“Guozi-ge eating my candy is because you recognize me, how would I dare to take your money!” The candy seller stuttered.
“Fuck your mom, what do you mean by not taking the money I’m giving you?” Guo Qing said darkly.
“Yes-yes, then I’ll just accept the money for the cost,” the candy seller freaked and immediately changed his mind.
“That’s more like it, or else people will say I, Guozi, ate and didn’t pay,” Guo Qing reached his hand into his pockets, rustled around in it for a long while, and finally took out a few coins, and threw it to the candy seller.
“Is it enough?” Guo Qing asked.
“Enough, enough, this is too much!” The candy seller didn’t dare to say not enough, who doesn’t know Guo Qing’s name around the market, there is a sentence going around the vendors, as great as the tax bureau and industrial and commercial bureau it doesn’t compare up to one of Guozi-ge’s sentence.
“Is that so? It’s too much,” Guo Qing casually took back two kuai, and said, “It’s fine now right.”
“Yes, yes!” The candy selling didn’t dare to say anymore in fear of Guo Qing troubling him even more.
“Fuck, he really is a evil merchant, those three pieces of candy tricked three kuai from me!” Guo Qing swore.
Hearing that, the candy selling on the side nearly peed his pants, he said with a crying face, “Guozi-ge, please don’t mess with me anymore, I don’t want any money, I don’t want any money!”
“Then wouldn’t I be robbing you?” Guo Qing said in annoyance while taking back his three kuai.
“It’s xiaodi⌈1⌋ that treated Guozi-ge to the candy!” The candy seller quickly said.
“Oh, that’s fine, thank you!” Guo Qing patted the candy seller and said with a smile.
“Boss, quickly go and eat candy in the corner with dasao, what are you still standing here for?” Guo Qing turned around, and smiled lecherously towards Chen Weier and I.
Chen Weier immediately blushed after hearing that, and quickly shook her hands, “I’m not —— that —— that dasao.”
“Wasn’t what your friend, Guo Qing, did a bit too much?” Chen Weier said to me.
“It’s not really too much, wasn’t it the same when they were asking you for money!” I said.
“That’s true, it’s good that those people got punished a bit, or else they would go and trick other people,” Chen Weier agreed with me seldomly.
“That’s right, why did you think of buying this type of candy? Haven’t you seen that these often trick people?” I pointed to the candy and asked.
“My dad always wanted to eat this type of candy, but he’s reluctant to buy it. Since I saw it coincidentally today, I wanted to buy some for him, I thought it was ten kuai per 500 grams, who knew it was per 50 grams,” Chen Weier said embarrassedly.
“Oh,” I nodded. “Why did you come out? Aren’t you selling Mala Tang?” I asked weirdly. It was nearly mealtime, why did Chen Weier come out at his tim?
“My older brother went over, and told me to come out for air, I also just wanted to go to the bookstore,” Chen Weier said.
“Oh? You’re also going to the bookstore?” I pretended to be surprised. It was very realistic, even I thought I was going to go to the bookstore.
“Yeah, you’re going too?” Chen Weier thought that I was also going seeing my expression.
“Then let’s go together, what a coincidence,” I said naturally, without pretentious expression. This type of lie was far too simple for a old business fox like me.
“Okay,” Chen Weier didn’t find it right to refuse after I said so. Since I just helped her out.
The two of us walked on the street, one at the front, one at the back. Originally we were supposed to walk side by side, yet Chen Weier always waited faster or slower than me. Perhaps Chen Weier thought that walking shoulder to shoulder would make us seem like a couple, making it too ambiguous.
Songjiang city’s Xuefu Bookstore was established in 1990, it was currently the largest bookstore within Songjiang province, it covered 3600 squared meters, and had a standalone garden and parking lot, the number of books it had was among the most in the country, it can be said that aside from pirated copies, all genuine books could be bought here.
“What book are you going to buy?” I said when Chen Weier and I got on the bookstore’s elevator.
“It’s going to be the National Matriculation Examination soon, I want to buy a few more revision guides,” Chen Weier said.
“Let’s go and have a look together,” I said. I remember I often visited this place when I was in the Third Year, now that I think about it, I did miss those books quite a bit, it was a chance to have a look at it with Chen Weier.
In 1995, revision material wasn’t all over the place like it was later on, but it wasn’t too lacking either, Xuefu Bookstore had an entire floor dedicated to selling revision material for students.
I saw Chen Weier pick up a function question bank, it was called “High School Worked Function Examples”, I’ve seen this book in my previous life, the questions inside were a bit different to the course, although the explanation was pretty good, it wasn’t very useful for the National Matriculation Examinations. Of course, I only found this out after attending the National Matriculation Examinations, because this book was treated as a “bible” by some people in our class.
As expected, Chen Weier was immediately attracted by the contents of that book, and started reading enjoyably.
“Although this book does explain stuff in quite a bit of detail, but the questions within are a bit different to those of in the actual exam,” I said to Chen Weier. I felt like I did have to warn Chen Weier a bit, so she would walk less curved paths.
“Really? How do you know, a lot of studious classmates inn my class strongly recommend this book!” Chen Weier said in disbelief.
“Because I’ve seen this book, and have compared it to various past papers!” It couldn’t be helped, I could only answer like this. Or was I supposed to tell her that I’ve seen this book in my previous life?
“Oh? You’ve read it? But this is a guide for Third Year?” Chen Weier looked at the student that just started First Year in disbelief.
“Yeah, I already self-studied all of the courses for high school,” I could only continue randomly making stuff up.
“You learnt all of the courses for high school!?” Chen Weier shouted in surprise, causing everyone else in the book store to look our way.
Chen Weier stuck out her tongue in embarrassment and covered her mouth with her hands. She was way too surprised just now that she became too loud.
“Ah, I remember! They say that our school’s first year has a genius freak, and got 493 marks in the mid term tests, Math, Physics, Chemistry and English were all full marks. I remember he’s also called Liu Lei, are you that person?” Chen Weier opened her mouth wide and pointed her finger at me.
“Probably,” I nodded unsure of what to do. However isn’t this name of genius freak a bit too ehh, why doesn’t it sound good.
“No wonder! So you’re this good! Then I’ll listen to you, I won’t buy this book,” Chen Weier’s gaze towards me became a gaze of admiration.
So being good in academics was so great in school, I said proudly to myself in my heart. It looks like this is an opening, I should talk about academics a bit more with Chen Weier, at the same time… Hehe.
After that, I recommended Chen Weier a few exercise books that were very helpful for me in my previous life, and one of them was even the exercise book with the most accurate questions for the National Matriculation Examination in Chen Weier’s year.
When we were going to pay, I noticed Chen Weier was really slow in paying, and looked at me with a weird gaze.
1. Xiaodi (小弟) – Lackey/Subordinate, I didn’t translate it here because it sounds awkward.