August 16th, Friday, overcast day.
The weather is a bit changeable today.
When I got up early in the morning, it was overcast, the wind was also cool, like ghosts had come out for a walk during ghost festival and hadn't left yet.
Xiaoqi wore her school uniform and pants, and went to Culture Palace to learn Japanese in the morning.
Zhou Meiling, who was called Teacher Zhou, saw Su Xiaoqi in a full school uniform, and was completely stunned. She had to admit it.
She knew that nowadays young girls would absolutely not be willing to wear school uniforms again after leaving the school gate.
She was like that herself at that time too, unless she really had no clothes to wear.
Last time she had asked where Su Xiaoqi's family was from, and Su Xiaoqi said Gumula Village, so she specially checked where that village was. It was extremely poor that even now the per capita annual income was only two to three thousand yuan. It was unbelievable. She didn't know there were still such poor places in Lvshan City.
Located in deep mountain high altitude area, the transportation was especially inconvenient. The population was small too, it was almost a feeling of isolation from the world.
So the probability of not having clothes to wear was relatively high.
Zhou Meiling was someone who had seen the big world. She had high material requirements. Although now she worked in Culture Palace and didn't have much salary, her clothes were almost never repeated. She liked the brand Gede Ama Shi. Almost as soon as this brand had new clothes, the shop assistants would call her to come and try them on.
Originally, she didn't even look up to this kind of local brand. But in Lvshan City, Gede Ama Shi was already considered the highest level. A windbreaker cost more than 5,000 yuan, a shirt 1-2 thousand yuan. The money she spent on clothes and dressing up was extremely high, almost the biggest expenditure.
She was currently single and divorced. Her ex husband was quite rich, but later had a mistress, so she divorced him. He gave her an apartment and a sum of money.
She didn't have children. At home, clothes were piled up. She didn't know how many she had to sort out and throw away every year.
She looked at Su Xiaoqi, the sleeves of whose clothes were pilling. She wore sportswear until they pilled. It showed they were worn every day.
Although wearing school uniform didn't look bad on her at all, on the contrary very good, like a young girl in a movie, youthful and bright, it was very easy to associate that with first love and so on.
She originally wanted to say that she could give her some clothes. Those that she had only worn once, and some that she bought back but didn't like after seeing the tag was still on. Anyway they were all better looking than the school uniform the young girl was wearing.
But she gave up on the thought after thinking about it. Young people nowadays have a lot of self esteem. Also, this young girl in front of her had an air about her. At first she thought she was some high ranking official's child, with a feeling that she was unreachable. Even now wearing school uniform, she was still like that.
It was just because she was an experienced woman that she would think so much.
She had discovered in last class that the other party had very good intuition for Japanese. She spoke Japanese sentences without fumbling at all, as if she had been to Japan. She had even fully memorized the 50 Japanese syllables chart, not unfamiliar at all. Her learning progress was not slower than Guan Jingzhi at all. So in this class, she sped up the pace a little bit again.
She started teaching normally, talked about Japanese humanities and customs, some embarrassing things that happened to herself when she went to Japan, combining it with Japanese grammar and sentences. The class was soon over.
She noticed that during class, both students were especially attentive and earnest. Su Xiaoqi took a lot of notes. Guan Jingzhi took less notes. In fact, Guan Jingzhi took Japanese class just out of sudden interest. She didn't have strict requirements for herself. She thought it was fine whether to learn it or not.
But Xiaoqi wanted to learn it. She felt that this opportunity was hard to come by, and also now she still had the double efficiency buff on her. She cherished this feeling of high efficiency very much. So when learning, she would be more hardworking and earnest too.
After a class, her brain felt somewhat drained.
Now she discovered that the brain indeed needed more usage. The more it was used, the more proficient it became. She even had the feeling that she was a bit smarter than before. If not used, it would become rigid.
Even until class was over, Zhou Meiling didn't bring up wanting to give clothes. Instead, she gave her several books.
"One Door and Three Masters", "Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony", "A Day in The Life of Edo".
"Take these books and read them. Don't return them to me. If you are still interested after reading them, I recommend you reading "The White Tower" and "Barren Lands". They are very good too."
Xiaoqi didn't expect Teacher Zhou would specially give her books on her own. She felt a bit uneasy.
When she first saw her, she always felt that she was the same kind as her Chinese teacher, not very intimate. In the second class, when she asked about her family background, she clearly felt the teacher became much colder to her. But today she actually gave her books.
Xiaoqi was a bit tense about this unexpected kindness. She felt she was a bit prejudiced and judged people by their looks. She sincerely thanked her, and carefully wrote down with a pen the two book names that Teacher Zhou mentioned.
Unexpectedly, then the mechanical sound in her ears rang out again:"Host obtains books given out of a fleeting encounter by a teacher, feeling grateful in heart, triggering more kindness in inner heart. Rewarding host with an ordinary study card that can be used in any of these three books."
After class, Xiaoqi separated from Guan Jingzhi. She went swimming, while Guan Jingzhi had something else to do.
After swimming, Xiaoqi discovered there were two missed calls on her phone, from an unfamiliar number.
The other party called twice, so they must have something important. Xiaoqi called back.
"Young lady, last time you said you wanted to see houses near No.1 Middle School. I helped arrange two for you that happened to urgently want to sell houses. When do you have time to go see the houses?"
Xiaoqi thought for a moment and made an appointment after lunch.
After eating, she tidied up a bit then went out.
It was a bit hot at noon. Xiaoqi took off the school uniform jacket and wore the pants with a T-shirt, didn't change clothes.
When she arrived at the agency, it was still that middle aged man.
Surname Wang. She heard others call him Old Wang. She saw him make a few phone calls in there, then stand up and come out.
Xiaoqi was a bit nervous because she was about to go see a house. That was a big deal. Apart from this, she didn't even consider that as a young girl following a stranger to someone else's house, there might be any problems. She hadn't thought about these things at all.
"Are you still in school?"
"Graduated already."
"You're too young. If I take a client your age to see houses, the homeowners might think I brought an employee to trick them and they'd be unhappy. But I see you really want to buy a house sincerely. Later when you see it, if there's any problem just communicate with me."
Old Wang said a few sentences to Xiaoqi on the way. She didn't speak, so he didn't say more either.
Not far away, halfway up the No.1 Middle School slope, close to Liang Jiajia's place, but not her high rise building, rather the low houses opposite the high rises.
There was a big iron gate after entering. Xiaoqi had walked past here before too. This was No. 1 Middle School's back door, housing area for teachers' families. Going to school from here was closer, but students were normally not allowed to walk through here. The gate was closed.
When Xiaoqi saw this place she was quite satisfied. Although it was a low rise building, if calculated it was about the same as being inside school. The yard inside was very big, with lawns on both sides and big trees, very open and spacious.
The only thing was the building was quite old with vines crawling all over the outside.
The house was on the first floor.
Xiaoqi walked in and felt it was slightly dark because there were big trees outside that blocked the sunlight. It was a two bedroom one living room apartment. Unexpectedly there was a small yard at the back, irregular triangular shape, but the space was quite big, like a small living room.
The kitchen area also had an extra small air well added, it also became a storage room.
Xiaoqi quite liked this place, quiet inside school, actual area was big, with air well and yard.
Also first floor. Others might feel it was gloomy and damp, but Dad's legs and feet were not well. If living here going in and out would be very convenient without climbing stairs.
Dad could continue making bamboo weaving at the small back yard too.
Xiaoqi was quite satisfied, but didn't show it either. She had the unreachable buff on her. The home owner didn't feel the other party was an agent's fake customer. Seeing her wearing school pants, she was quite intimate and asked if she was a No.1 Middle School student.
Although she really wanted to settle it down, she still followed the agent to see another apartment. The other one was also this kind of floor without elevator, but on the fifth floor. The lighting was a bit better, even closer to school, but at the periphery. Downstairs there was no yard, right facing the street. There seemed to be many rental tenants in the building, not many resident owners.
Between the two houses, Xiaoqi naturally preferred the first one.
After coming out she told agent Old Wang directly.
"That set is a reduced area apartment previously issued by the school. The registered apartment area is only 50 square meters, but the actual area is 70 square meters. In addition, the extra courtyard and yard add up to nearly 100 square meters. The only problem is that it's a little old, so the lighting is average, but the price is also very affordable. The landlord is eager to sell, willing to part with it for 350,000 RMB, which equals less than 5,000 RMB per actual square meter."
Su Xiaoqi looked at her own screen showing just over 190,000 RMB, not even 200,000 RMB yet...
She asked how much another apartment was, and the other apartment was 400,000 RMB.
Su Xiaoqi: ...
