Chapter 83: A Wonderful Drama
The atmosphere in the Qin household was excellent; by comparison, the Yu household was much worse.
Last time, Yu Yuan was seventh in Class 12. This time, she had moved up two places to fifth in the class.
As before, she didn’t reveal her grade ranking. However, since Class 12’s average score was still at the bottom among all classes, her grade ranking was most likely not very high.
Yu Wenli didn’t say anything, but Cui Wanning studied his expression and tentatively praised Yu Yuan twice — comments along the lines of “you’ve made progress” and “you worked harder than last time.”
However, those compliments seemed insignificant once Yu Xin’s grades came out.
She was still firmly first in her class and had even risen one place in the grade ranking.
Yu Wenli’s face broke into a smile, and he praised her with a single “Not bad.”
To be honest, at that moment, when her father praised her, Yu Xin felt a fleeting joy.
When she was young, she had always longed for her “father’s” approval. After all, her adoptive father had never cared about her grades; no matter how high her scores were, all she ever got was: “Girls are meant to get married. Scoring high is a waste of time.”
But now, it wasn’t just anyone — it was her biological father praising her.
It was a dream she had once fantasized about.
Yet she quickly pulled herself out of that emotion, warning herself that this was only a hollow kind of approval.
Yu Wenli had once again recognized her strengths and value — it wasn’t genuine happiness for his daughter’s progress.
Yu Jinxin’s expression was a bit unpleasant. If, after the first monthly exam, he had still suspected that Yu Xin’s grades were the result of cheating, then the midterm grade ranking was a resounding slap in his face.
To be blunt, when he was in high school at Mingde, his ranking was nowhere near as high.
Throughout the meal, Yu Yuan stayed unusually quiet — or rather, she lowered her presence as much as possible.
Her dislike for Yu Xin was one thing — although, for Sesame’s sake, it had lessened somewhat — but the awe a poor student feels toward a top student was another matter.
Which poor student, when faced with a top student, would aggressively question her scores? Third in the entire grade — did they even understand what that meant? Especially when this time’s test papers had been so difficult!
Not to mention, when the math teacher was going over the exam today, he had said that on the final big problem in math, only Su Lin from Class 2 and Yu Xin from Class 3 had gotten it completely right — and they’d even used different solutions.
Yu Yuan hadn’t even been able to understand the question itself and had only managed to write “Solution:”.
Yu Wenli was pleased with the result and promptly gave Yu Xin another 200,000 yuan.
After returning to her room and seeing the bank notification on her phone, Yu Xin thought that if this continued, her concept of money would get distorted.
After some thought, she painfully tapped open her chat with Xia He — at a time like this, a scolding from Xia He might help her adjust her mindset.
Yu Xin: [I placed third in the grade for the midterms, and my family gave me 200,000 yuan.]
She didn’t expect an immediate reply and went to review her mistakes.
Over ten minutes later, Xia He replied: [Barely acceptable, I guess — only because it’s cash.]
Yu Xin: [What’s the difference?]
Xia He: [With cash, you can buy whatever you want. But if they directly give you an item, then all you have is the choice to accept or reject it.]
Yu Xin’s fingers paused. She thought of Yu Yuan’s tablet, clothes, bags… all kinds of “things.”
Although Yu Yuan could also get cash just by acting cute, it was usually for buying something specific, and the amount given matched the price of the item.
She sighed inwardly, wondering if Yu Yuan had realized this, when she noticed Xia He had sent another message.
Xia He: [Don’t tell me… you’re going soft just because of that 200,000?]
Her fists clenched! Yu Xin took a breath — wasn’t Xia He usually in lecture mode? Why was she so sarcastic today?
Yu Xin (stiffly): [I’m not going soft. I just feel numb from receiving money so often.]
Xia He: [Screenshot.jpg]
It was a screenshot of a WeChat wallet balance. Yu Xin counted: tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands… She didn’t even keep counting.
Xia He: [Still numb?]
Xia He: [Come on, have some perspective. Forget Yu family’s main business — even just Yu Wenli’s company brings in more than that amount in daily revenue.]
Xia He: [Hurry up, finish your three years of high school, go to university, get an MBA…]
Xia He: [Wait, no — if you finish your MBA too late, you’ll run into trouble competing with Yu Jinxin.]
Yu Xin secretly looked it up — MBA, Master of Business Administration. She had never even thought about “graduate school”; “getting into college” had already been her highest goal.
Xia He bombarded her with a barrage of messages, widening Yu Xin’s horizons even further.
So her world could be even broader, Yu Xin thought.
She wouldn’t let 200,000 cloud her vision anymore. She wanted to think bigger — hundreds of thousands, millions… no, billions!
Although measuring value purely in money seemed shallow, she still wanted to use it as the standard to create her own wealth and meaning.
Yu Xin: [When it comes to studying, I’m confident.]
Yu Xin: [Please recommend me a suitable major at B University.]
Xia He: [Good ambition. We’ll talk after you choose your track in second year.]
Xia He: [I’m busy now.]
After that, Xia He didn’t send any more messages. Instead, Yu Xin, now motivated, spent a long time researching and realized just how shallow her current knowledge was.
Looking at her tiny phone screen, she felt she really needed a tablet.
It was just a tablet, wasn’t it? She had just gotten 200,000 — she’d buy it tomorrow! At a physical store! The newest model!
Thud — her phone fell to the ground.
Lying on a hospital bed, a young man bit down hard on a specially-made bite block. The nurse rushed over to put padded gloves on him so he wouldn’t clench his fists too hard and break the skin, then restrained his limbs to prevent excessive struggling.
Large beads of cold sweat rolled down his forehead, staining the pillow beneath him with dark and light patches.
A brown-haired, fair-skinned doctor held Xia He’s latest medical report. Watching his condition, she sighed and turned to leave the ward.
Back in her office, she took out the report from when Xia He had first arrived and compared it with the current one.
In just over a month, Xia He’s height had gone from 1.81 meters to 1.88 — a full seven centimeters.
She knew Xia He had once taken growth-inhibiting drugs and understood his desire to rid himself of their effects and regain his natural height.
But the current treatment plan was still imperfect. Even if the results were good, the strain on his muscles and bones was too great.
The resulting pain was even worse — ordinary painkillers no longer worked, and Xia He refused to take opioid analgesics. For now, he could only endure it.
About twenty minutes later, the nurse reported that Xia He’s condition had stabilized, so the doctor returned to the ward.
Xia He lay on his back, looking at the red marks the restraints had left on his wrists. Seeing her enter, he gave a pale but cheerful smile. “In a few days, I should be able to adapt to this stage.”
Meaning, he planned to start the next stage of treatment in a few days.
The doctor said seriously, “A few days isn’t enough — you need at least another two weeks.”
“Ten days,” Xia He said without blinking.
Damn, she’d been baited! The doctor glared at him, then quickly weighed the situation and reluctantly said, “Fine, but during that time, you must follow every medical instruction to the letter.”
“No problem,” Xia He replied readily.
The doctor watched him take his phone from someone and couldn’t help asking, “Xia He, why are you in such a hurry? From your communications, it seemed you weren’t interested in treatment.”
“True,” Xia He said, tapping on his phone with slightly numb fingers. “You could say I wanted to stay in a child’s body until I died. Even the height I had a few months ago felt like too much.”
Her heart tightened. Early psychological assessments had mentioned his strong tendency toward death — not suicidal, but as if he wished he had already died in the past, rather than surviving until now.
Since it was patient privacy, she couldn’t press further, but she could vaguely guess that Xia He’s hope was to have already died back then, not to still be alive now.
“And now…” the doctor began, but Xia He interrupted her.
Smiling, he said, “Because right now, a wonderful drama is playing out.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing how the heroine develops the story.”
“And since there’s a chance I might get to take the stage, I want to appear in a more dignified form, and I want to keep living as an important character.”
“Don’t you think that’s interesting?”
