Zhou Cheng was investigating how Xia Xiaolan had injured her hand.

While it wasn’t impossible to fracture one’s hand in a bicycle collision, the fact that Xiaolan had hidden it from him made Zhou Cheng suspect there was more to the story.

He didn’t want to argue with Xiaolan or pressure his wife, so he could only investigate slowly on his own. What frustrated Zhou Cheng was that yesterday’s half-day leave had already been his supervisor’s “special favor,” and when he wanted to accompany his wife again today, his supervisor spoke meaningfully: “How can you keep running off every day? You need to consider the impression you’re making at work, don’t you?”

What impression?

At first, Zhou Cheng didn’t understand. His supervisor was vague, but after asking around, Zhou Cheng learned that someone had filed an anonymous complaint against him!

The identity of this “anonymous” person was obvious—Zhou Cheng and Fang Shizhong couldn’t even maintain a facade of harmony anymore.

Zhou Cheng had nothing to say about such a petty person. His wife had just met his family yesterday, and now he couldn’t even send her to the airport!

When Xia Xiaolan received his call, she didn’t mind:

“It’s fine, I’ll be in Beijing by the end of August anyway. I bought some things and left them at the guesthouse—could you have someone pick them up? They’re for your cousin Cheng Min and the others.”

Having received three red envelopes, Xia Xiaolan wasn’t one to take advantage. Since Cheng Min had complimented her clothes, though Xia Xiaolan couldn’t produce exact replicas, she’d bought outfits for all of Zhou Cheng’s younger siblings. She deliberately hadn’t bought anything for Zhou Yi—after all, Zhou Yi looked down on country folk, so she probably wouldn’t appreciate their aesthetic taste!

Gu Zhengqing had wanted to discuss more with this excellent student. He wondered if Xia Xiaolan’s study methods, which had helped her improve from over 400 points in the practice exam to 616 points in the final exam in less than a year, were worth promoting. The interview video mentioned how Xia Xiaolan actively helped her classmates improve their scores, and Anqing First High School had seen its college admission rate triple this year! While interviews tend to exaggerate, even after accounting for inflation, there was still some truth to it. This was the part that interested Gu Zhengqing.

However, by the time he wanted to meet Xia Xiaolan again, she had already left Beijing.

This girl had no intention of currying favor with the Zhou family; she had truly come just for a single meeting.

While Zhou’s younger relatives received their clothes from Xia Xiaolan, Gu Zhengqing’s eldest daughter Gu Siyan was admiring herself in her new dress when Aunt Zhou smacked her: “Look how pleased you are with yourself! I heard He Jia’s mother sent her to tutoring classes. There’s still a month of summer vacation left—are you just going to idle at home?”

Gu Siyan nodded matter-of-factly, “Well, He Jia has no one to guide her. I have my dad—why would I need tutoring classes? I don’t believe those tutors could teach better than my dad!”

Gu Zhengqing wouldn’t dare make such a boast. He’d been away from front-line education for years, now focusing on policy matters, and had forgotten much of the textbook material. When he heard about these tutoring classes, he was somewhat interested.

Upon inquiry, he learned they were run by students from Beijing Normal College, with bold slogans like “Assault the High School Entrance Exam” and “Battle for the College Entrance Exam.”

Gu Zhengqing smiled wryly. Rather than sending his children to such classes, he’d prefer they stay home and properly complete their summer homework. While Gu Zhengqing might not excel in other areas, he did hold a position in the Ministry of Education’s Development Planning Department. His children’s school, if not the best in Beijing, was certainly among the top three!

Gu Zhengqing had been excited about Xia Xiaolan because she was a true academic prodigy.

With this year’s extremely difficult college entrance exam, anyone scoring above 600 points truly had intellectual advantages, let alone Xia Xiaolan ranking in the top three among over a million examinees! Counting those eliminated in preliminary exams, she was actually in the top three among three to four million people.

As for Beijing Normal College… Gu Zhengqing sighed. It wasn’t that he looked down on it—after all, it was still a Beijing undergraduate institution.

But having spent half his life in education and having sent his children to one of Beijing’s best middle schools, with the advantage of Beijing’s admission quota, if they only managed to get into Beijing Normal College, Gu Zhengqing would consider his life quite a failure. What was the point of setting educational policies if he couldn’t properly educate his children?

Take the middle school Gu Siyan attended—even outstanding graduates from Beijing Normal College couldn’t get teaching positions there. New teachers needed at least a Beijing Normal University degree. Gu Zhengqing would have to be crazy to send Gu Siyan for tutoring… Better to listen attentively to the school teachers, who were all specially ranked excellent teachers with years of front-line teaching experience. Though it was just middle school, they were already consciously developing students’ competitiveness for the college entrance exam.

What Aunt Zhou had mentioned casually led Gu Zhengqing to inquire about the tutoring program’s teaching staff, and the matter ended there.

Sending children to good schools wasn’t something that started thirty years later—tracing back to the 1980s wasn’t early enough. Even in feudal times during the imperial examination system, there was a difference between village schools and renowned academies. How could students taught by repeatedly failed candidates compare with those personally instructed by successful scholars in writing eight-legged essays?

Educational resource disparity has always existed.

For families who could afford it, insufficient teaching quality held little appeal!

This tutoring program was established by Xia Yiyu.

Xia Yiyu had been preparing for a while, starting with weekend tutoring classes as a trial. Just as she was ready to expand during summer vacation, she was called back to Yunan Province by Zhang Cui’s telegram.

Waiting for Xia Yiyu in Yunan Province was Xia Changzheng with his amputated hand, the terrified Zhang Cui, and the news of Xia Xiaolan becoming the province’s top scorer!

Xia Yiyu was somewhat superstitious about fortune.

Before this year, fortune had favored her—whether in successfully entering university or snatching away Wang Jianhua, everything had gone Xia Yiyu’s way.

But in ’84, fortune seemed to have shifted toward Xia Xiaolan. All of Xia Yiyu’s schemes had been dodged, and Xia Xiaolan had grown stronger with each setback, not only successfully taking the college entrance exam but scoring 616 points to become Yunan Province’s top scorer, gaining admission to Huaqing University, which was better than Beijing Normal College… Xia Yiyu’s attitude had evolved from confident dismissal to genuine respect and wariness of Xia Xiaolan, and now she had no choice but to temporarily retreat from Xia Xiaolan’s spotlight!

They couldn’t stay in Shangdu anymore—Zhang Cui had tried setting up her stall for two days, and on both days someone had come to cause trouble.

Unable to catch who had broken Xia Changzheng’s hand, and with Zhang Cui’s business becoming impossible to maintain, Xia Yiyu had to grit her teeth and bring them both to Beijing. She hadn’t wanted to live so close to her parents—without distance, her parents would know about everything she planned to do. Being an only daughter would have been one thing, but she also had a younger brother!

Bringing Xia Junbao to Beijing was not an option—Xia Yiyu couldn’t arrange his schooling.

After bringing Xia Changzheng and Zhang Cui to Beijing, Xia Yiyu threw herself into the tutoring business. While there was a huge market gap and excellent prospects in this field, it wasn’t as simple as Xia Yiyu had imagined.

What awaited her was chaos of all sorts!

For instance, right now she faced a parent who proposed paying tuition fees only after seeing improvement in their child’s grades. Xia Yiyu wanted to throw her box of chalk in their face.

How shameless—would they go to a restaurant and say they’d pay for the meal only if they didn’t get stomach problems afterward?