Chapter 101: Hardship

Lu Jingqing shot her a glance and asked, “No one in your village has any chickens or ducks in their house?”

“Nah, we don’t keep any noisy animals,” Xu Wei said as she sprinkled some rice into the pen. “None of us like noisy things.”

There was an airport about 100 meters away from her village, so they were troubled by the aircraft noise and the power grid every day.

Xu Wei seldom talked about her family or her village. Lu Jingqing wanted to know more about his wife, so he asked, “Then what kind of animals do you have in your village?”

“Tibetan Mastiffs and Wolfdogs.”

Xu Wei’s eyes glinted when she realized her husband was about to ask more questions. She rose to her feet and got out of the pen. “Alright, alright, let’s go inside. It’s time for dinner. Why do you have so many questions?”

Lu Jingqing was speechless.

*

Time flew by rapidly. It had been a month since Fu Xhi had enrolled at No.1 High School.

At the end of the month, the school authorities announced that Professor He would be coming to their school by the middle of next month to give each student some guidance on their studies.

The day the school released the announcement was the day Madam Lu was discharged from the hospital. She asked Xu Wei to bring Fu Zhi back to the Lu Household.

By the time both of them arrived, Bai Yao and Lu Chuwan were already sitting around the dining table. However, neither of them was eating.

Upon seeing them, Mama Liu hastily added two more sets of tableware on the table.

Frowning, Madam Lu asked, “What took you so long?”

Xu Wei pulled Fu Zhi’s chair out while she seated herself. After she helped Fu Zhi settle down, she took a seat next to her and only then replied to Madam Lu’s question. “I went to pick Zhizhi up from school.”

Bai Yao rolled her eyes at Xu Wei. She and Lu Chuwan had arrived at the Lu Household a long time ago and had been waiting for them at the dining table ever since.

“We went to pick up our kids from the same school, so why did Wanwan get home 30 minutes earlier than Fu Zhi? Why must she make everyone wait for her? She’s no longer a country bumpkin. Why can’t she be more considerate with people who are older than her?”

Bai Yao had a misbehaving mouth and was ill-disposed. She was not afraid of speaking her mind and she loved to make a big deal out of everything. Without giving Xu Wei a chance to say anything, she added, “She should be grateful that times have changed. In the past, hah... your daughter’s impoliteness would definitely have earned her a big slap in the face.”

Xu Wei was so angry that her face had turned red. Just as she was about to say something, Fu Zhi handed her a cup of tea and calmed her down.

Then, she gazed indifferently at Bai Yao. She opened her mouth slowly and a cold, flat voice rang out. She spoke slowly, emphasizing each syllable that rolled off her tongue. “It seems to me that Aunt Bai is pretty experienced, huh... Otherwise, how would you know so much?”

Bai Yao was stunned at first, but she soon realized that Fu Zhi was implying that she’d often gotten beaten as a child.

Bai Yao smacked her chopsticks on the table and snarled, “How dare you, Fu Zhi!”

“That’s enough.” Madam Lu interrupted. “Do you guys still want to eat dinner or not?”

Lu Chuwan seized this chance and tried to calm her mother down. “Let’s eat first, mom. Didn’t you say you’re hungry? Even though Zhizhi is late, it doesn’t mean that she’s impolite. Maybe she got held up by something on the way here.”

Her voice was soft and soothing, which was starkly different from Fu Zhi’s cold and emotionless voice.

Xu Wei did not want Madam Lu to have any bias against her daughter, so she explained, “I saw some bookshops around No.1 High School, so I went to buy some reference books for Zhizhi. That’s why we were late.”

Bai Yao rolled her eyes at Xu Wei again. She then handed Madam Lu a bowl of chicken soup and said, “Here, mom. This is very good for your body. You’ve just been discharged from the hospital, so you need to have more food with a high nutritional value.”

Bao Yao was very experienced in buttering up Madam Lu.

However, things were slightly different today. Madam Lu knew that the supplement Fu Zhi had given her was to thank, or she would not have been discharged from the hospital so soon. Thus, her attitude toward Fu Zhi had softened a little. She said, “What kind of reference books are you looking for? Yu City doesn’t have many good resources. Lu Ning knows some people in the capital, so if you really want to improve Fu Zhi’s academic performance, I can ask Lu Ning to send some reference books over from the capital.”