dognovel Chapter 136 She was just a child from an ordinary family
Chapter 136 She was just a child from an ordinary family
A light drizzle fell over Beijing, and pedestrians, holding umbrellas and wrapped in their coats, hurried along their commutes.
A black Land Rover smoothly glided along the main road of Beijing, followed by dozens of black sedans.
Jiang Li sat on the sofa, looking anxiously at the quartz clock on the wall. Her heart was pounding with unease. When her younger brother was found, she was still boarding at the school in the original city. By the time she received the message and was about to return, her brother had already run off to Yunxiaxiang.
She hasn't seen what Xiao Jiangci looks like after he comes back.
She wondered how much weight he had lost, what he had encountered on the road, and whether anyone had bullied him.
Jiang Li sat on the leather sofa, biting her lip tightly, quietly sitting in the corner, secretly praying that everything would be alright.
—A sharp sound came from the front yard.
Hearing this from inside the living room, Jiang Li quickly ran to the carved wooden gate and had just reached the car.
She saw her father get out of the car first, walk to the passenger side, open the door, and lead her mother out.
Then... the back door opened.
Jiang Li's beloved little brother was still as exquisite and beautiful as ever, but unlike before, he no longer seemed to be expressionless. Instead, he climbed out of the car like his father and reached his little hand into the car.
Is anyone else there?
The next second, a short-haired boy walked out holding Xiao Jiangci's hand.
Jiang Li was taken aback for a moment, but then quickly stepped forward.
"Hello Mom and Dad, little brother... it's been a long time."
She then turned her gaze to the unfamiliar boy. He had sharp features, no less striking than Xiao Jiang Ci, only a little too thin. Perhaps due to the change in her upbringing, Jiang Li was more adept at reading people.
When Shen Xi saw Xiao Jiangci naturally bend down to straighten the corner of Shen Xi's clothes, her expression was very natural, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
Jiang Li knew her non-blood-related younger brother quite well, but when did her younger brother become so easygoing?
Hua Lan noticed her daughter staring blankly at Shen Xi, and following her daughter's gaze, she tilted her head to look behind her, where she also witnessed this scene.
Ms. Hua was already used to it. She glanced at her daughter and didn't notice anything unusual. She turned her head and touched her daughter's face, scolding her, "Don't take your studies so seriously. You've gotten so thin at school in just a few months."
Jiang Li let her mother touch her, feeling embarrassed. "It's been cold lately, and I haven't been able to eat anything."
Her main concern was for Xiao Jiangci.
"Come on, Xiao Li, let me introduce you. This is our newest family member—Shen Xi."
“Xiaoxi, this is also your older sister—Jiang Li, my eldest daughter.”
When Xiao Jiangci heard his mother introduce Shen Xi, he immediately straightened his face and, like a little adult, led Shen Xi to Jiang Li.
Shen Xi let him pull and tug at her, but when they got to Jiang Li, it was Jiang Li who spoke first with great enthusiasm.
"So you're Shen Xi's sister! You're so handsome! So manly!"
Ok?
This tone, young lady, is this word choice really appropriate?
Shen Xi was both amused and exasperated. She stepped forward and said politely, "Thank you, you're very beautiful too."
Jiang Li noticed that when Shen Xi took a step forward, his younger brother also took a step forward without leaving her side, closely following Shen Xi's steps.
She smiled, knowing that things were about to change again.
Hua Lan and her husband moved into the Jiang family home with Shen Xi.
By this time, Grandpa Jiang and Grandma Jiang had already gone to the Maldives. Their golden wedding anniversary had arrived, and the elderly couple no longer cared about their children's debts and began to enjoy their lives.
Elementary school days were smooth and boring. At first, Jiang Ci tried to find the man named Duo He, but he didn't find any clues. After telling Shen Xi, Shen Xi seemed to realize something and told Jiang Ci to stop searching.
Shen Xi tried countless times to find Bai Susu's whereabouts, but to no avail, as did Duo He.
It was one day after class in the second year of junior high. The math teacher had something come up and told the students to do their own exercises, which would be explained in class the next day. During the break between the first evening self-study session, a daring boy was showing a movie on the whiteboard. During the commercials, Shen Xi saw a familiar face. She felt as if a huge stone was pressing on her heart, making it hard for her to breathe.
Shen Xi looked terrible. After asking the class monitor for leave, she fled the noisy classroom as if she were escaping. She walked to the playground by herself and found an empty step next to the plastic track to sit down.
There were many young men and women running and exercising on the synthetic track, all full of energy.
Shen Xi stared blankly at a point, the image of the boy who had appeared on the advertising screen earlier flashing through her mind.
That boy... is Shen Ke.
From the moment Shen Xi arrived in this time and space, she never thought of returning to the Shen family, the legendary place where she was supposed to grow up.
When Shen Xi was a child, his grandmother said he was a stubborn person who couldn't think straight.
Shen Xi had always considered this a virtue of hers. She never thought there was anything wrong with being stubborn.
In the previous timeline, Jiang Ci took her back to the Shen family. At that time, she watched those scenes as if she were watching a real movie. She wandered outside the screen, coldly watching those farces unfold.
So, what is her relationship with the Shen family?
A gust of cold wind swept across her indifferent face, and her coldness made many girls who wanted to take a step forward stop in their tracks.
The old woman found her when she was a baby and raised her with great care and hardship.
Just one step away... just one step!!
Grandma can live a long and comfortable life. She can support Grandma with her own hands, ensuring she has enough to eat and wear and doesn't have to worry about the old house leaking when it thunders or rains.
Shen Xi couldn't let go of herself. If she acknowledged the Shen family, what would that mean? What would her grandmother mean? What would the hardships her grandmother had endured mean?
She would despise herself from the bottom of her heart, and she would feel sorry for the old woman.
Shen Xi thought she couldn't let her grandmother see that the girl she had raised with such effort had turned around and married into a wealthy family without hesitation after her death.
She was just a child from an ordinary family.
She also needs to save her grandmother.
"Hey... classmate, wipe your tears."
A girl dressed in a high-class junior high school uniform appeared out of nowhere beside Shen Xi. She had her hair in pigtails and stared at Shen Xi with a piercing gaze.
Shen Xi took the tissue with both hands, raised the tissue in her hands, and said, "Thank you for the tissue. Actually, I was a little teary-eyed, and the wind made me cry..."
She was too embarrassed to force herself to do it, and tried helplessly to save face, feeling like she was trying to hide something obvious.
"Yes, it's okay, everything will be alright."
The girl was as beautiful as a forsythia, and smiled at Shen Xi with a graceful and generous demeanor.
After the kind girl left, Shen Xi slowly exhaled a breath of cold air and slowly reminded herself not to run away... to let go.
Perhaps it was the effect of self-comfort, but Shen Xi felt much better. She raised her wrist to look at her watch; evening self-study was almost over.
Shen Xi turned her head and ran quickly toward the classroom.
Sure enough, just as Shen Xi rushed to the classroom door, panting, the end-of-get out of class music started playing.
At the same time, a tall, thin figure appeared at the top of the stairs and walked towards Shen Xi.
When Shen Xi got close to him, a lemon scent wafted from him. Perhaps she had inhaled too much of the scent at once, because Shen Xi instinctively wanted to stay away from him.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Ci glanced at her without changing his expression, his eyes deepening.
Shen Xi put one hand on his shoulder, cleverly avoiding the crowd, and fanned her nose with the other, expressing her disdain without any politeness.
"Why are you, a boy, wearing such strong perfume? It's suffocating."
A pair of warm, jade-like hands pulled her quickly away from the crowd of students running home after school, and they stopped behind the stairs.
Jiang Ci gently sniffed his clothes, looked at Shen Xi with a hint of helplessness, and began to explain.
"Actually, it wasn't perfume I sprayed. Zhou Li accidentally spilled lemonade on me. He likes to drink the really sour kind of lemonade, so now I'm the one who's sour."
As he spoke, he became somewhat aggrieved, looking at Shen Xi with an expression that said, "I'm hurt."
Actually, he had already showered at school, and his family's driver had even brought him a new set of clothes to change into. He never expected the lemon to be so sour.
I never expected my sister to have such a keen sense of smell.
Jiang Ci smiled silently.
He watched as Shen Xi's gaze swept over him and then around him, before finally looking at his sister. His eyes had been fixed on her slightly reddened eyes from the very beginning.
Jiang Ci keenly sensed that Shen Xi had been crying. His fingers unconsciously rubbed against her skin, and his mood sank.
What made her sad?
Even he treated her with utmost care and tenderness; what kind of scoundrel dared to treat her like that?
Without a sound, a sinister glint flashed in Jiang Ci's eyes.
But Shen Xi didn't say anything, and Jiang Ci also adhered to that line, pulling his own consciousness back to try not to cross the boundary.
After Jiang Ci finished explaining, Shen Xi casually remarked to comfort him, "Zhou Li is such a strange creature, suddenly liking to drink such sour things. But it's okay, you can take another shower when you get back, and the smell should be gone."
Jiang Ci followed her toward the school gate, casually asking, "Aren't you taking your schoolbag home tonight?"
Shen Xi has a habit of reading or drawing for a while when she gets home in the evening, so even after evening self-study ends, she will consciously take her schoolbag home.
But tonight is a special case.
Her hand paused almost imperceptibly, then relaxed.
"Let's rest tonight. The monthly exam is next week, so it's time to relax."
There's a type of student who tends to relax more as exams approach, and often, the more relaxed they are, the better they perform on those exams.
Shen Xi barely felt that she could retain her position as the top student in her grade.
Thinking of this, she looked at Jiang Ci with glee and said, "You're going off-topic in your Chinese composition right now. Old Hu is going to be driven crazy by you."
In fact, Jiang Ci excelled in all subjects except for one—Chinese.
Jiang Ci's essays are always inconsistent with reality.
He could never understand a cartoon properly, and his interpretation of it was completely off-target. His essays always received points for neatness plus points for the effort put into writing 800 words, leaving his homeroom teacher, Mr. Hu, exasperated.
No wonder Shen Xi always teases him like that.
Shen Xi's essays were so outstanding that they were circulated among all grades as outstanding essays, and were printed out and posted on the school's arts and literature list.
Therefore, even if they are in the same grade.
Shen Xi is first, Jiang Ci is second.
Unchanged forever.
When Jiang Ci heard about this, he touched his nose guiltily. He didn't think there was anything wrong with his essay. Taking a picture out of context didn't prove anything. He clearly felt that his analysis was complete, but every time he took an exam, Lao Hu would criticize it as "nonsense crime scene analysis".
He was also helpless.
A silver-white Porsche was parked at the intersection.
Shen Xi got into the car with a smile. Actually, Jiang Ci wasn't stupid; on the contrary, he was very smart. He could probably tell how to write a good junior high school essay just by glancing at the general structure of the essay.
But Jiang Ci disdained to do such a thing.
He won't compromise on things he doesn't agree with; he'll do things his own way and continue to do things his own way.
In fact, Shen Xi also admired it.
She hoped that this dazzling young master would not change his principles for anyone, not even her.
Jiang Li is studying fashion design in Paris and rarely comes back.
Jiang Hui is also working overtime at the company at this time, and Hua Lan also has her own career to attend to, so they are not at home every day these days.
Jiang Ci and Shen Xi were left alone at home every day, relying on each other for survival.
When Jiang Ci got home, she changed her shoes and casually rolled up the sleeves of her school uniform. "I missed dinner because I took a shower tonight. I'm going to make some fried rice. Do you want some, sister?"
"Really? It's a late-night snack? Something that Young Master Jiang always scoffs at."
Whenever Shen Xi teases Jiang Ci, she calls him "Young Master Jiang." But it's no wonder Shen Xi is surprised; Jiang Ci lives a very disciplined life, eating three meals a day at fixed times, and planning his reading and exercise routines to an almost frightening degree.
Although Shen Xi has good grades, she's a complete klutz when it comes to sports; she gets out of breath after just a few steps. But she has a thing for late-night snacks, and she always eats a little... a little? late-night snack after school.
Jiang Ci would always wait for her to finish eating so they could study together, or they could each do their own thing in the study, but he was used to waiting for her.
At these times, Shen Xi would try to tempt him with food, but years have passed and Jiang Ci has never tried a late-night snack.
Shen Xi had already given up, but she didn't expect Jiang Ci to break with tradition and have a late-night snack today.
She circled around Jiang Ci with a look of fascination.
Jiang Ci skillfully put on the apron, tilted his head, and looked at Shen Xi.
Shen Xi immediately understood and went behind him to tie the belt.
"The fumes are choking. You can play a couple of rounds of Dou Dizhu at the table, I'll be done in a bit."
Jiang Ci prevented Shen Xi from approaching the kitchen, a sensitive area.
Shen Xi was used to it and readily agreed, "Young Master, you've worked hard. Keep it up!"
The housekeeper, Mr. Li, was already used to the way the two children got along. He kindly poured water and placed it on the dining table, setting out the plates.
"Thank you, Uncle Butler. It's so late, you should go and get some rest. We can finish the rest tomorrow."
Butler Li understood that the young master didn't like being disturbed by Shen Xi, so he readily agreed and left.
Before leaving, I glanced at the kitchen a few more times, and a flood of emotions welled up inside me.