Even with the help of Lv.4 Dexterity, Xia Yu could learn the E Ending before the final, but this still wouldn’t allow him to compete with An Siyao.
An Siyao had already reached a level of skill that bordered on unfair.
According to Zhong Yunze, there was another contestant from the north who was only slightly inferior to An Siyao, and Xia Yu wouldn’t be able to compete with that person either.
At best, he could only hope to place in the top three.
But making it into the top three was enough. After all, the mission requirement was merely to reach the finals.
During the remaining time, Xia Yu practiced five more times—not because he didn’t want to practice more, but because this piece placed an enormous strain on his fingers.
All Xia Yu possessed was dexterity, not endurance; his body was still that of an ordinary person.
During the breaks beyond those five sessions, he spent time eating and drinking with Kong Hanyue.
“Oh, by the way, Grandma asked my mom to check with me whether you’re going back home for winter vacation,” said Kong Hanyue.
Chewing on some French fries, Xia Yu began thinking.
Grandma wasn’t exactly close to him, though she wasn’t particularly bad either—just not bad.
After Xia Dongyang ran away, Grandma had no way to contact Xia Yu, so she had asked Xia Yu’s maternal grandmother to inquire through Hanyue.
Kong Hanyue and Xia Dongyang were from the same village.
Xia Yu didn’t really want to go back. He wasn’t particularly close with Grandma, and there wasn’t much to do back there anyway.
“Just come along. Don’t have to go to your family’s house—come to mine!” Hanyue hugged Xia Yu’s arm and looked at him with hopeful eyes.
“Alright then, I’ll go,” Xia Yu agreed.
“Great! Then it’s settled. I’ll bring Zeze and Xin Xin with me, and you can help me watch over Xin Xin,” Hanyue grew excited.
“Helping you take care of Xin Xin is your real motive, isn’t it!” Xia Yu pushed Hanyue’s foot off his leg.
“No, the real reason is to show you off at home! People in the village don’t even know what a guzheng is!”
“Then help me take care of Xin Xin.”
“Don’t avoid taking Youxue either,” Xia Yu seized the opportunity to say.
“Can’t we just leave her behind?” Kong Hanyue wasn’t eager to see her daughter.
“Leaving Youxue all alone at home? If she doesn’t go, I won’t go either.”
“Fine, fine, we’ll bring her, we’ll bring her!”
Kong Hanyue, forced by Xia Yu into agreeing, felt a bit upset. She snatched the bag of French fries from Xia Yu’s hand: “I’m not giving you any more to eat!”
“Can you not act so childish?” Xia Yu looked at her helplessly.
“I’m being childish! What are you gonna do about it!” Stuffing the remaining fries into her mouth, Kong Hanyue grabbed the cola bottle beside her and gulped down the drink noisily.
After wiping his hands with a wet wipe, Xia Yu put on his finger picks and practiced the E Ending one more time before getting up and leaving the villa.
Outside, the moon had already shifted to the eastern side.
When the moon fully set and the sun rose, Xia Yu woke up, washed up, and clicked on the white cat’s slot.
Yesterday, those two boys had just been punished, and with Tina and the administrator surely keeping an eye on them, there shouldn’t have been any trouble. But today, a day later, those two boys might be looking for an opportunity to retaliate.
At the orphanage, it was breakfast time. In front of Xia Yu sat a bowl of cat food worth one dollar.
It was cat food given to him by a volunteer he had begged from two days ago while helping out.
Though still not great, it was much better than the food given by the middle-aged administrator.
After finishing the cat food, Xia Yu wandered around the orphanage but couldn’t find the two boys—they might have climbed over the orphanage wall to play outside.
On his way back to find Tina, he encountered the old administrator heading out.
The old administrator walked past Xia Yu without stopping, not even giving him a pat.
This was the kind of indifference Xia Yu rarely experienced from others.
This old lady actually didn’t like cats—what a headache for a cat.
Xia Yu had even tried showing off his cuteness, like carrying a ball in his mouth and rubbing against the old administrator’s legs, but she remained unmoved, cold as ever.
Until he could think of a new method, Xia Yu had no intention of continuing these futile attempts.
He turned and walked forward, but after a couple of steps, he suddenly stopped.
He sensed something was off.
He returned and circled around the old administrator’s feet twice, confirming the issue.
His telepathy was warning him—the old administrator was in danger of encountering something bad.
Thinking for a moment, Xia Yu quietly followed behind the old administrator.
The orphanage’s walls couldn’t stop Xia Yu. With a short sprint and two quick pushes off the wall, he flipped over it.
The old administrator got on a bicycle after leaving. Fortunately, she was old and rode slowly, so Xia Yu could easily keep up with her at a small run.
After cycling for about fifteen minutes, she arrived at a small supermarket. She locked the bike and walked in.
It would be too noticeable for a cat to enter a supermarket, so Xia Yu didn’t go in, just watching the old administrator from outside the glass wall.
Nothing unusual happened inside the supermarket. The old administrator walked out carrying a paper bag, placed it into the bike basket, and started cycling back along the same road.
Xia Yu followed all the way until the orphanage came into view. He had thought the old administrator would make it back safely, but when she was less than a hundred meters from the orphanage, she suddenly collapsed by the roadside, her face twisted in pain.
The orphanage was in a remote area with no pedestrians nearby, though cars passed by frequently, and the old administrator had fallen right onto the road.
Running forward, Xia Yu grabbed the old administrator’s clothes with his teeth, trying to drag her out of the road, but his strength wasn’t enough.
He moved to the other side of her and used a rolling motion to push her off the road.
Then, he rushed into the orphanage, grabbed a Franklin note from a young man’s wallet who was watching the children, and ran back, leading him to the old administrator.
The young man didn’t panic. He skillfully took a bottle of medicine from the old administrator’s pocket and fed it to her.
The old administrator, whose face had been twisted in pain, slowly regained her composure.
“Thank you,” she said to the old administrator and the young man.
“I told you not to go out alone, but you still did.”
“I just went to the supermarket. I didn’t expect to have an accident in such a short time.”
“This time, you really need to thank Miaomiao. If it hadn’t come to get me, I wouldn’t have known you were in trouble.” The young man hugged Xia Yu beside them and explained to the old administrator.
The old administrator looked at the white cat. She had just been lying there in pain, but her consciousness hadn’t faded. She clearly saw the white cat push her off the road and then go get help.
Standing up from the ground, she hesitated for a moment, then picked up Xia Yu.
From the paper bag, she took out an apple and fed it to Xia Yu.
Using telepathy, Xia Yu sensed a sense of closeness radiating from the old administrator. He knew his small goal had been achieved.
Now, the orphanage was his domain!
At this moment, in the backyard of the orphanage, the two boys climbed back over the wall, plotting:
“This time, we must really deal with that cat!”
“If we get defeated, we’ll report to the old witch. She likes that cat, but the old old witch definitely doesn’t!”
The two high-fived and laughed, thinking this was a perfect plan. No matter the outcome, they could punish that white cat!
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