Chapter 168 - 170: Country Bumpkin
“Oh, by the way,” Zhang Yindi suddenly reached out and gripped Tang Yuxin’s arm, “Yuxin, I’ve given myself a new name. I will not be called Yindi anymore, I want to be called Xiaomei.”
Tang Yuxin slightly pursed her red lips, her dark red face softly smiling, and yet, in her eyes, there were no signs of any ripples of emotion.
Zhang Yindi kept excitedly repeating her new name. She couldn’t stop talking all the way from home to school, perhaps because she had been silenced at home and felt the need to say all she had to say in one day.
In Zhang Yindi’s heart, Tang Yuxin was a great confidante.
She doesn’t respond much, you just have to talk, and she smiles. But what she doesn’t realize is that Tang Yuxin’s smile is purely perfunctory, suggesting that she does not really care.
“Hey, Yuxin, look, we are in the same class, in class five.”
At the school gate, the names of all the students were written on red paper, allocated randomly rather than divided by the school. Everyone came from the same elementary school, but how many people end up in the same class is a matter of luck.
Tang Yuxin also found her name among the line of names. As expected, it was exactly the same trajectory as her past life – she was a student of Class 5, in the same class as Zhang Yindi and Wei Jiani.
“Jiani, we’re in Class 5. Oh, look at that, here’s your name, and mine is right below yours. How wonderful, Jiani, we’re in the same class again. I’ll be relying on you for my studies.”
“Don’t worry, leave it to me. We are best friends.”
Another young girl’s voice, filled with pride. And she seemed to have a right to her pride – Wei Jiani was indeed capable of such boasting.
She was beautiful and dressed well. She was a city girl, whereas this school consisted of a mixture of city and rural students, and city dwellers often looked down on children from rural areas.
Just as Wei Jiani had never esteemed Tang Yuxin. In her eyes, Tang Yuxin was no sister, but a mere servant in her house, eating and drinking their food and beverages. She took these privileges as her due. Not to mention, Sang Zhilan, no matter how shameless, teaching her daughter such shameless ways.
Like mother, like daughter. Tang Yuxin had never considered Sang Zhilan her mother.
“Yuxin, look at the clothes that girl’s wearing, they’re beautiful,” Zhang Yindi said to Tang Yuxin, but the volume of her voice made it such that others around them could hear.
“Country bumpkin,” a girl following behind Wei Jiani couldn’t help but cover her mouth, her laughter full of sarcasm.
Tang Yuxin turned around, and gave Wei Jiani a disinterested glance.
In her eyes, no matter how beautiful the clothes, they would be outdated in the near future. After all, they were just bought from a store. Did Wei Jiani think that while her clothes were bought, Tang Yuxin’s were picked up from the trash? If she were that capable, why did she snatch Tang Yuxin’s clothes and shoes in the past?
Wei Jiani couldn’t help but narrow her eyebrows, a feeling of discomfort came over her. Because that thin and dark girl had dared to look at her with such eyes, eyes that made her want to slap someone in agitation.
And this person seemed somewhat familiar, as if she had seen her somewhere before?
She couldn’t recall it for the moment.
Zhang Yindi kept praising this or that for being beautiful, looking nothing like the future wife of an official. Even now, Tang Yuxin still had no idea how she became one.
Tang Yuxin had seen Zhang Yindi’s face from childhood to adulthood, from rustic to sophisticated, but she truly had not expected that one day a man would love her to the point of discarding his own life.
However, she had long since despaired of love and compromised with life.
So, the so-called love was just a game in books to her.
Love wasn’t even comparable to benefits, and a small betrayal could obliterate everything.
She, Tang Yuxin, did not believe in love.
She paid the registration fee for herself, registered, and then came to get new books in the afternoon. As she was about to leave, Wei Jiani happened to encounter her. Wei Jiani couldn’t help but look at Tang Yuxin one more time before continuing her way, her chin arrogantly raised, to register for school.
Tang Yuxin slightly curled the corner of her mouth. So it had come to this again. Still, Wei Jiani, did you really think you could forever suppress Tang Yuxin, trample her under your feet, make her kowtow to your family like a dog, all for a mere mouthful of food?
By the afternoon, it was time for roll call, and everyone started to recognize the classmates’ faces.
When the teacher called Wei Jiani’s name, Wei Jiani stood up and succinctly introduced herself, emphasizing that she enjoyed playing the electric keyboard – an unusual hobby to have at the time. It would be considered extravagant for a child from a rural area to even own a harmonica.
Naturally, the teacher took note of Wei Jiani. Expectedly, she would become a leading figure in their class’s cultural activities.
When it came to Tang Yuxin, she stood up.
“My name is Tang Yuxin,” she smiled, her dark red face and unremarkable features offset by her profound eyes, “I am from Tang village,” and that was all she had to introduce.
Tang Yuxin was a nice-sounding name, much more sophisticated than the popular names parents were giving their children nowadays, like Yanni, Meiyan, Xiaojuan, or Xiaohua.
Upon hearing this name, Wei Jiani couldn’t help but widen her eyes, as if somewhat startled.
Yes, that’s her, she suddenly remembered.
The girl who used to live at their house when they were small, whom her mother claimed was her sister. But she never accepted such a sister. Her family only had one child, herself, the only daughter. What did she have to do with a girl with the surname Tang?
She lifted her chin and snorted dismissively through her nose.
There were forty-three students in the class, from all walks of life, but it was clear that they had divided themselves into two factions: city dwellers and rural people.