Chapter 8: The Bookstore Crisis

It was the weekend, and Zhou Ya had to attend her tutoring classes.

Lin Shu stayed home alone to watch online lectures from master teachers. After a brief video call with her parents, she was suddenly hit with a craving for braised pig trotters, so she accompanied the live-in housekeeper to the farmers' market.

Lin Shu missed the farmers' markets in Chi City. They were vast, offered a rich variety of goods, and featured all sorts of deli snacks. After growing up and moving between major cities with Ji Xingshen, she usually just went to supermarkets for groceries.

She snacked her way through the market: rice cakes, baby corn, fresh meat pies, roast duck legs offered by the housekeeper’s acquaintances, freshly made spicy gluten sticks, samples of local yogurt...

*Hiccup.*

Finally, they reached the meat stall. The housekeeper picked and chose, haggling with the vendor. Lin Shu mentioned she also wanted some braised pork intestine. The housekeeper told her that as long as she wanted to eat, she could have anything—she just shouldn't starve herself like she had been doing before.

Lin Shu nodded.

In the end, the housekeeper bought pig trotters, intestines, chicken feet, and duck gizzards to braise for her at home.

On the way back, they ran into a male classmate from No. 1 High School. Lin Shu and the boy tacitly looked away, pretending not to know each other. The adults, however, seemed to have known all along that their children attended the same school; they chatted familiarly and kept shoving snacks at each other.

"Hey, didn't you sign yours up for any tutoring classes?" the boy’s mother asked, looking somewhat uneasy.

The housekeeper replied with immense pride, "Lin Shu can score in the top ten of her grade without any tutoring."

The mother in the floral dress lit up instantly, tugging at her clearly impatient son and telling him to look at the girl and then at himself.

Lin Shu quickly interjected that she had only achieved that once, and that she didn't attend tutoring because it was too exhausting, the improvement was marginal, and the tuition fees were ridiculously expensive.

The farmers' market was fun to walk through, but this situation was incredibly awkward. The boy tugged at his hoodie, shot Lin Shu a sideways glance, and turned his head away.

*Tsk.* Who are you glaring at, you brat?

The boy’s name was Fang Chao. They were classmates in name only, as they were in different classes. He was in the same class as Xie Buchun, a bit of a troublemaker, with average grades and average height—the type who was slightly taller than the girls but looked short when standing in a crowd of boys.

Lin Shu, chewing on a cheese candy, was lost in thought when, through some strange maneuver by the boy’s mother, she ended up adding Fang Chao on social media.

"Son, if there’s anything you don't understand, ask Lin Shu more often. This is a critical time. You should learn from good people and stop hanging out with those unsavory types."

Fang Chao frowned. "So annoying..."

Lin Shu, still chewing her candy, suddenly cut in, "When is life ever not critical? We’ve been living in 'critical times' since kindergarten. It’s more exhausting than being a dog."

Fang Chao’s mother froze.

Before she could react, Lin Shu added, "Fang Chao, help your mom carry those things. She raised you this big; can't you even help with that?"

Fang Chao glared at her again. The hostility wasn't as deep as before, but his expression turned inexplicably cocky. Some boys really don't know what they’re being arrogant about, but they always manage to act that way—perhaps it’s a sense of nobility brought from the womb.

Lin Shu took the bags, linked her arm through the housekeeper’s, and hurried away. The housekeeper looked at her with a mix of reproach and indulgence.

Back home, Lin Shu lay in the living room waiting for dinner. Her phone pinged with a message.

Fang Chao: Watch yourself. If anything like today happens again, you’ll be sorry.

What did she even do today? Did being praised by his mother twice touch his sore spot? Who are you trying to scare, you brat? This kind of half-baked troublemaker was always the most arrogant.

Lin Shu: Shut up.

Fang Chao: Who do you think you're talking to? Aren't you afraid of me?

Lin Shu: Keep pushing it, and I’ll tell your mom.

The phone finally went quiet. Lin Shu went back to lying like a corpse, watching videos. Soon, the fragrant braised food was ready. It tasted best while hot, so Lin Shu didn't even bother with disposable gloves and started gnawing on it with her bare hands.

Full and satisfied, she played for a while longer before heading to bed. Perhaps because she was too full, she felt a sensation of sleep paralysis.

The next day, armed with a list of supplementary books she’d noted from the online lectures, she headed to the bookstore at Jinyuan Plaza. It was crowded. It took Lin Shu some effort to find the books she wanted, and just as she was picking them out, a group of people surrounded her.

Fang Chao was among them.

He stood between three boys who didn't look like students, his hands shoved in his pockets, smacking his lips. He was a far cry from the "mama’s boy" she’d met yesterday; now, there was a strong aura of a hoodlum about him.

"Lin Shu, know to be afraid now?" Fang Chao blocked her path.

Lin Shu put the books down and sneered. "Don't you know there are security cameras in the bookstore?"

The group looked indifferent. True enough, protected by the Juvenile Protection Law, even adults weren't necessarily willing to intervene in conflicts between children.

"What do you want?" Lin Shu asked.