Leaving Baicao Garden, the sky was still early. The evening breeze in August carried the warm, grassy scent of leaves, and the sound of cicadas seemed to fall from the tops of the parasol trees.
Jiang Lai rode a shared bicycle home. With the gentle breeze brushing her face, she pedaled quickly.
The manuscript fee was a good excuse—a legitimate source of income every month. She quickly calculated in her mind: magazine manuscript fees were indeed not high, with a short article earning at most a few dozen yuan, and editors might not use her submissions every month.
But her mother didn’t know that.
She could tell her mom that she submitted articles every month and earned one or two thousand yuan in manuscript fees. She didn’t actually need to publish an article every month—the money from the System could come through this channel, clean, reasonable, and sustainable.
Her part-time job at the bookstore would end when school started, and the manuscript fees would become her money-laundering channel after the semester began.
When she got home, Jiang Shan was stir-frying in the kitchen. Jiang Lai changed into slippers and walked in, leaning against the kitchen doorframe.
“Mom, I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“Teacher Zhou from the bookstore said he has a friend who’s a magazine editor and can recommend me to submit articles. Writing can earn manuscript fees.”
Jiang Shan turned her head, “Really?”
“He said I should try writing one. If it gets accepted, I can submit articles every month and earn manuscript fees.”
Jiang Shan wiped her hands with her apron, “How much can you earn? Will it interfere with your studies?”
“Writing a few short articles a month should bring in one or two thousand yuan,” Jiang Lai said. “And writing doesn’t take much time. I can finish them at school and send them over on weekends.”
Steam rose from the wok as Jiang Shan turned to stir the food a couple of times. Her voice, filled with pride, came through the cooking fumes, “My daughter is just outstanding.”
Lying in bed at night, Jiang Lai stared at the crack on the ceiling.
She now had over eighty thousand yuan on hand. After paying the tuition of over twenty thousand, there was still plenty left. After school started, she could secretly begin living a good life.
In the first week of school, Jiang Lai had already figured out Mingde High School’s cafeteria.
The third floor was the buffet area, priced by weight. Hot dishes, cold dishes, and desserts filled a long row. The first time she went, she spent ten minutes circling with her tray before deciding what to eat. Zhang Yue, waiting impatiently beside her, had long since grabbed two plates of fried chicken nuggets and found a seat.
“You’re not from the same school as me; you’re here on a tour,” Zhang Yue said.
Jiang Lai sat down and pushed a steaming plate of black pepper beef strips toward her, “Eat.”
The schedules for the international and regular departments were different, but lunchtime was the same. Zhang Yue had foreign teacher classes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, entirely in English. The teacher was a young man from London who spoke like a BBC news anchor, and she could only understand half of what he said.
Jiang Lai stuffed a piece of beef into her mouth, “Do you need extra tutoring then?”
Zhang Yue waved her hand dismissively, “No need. Next year, my dad is sending me to a summer camp in England for two months, and I’ll pick it up there.”
Jiang Lai gave a thumbs-up, “Rich kid, nice.”
Zhang Yue nodded, “No big deal.”
Jiang Lai chose a single room dormitory. Mingde’s dormitory building had two types: four-person rooms cost two thousand yuan a year, while single rooms cost eight thousand yuan a year.
Although the four-person rooms were also very nice, she was earning money too easily now and didn’t want to compromise at all.
The room wasn’t large—just a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, a private bathroom, a south-facing window, and a small balcony. She bought a set of light white bedding and simply decorated the room with a small rug and a beanbag chair.
On the desk sat the new fruit-brand laptop that had been mailed directly to the school at the start of the semester, and she had also bought herself two potted plants. When Zhang Yue first came to visit, she stood at the doorway, glanced around, and commented, “Girl, you’ve got taste.”
Jiang Lai’s grades were steadily improving, but she wasn’t working particularly hard. The adult-level intelligence provided by the System allowed her learning efficiency to surpass that of her peers. She could grasp the high school sophomore material just by reading the textbooks, and after finishing her homework, she didn’t need any extra review.
Prestigious private schools like Mingde highly respected students’ personal lives. Apart from daytime classes, evening self-study sessions were not mandatory, and students were even allowed to leave campus for meals or shopping, returning to the dorms later in the evening. Every day after the last class in the afternoon, Jiang Lai would head to the cafeteria to eat with Zhang Yue, and sometimes the two would even go off-campus for a meal.
Neither of them attended evening self-study at all. Jiang Lai didn’t need to, while Zhang Yue fully embraced the mindset of a nouveau riche—her father had already set aside tuition for her to study abroad, so she had even less motivation to work hard.
Back in the dorm, Jiang Lai would quickly finish her homework, take a shower, and then curl up in her chair to watch dramas, occasionally writing something to submit to magazines.
Zhang Yue discovered she was reading manga during the third week of the semester.
“What are you reading?”
“Haikyuu!!”
“Aren’t you going to review for the upcoming start-of-term exam?”
Mingde’s academic schedule included an exam at the beginning of the semester, along with midterms and finals.
“Probably not. It all seems pretty straightforward.”
Zhang Yue fell silent for a moment. In the past, her bestie had also been smart, but under the high-pressure environment of a regular high school, she had still dutifully attended evening self-study. Now, Jiang Lai seemed even more naturally gifted. Weren’t they eating the same food every day? How did studying come so easily to Jiang Lai? It seemed she really wasn’t cut out for academics. Having reached this conclusion, Zhang Yue sat down and started reading manga with her.
From then on, they sometimes spent evenings curled up in Jiang Lai’s dorm watching dramas, and other times went out to explore the night market together.
With such a great companion, the two best friends’ high school life surpassed the happiness of 99.9999% of students nationwide.