NOVPUB"One hundred fifty-two, weight forty-one, next!"
After putting her shoes on, Lin Wanning took back her physical check-up form and grinned as she approached Xu Qingfan, "Hehe~ Brother Qing Fan, you’re not as tall as me!"
Three years had gone by, and even though she was now a big kid in the sixth grade, Lin Wanning still liked calling Xu Qing Fan ’Brother Qing Fan.’ However, she didn’t know when she stopped calling herself ’Ning Ning’ in public.
"Shorty!" Xia Xiaoxiao casually placed her hand on Xu Qingfan’s head and gave it a light push.
"One sixty-one, weight forty-eight, next in line!"
Xia Xiaoxiao stepped off the scale and gave Xu Qingfan a challenging little glance.
"Brother Fan? Xiao Fan!" Xiao Ruawen walked past him, chuckling as she ruffled his hair.
"You all might feel proud for these next two years, but wait until I grow to be a head taller than you!" Xu Qingfan was exasperated.
"One fifty-eight, weight forty-four, next in line!"
"Brother, Yiyi, same height!" Zhang Yiyi walked up to Xu Qingfan and gestured with her hand to compare their heights.
"Alright, go ahead and measure, isn’t it just that I’m not as tall as you? I don’t mind at all!"
"Yiyi isn’t taller than Brother Qing Fan, is she?"
"Hard to say, I think Brother Fan is wearing platform shoes!" Xiao Ruawen covered her mouth, giggling on the side.
"Damn! Don’t go smearing my reputation with baseless accusations, a pair of Nikes won’t make me any taller!" Xu Qingfan wasn’t bothered by being called short, but accusing him of wearing platform shoes was something he just couldn’t tolerate.
"Look who’s getting touchy!" Xia Xiaoxiao fanned the flames.
"Don’t push it or I’ll jump and hit your knees!"
"Hahahaha~" Xu Qingfan’s self-deprecating comment left the three of them shaking with laughter.
"One fifty, weight thirty-seven, kid you’re a bit too light, eat more often."
"Uh-huh, thank you, nurse." Zhang Yiyi nodded obediently, took back her physical check-up form, and joined the group, "Same height, see!" She showed everyone her form.
"Yiyi, you’re so skinny, just... seventy-four pounds!" Xiao Ruawen calculated aloud.
"That’s way too skinny, a normal healthy weight for someone one fifty would be like me at ninety pounds, from now on you’re not allowed to eat just one or two meals!" Xu Qingfan nodded in agreement.
Zhang Yiyi’s eyes widened as she sighed and shrugged like a deflated balloon, "Then I’ll eat, one and a half meals!"
"You’re just tired of the cafeteria food, six years of the same few dishes, totally sick of it!" Lin Wanning stood up for her good friend.
"Always with the excuses, when you eat out, you don’t see the two of you eating more, come on let’s go line up for the vision test!" Xu Qingfan habitually patted Lin Wanning on the head. Thankfully, she wasn’t as tall as Xia Xiaoxiao, so it wasn’t that hard.
"Hehe~" Lin Wanning giggled shyly and dragged Zhang Yiyi to line up for the vision test.
"Brother Fan, you can only pat Wanning’s head." Xiao Ruawen, lively like an active Husky, darted to and fro in front of him.
"My saying is, ’Thirty years on the east bank of the river, thirty years on the west; don’t bully the poor young ones!’" Xu Qingfan made a ’just you wait’ gesture with his index finger and joined Lin Wanning in line.
[Why does she have to be so tall.] Xia Xiaoxiao trailed behind, her mood slightly depressed. The aesthetic standards of primary school students are weird, as taller girls, no matter how pretty, are generally treated like freaks.
If she could choose, she would wish to swap heights with Zhang Yiyi.
But thinking of Xu Qingfan sneaking glances at her thighs and stubbornly refusing to admit it, Xia Xiaoxiao smiled again, cheered up.
After the annual physical check-up, the five of them returned to class 16 of grade six.
"Ugh, the next class is with Extinction Master again!" Lin Wanning complained, slumping onto the desk after seeing the schedule.
"Don’t start groaning yet, I can’t find my workbook, help me look if it’s with you." Xu Qingfan rummaged through his desk.
"Huaren brand 2060 model robotic helper at your service, please enter the startup password!" Lin Wanning pinched her nose and imitated a robotic voice.
"You’re an adult, I love you!"
"Password incorrect, please answer again!"
"I love Ningning the most!" Xu Qingfan rolled his eyes at her and whispered in Lin Wanning’s ear.
"Hehe~ Correct password!" Lin Wanning couldn’t help but laugh out loud, "You lent me the workbook this morning, Brother Qing Fan, your memory is awful." She returned the workbook that was tucked with hers.
"Oh, oh, right, I’ve been too busy lately," Xu Qingfan realized and nodded.
"I just need to steal one more pig tonight to level up to 60, Brother Qing Fan, I gave you a seven-day gold membership, why don’t you use it, huh?" Lin Wanning rambled on.
"All you do is recharge Q coins for old Ma, and today is old Ma’s birthday, but I didn’t see you sharing that post to get a sun," said Xu Qingfan with a disgusted laugh.
"Brother Qing Fan, you’re just fooling people. It’s clearly not old Ma’s birthday today, Ningning shared it last month!"
"Pfft—hahaha!" Xu Qingfan burst out laughing, recalling the post Lin Wanning had shared last time.
Korean netizens say Mr. He has no fans, and Mr. He is already crying. Share this post to support Mr. He, anyone who doesn’t isn’t a true Chinese!
"What’s so funny!" Lin Wanning glanced sideways, looking somewhat insecure.
"Ahem—nothing funny, ’Youth is a sugar, sweet to sorrow,’ you did really well!" Xu Qingfan said sternly as he read Lin Wanning’s social media handle.
"What are you laughing at when we’ve been together?" Xu Qingfan pointed out Zhang Yiyi’s social media handle publicly.
"Brother, no!" Zhang Yiyi, who had been enjoying the show, immediately jumped up to cover Xu Qingfan’s mouth.
Hearing Xia Xiaoxiao’s laughter behind him, he turned around and said, "And you, ’Your cool signature is ace at misplacing spaces,’ what are you laughing at?"
Xia Xiaoxiao’s face fell instantly. Her signature might look cool online, but having it read out loud could only make her cringe hard enough to hide in a three-room apartment.
"It’s still better than your ’Past with the Wind’!" Xia Xiaoxiao thumped a chestnut on Xu Qingfan’s head.
"Exactly, exactly, Brother Qing Fan’s screen name is hideous, just like my dad’s ’Dragon in the Sky,’ so tacky!" Lin Wanning backed Xia Xiaoxiao up.
"Ugly, ugly!"
Lin Wanning, Zhang Yiyi, and Xia Xiaoxiao teamed up in their annoyance.
"Alright, alright—my screen name is the ugliest, I surrender," Xu Qingfan raised his hands in defeat.
"Hmph—’Past with the Wind,’ why don’t you fly away!" Xia Xiaoxiao smoothed her bangs and picked up her pen to continue doing her homework.
"What are you guys talking about, I heard laughter all the way from outside," Xiao Ruawen asked with a giggly approach, just back from the office.
"We’re talking about your screen name, ’The World is Cruel, I Am Tender’!"
"Eh, Brother Fan, you’re so annoying!" Xiao Ruawen punched his shoulder playfully.
After being collectively criticized and lectured by the four girls, Xu Qingfan swore never to read out their screen names in public again. The class bell rang just at that moment.
The person who walked into the classroom was a woman in her forties, their math teacher and homeroom teacher.
As for Guan Biyue, she had left Experimental Primary School two years ago to join Xu Qingfan and their Juewei Duck Neck family.
As the leading private enterprise in Li City now, Juewei Duck Neck already had 873 direct stores and 1,654 franchise stores, providing over 2,000 local job positions.
In a joint law enforcement campaign last year that targeted counterfeit duck neck shops, they set a record by shutting down over three hundred fake shops in a day, and Li City’s Pizza Hut’s reputation spread far and wide as a result.
The future listing of Juewei Duck Neck in Hong Kong or the U.S. seemed certain, and as one of the early core member, Guan Biyue’s incentive shares were essential, making her a millionaire was not at all difficult.
"Class, stand up!"
"Hello, teacher!"
"Hello, students, please sit down!"
The students were quite intimidated by the homeroom teacher, who held a provincial excellent teacher title, obediently placing their hands on the desk and pretending to be focused on the class.
Xu Qingfan habitually looked out the window, lost in thought about what to do next.
2008 was a year many in Huaxia could never forget; he couldn’t forget how Huaxia suffered from the La Niña phenomenon, with widespread cold, rain, snow, and ice in the south in January; nor could he forget the devastation of the disaster on May 12, where countless compatriots were buried forever, as the anchor tearfully announced casualties from various regions, the middle-aged man shouldering a pole reminding the host to be cautious while unsure of his own path ahead...
Because of his involvement, the January cold wave saw Juewei Duck Neck not only making an unseen promotion but also significantly alleviating the government’s burden.
However, even having been reborn, he was only human, not a god; he couldn’t make people believe a disaster would strike on May 12, especially when even the most precise seismometers could not predict an earthquake’s exact timing.
Despite this, he still prepared enough relief materials, ready to be sent to the affected area the moment a disaster occurred.
The people of Huaxia would never let a patriotic entrepreneur suffer, every piece of clothing, every bottle of water sent to the disaster area would return tenfold, a hundredfold in profits to Juewei Duck Neck.
Zhong Wenqing was still thinking about how to hold their ground in the northern market where Zhou Heiya and Juewei Duck Neck were clashing fiercely, little did he know that Xu Qingfan had long set his pieces on the board, ready for a big move.
It’s worth mentioning that Juewei Duck Neck was no longer just a seasoned food company. It had branched into real estate, distilled water, down jackets, and snack foods among other sectors.
Recently, on Xu Qingfan’s suggestion, they even planned to venture into a health tea business similar to Eastern Leaves.
Although Xu Qingfan was only twelve years old, still in sixth grade and a Young Pioneers team leader in China with three diagonal stripes, every suggestion he had made over the years had been very effective, making Zhang Chunxue and Zhong Wenqing very willing to listen to him.
Hopefully, this time would go smoothly as well...
