this, he took another step towards Jiang Xiao and looked at him with a smile. “—is the milk really delicious?”

Jiang Xiao was still thinking about changing classes when he suddenly asked this question.

“My deskmate has transferred to another school a few days ago, so come and be my deskmate.” Lin Heyuan looked at him, his eyes and eyebrows couldn’t help but curled up, “I want to study together with you.”

Jiang Xiao took a breath and said, “But I can’t get into the top 100 now.”

His monthly exam score in December was around 150 points more than his previous grade, it was still a bit of a problem to get into top 100. This result wasn’t bad. Jiang Xiao really learned from scratch for a few months to got to this level, and he still had to allocate time to took care of his business. The higher the ranking, the harder it was to advance.

“Then, do you want to be my deskmate?”

Jiang Xiao thought about Ye Yingying, who was now working hard to learnt how to draw and had rarely seen people, then looked at Lin Heyuan and nodded.

He actually had quite a lot of friends at school, many girls bought things from him, so he had a good relationship with everyone. But, there were not many people who could really talk with him. Moreover, if he could really be at the same desk as Lin Heyuan, the other would definitely be able to bring his grades up quickly.

Seeing his obedient appearance, Lin Heyuan couldn’t help but to reach out and rubbed his hair. “I’ll help you, you can definitely pass the exam.”

The two were harmonious and very close, but in front of the intersection of his house, he happened to saw Lin Chengyu standing there.

This wasn’t very good.

1Gege: Older brother. You guys probably already know hehe.

T/N: Well, I promised to update on Friday, but at my place it’s already 23.58 by the time I finished this lol. Just two minutes away from Saturday. If you are from the western side of the world, you guys are probably still on Friday, so I’m saved /no. But if you are from the eastern side of the world, sorry for being late /ojigi.

I had quite the assignment from my professor, was going to give presentation today at 7.30, but he was feeling unwell and cancelled the class. I was already panicking from the night before, so afterwards, I just fell asleep at 10.00 and only woke up at 14.20. So, yeah. I was feeling unwell this morning, maybe because it kept raining these few days. Not like a heavy rain, but drizzles, and it makes you unsure whether you want to wear a raincoat/umbrella or not. This type of rain actually can make you sick, rather than the heavy type.

Last but not least, I wanted to translate another story… if you guys have any recommendation of any chinese novels (s) that’s been in translation hiatus for so long and you want me to continue, you can recommend them on the comments!

I am considering Chu Wang Fei (don’t know if the previous translator actually have decided to stop translating or not), and yes, I would actually prefer a BG historical… I like Chu Wang Fei because it was a bit like a toned-down The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage. Like yeah who doesn’t love Shen Miao? But unlike Shen Miao brutal way (and quick) in getting rid of her annoying (extended) families, Yun Qian Meng is indeed slower… and after all it’s her own family that have problems.

But of course, I’m open-minded to any kind of recommendations + tell me why you love them! I would probably read them first before translating, so it will take some time. I am now re-reading Chu Wang Fei because I already forgot the story lol.

Okay then, see you on next chapter~