Crusts

Yinshan Academy had many small gardens, each featuring a rustic wooden pavilion. The pavilions were modest in size, with a stone chess table at the center and several benches surrounding it. Vines gently coiled around the support pillars, making it seem as though they had merged into one.

Tao Xiaotao found a secluded corner and sat down on one of the benches. At this hour, with most students rushing to the cafeteria for lunch, the place was nearly deserted.

She pulled out a plastic bag and opened it to reveal a pile of bread crusts—leftovers from a bakery the night before, sold at a steep discount. A whole bag for just one yuan.

Bread crusts weren’t always easy to come by, though. If you arrived too late, they’d be gone.

But after sitting overnight in the summer heat, the crusts didn’t taste great—not that Tao Xiaotao minded much. She took a sip from her water bottle and continued chewing.

“Darn it, my bottles are gone.” After finishing a couple of crusts, her mood suddenly plummeted. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, plopping onto her lap.

She cried as she ate the rest, then gulped down the remaining water in her bottle before carefully rewrapping the leftovers.

Dinner.

Sniffling, she glanced to the side, as if sensing something.

“……”

But she didn’t dwell on it, gathering her things and leaving.

A dozen seconds later, two heads popped up from a nearby bush, a leaf still perched atop Bai Yuyou’s head.

“Yuyou, why was Tao Xiaotao eating those bread crusts? Is her family really poor or something?” Tang Keke couldn’t help but ask.

“But Yinshan Academy’s tuition is 30,000 per semester, and the Hong Kong-Macau International Class starts at 100,000.”

“I’m free,” Bai Yuyou said. In her memory, she’d never paid tuition—some special exemption had covered it.

“Free… Oh, right!” Tang Keke suddenly recalled. “If you list our academy as your first choice for college, they waive all tuition fees.”

It dawned on her that many students at the academy didn’t pay tuition. Yinshan Academy had all sorts of waivers—for top academic performers, first-choice applicants, those admitted for special talents, and so on.

“Those bottles… was she planning to sell them?” Tang Keke felt a pang of guilt. She’d never seen someone her age collecting bottles before and had just assumed the girl was helping with cleanup out of kindness.

“We messed up,” Bai Yuyou said.

“Let’s give her some money. How much do those bottles even sell for? A few hundred?”

“Don’t know.” Bai Yuyou shook her head. “Keke, let’s collect bottles to return to her…”

“Huh?” Tang Keke blinked. “Where would we even find that many? Might as well just give her cash.”

Bai Yuyou thought for a moment. “Then ask the cleaning lady.”

“Right! She probably took them to sell.”

The two girls scurried off to search for the cleaning lady from the day before. Luckily, she wasn’t hard to find—soon, they spotted her driving a cleaning cart, sunglasses perched on her nose like a trendy accessory against the glaring sun.

“Bottles?” The cleaning lady gripped the steering wheel, the machine’s brushes still spinning beneath her feet. After hearing the girls’ question, she held up two fingers.

“Sold for this much.”

“Two hundred?” Keke guessed.

“Silly, if bottle collecting paid that well, everyone would be doing it. Two yuan!”

“Two yuan?” Tang Keke was stunned. That huge bag of bottles was only worth two yuan?

She gestured vaguely, suddenly wondering if the units were different.

Just then, the cleaning lady drove off, her cart’s hazard lights blinking behind her.

“Two yuan made her that upset…” Tang Keke scratched her head, realizing Tao Xiaotao’s situation was even tougher than she’d imagined.

Her heart ached for the girl.

She turned to Bai Yuyou. “How about we just give her a hundred yuan?”

“She doesn’t like us,” Bai Yuyou pointed out. After all, Tao Xiaotao had kept her distance before.

“Maybe not dislike… maybe she’s just shy.” Tang Keke pondered. “If we can’t talk to her directly, let’s slip it into her desk.”

“……” Bai Yuyou blinked but didn’t object.

……

By afternoon, military training was over, and everyone had returned to the classroom to rest. With no classes scheduled, many students dozed off.

Though they had to stay until four, sitting indoors playing on their phones was far better than standing at attention outside.

Seated at the front of the classroom, Tao Xiaotao was packing her books to take back to the dorm when her fingers brushed against something unexpected—what she first thought was a scrap of paper turned out to be a crisp red banknote.

“?!”

She froze, glanced around, then quickly stuffed the money into her pocket and hurried out.

From a distance, Bai Yuyou and Tang Keke exchanged glances.

“Success.”

“Mhm.”

Tang Keke flashed a victory sign. “She must be happy, right?”

Bai Yuyou, however, kept her eyes on the doorway, silent.

Once outside, Tao Xiaotao pulled out a phone no bigger than half her palm, a faded “3G” stamped on its back. She fumbled with the buttons before finally dialing a number.

Soon, someone answered. “Hello?”

“Um, hi, advisor? This is Tao Xiaotao from Business Class 1.”

“Oh, Xiaotao! What’s up?”

“I, uh… I found a hundred yuan… and I don’t know who dropped it. Could you help ask around? Whoever lost it must be worried.”

“A hundred?” The advisor paused, then chuckled. “It’s just a hundred yuan—keep it for snacks or fruit. Don’t worry about it.”

“B-but…”

“Really, it’s fine. Focus on your studies, okay?” The advisor sounded entirely unconcerned.

The call ended.

Tao Xiaotao stared blankly at her phone. “Heavens… a hundred yuan ain’t worth frettin’ over? City folk really built different…”

She trudged back to her seat, visibly unsettled—a reaction that left Bai Yuyou and Tang Keke baffled.

Why did she seem even unhappier now?

The two girls exchanged glances.

Did she lose the money?