Late at night, Xicheng District No. 13 High School.
As the bell rang for the end of class, countless high school students dragged their exhausted bodies out of the teaching building.
Gu Xiao watched the flow of people coming and going, and soon spotted a solitary figure.
“Still alone?”
He walked over and patted the man on the shoulder.
Wang Zimo jumped in fright. Turning his head and seeing that it was his classmate Gu Xiao, he immediately rolled his eyes in irritation.
“Can you make some noise next time? Don’t scare me into a heart attack!”
“I’m here for something serious.”
Gu Xiao said, “I know you have a habit of hoarding test papers. I’ll pay twenty yuan. Lend me the English papers you collected in the past for a few days. If there are enough of them and they’re well preserved, I can raise it to thirty.”
Wang Zimo swallowed, his eyes widening. “What do you want those for? Didn’t you go off for the art exam?”
Gu Xiao waved a hand. “It’s hard to explain. Anyway, are you lending them or not?”
“Yes! As many as you want!” Wang Zimo nodded frantically, afraid he might go back on his word.
Thirty yuan was no small sum, not to mention this was just a loan. It was practically money handed to him for free.
Gu Xiao nodded in satisfaction. “Here tomorrow night. Cash on delivery.”
“Hey, did something happen?” Wang Zimo suddenly asked.
Gu Xiao stopped in his tracks and turned back curiously. “Why do you ask?”
Wang Zimo scratched his head and muttered, “I can’t really say… I just feel like you’ve changed a lot.”
Gu Xiao froze. A trace of guilt surfaced in his eyes, but he quickly suppressed it.
“People change. Besides, I’m walking a different path now,” he said casually, brushing it off.
Wang Zimo nodded thoughtfully and did not suspect anything.
Back when the other party chose to take the art exam, it had already been beyond his expectations. Feeling unfamiliar with him now was only natural.
“Then I wish you success.”
Wang Zimo grinned. “If you really become a big star someday, remember to treat me to a meal.”
Gu Xiao accepted the blessing with a smile and nodded. “Definitely.”
……
……
The next day, eight in the morning.
Gu Xiao was awakened by a knock on the door.
When he opened it, there stood his cheap father, Gu Hui, holding a plastic box. The squirrel was quietly curled up on the soft cloth inside, looking like a small reddish-brown ball of fur.
“It’s already better?” Gu Xiao was somewhat surprised. Hadn’t they agreed on twenty-four hours?
“Life is miraculous.”
There was a hint of emotion in Gu Hui’s voice. “Sometimes it is unbearably fragile, and sometimes its vitality is astonishing. It’s recovering very well. With a few days of quiet rest, it should be fully healed.”
Gu Xiao took the plastic box. The little squirrel inside seemed to sense his presence. It weakly lifted its head, its bright black eyes meeting his for an instant before it curled up again in relief.
So you made a special trip just to bring it over? Just how fanatical of an animal lover are you? He suppressed the urge to complain and said sincerely,
“I want to focus on the art exam from now on. I probably won’t be going to school anymore.”
The main thing was that he needed to hurry up and make money.
With no money in his pocket, he could not even sleep peacefully. As a transmigrator, he could be wicked, he could be tired, but he absolutely could not be poor.
Gu Hui looked at him in silence for a few seconds. In the end, he merely nodded lightly.
“As long as you know what you’re doing.”
After giving him a few more instructions on how to care for the squirrel, Gu Hui turned and left. He truly came in a hurry and left just as quickly.
Gu Xiao placed the plastic box on a corner of his desk. Looking at the little furball curled up inside, a trace of regret rose in his heart.
He had agreed too rashly yesterday. A squirrel just over four months old had only recently been weaned. Its body was still delicate, and it really was not suitable for a complete novice like him to raise.
“I hope you’re clever too. At least that way, you won’t starve to death.”
Gu Xiao muttered this to the plastic box. The little fellow’s ears inside twitched slightly, but it remained asleep.
He stopped dwelling on it, sat down in his chair, spread out a sheet of manuscript paper, and began his grand money-making plan.
Dreams were beautiful, reality was cruel.
Including meals, taxi fares, and a trip to the flower and bird market, his starting capital had now dwindled to only 335 yuan.
With this little money, trying to start some big business was undoubtedly a fool’s dream. He could only begin with a small-scale venture.
Combined with his current identity as a high school student, there was only one safest and most reasonable path—selling study materials!
Over the past three days, apart from researching the rules for the art exam, he had also carefully sorted through the educational characteristics of this era.
His conclusion: current school teaching, especially in English, was still based on the purest form of “question-sea tactics” and “dictionary-style” vocabulary books.
The market lacked the kinds of strategic guides that later generations would take for granted, such as “root and affix memorization methods,” “high-frequency core vocabulary for the gaokao,” and “universal essay templates.”
If he could compile a highly condensed High-Frequency Core Vocabulary for Gaokao English, attaching the one or two most essential meanings to each word, one classic example sentence, and a little mnemonic trick, then for students pressed for time and in urgent need of efficient score improvement, it would absolutely be a trump card.
And the ready-made, most precise target customers were the parents of art examinees gathered at the gates of Beijing Film Academy and the Central Academy of Drama.
Families that could send their children to art colleges were not short of money, and their own education and social awareness were stronger than ordinary parents’. They were excellent service targets.
Of course, the premise of all this was that the quality of what he wrote had to be solid.
Before transmigrating, he had been away from exam rooms for many years. Now, he only had scattered memories of the core vocabulary.
He had to compile and filter out the words with the highest frequency of appearance from past test papers and mountains of questions, then streamline their definitions one by one and reconstruct memory points.
It was a tedious process, but once it succeeded, it would be using knowledge beyond the era to launch a dimensionality-reducing strike!
……
……
Time passed quietly, until a faint rustling sound came from the plastic box.
Gu Xiao lifted his head from the complicated vocabulary, rubbed his aching temples, and looked toward the box.
The little furball had woken up at some point. It was gripping the edge of the plastic box with its two front paws, its bright black eyes staring straight at him. There seemed to be less weakness in its gaze now, and a little more curiosity.
“Awake?” Gu Xiao said casually, not expecting a response.
However, in the next second, a weak yet clear voice sounded directly in his mind.
“Hungry.”
Gu Xiao’s movements paused. The tip of his pen left a tiny dot of ink on the paper.
He slowly turned his head, his gaze falling on that tiny figure.
“Looks like my luck is pretty good. Of course, yours is even better.”
Gu Xiao got up and went to the living room. When he returned, there was a plastic bag in his hand, filled with pine nuts, acorns, and apple branches.
He tossed a small handful of pine nut kernels into the plastic box.
The little fellow’s nose twitched lightly. It approached tentatively, then picked one up with its two front paws and swiftly stuffed it into its mouth.
“Delicious!”
A satisfied and cheerful voice rang clearly in his ears.
Watching the little squirrel’s puffing cheeks and sparkling eyes, Gu Xiao could not help but smile from the heart.
This feeling of establishing a wondrous connection with another life diluted the confusion and estrangement he had felt over the past few days.
But in the next second, a sudden change occurred.
An indescribable sense of fatigue struck without warning, as if all the strength in his body had been drained away.
Heat rose from the depths of his eyes. His vision began to melt, and countless tiny points of light appeared in the air.
Gu Xiao gave a muffled groan. He only felt as if his eyes were being roasted by raging flames, and his tears were boiling in their sockets.
He braced himself against the edge of the desk and gasped for breath.
His heavy breathing echoed through the room, and his heart pounded rapidly inside his chest.
Just when Gu Xiao thought he was about to collapse, the scorching heat gradually dissipated, and his heartbeat returned to normal.
He let out a long breath, his palm trembling slightly as he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes.
But the moment Gu Xiao opened his eyes again, he immediately sucked in a cold breath.
The world had changed again.