The Reborn Sidekick Rejected The Male Lead

Jiang Nanzhou was worried that standing at the door for too long might be too conspicuous and have a negative impact on her, so after a few words of instruction, he hurriedly left.

Little did they know that Wu Cuihua from across the street had already seen them.

Seeing that the person had left, she pretended to go to the door to pick vegetables with a basket in hand, and feigned innocence as she asked, "Xiao Qiu, who was that just now? Oh, he even gave you such a big package. You aren't dating him, are you? It's about time though, at your age, you really should be considering marriage.

Just the other day, I was telling your aunt about my cousin's son, and you…"

"Aunt Cuihua, my dad is going on a business trip and doesn't have time to come home, so he's worried about me. That's why he asked one of his subordinates in the army to help send me some things. I have soup boiling on the stove, so I can't talk right now," Lu Jingqiu interrupted Wu Cuihua, explaining hastily before shutting the door.

Having a neighbor who gossips is really quite troublesome.

Fortunately, her house had a yard, which afforded some privacy.

After carrying the heavy package back to the living room and placing it on the table, she began to take out the items one by one.

Two cans of Malted Milk, a can of powdered milk, two bottles of canned food, a pound of brown sugar, and at the very bottom, a wild rabbit was found.

No wonder it was so heavy. Jiang Nanzhou must have used up all his ration tickets to buy her all these items.

Suddenly having a man who cares about you, thinking about you, Lu Jingqiu's heart was still very moved; even without seeing him, just looking at these things made her heart unconsciously skip a beat.

...

After her father left, Lu Jingqiu also lived a two-point-one-line routine, and with two days left in May, she finished organizing all twenty-four illustrations and took them to Deputy Editor Yang for review.

Deputy Editor Yang looked at the pictures and compared them, finding a very unified style and innovative composition in each one that made people like them and feel comfortable.

Yes, if someone was feeling down, looking at Lu Jingqiu's illustrations would instantly alleviate the gloom—yes, very healing.

If Lu Jingqiu weren't preparing for university, the publishing house would have considered making her position permanent.

No worries, if she didn't get accepted, they would still consider offering her a permanent position. Even if she got accepted, they could not afford to lose such talent and would snatch her back after graduation.

After submitting the illustrations, Lu Jingqiu dared not slack off even a bit, picking up the review she had missed these days and burying her head in hard work again.

Of course, she also occasionally looked at newspaper calls for submissions, and if she painted something appropriate, she would mail it directly to try her luck.

Zhou Lanqin and her husband had just returned from their eldest son's home the day before yesterday. Not only had they fixed the wedding date during the visit, but they also finalized the wedding day, which was just over two months away.

After returning home and seeing her niece studying in the morning and staying up late to write papers, she was incredibly worried for her.

Fearing that Xiao Qiu might not keep up with nutrition, she specially ordered breakfast milk for her from the milk station.

She insisted that Xiao Qiu must drink a glass of milk every day and also eat an egg, a treatment not even Yang Mingchao received.

Gao Qing went to the cram school with her on Sunday to attend classes and studied with her at night. She did not return home that night, and instead slept over at Lu Jingqiu's place.

In the meantime, People's Liberation Army Daily used one of her illustrations again. In the letter, they also requested her to submit a short story on the theme of August First Army Day.

Now busy with her review, Lu Jingqiu had no time to take on the submission work, so she shelved it.

Although Gao Qing had watched a movie with Wei Jincheng that day, no good opportunity had arisen to confess her feelings due to Lu Jingqiu's sudden appearance, and thus, she still hadn't had the chance to express her love.

Lu Jingqiu felt relieved when she heard Gao Qing mention this. The task she had left with Wu Zhengran might have been forgotten or maybe he just didn't want to deal with it; in any case, it was settled for now.

Lu Jingqiu was considering whether to make the trip herself after her exams when, a thousand miles away in Wei Jincheng's hometown, an incident was quietly unfolding that would change the trajectory of both their lives.

In a village called Shanghainese Bay, located in a small county under Yangcheng City.

Xue Jianian had just bid farewell to her longtime "teacher," holding a jade pendant in her hand given to her by the teacher's wife as a keepsake, as if to have her as an adopted daughter.

Knowing that Xue Jianian was orphaned, they had taken her in as a god-daughter.

This teacher had lived in a cowshed for years but was very learned. Xue Jianian couldn't afford to attend school as a child and often took care of the cows in the cowshed with her grandmother, becoming familiar with the people there over time.

Grandpa was very caring toward these people. When the teacher saw how smart Xue Jianian was, he thought it was a pity for her not to attend school. So, in his free time, he taught her a lot, from elementary to junior high material. Unfortunately, just a few months into high school for her, the college entrance exams were reinstated.

Last year, she failed to pass, and when the teacher was leaving, he told her to study hard and try to get into a university this year.

Xue Jianian was delighted, and Grandpa also said he was preparing to send her to high school.

Just as she was walking near the Shanghainese gully, someone suddenly called out to her from behind. Before she could even respond, a large hand pushed her into the ditch.

It so happened that one of Wu Zhengran's underlings was there and witnessed the scene, but unfortunately, he couldn't swim. There wasn't anyone else around on the riverbank, and when he saw the person who pushed her trying to flee, he thought that if he ran away, he might be mistaken for the assailant.

So, he dropped his things and chased after the person, shouting, "Stop! Someone's committing murder! Help! Someone's fallen into the river!" as he ran and called for help.

Wu Zhengran's underling was quite agile and after a short chase, he managed to pin the person to the ground.

By this time, quite a few villagers had come out.

They had thought that Xue Jianian might be in danger, but they didn't know that the water in the Shanghainese Bay was shallow near their village, and Xue Jianian could swim. The villagers here, living along the coast, whether adults or children, all knew how to swim.

Though Xue Jianian came out of the water, she accidentally hurt her hand on a rock.

The villagers saw the person caught was a stranger and thought she was a kidnapper, even alarming the police.

It took about ten days to half a month to resolve this incident, and because he was a witness, Wu Zhengran's underling was stuck in Shanghainese Bay for half a month.

"I really didn't expect that my words would have such a big effect. You two have actually started dating."

Lu Jingqiu, who had been concentrated on doing her exercises, responded indifferently with a hum and nodded her head to Gao Qing's words.

Seeing her reaction, Gao Qing got anxious, "What's with that attitude? You're dating now, why aren't you excited at all? You act like it's nothing."

It was only then that Lu Jingqiu looked up and explained, "I am a bit excited. I was excited in my heart for a long time. Now, the excitement has passed. We both think we're suitable for each other, so we're just seeing how it goes. It's just that I have exams now, and he's busy—we don't have the time to date."

"The way you're dating, it's even less passionate than a twilight romance. It feels like you don't actually like him, like you're just with him because you think he's suitable."

Lu Jingqiu gave her a helpless glance, "I'm not like before, just a lovesick fool thinking about romance all day. I'm calm now, rational, and careful. We are serious, aiming for marriage, but we're still in the stage of getting to know each other. Of course, like other young folks, we value it, are shy, and are innocent, okay?"

"How innocent? You haven't even held hands."

"No."

"Oh, right, you two haven't started anything yet."

"He's busy, and I'm busy too. We agreed to start at the end of July."

Gao Qing laughed at her words, "I'm amazed, I've never heard of setting a date to start dating before. So you're saying you've established a relationship and haven't done anything."

"Not true, she's given me a lot. The malted milk you're drinking now was a gift from her."

Gao Qing raised an eyebrow, "Not bad, not so rigid to really wait until the end of July. Qiuqiu, that's great, I used to worry that you'd never get married. Now you're even a step ahead of me."

Lu Jingqiu was taken aback and thought to herself: That's right, you guessed it in my previous life, but I spent a lifetime coming to terms with it.

"I promised my mother I would find her a good son-in-law who is responsible and loves his daughter."

"Hey, did you ask about his family situation? You can't just look at him. You have to see if the family is too complicated. Like my family, having too many sisters-in-law is not good."

"I haven't. I just have a rough understanding. His father is probably no longer around, there's a grandfather in the family... his mother might have remarried early and there's a half-brother from the same mother."

Gao Qing frowned, "That sounds pretty complicated."

"It's okay," she only knew that Jiang Nanzhou lived with his grandfather and not with his mother, "Stop talking about me, better get back to studying, the exams are in just over a week."

"Ah, I'm so frazzled as the exams are drawing near, mostly because of my family. My second sister-in-law was taken advantage of by Xia Lin, and now she's envious of my elder brother and sister-in-law who moved out to live on their own. She's been making a huge fuss about wanting to do the same recently."

"What was she doing at Xia Lin's?"

"What else? She shamelessly begged for a house."