NOVEL NEXT
Chapter 92
Su Simei had never posted on her friend circle before. If there was anything she posted, it would only be the occasional health content rumors that others had made up, which she would share. It seemed to be a place specifically for posting advertisements and rumors.
But today she asked Xiao Qi to teach her seriously how to post something. She wanted to post about Xiao Qi winning the championship on her friend circle.
After taking a shower, Xiao Qi was helping her aunt cook. She quite enjoyed cooking now. Mainly because she was very picky about her taste buds. After eating so many terrible and random things, it was better to just do it herself.
Her aunt let her teach. She was also quite patient, because her aunt was very good to her. Although she was her cousin on her father's side, Auntie was really a good person. She had been with her auntie for so many years. Even when she threw tantrums with a black face, her aunt had never said anything about her.
As a result, after Su Simei learned how to post photos and videos, she posted a full nine Moments in a row. First it was a photo collage. Xiao Qi forwarded the photos Jiajia took of her to her aunt. Her aunt liked every one of them. She also wanted to show where they were, so she took photos of the exterior of the gymnasium and the banners of the competition. So one collage of nine photos was not enough. She posted three collages of nine photos in total.
After posting three nine-photo Moments, it still wasn't enough. She also posted four videos of the swimming competition scene.
Then she discovered related public account news and forwarded another two news posts.
She still wanted to post more. Xiao Qi quickly stopped her. Posting too much at once would get her blocked. Really. She had already blocked her elementary school classmate Zhang Juan. Mainly because she posted too many ads. Every day there would be more than ten posts when scrolling through. It was very time wasting.
No one from Su Simei's hometown saw the Moments she posted because the signals weren’t very good in Gumula Village. The network connectivity was intermittent. So her family had no reaction.
But they did watch the news on TV. It was sensational enough. Su the cripple’s, no Su Youfu’s daughter appeared on TV. Not only did she appear on TV, but she also won the swimming championship and prize money of over 10,000 yuan. She was truly capable and impressive (An expression meaning impressively capable in Gumula Village dialect). Moreover, she also worked as a tutor in the city, teaching foreign languages with seven students. It was said she could earn over 1,000 yuan for one afternoon class.
If I could earn over 1,000 yuan per day, why would I need to go to college? Just earning this money would be enough.
Sheng Juanhua explained out there that it wasn’t that much. Those students only had two classes per week.
The villagers calculated that would still be over 2,000 yuan per week. Four weeks in a month, that would still be over 8,000. Who from the village going out to work could earn over 8,000 now? Even the village secretary who was transferred from the city to work here, they heard his monthly salary was just over 4,000 yuan. With the mountain subsidy added, only a little over 6,000 yuan. That was still less than Lame Su’s daughter!
My god. As the villagers calculated, if Su Youfu’s daughter earned over 8,000 yuan a month tutoring in the city, plus the 10,000 yuan prize for winning the swimming competition, wasn’t that a total of over 20,000 yuan?
That kind of money would not be easy for others to earn. Everyone knew that clearly. They couldn’t even understand foreign languages. How could they tutor others?
Swimming looked simple, just flailing around in the water. But they saw on TV that there were so many people splashing down into the water. It wouldn’t be that easy.
Moreover, she had appeared on TV. Even Secretary Gong who came from the city said it was glorious.
Xiao Qi hadn’t returned to the village yet, but she had already caused a sensation throughout the village.
Even Old Grandma Su, who usually loudly cursed "loss-making goods, loss-making goods", could only smile under others' compliments now and say, "My granddaughter is promising. I could tell since she was little that she was smarter than others."
The others just smiled. Who didn’t know who? Everyone knew how vicious Li Fengjiao’s cursing was on a normal day. She would chase people while cursing them until they left the house. She had driven the Su’s out and divided the family assets. Not even giving them a bowl and forcing them to move into the run-down house.
But there were still people who weren’t afraid to make things bigger, flattering Third Grandmother, "Sister-in-law, you really have vision. It must have been because Fortune’s daughter grew up with your daughter Simei that made her promising. Tsk tsk, you are their family’s great benefactor!"
Third Grandmother didn’t take the bait. She laughed, "Xiao Qi eats meals with her cousin. We provided the food and vegetables. They are cousins. What benefactor?"
The villagers also felt that providing food and vegetables didn't count as freeloading and taking advantage. There was nothing more to say about it.
On the other hand, Xiaoqi's Grandma was unhappy with her sister-in-law (Third Grandmother) over this. She felt like she was the only one trying to be a good person.
In fact, in terms of close and distant relationships, the uncle Xiaoqi's Grandma kept mentioning all day should have been closer. But when Xiao Qi went to the city for school, Xiaoqi’s Grandma didn’t even mention her coming over for meals or anything. It was always that when they had stuff at home, they would deliver it over to her brother’s place. She feared her own family would take even a bit of advantage there and lose face.
On that night’s Lv Shan News, sure enough, they also included this news piece, although the time was very short, only a minute. But it still contained footage of Xiao Qi. This truly shocked everyone.
After watching the news, everyone came out to chat. Su Youfu’s house gate was surrounded by people who still felt it wasn’t enough. After all, it was appearing on the news. No one from their Gumula Village had done anything newsworthy before. There was one previous time they appeared on news. But it was not glorious at all. It was about how poor Gumula Village was, without money and unable to even afford meals. Although at that time everyone also saw their own faces on the TV and felt it was magical but also awkwardly humiliating.
This time was different. It was a formal news interview and an honorable award.
It was even more sensational than Zhang Juan who went out to work, earned big money and came back with a designer handbag worth over ten thousand yuan.
Everyone crowded around Su Youfu and Sheng Juanhua, asking, "How did you teach your daughter to make her so capable?"
Su Youfu was always mocked by the group on normal days. It was rare for someone to sincerely ask him questions. He coughed heavily a few times before finding his voice again.
"It’s about letting the child read more books. Only through reading can they increase their knowledge. I have been like this all my life. I just want her to not be like me. She must read books. As long as she could study, I would sell all my belongings to support her."
Previously when Su Youfu said he would sell everything to support his daughter’s education, others would all laugh at him for being silly. They said he was foolish to waste money like that. In the end wouldn’t she still be married off? Xiaoqi's Grandma scolded him most fiercely, saying his leg was lame and his brain muddled. Telling him that if there was money it would be better to spend it on her old mother, and it was wasting it to spend it on the loss-making goods daughter.
But tonight, when he said this, some villagers inexplicably felt it did make some sense.
In such a remote village, most people truly didn’t have a sense of education or anything like that. They hadn’t seen Zhang Juan who didn’t study but still earned a lot of money. Old Cheng’s daughter who also didn’t study got married to an American. She sent money back to her elderly parents every month. Taking care of them until they got fat and were glowing.
But today they felt it was different.
Studying did seem different.
Even if the money earned wasn’t as much as Old Cheng’s American daughter, everyone seemed to inexplicably have a sense of respect arising. Even those who usually loudly called him Lame Su properly called him Youfu now.
The villagers were very excited and chatted late into the night.
Some smarter villagers began thinking. Their own children were only in elementary school. As the elementary school in Gumula Village stopped operating this year, they had to travel to the neighboring village for school. Since they already needed to travel, why not send them into town for school?
Some families with children who had entered middle school, originally thought that graduating middle school would be enough, since their grades were average. They could go out to work and earn money too. But now they hesitated, feeling that studying did seem different after all. Educated people, like they saw Lame Su's daughter clearly speaking confidently on TV, were not the same.
Su Youfu was also very excited, but he still sat down with his hands continuously weaving bamboo products. The money for his daughter to attend university was settled. And there would be living expenses in the future too. His daughter was more outstanding than others. Whatever others had, his daughter should also have as much as possible. At least she shouldn’t fall behind. There was one time his daughter came back home on the weekend in tears. She said she didn’t have money to buy a dictionary and was made to stand as punishment by her teacher. When Su Youfu heard this, even his eyes turned red. Sheng Juanhua was unhappy the whole day. They didn’t want their daughter to suffer this kind of grievance again.
At this moment, Xiao Qi was doing College English Test Band 4 test papers in her room. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the mechanical sound appeared in her ears again: “Host has become champion of the 200m Women's Freestyle swimming in Jingnan Province and appeared on the news, bringing Gumula Village villagers a positive outlook that studying can lead to success and make them realize knowledge itself is power. System level unlocked and system upgraded to Level 8 Progressive System. Host will obtain 0.8 yuan for every step walked, capped at 30,000 steps per day.”