[14] For mother's safety

The College Entrance Examination is a turning point in life, such a phrase was written on a red banner, hanging high on the motivational wall for the College Entrance Examination in the school's teaching building.

After school, Xie Wanying, carrying her schoolbag down the stairs, turned her head to see this banner and suddenly felt it was quite ironic.

It turned out that such a phrase was duplicitous in the hearts of some teachers. For someone like her and Zhao Wenzong, to go from third-rate to second-rate was already a perfect life. If they were to become first-rate, Liu Hui and the others would think that she and Zhao Wenzong were toads wanting to eat swan meat.

No wonder her maternal aunt, Zhou Ruomei, spoke to her mother and her with almost a tone of mockery that night.

"You, the daughter of a truck driver, what business do you have attending a medical college? Even if you graduate, no one would guide you or want you; just stay at the county health clinic."

Before going home, Xie Wanying made a detour to the stationery shop to buy some pens needed for the College Entrance Examination, just to be safe. What she didn't expect was that no sooner had she stepped through her front door than her homeroom teacher arrived.

"Sun Rongfang, your child's homeroom teacher is here."

The neighbor called out, and Sun Rongfang, who was washing vegetables in the kitchen, wiped her hands and came out to greet the honored guest. She saw her daughter who had just come home and hurriedly said, "Pour a glass of water for your teacher."

Her mother didn't know that she had talked back to Liu Hui at school. Xie Wanying quietly went to the kitchen, not wanting to face the homeroom teacher.

"Teacher Liu, please come in, please come in." Sun Rongfang proactively helped Liu Hui, who was entering the house, move a chair.

It was also Liu Hui's first visit to Xie Wanying's home. Upon entering, she observed the family's situation: a house less than forty square meters with mottled walls, tables, and chairs with a limp, no sofa.

As she saw the way her daughter's homeroom teacher looked around, Sun Rongfang thought of the imported oranges that her cousin had rejected and offered eagerly, "Teacher Liu, let me cut an orange for you. It's a fresh imported Sunkist orange."

"Don't bother, don't bother. There are a few words I need to make clear with your family," Liu Hui said.

What Sunkist oranges, Liu Hui couldn't stand to stay even a minute in this dilapidated house. She was aware that she had just visited Zhang Wei's home the night before, a residential apartment over a hundred square meters. The homes of the two female students were worlds apart.

When Sun Rongfang heard the teacher speak in such a tone, she froze on the spot: her daughter was about to take the College Entrance Examination, what could have happened?

"Teacher, please speak," Sun Rongfang asked timidly.

A visit from a teacher to a student's home was enough to make any parent tremble with nerves.

"Does your family know what Xie Wanying has filled in for her College Entrance Examination aspirations?"

"She said she wants to attend medical college," Sun Rongfang responded, thinking of her daughter's dream.

"It's not that I don't support her in trying for medical college, but with her grades, honestly, getting into the medical college in the provincial capital would be very good. But I estimate she won't get in. Based on her grades, all the teachers unanimously think it would be better for her to try for the nearby teacher's college."

Standing in the kitchen, watching over the boiling kettle, Xie Wanying remained calm as a mountain. She sensed that Liu Hui had come merely to vent her own frustrations. It didn't matter, the application form had already been filled out by her, and it couldn't be changed now, no one could do anything about it.

"Is that so?" Sun Rongfang's voice sank a little, the teacher's words echoed what her cousin had said, she knew all along there was nothing she could do.

"The issue is," Liu Hui said, "Xie Wanying insists on filling in Guoxie Medical University, which is the nation's top medical college, recruiting only ten people nationwide."

Sun Rongfang's head shot up: her daughter had really filled in that aspiration, the one she had mentioned in front of her cousin, the one that had angered her cousin to death, she filled it in. For some reason, she felt a tinge of joy in her heart.