Chapter 548: Chapter 548
Afterward, another piece of good news followed, she, Zhou Yiyi, with a high score of 816, became the top scorer in Y city’s middle school entrance examination.
Chinese 136, Math 150, English 150, Physics 113, Chemistry 109, Politics 108, Physical Education 50, totaling 816.
The top scorer in the middle school examination, who could have thought that she, Zhou Yiyi, would become Y city’s top scorer?
As a result, even the TV station came to interview her, and the school received several offers from schools reaching out to her, the most surprising of which was the invitation from the Foreign Language Middle School in Z city, the capital. Foreign languages, that’s a nationally ranked advanced high school, what did she do to deserve their attention?
Besides the Foreign Language School in Z city, L city’s Experimental First High School also followed soon after and threw out the benefit of waiving three years of tuition and accommodation fees.
The reason why Experimental First High School could afford to be so generous was because Mr. Yan had put his efforts in the background. He not only detailed Zhou Yiyi’s family situation but also told the school that she had recently won the second prize in a Beijing calligraphy competition, and the organizing committee was considering applying for her admission to the Hua Country Calligrapher Association. Moreover, another finals in Shanghai were coming up that she was about to attend; such an outstanding talent should not be missed.
Z city, after all, was far away, and could only know the general situation about Zhou Yiyi. Truth had long been distorted in a game of Chinese whispers, so it was normal that they did not offer her a full fee waiver.
So, Zhou Yiyi did not fail Mr. Yan’s kindness and chose Experimental First High School in L city.
It was a month later that Foreign Language School in Z city discovered Zhou Yiyi had simultaneously won big prizes in two competitions.
After deciding on Experimental First High School, Zhou Yiyi boarded the train to Shanghai alone. This time she did not let Mr. Zheng accompany her, mainly worried about the old man’s physical ability to endure the trip, and having had the experience in Beijing, she wanted to try things out on her own in Shanghai.
Mr. Zheng originally did not feel at ease about her going, but after she persisted, he reluctantly agreed. However, he could not foresee the journey on the train; once in Shanghai, he asked someone he knew to take care of her. At such times, Zhou Yiyi always felt grateful that there were still many good people in the world.
The journey to the Shanghai competition went smoothly as well, having had a prior experience, she performed even more steadily.
She returned on July 3, reached Y city at 10 p.m. on July 4, rode back to Wenlian Courtyard on her old bicycle slowly tied at the train station.
The next day, she visited Mr. Zheng to report the detailed situation, studied at Mr. Zheng’s place for a whole morning, and spent the afternoon at home doing nothing but resting quietly.
The admission letter from Experimental First High School had not yet arrived so she could not waste a perfectly good summer vacation. Thus, she once again started her small trading business.
From 6 to 8 in the morning and 5 to 8 in the evening, she sold goods at the market during this time period. The rest of the time, she either practiced calligraphy or reviewed high school courses; the textbooks were borrowed from Mr. Zheng’s granddaughter.
Around July 10, the payment from Beijing arrived - a full ten thousand yuan. Zhou Yiyi was so moved that she wanted to cry.
This must be the largest sum of money she had seen in her life, right?
Old Zhou advised her to open a bank account and save it for future university expenses. Knowing that if she took out half to give to Mr. Zheng, he would indeed be angry, so she thought of other ways to pay back the kindness.
However, she did not save the money; instead, she invested all of it in the stock market.
Because she felt that keeping the money in the bank was the worst business.
By the end of July, the results from Shanghai were out too; she had won First Prize in the clerical script category and received a prize money of 30,000 yuan.
This 30,000 yuan was also invested in the stock market.
She saved up 2,000 yuan during her summer vacation, which would serve as her living expenses while studying in Y city.
She cleaned and resigned from her job at Wenlian in mid-August, before leaving, she gave small gifts to each colleague, even to the security guard uncle, distributing homemade desserts. On August 20, Uncle Zheng, along with Mr. Zheng, personally took her to Experimental First High School. She tearfully said her farewells to them, bowing to express her gratitude.
Perhaps the old man knew she had won prize money and would not skimp on living expenses, and the school had granted her various fee waivers, so he left very reassured.
She had experienced the dullness and busyness of high school life before, and she knew she could not spare more time for other activities, so she decided to live on campus.
Indeed, the environmental condition at Experimental First High School was quite good; although it did not compare to private high schools, the dorm conditions were much better than she had expected.
She was assigned to a four-person room, and since she arrived last on the opening day, she chose the leftover, the upper bunk by the door.
The dormitory did not have a private bathroom, but it did have a separate washing area, no air conditioning, no fans, just as she had anticipated.
There were four desks in the middle aisle, one per person, and eight wardrobes near the door for storage. There were also racks for basins and miscellaneous items.
The reason she mentions the conditions were good was because there was also a小阳台, facing the sun.
Having such an environment in the autumn of 2000 was indeed very good, wasn’t it?
Each month, the school would give her 200 yuan for food, allowing her to recharge her meal card. According to the calculation of 2 yuan for breakfast, 3 yuan for lunch, 2 yuan for dinner, 200 yuan a month was enough for meals, and the quality was quite decent - she was at least guaranteed to have meat dishes, so magnanimous that it made her feel her high school life should not be neglected.
The school’s hot water was free; there was no need to pay extra, there was heating in winter, only summer might be a bit tough.
The school was managed with a closed-campus policy, not allowing students to leave campus on usual days, with one day off per week, a full day of classes on Saturday.
It was through these school rules that she saw the essential differences between middle school and high school.
Ah, right, the school only allowed the wearing of uniforms and not casual clothes, self-paid for one set, one set provided by the school, but both of her sets were waived.
After receiving the uniforms, she found that the spring and autumn wear was long-sleeved sportswear (blue and white), summer attire including shirts and skirts for girls, shirts and shorts for boys, winter clothing was padded jackets, sweaters, shirts, and dark pants (thick), each two sets – the total self-paid cost was five hundred yuan, which was quite reasonable considering the quantity of clothes.
Of course, upon entering the school, she also received two sets of military training camouflage uniforms, which likely were also included in that five hundred yuan cost, because they had military training every year, so these clothes had to be kept to wear the next year.
She was probably one of the few who had it all waived; when she registered, she had already received all the clothes. This text is hosted at Nov3lFɪre.ɴet
Because she was slim, the school had leftover sizes from last year, so she received her clothing a week earlier than other students who paid on their own. Because of this, she was frequently pointed out by others, but she simply 做了一笑置之不去理会 - silly!