Chen Xi thought for a while and said, "There are many high schools in Zhushan City, No. 1 High School, No. 5 High School, No. 12 High School... There is also Zhushan Foreign Language School, Xihe, etc."
He touched the back of his head sheepishly as he spoke: "The best ones were Foreign Languages and Xihe, the passing scores were very high, and I didn't make the cut."
Gu Jianian silently memorized the names he mentioned and comforted him with a smile: "You are already great to be able to pass the Yunmo exam to study at Zhushan."
Chen Suo was not very interested in these topics. He was only in the first grade of junior high school this year, and going to high school was still a long way off for him.
At least that's the case in Yunmo.
It’s a different story in Beilin.
When Gu Jianian was in second grade, her parents started worrying about which high school she should go to. They looked at various high school rankings and lists of various subjects, and even sold all their belongings to buy an expensive and dilapidated school district house.
As a result, the school district system was later abolished and the house depreciated by half.
Chen Suo asked her, "Cousin, what do you usually do in Beilin?"
Gu Jianian thought for a moment and said, "I usually go to school."
"Besides school?"
Gu Jianian recalled with difficulty.
Her childhood was short and was divided into two halves by time - her memories of Yunmo before the age of seven were very vague; after the age of seven, it seemed that there was only studying, homework, and tutoring.
And in those narrow gaps in time, she would read.
Thinking of the book, Gu Jianian's tone became much lighter: "I just finished reading Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns these two days. Do you want me to tell you about it?"
The two cousins said in unison, "Okay."
Gu Jianian cleared his throat and began to retell the story in the book to his two cousins.
I didn’t expect the lecture would last half an hour.
Chen Xi listened attentively the whole time, while Chen Suo went from being absent-minded at the beginning to asking questions one after another later.
"Ah? How could this happen? Then what?"
"And what happened to Mariam?"
Gu Jianian tells the story of the cruelty of war, the complexity and purity of human nature, as well as the unfortunate experiences of the two heroines and their redemption through mutual respect.
After the ending, both cousins were silent.
Chen Suo turned his head awkwardly and coughed a few times to hide his inner touch.
Gu Jianian chuckled—these two pretentious little brats.
After a while, Chen Xi recovered from the shocking story and gave Gu Jianian a thumbs up: "Cousin, you are so good at telling stories, and you tell them very vividly. You are the best storyteller I have ever met."
Gu Jianian waved his hands quickly and smiled embarrassedly: "This is not a story I wrote, I am just retelling it."
"No way, you are really talented," Chen Suo emphasized, "Even if it's just retelling, it's hard to do this. Our Chinese teacher always tells us stories from books in class, but they are never as vivid as yours. I almost... cough cough."
Gu Jianian was skeptical: "Really?"
The two cousins expressed their firm agreement.
Gu Jianian could tell that they were not compliments.
She was surprised.
She had never heard such praise before, after all, no one had the time or mood to sit down and listen to her stories.
Gu Jianian felt a little excited, but he couldn't tell what he was excited about.