With his mouth full of egg, Lin Xiaoyu still didn’t forget to chime in. “Auntie, your smile looks nice.”
Old Master Lin thought about it and decided that made sense. He set aside Jiang Chan’s unusual behavior and, leaning on his cane, went out to chat with his old friends.
After a day of chaos, Jiang Chan was nearly exhausted. The tasker had been too capable, and now that she had just taken over, she needed time to adapt.
Fortunately, the company was already on the right track. She didn’t need to expand. As long as she maintained the current momentum, even if she didn’t expand, she could at least preserve what had been achieved.
At that thought, Jiang Chan let out a long sigh. After working a real day at the office, she felt for herself how wide the gap was between her and the tasker.
The tasker had managed to carry out her assignments, keep up with her studies, and run the company, excelling at each one. That left Jiang Chan feeling ashamed.
She knew she needed to work hard too. After all, the tasker had already given her a very high starting point.
She turned on the desk lamp and picked up a management textbook, which to her might as well have been written in a foreign language. At first she stumbled over it, but with the memories the tasker had left her, she was able to keep reading. After all, she wasn’t stupid.
Still, when it came to the Lin family elders pressuring her to marry, Jiang Chan could hardly bear it. She was only twenty-one, not thirty-one. Was there really any need to rush so much?
It had been about a month since she returned. By now she was familiar enough with the company the tasker left her, and her work was gradually becoming smoother.
Truth be told, once she was actually involved in the work, Jiang Chan found life fulfilling. It gave her a sense of value. Every day felt pleasant, except when it came to the constant marriage pressure from her elders.
She was only twenty-one. She wanted to stay single a few more years before even thinking about it. Besides, what was a boyfriend compared to work? Thankfully she didn’t say this out loud, or the entire Lin family would have banded together to persuade her otherwise.
Seeing how well Jiang Chan was doing in the task world, Qingyuan sighed quietly and drifted into sleep.
If that girl Jiang Chan was to take on another mission, it would depend on her mood. And after all, she had only just come back. She needed time to rest. Since things were stable now, waiting a little longer didn’t matter.
Besides, mortal time passed in the blink of an eye. The next time Qingyuan woke, it would probably be when Jiang Chan was ready for another mission. She could already tell Jiang Chan had her own firm ideas. Whenever she chose to go, it would be on her own terms.
After a satisfying night’s sleep, Jiang Chan stretched out her arms and gave a long lazy stretch in bed.
Today was the first day of school. She had been back for five days since completing her mission. Early that morning, Dean Fan gave her the tuition money so she could register, then left to take care of other matters.
The barbecue stall had become the orphanage’s livelihood. Though it supported the children, it took a great deal of effort from everyone. Dean Fan most of all. She practically lived at the stall.
Jiang Chan didn’t think much of it. After experiencing two worlds, she was no longer the kind of child who needed someone by her side everywhere she went. Besides, it was easier to handle things on her own.
Currently, Jiang Chan was still less than 1.5 meters tall, looking dark and thin. After spending the whole summer working at the smoky barbecue stall, how could she possibly be fair-skinned?
Her clothes were very simple too, all donations from kind people in society. A light-colored T-shirt on top, jeans on the bottom. They looked clean, but had been washed until the fabric was faded.
Her appearance clearly marked her as a poor student. The only thing that set her apart was her temperament. It was steady and mature beyond her years.
She completed her registration smoothly and received her new textbooks. There were twenty classes in the first year, divided according to entrance exam scores: first place went to Class One, second place to Class Two, and so on.
Jiang Chan barely made it into Class One as the very last ranked student. That meant her entrance ranking was twentieth from the bottom. Thinking of that, her face darkened with a deep sense of humiliation.
For a natural top student, nothing was harder to accept than poor grades. Jiang Chan clenched her fist. It looked like she would have to show her true strength.
City High deserved its reputation as the best school. Those who came here were either well-connected or outstanding in both conduct and academics. You could easily turn your head and find a good number of officials’ children.
With poverty written all over her, Jiang Chan naturally drew attention. But she was a solitary person. As soon as she entered the classroom, she chose the seat in the back row by the window.
It was the quietest spot, and no one else had taken it. Jiang Chan was glad not to be disturbed. She opened a book she had borrowed from the city library and read slowly, while also listening to her future classmates chat.
“Hey, you’re in this class too. What a coincidence.”
“Yeah, who would’ve thought we’d end up together.”
“Sun Xi is in our class! He was the top scorer in this year’s entrance exam.”
“Sun Xi is so handsome, and his grades are amazing. I heard he’s great at basketball too.”
“Top students really are on another level. My entrance rank was only thirtieth. I’m way behind Sun Xi.”
“At least you were thirtieth. That’s middle of the pack. I was forty-fifth. The gap between me and Sun Xi is what you’d call unreachable.”
Two girls sitting in front of Jiang Chan squealed, holding their faces as they gazed at the boy diagonally ahead. Curious, Jiang Chan raised her head to glance at him.
In front of her, a boy in a white shirt was reading with his head down. He was clean, fair, and fresh-looking. Jiang Chan looked once, then casually lowered her head again and went back to her book.
In her second mission world, Jiang Chan had felt keenly how much she lacked. Her English wasn’t very good. Hearing Lin Jinyu’s fluent Oxford accent had filled her with envy.
Not to mention Liang Chen, who could speak English, German, French, and Italian. That had made her even more envious. But she had been so busy in her last task that she hadn’t had time to study languages.
Now back in the real world, Jiang Chan decided to make use of her youth to learn more. The book in her hands was a classic novel, Wuthering Heights.
She had borrowed it from the city library, and when she finished, she would return it and borrow another. Her spoken English was decent enough, she had passed the CET-4 and CET-61 college exams, so everyday conversation wasn’t a problem.
- CET-4 and CET-6 (College English Test, Band 4 and Band 6) are nationwide standardized English proficiency exams in China, primarily for university students. CET-4 is the intermediate level, usually taken in the second year of college, while CET-6 is the advanced level, typically taken after passing CET-4. They assess listening, reading, writing, and translation skills, and passing is often considered an important credential for graduates. ↩︎
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