Chapter 69: Unreal Dreams
Compared to the first monthly exam, the midterm was noticeably more difficult — at least that was how Gu Qinghuan felt.
However, thanks to the tutoring from the “study god” Su Lin, although it was hard, Gu Qinghuan still completed all the questions, except for a few of the “final questions” she couldn’t finish — they were just too difficult.
By the time she reached the last questions, either there wasn’t enough time left, or she genuinely didn’t know how to continue.
After leaving the exam room, Gu Qinghuan went to the restroom. Just as she sat down, she heard two voices chatting as they entered — voices that sounded familiar.
“Xiao Yuan, how did your exam go?” Even after nearly two months, Gu Qinghuan still remembered Lin Xiaoxue’s voice from when they’d met in person.
“Not great…” Yu Yuan’s tone sounded low-spirited, quickly turning into annoyance. “I just saw that girl — she was smiling while talking to the previous grade’s top student. She must have done really well!”
Was she talking about Yu Xin? Indeed, Yu Xin had been in the same exam room as Su Lin this time.
Yu Yuan and Lin Xiaoxue turned on the taps to wash their hands. The water noise was a little loud, but Gu Qinghuan could still make out their conversation.
“You mean that sister of yours?”
“Yes, she said the other day she’d invite friends over to play. Why come to our house? So annoying.”
Gu Qinghuan felt a bit awkward — it wasn’t the right time to leave the stall, so she waited until they were done talking.
Their conversation afterwards was just Yu Yuan complaining and Lin Xiaoxue agreeing. Nothing too extreme was said, and they left quickly.
About half an hour after they left, Gu Qinghuan finally stepped out of the restroom stall, washed her hands, and hurried out.
This time, Gu Haiyan came to pick her up. Seeing her, Gu Haiyan sighed with relief. “I saw everyone else had left, and you weren’t out yet. I was just about to go look for you.”
“I was delayed in the restroom,” Gu Qinghuan said.
“How was the exam this time?” Gu Haiyan asked.
“The questions were really difficult,” Gu Qinghuan answered honestly. “I wasn’t confident, but I tried to answer everything.”
“Trying is enough.” Hearing her daughter say the questions were hard, Gu Haiyan didn’t push further.
Since the last monthly exam, Gu Qinghuan had been diligent in attending tutoring from the top student in the grade. After class, she also worked hard on practice problems. Gu Haiyan felt her daughter had already done her best.
So, once the results came out, Gu Qinghuan would find her own ways to address shortcomings. Unless she got overly obsessed with poor results or gave up on herself, Gu Haiyan didn’t feel the need to intervene.
“Tomorrow you’re going to a friend’s house, right?” Gu Haiyan asked, a little cheerfully.
“Yes, going to Xin Bao’s house to play!” Gu Qinghuan immediately perked up. “The little sesame-colored kitten she adopted recently — I want to see how it’s doing now!”
Although Yu Xin occasionally shared photos and videos of the kitten in their three-person chat group, nothing could compare to seeing a cat in person.
Speaking of cats, the other cat had also finally shown progress.
A while ago, Bai Hanshan had given her the task of catching the long-haired calico in Riddle’s place.
With help from her classmates in Class Three, Gu Qinghuan had basically mastered the calico’s movement patterns.
Even with weather changes affecting the cat’s behavior, she could predict its actions with over 60% accuracy.
Additionally, after more than a month of persistent feeding and luring, the feeding location had moved from the windowsill indoors, complete with dedicated food and water bowls.
When Gu Qinghuan wasn’t around, the calico would slip through the deliberately left window gap, and besides eating, sometimes it would find a comfortable spot in the office — like Gu Qinghuan’s dog bed — to rest.
Although the calico still remained cautious around Qin Yue and Su Lin, it no longer ran away when seeing Gu Qinghuan, Yu Xin, or Jiang Chuchu. On a good day, it would even let them pet it.
Gu Qinghuan planned to spend a week trying to corner the calico. If that didn’t work, she’d pick a day when everyone else didn’t feed it, so it would have to come to the office for food. Then she would mix in some catnip in the food and water, monitor it via cameras, and catch it once the doors and windows were closed.
She didn’t want to resort to this last method unless necessary — once the calico regained consciousness, it might resist fiercely, even showing stress responses.
So she quietly hoped she could catch the calico normally.
Of course, for now, she tried not to think too much. Going to Yu Xin’s house was far more exciting — at least Jiang Chuchu had been so excited the night before that she almost couldn’t sleep.
Jiang Chuchu had imagined many scenarios —
What if Yu Wenli and Cui Wanning tried to test how close she and Xin Bao were, how should she react?
What if those two looked down on Qinghuan and only thought she was trying to curry favor, what should she do?
What if Yu Jinxin was present, how could she reasonably bring up that he used Xin Bao’s card to buy things for her and Yu Yuan, and yet pretended to be too poor to give her money…
Fortunately, the exam had drained a lot of energy, so Jiang Chuchu eventually fell asleep instead of becoming more alert thinking about it.
As the saying goes, “thoughts by day, dreams by night.” Jiang Chuchu had a dream about the Yu family.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t a happy one. In her dream, after the Yu family took Xin Bao back, they didn’t care for her and even belittled and rejected her.
Xin Bao didn’t dare speak to anyone in class, only quietly studying. Even after doing well on exams, she was falsely accused of cheating by Yu Jinxin, who came to school in a big commotion to check her papers.
The classmates didn’t know the full story and whispered among themselves. Overwhelmed by self-doubt and anxiety, even though they found she hadn’t cheated, Xin Bao felt panic under their stares and didn’t dare come to school again…
At this point in the dream, Jiang Chuchu woke up.
She was so angry that she didn’t even change out of her pajamas. She ran to Jiang Yuxuan’s gym, put on boxing gloves, and hit the punching bag with a full set of moves until she collapsed on the floor, gasping for breath.
Jiang Youwei, who had been doing morning exercises, heard the commotion. Running into the gym, he hurriedly helped Jiang Chuchu up and told her to change clothes.
“My little ancestor, it’s colder now — at least change your clothes,” Jiang Youwei said, seeing her in a nightgown.
Jiang Chuchu decided to take a hot shower, change into appropriate clothes, and was handed a cup of ginger tea by Aunt Wu.
Jiang Chuchu: …Fine, I should drink it. She’s just being concerned about my health.
After finishing the tea in one go, Jiang Youwei took the empty cup and asked helplessly, “Why are you angry? Weren’t you going to Yu Xin’s house to play today?”
“I had an unpleasant dream,” Jiang Chuchu said, still fuming.
Jiang Youwei was curious — what kind of dream could make his daughter this upset?
But he didn’t press. After all, why make her relive something that made her so angry?
He asked thoughtfully, “Do you think the things in your dream will actually happen?”
“Of course not!” Jiang Chuchu said immediately.
Xin Bao was fine now! Besides, with her and Qinghuan around, how could the Yu family bully Xin Bao again?
Jiang Youwei shrugged, meaning, “See? Problem solved.”
Jiang Chuchu pouted. She knew the dream was fake, but… for some reason, it felt incredibly real.
No, thinking carefully, it wasn’t real at all.
In that dream, even Qinghuan wasn’t there — how could it possibly be real?
