The teacher’s questions in the department left Xia Xiaolan unable to explain.

Military training had given her a chance to talk with Ning Xue, but Ning Xue’s cold personality made it impossible for Xia Xiaolan to understand what she was thinking.

In other words, with Ning Xue’s sudden withdrawal, the Architecture Department was left with only Xia Xiaolan to compete against other departments. While Xia Xiaolan wasn’t afraid of competition, she wanted to understand Ning Xue’s intentions.

The National Day holiday was three days long. Being from Beijing, Ning Xue had informed the department about withdrawing from the “Outstanding Military Training Graduate” competition in the morning and went home. How could Xia Xiaolan, who stayed at school being from out of town, possibly find Ning Xue in Room 305?

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t make sense of it.

She could only put this matter aside for now.

The department teachers weren’t trying to make things difficult for her. On the contrary, they encouraged her significantly, giving her a lengthy pep talk before letting her leave the office.

They told her not to worry too much about temporary evaluations, saying that as long as she focused on doing her best, her time at Hua Qing wouldn’t be wasted, and she would surely become someone valuable to society – naturally receiving fair recognition. The teacher’s exact words were “A horse’s strength is known by the distance traveled, and time reveals a person’s true character.” The words were sincere, and Xia Xiaolan found this encouragement quite warm.

There was nothing to be done about it. These rumors were the result of various coincidences, and the school couldn’t possibly issue a notice asking students to stop discussing things privately, could they?

That would only make people discuss it even more.

Time would fade many things. Xia Xiaolan could cover the old, out-of-context image with a new one, and the rumors would gradually dissipate.

She sincerely thanked the teacher.

With two days of holiday remaining, how should she spend them?

She couldn’t go to Zhou Cheng’s workplace for now.

Should she visit the Zhou family?

After some thought, Xia Xiaolan decided to go to the bank first.

Hua Qing Garden had a postal savings office where teachers and students liked to handle their savings and remittance business. The new student handbook mentioned that “students can save their unused and economized living expenses, which is both safe and supports national construction.” Logically, Xia Xiaolan could deposit the money earned from selling sportswear at the postal savings office in Hua Qing Garden, where it would be convenient to access… but this was a “huge sum” of over a hundred thousand yuan. Xia Xiaolan didn’t want to create additional complications at school, so she had already discussed with Chen Xiliang about transferring it to the Industrial and Commercial Bank.

Otherwise, how would she explain to people around her why a student had savings of over a hundred thousand yuan in the school’s postal savings office?

As if there weren’t enough rumors already.

Xia Xiaolan went straight to an Industrial and Commercial Bank branch in Haidian District to withdraw money.

She was wearing the sportswear she had collaborated with Chen Xiliang to produce, with long sleeves perfect for October weather. Many people were wearing sportswear now – Chen Xiliang and Xia Xiaolan’s 30,000 sets were nothing in comparison. They couldn’t possibly dominate the entire market, as this year’s sports trend had the whole country crazy for athletic wear.

A beautiful girl with a student’s demeanor came to withdraw money.

Probably withdrawing living expenses?

Xia Xiaolan shook her head, “I want to withdraw the entire balance from this wire transfer.”

The teller checked the wire transfer slip several times: 163,000 yuan.

Was there a mistake with the decimal point? Was it 1,630 yuan? Though that would be a bit much for student living expenses, it was more acceptable than 160,000!

“There’s no mistake, that’s the correct amount.”

“You’re still a student, right? Where did you get so much money?”

Xia Xiaolan couldn’t answer the teller’s questions. “Is the wire transfer slip genuine?”

“Yes.”

“If I can match the password, can I withdraw the money?”

“Yes…”

Xia Xiaolan remained silent, smiling at the teller – well then, just process the withdrawal, why so many questions?

This was a bank, not a police station. She didn’t have to answer these questions.

Her request to withdraw such a large sum attracted the attention of the branch manager. He wasn’t questioning the money; he was interested in deposits. Having a deposit of over a hundred thousand yuan would be great for their branch – why let such a big client slip away?

When Xia Xiaolan said she needed the money for something, the manager smiled and replied:

“Well, tell us what you need – what can’t we help you with?”

Xia Xiaolan wanted to handle the book donation to Anqing County No. 1 High School. She didn’t want to send money directly – while she trusted Principal Sun and others’ integrity, such a large sum might make the teachers overthink things. It would be better to send the books directly.

The bank staff did seem to handle things more conveniently.

Xia Xiaolan said she wanted to buy some books but didn’t know which ones.

“May I ask, what’s the approximate total budget for these books?”

“Let’s start with 10,000 yuan worth.”

“Are you purchasing for a school?”

“Something like that.”

Xia Xiaolan didn’t care how the manager interpreted it, as she found herself drinking tea in the branch office. Somehow the manager managed to obtain a Xinhua Bookstore catalog within less than two hours. Without computer searching, she could select books by looking through the thick catalog.

A Xinhua Bookstore staff member came along with the catalog.

“Which type of books are you mainly looking for?”

“Books suitable for high school students, appropriate for a high school library.”

“How about literature, philosophy, and some educational supplements?”

Now this was a professional.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t dare underestimate others and became more courteous in her speech. She explained in detail that it was for a county high school library, preferring quantity over whether they were hardcover editions – the more useful books they could get for 10,000 yuan, the better!

While marking the catalog, they calculated rapidly with an abacus.

For 10,000 yuan, they selected three thousand books for Xia Xiaolan, with content perfectly suited for high school students. Xia Xiaolan couldn’t help but admire the professional’s expertise. She couldn’t have made better selections on her own.

If Xia Xiaolan had gone to choose at Xinhua Bookstore herself, she would have been overwhelmed.

“There are some other books also suitable for high school students…”

The person seemed hesitant and showed Xia Xiaolan some additional titles.

“Just tell me how much it would cost in total.”

“No more than 15,000 yuan and these books would fully equip a county high school.”

“Then please process the order with your selections, I’ll take them all.”

When Xia Xiaolan requested delivery to Anqing County in Yunan Province, the staff member was surprised, “Does it have to be shipped from Beijing? You’re Manager Wu’s VIP client – once we finalize the book list, we can have the Yunan stores handle the distribution directly.”

How was the service industry in 1984?

Xia Xiaolan had previously thought it wasn’t good.

Now she experienced that the 80s had extremely thoughtful service.

Inter-regional delivery was nothing – their internal network was already established. If one Xinhua Bookstore in Yunan couldn’t fulfill the order, surely the many stores across the province could complete it together.

Manager Wu maintained his warm smile throughout:

“Are you satisfied, Comrade Xia? We can handle these small matters!”

Xia Xiaolan felt uncomfortable under Manager Wu’s smile: “Please just tell me how I can help.”

“…Comrade Xia, it’s like this – we have quotas from above, and banking work isn’t easy. Would you consider purchasing some government bonds?”