Locking away my heart and love! Going back to 2000 to be a top student again.

Grasping Xu Su's hand on his lap, Zhou Mochen said urgently, "Don't be afraid of me, okay? And don't hide from me. You know I can't bear to see you like this."

He leaned closer, trying to meet her gaze, and whispered soothingly, "Su Su, I was wrong just now, please forgive me this time?"

Xu Su turned her eyes away from him and said slowly, "Zhou Mochen, you should have noticed that I have a bad temper and am willful and capricious, especially towards you. You don't need to make yourself suffer like this to accommodate me."

Zhou Mochen unconsciously tightened his grip, and Xu Su felt her hand hurt a little from being squeezed. Then she heard him say, "I'm not wronged. It's my fault for asking too much of you."

Between them, it was always him who was forcing things, so why did he still want to ask her to respect his love as an equal?

The little girl is still young and doesn't understand things easily. What if he scares her?

Zhou Mochen was a little annoyed and slowly let go of her hand: "Go back, I'll pick you up tomorrow morning."

Xu Su rubbed her hand, which had turned slightly red from his grip, and without saying anything more, she opened the car door, didn't even take the roasted sweet potato, and left without looking back.

Zhou Mochen sat alone in the car for a long time, watching her figure disappear and the sky completely darken. He slowly peeled a chestnut he had bought for her and put it in his mouth.

~~

When they got home, the Xu family was having dinner.

The new house has three bedrooms and one living room. Xu Su was assigned to a south-facing secondary bedroom, which contained a newly made table, a wardrobe, and a bed, and nothing else.

Even so, it's still a thousand times better than before.

The dining table was set against the wall, and Xu Weiping was sitting facing the door. When he saw Xu Su return, he was taken aback: "Why are you out of school already?"

He didn't even know his daughter had her final exam today.

Xu Su wasn't surprised. She nodded and said, "Today is the final exam, so there's no need to attend classes. We'll have another exam tomorrow, and then it'll be winter break."

Chen Shulan turned her head and looked over, exclaiming, "No wonder your room was full of books today. So the semester is over and your school is giving you a few days off?"

Xu Su brought all her books back from school yesterday, and today she only carried a small bag with the stationery she needed for the exam to school.

It was impressive that Chen Shulan could find the books in her room. Xu Su changed her shoes and put the bag of stationery into her own room while replying, "School starts on the sixth day of the first lunar month."

Xu Weiping was somewhat surprised: "Only eight days off?"

"Hmm," Xu Su went into the kitchen, washed her hands, and brought out a bowl of rice. "First-year high school students have eight days off, and second-year high school students only have five days off."

As for the senior year of high school... I heard that the head teacher of the top class in the senior year said: "There are only a few months left before the college entrance examination. How dare you expect to have a leisurely year?"

...Of course, we can't go without a single day off.

According to Huang Feng, it had been left out for two days.

Lunar New Year's Eve and Lunar New Year's Day.

As for students returning to school on the second day of the Lunar New Year, it sounds terrible, but on second thought, even teachers who teach senior high school students can't properly visit relatives and friends for the New Year.

Moreover, the students only need to stay for this one term, but the teachers...

Xu Su silently ate a bite of food, paying tribute in her heart to the hardworking gardeners.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Xu Su said, "I want to go back to spend the Chinese New Year with my grandmother."

Chen Shulan was serving Xu Yang food when she heard this and frowned, her face full of disapproval: "You've lived in the countryside for over ten years. You finally came to the city this year, why are you still thinking about going back to the countryside?"

Throughout her conversation, she expressed a great deal of disdain for the place where she was born and raised. Chen Shulan was always proud that she had married into a family with a Changshi household registration, so she didn't have to toil in the fields like her older brothers and sisters.

Although their family's circumstances weren't considered particularly good by Changshi standards, they still considered themselves superior to the impoverished rural people.

Xu Yang attended primary school for half a year, perhaps because many of the primary schools in the old industrial area were filled with children of migrant workers from rural areas, and he was influenced by what he saw and heard at school.

Upon hearing Chen Shulan's words, the young boy laughed loudly, "Country bumpkins like to stay in the countryside. Xu Su is a country bumpkin... just like Li Min in our class, a country bumpkin."

Xu Su frowned in disgust. Actually, Xu Yang wasn't bad-looking, with a touch of handsomeness in his features, but his current demeanor completely masked his ugliness.

Chen Shulan, far from finding anything wrong with what her son said, praised him by placing some lean meat on his chopsticks: "Our Yangyang is such a good boy. We won't go to the countryside; the ground there is covered in mud and chicken and duck droppings, it stinks to death. Our Yangyang will stay in the city, study hard, and go to university in a big city, okay?"

Xu Su held her bowl and ate quietly, ignoring the conversation between the mother and son, as she was already used to it.

Xu Weiping, as the head of the family, made the decision: "This year, our whole family will go to the old house to celebrate."

He retorted without room for argument, "If you want to be filial to your grandmother, just buy her some nice things when you start working and earning money. Didn't you just go back for National Day last time? Why are you going back again now? What's a student doing running around every day? The travel expenses must be enormous."

It takes two transfers and costs a total of thirty yuan, which is quite a lot these days.

Xu Su remained silent. If she didn't want to go, she didn't want to go anyway; she hadn't held out much hope in the first place.

There are at most two more years until she comes of age... She can visit her grandmother without needing anyone's permission.

When they first got the house, the couple thought it was all thanks to their beautiful daughter, so they were very affectionate towards Xu Su for a while.

Until the house was acquired, renovated, and the family moved in, the old factory manager of the textile factory didn't ask about his daughter again for more than two months.

Xu Weiping and his wife couldn't help but wonder if they had misunderstood each other. Although they didn't directly change their attitude towards Xu Su, they were no longer as affectionate as before.

After all, she was a beautiful and outstanding daughter, so they were still willing to maintain appearances and at least didn't take back the room they had promised her.

Xu Yang across from her was making funny faces at her. Even after spending half a year together, he still didn't like Xu Su, his older sister.

Of course, Xu Su always treated him like air.

Chen Shulan added, "We bought a new bicycle today. Now our home is much farther from your brother's school than before. I need to use the bicycle to pick him up and drop him off. You live closer to school and are older than your brother. You've gotten used to walking there these days. From now on, you should walk to school by yourself."

Ever since that dilapidated bicycle broke down, Xu Weiping took it to a repair shop for repairs. However, replacing the chain was a lot of trouble and cost over fifty yuan in repair fees.

The couple thought it would be better to buy a new car, but they were busy with renovations and moving to their new home, so they didn't have time to buy one and kept putting it off until now.

Chen Shulan had always assumed that Xu Su had been walking to and from school during this period.

Now that their new home is closer to the No. 1 Middle School, it's only a 20-30 minute walk. Chen Shulan doesn't think her daughter is having a hard time.