The moment the call ended, Shanshan bounced out of her room.

"Dad! Dad! I think I heard my little brother call me ’big sister’! He really said it!"

"Anxun."

Grandfather smiled and patted Ling Anxun’s shoulder.

"You should take Shanshan back for a visit. Tomorrow’s the weekend, so let her spend some more time with the little one."

"I’m going too!"

Ling Zhiwei immediately leaped up from the sofa.

"Shanshan, take me with you! School is seriously turning me into a walking corpse! I’m up at six every day, my schedule is packed, the professors lecture at a brutal pace, and I don’t even have time to catch my breath!"

He had originally thought college would be a little easier.

The reality?

His freshman year was all general education and foundational courses, and none of them were a walk in the park.

By sophomore year, even though he’d declared his major, the course difficulty skyrocketed. If he slacked off even a little, he’d be left in the dust.

He often mocked himself.

"This isn’t college. It’s just gnawing on bricks, one after another, and you can’t even spit them out."

So every weekend, he couldn’t wait to run home, claiming it was to "recharge and improve his study efficiency."

But who would believe that?

At first, his family was skeptical and tried to persuade him to stay at school and study, telling him not to always look for an excuse to slack off.

But Ling Zhiwei always had his ways.

He would either feign illness or complain tearfully about having too much homework, insisting he needed to come home and rest for two days just to recover.

The whole family was helpless against him and could only let him have his way.

In the end, even Ling Anxun could only nod in resignation.

"Alright, let’s go. I’ll take you back with us."

The next morning, the three of them set off by car, heading for the small courtyard home in the countryside.

Suddenly, Ling Zhiwei shot upright, pressing his face against the car window and pointing ahead excitedly.

"Look, look! We’re almost home!"

The car had just turned at the village entrance when he impatiently pushed open the door and leaped out.

"Wow! This air smells as good as freshly washed blankets! The kind that’s been dried in the sun—so warm and soft!"

He spread his arms, tilted his head back, and took a deep breath.

"I can even smell the fresh grass! And the earthy scent of the soil, and... hmm... Agh, I can’t describe it, but it just feels so good!"

He spun around on the spot as he spoke.

"Brother Zhiwei, is school really that hard?"

Shanshan, wearing her small backpack, got out of the car and looked at him with her head tilted.

But in her eyes, the knowledge in those textbooks was as simple as a jigsaw puzzle.

The formulas and texts that Ling Zhiwei saw as gibberish were, to her, nothing more than perfectly natural principles.

The smile on Ling Zhiwei’s face froze on the spot.

"For us normal people... it is pretty hard."

He paused, then looked up at Shanshan.

"You’re different."

"How am I different?" she pressed.

Ling Zhiwei’s face instantly flushed bright red.

Fortunately, Ling Anxun spoke up just in time.

"There’s a field of rapeseed flowers up ahead. Shanshan, do you want to go see it?"

The change of subject immediately caught Shanshan’s attention.

"Really? The yellow kind?"

"Mhm," Ling Anxun nodded.

"They’re blooming all over the hills."

Shanshan skipped ahead.

"Then let’s go see them!"

They had just gotten out of the car in front of Yang Dapeng’s house and hadn’t even put down their luggage when they ran into Cao Jiajia walking by.

She was wearing a faded blue school uniform and an old backpack, walking slowly with her head down.

Hearing the car door, she looked up and immediately saw Shanshan.

"Huh? Shanshan, isn’t that your annoying deskmate?" Ling Zhiwei commented casually.

He had never liked Cao Jiajia, finding her to be a crybaby and a tattletale who was always pestering Shanshan about homework.

"Brother Zhiwei! Don’t say that!"

Shanshan quickly turned her head.

She could tell at a glance that Cao Jiajia was in a terrible state.

Her face was pale, with obvious dark circles under her eyes.

In her heart, children were the most innocent of all.

When it came down to it, Cao Jiajia was actually quite pitiful.

That was why Shanshan never openly targeted her.

She would even discreetly stand next to her and pretend to start a conversation when she saw her being bullied.

The moment her brother spoke, Shanshan instinctively tried to stop him, but it was too late.

Cao Jiajia heard everything.

She stiffened, and her eyes instantly turned red.

Then, she turned and ran.

Ling Zhiwei watched her retreating back for a few seconds, then gave Shanshan a helpless shrug.

"Sorry, I thought you actually disliked her."

From his perspective, someone with a personality like Cao Jiajia’s was genuinely unlikable; it was magnanimous enough that Shanshan didn’t hate her.

"It’s not about liking or disliking her. She’s just a classmate," Shanshan replied softly.

Cao Jiajia was supposed to have moved out of this company housing district long ago.

Due to a change at her father’s workplace, her family had been assigned to an old company apartment building on the west side of the city.

But recently, the atmosphere at home had become increasingly tense.

Her mother and father argued every other day, always over trivial matters.

Her mother had finally had enough of this life and decided to temporarily leave the oppressive environment, taking her daughter with her for a change of scenery.

At first, Liu Yingzi wanted to go straight back to her parents’ home, since it was the place she knew best.

But the moment she mentioned the idea, her father shut it down with a single question.

"Are you trying to get a divorce again?"

Her mother also tried to persuade her.

"Don’t always come running home. If you keep coming back like this, what will other people think? What will your in-laws think?"

Liu Yingzi’s heart ached as she listened, knowing her parents were only saying this because they were worried about her.

To keep her parents from worrying, she decided against going to their home and instead contacted a distant aunt who lived on the west side of the city.

This aunt was well-liked and generous, and she happened to have a spare guest room.

’Staying here for a few days would be good,’ Liu Yingzi thought. ’I can escape the troubles at home without making my parents lose sleep with worry.’

So, she packed a few things, took her daughter’s hand, and came here.

Who would have thought they would run into Shanshan and her family of all people.

Liu Yingzi’s steps faltered, and her heart sank.

’It’s over,’ she thought. ’There’s no avoiding them now.’ 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Around the corner, Cao Jiajia stared intently at Shanshan being doted on by everyone.

She saw Shanshan in a clean, beautiful dress, with several children fighting over who got to hold her hand.

’Why?’

’Why does everyone revolve around her?’

’Why does she capture everyone’s attention the moment she appears?’

Cao Jiajia felt that she was the one who deserved to be liked.

’Why does Cao Xueshan, just a wild country girl, get to live a more glamorous life than anyone else?’

In her eyes, Shanshan was only able to live so respectably because she was leaning on the great tree that was the Ling family.

If the Ling family hadn’t adopted her, she would just be a pathetic wretch abandoned at an orphanage, without even a proper name or status.

But reality was so unfair. She had done nothing, yet she received everyone’s most sincere affection.

What she found most unacceptable was that even her own father, the person closest to her, would often bring up Cao Xueshan at the dinner table.

"I heard Shanshan got a perfect score on her math test this time. That’s really amazing."

"That child has been through so much, but she isn’t spoiled at all. Her manners are more thoughtful than anyone’s."

’Why?’

’I’m obviously outstanding and well-behaved too, so why has Dad never praised me like that, not even once?’

That night, Cao Jiajia returned to her relative’s house, her face pale.

The moment she walked in the door, she rushed into her room, threw herself into her mother’s arms, and burst into tears.

"Mom... They... they all like her... Nobody likes me..."