While Ding Yun and her sister stayed home during the summer break, neither of them wanted to get involved in the family's affairs. It was a situation where helping either side would be difficult, so they decided to stay out of the way by leaving home.
Li Ran went directly to her maternal grandmother's house.
Ding Yun, on the other hand, used the excuse of needing to catch up on her studies.
She was busy establishing the Zhutian Entertainment Group.
Once she finished this task, with the Zhutian Entertainment Group largely managed by artificial intelligence, requiring only an hour of her time daily for supervision, the matter of Li Dedong's schooling was finally settled.
The outcome was that he couldn't go against the stronger influence and still had to attend that particular school. However, he did manage to negotiate some benefits for himself, namely an increase in his allowance.
It went from one thousand yuan a month to three thousand.
This did not include the two thousand yuan monthly allowance for the school cafeteria.
So, in reality, his monthly personal expenses for attending high school had risen to around five thousand yuan.
However, Li Qinghua and his wife didn't show undue favoritism. After increasing their son's living expenses, they also raised their eldest daughter's allowance from three thousand to five thousand. Only Ding Yun's allowance remained the same as before, at one thousand yuan a month. The reason given was valid: she didn't need to pay for accommodation.
Her meals and other expenses were all covered at home.
If she needed to buy something, she just had to mention it, and as long as it wasn't excessive, they would generally buy it for her.
Perhaps fearing Ding Yun might overthink things, Li Qinghua specifically clarified with Ding Yun that her living expenses would also be increased to five thousand yuan a month, similar to her elder sister, once she finished her college entrance exams next year and enrolled in university. He urged her not to dwell on it.
Ding Yun had no objections to this.
…
In early August.
Ding Yun had to return to school. After all, she had advanced to her third year of high school, and to prepare for the college entrance exams, all third-year students had to end their summer vacation a month early and return to classes.
In addition, they had specifically divided the students into different classes.
The classes were formed based on their performance at the end of the previous semester. The top three hundred students in the grade were divided into ten small classes, with only thirty students per class. The rest of the students were randomly assigned to classes of fifty students each, with a few extra students placed in some of the classes, meaning the smallest class size was fifty, and some classes could have fifty-four or fifty-five students.
Class division itself wasn't a major event, but the crucial point was that they were now in their final year of high school, so the school naturally required parents to attend a motivational rally for the third-year students.
The aim was for parents to cooperate fully with the school's efforts.
This was the second time Ding Yun's school had invited parents to the school since the placement test at the beginning of their first year.
Despite Li Qinghua and Xu Hui's reluctance,
they still made time to attend.
It was then that they learned their daughter had been placed in Class Two and had ranked in the top fifty in the grade for the final exam. They even requested Ding Yun's previous report cards from multiple mid-term and final exams, still in disbelief.
Only then did they have to admit that they had paid too little attention to their daughter and were unaware of her significant progress.
Indeed, the couple had never inquired about Ding Yun's grades, and Ding Yun had not shown them her report cards.
Therefore, over the past year and more, they had absolutely no idea that Ding Yun had been gradually improving her scores with her own clever scoring techniques in every exam. While this approach didn't create as much of a stir as achieving a perfect score directly,
Ding Yun didn't want to show off or seek dramatic reveals.
There was no need to rush things.
So, she chose the most stable method of improvement.
This consistent improvement of several points in each exam was impeccable. Even the teachers attributed it to Ding Yun's diligent effort in her personal study and often praised her, holding her up as a model of hard work.
Wasn't this more low-key than directly achieving a perfect score, which would likely cause the entire school, including teachers and parents, to suspect something, leading to retakes and explanations?
As Ding Yun's academic performance was finally revealed,
after the motivational rally concluded, Li Qinghua and Xu Hui, on their way home, began to reflect on the matter.
"We have indeed neglected Xiao Yun a bit these past two years. We originally thought her academic performance was beyond hope, but unexpectedly, she quietly applied herself to her studies. It seems her increasing silence and reluctance to leave her bedroom over the past year were due to her studying.
Ultimately, it’s because we didn’t prioritize her.
Do you think asking the teacher for her past report cards, when we doubted her grades, might have hurt her feelings? The teacher didn't doubt her, yet we, because we hadn't inquired about her grades, doubted her.
It's truly inexcusable."
Whenever Xu Hui recalled the look on the teacher's face when they realized they were unaware of their daughter's academic improvement curve, she felt a blush of shame and regret.
Regret for not understanding her daughter better when they arrived.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have assumed their daughter was still at the bottom of the class like in her first year.
"It is indeed inexcusable, but there was nothing we could do.
When a child makes academic progress, don't they usually excitedly report it to their parents, expecting rewards? But look at Xiao Yun, she had a cold expression when she left home, and she still had a cold expression when she returned. Every time she came back from a monthly or final exam, her expression remained the same.
Her face didn't change much even when the results came out.
So, we naturally assumed her grades were still the same as before, with no improvement. At that time, asking her about her grades would have been like poking a sore spot, wouldn't it? Do you remember her attitude when we asked about her grades after the second monthly exam following the end of her first year of high school?
Didn't she throw a tantrum at us?
She even accused us of only caring about grades.
Who knew she had been studying diligently on her own?
Alas, looking back, both daughters in the family are quite good. It's just that Xiao Yun hadn't found the right learning methods before, and perhaps we were being a bit too strict out of love.
The only troublesome one is that boy Dedong."
While Xu Hui was blaming herself, Li Qinghua still felt the need to defend their actions. After all, their lack of attention to their child's grades wasn't entirely their fault.
If the child had been more outgoing and communicated more,
this misunderstanding wouldn't have happened.
"Let's put Dedong aside for now. He hasn't even started high school yet, so there's no rush. For the next year, we need to focus on Xiao Yun's college entrance exams.
Oh, right, let's go to the nearby fresh food supermarket. We'll buy some ingredients and cook some nice dishes to reward Xiao Yun. It will also be an opportunity to apologize to her. Regardless of anything else,
we have neglected her to some extent.
She must have some resentment in her heart.
We think she's difficult to educate, but perhaps she feels we're unfair to her. Moreover, she worked hard on her own, likely hoping to surprise us, but we never paid attention to her grades.
So, let's go to the fresh food supermarket first."
Xu Hui continued speaking.
However, Li Qinghua still grumbled unhappily:
"How else were we supposed to care about her grades? Back then, her grades were such that we had nothing to care about.
Alas, forget it. Other people don't have flawed parents, but everything seems to be blamed on us. Her poor grades are our fault, her running away from home is my fault, and now she got better grades but didn't tell us, so we didn't know, which is also our fault. Being a parent is truly exhausting.
Back in our day, my siblings and I didn't have so many issues.
I really don't know what's wrong with children nowadays, they're all so troublesome. It's not like in the past, where they were just left to grow freely, and those who became successful became successful, and those who didn't starve to death.
I truly envy Ding Ke and his wife now."