Chapter 65

On Thursday, because there were still cameras to use, Liang Jiajia had to develop the films and didn't make a TikTok video right away.

This time, not only did she make one herself, she also had to divide up materials among her classmates.

The other few were all excited, but Guan Xi, who didn't like browsing TikTok or posting TikTok videos, also rarely posted on Moments. She was influenced by her parents - her mom and dad were both government employees who didn't casually post these kinds of things. However, she did save the segment of video where Teacher Xiao Qi was singing.

When she returned home, she listened repeatedly to other versions of that song, as well as the original - the song was mostly sung by boys.

In the end, she actually felt that she liked Teacher Xiao Qi's version the most.

The teacher's voice was very clean, and perhaps because she was Chinese, she actually felt that the teacher's singing was more comfortable and nice to listen to.

The girl's gentle voice wasn't the slightest bit mushy - it was too nice to listen to. Over the past couple days at home, she kept it on repeat.

She had a Bose speaker system in her room that made the singing sound even better.

Her mom even thought her daughter had recently become obsessed with some singer she was chasing stars of, but hearing that it was a foreign song, she didn't interfere.

And while Liang Jiajia also liked listening to songs, she was more obsessed with TikTok.

Because she had to make TikTok videos recently, her mom had upgraded and bought her a new computer, and the camera was also new. Anyway, just to play around with this, they'd spent over 20,000 RMB. Mrs. Liang truly doted on her, actually thinking this was serious business. She waved her hand grandly and bought them, even saying that Liang Jiajia had to show her the first TikTok she made.

Last night, she hadn't made two TikToks she was satisfied with until midnight.

One was of the teacher giving a lecture - today he was particularly serious and stern. She had altered it into looking like a news broadcast.

The other was a video of the teacher singing.

It sounded too good. Luckily she had bought the camera early. Last time when they went swimming, she felt her phone wasn't enough, otherwise her phone definitely wouldn't have recorded the teacher's singing well.

Liang Jiajia was now a brainless fan. She edited and then fixed the videos over and over, never satisfied, feeling that the video was nowhere near as good as listening to it live.

But TikTok didn't allow videos that were very long. Helpless, she registered accounts on some other video websites. She uploaded the original videos to keep as a base, before making the TikToks.

Sure enough, just as she had imagined, the TikTok where she had spoofed the news broadcast was pretty funny and got quite a lot of likes, with several thousand, but the comments were all saying things like "What a pretty young lady!" and the like.

But the singing video became popular again.

The comments were varied:

"Eating this young lady's looks - even if it's the TikTok beauty filter, I admit it. As long as she doesn't suddenly turn into a young man it's fine."

"The chances of her being a young man are pretty high, but if that face belonged to a young man I'd also eat it up."

"I've only listened ninety-seven times."

"Seventy-five times."

"One hundred nine times."

"I was listening to a TikTok song and did a whole stack of math problems, yet still feel refreshed and clear-headed."

"I did it while going through physics problem sets...."

"Judicial exam practice questions...feels like listening to this song raises my chances of passing."

A bunch more odd comments.

They started off praising her good looks, but later they actually changed into saying listening to this song improved efficiency when doing problems, and raised exam passage rates...

Seeing the likes shooting up, Liang Jiajia had left Teacher Xiao Qi a message late last night to take a look at TikTok.

Xiao Qi was following her young uncle to a wedding banquet scene. It wasn't on the main Binhe Road streetside, but on a back street called Tianyuan Business Hotel. The doorway plaque wasn't very large. It sat right by the roadside, with parking in a small alley on the side that led to a parking lot in back. The entrance was rather crowded, with two big red signs placed there, one for a wedding and one for a one-month celebration banquet. The hotel had two families holding banquets there today.

The wedding one was probably maternal uncle's family's, on the first floor. The second floor was where another family was holding a one-month celebration.

The time was still early. There wasn't anyone standing as the bride and groom at the entrance yet, but there was a table set up to collect gift money, with quite a few people sitting there.

From far away, Xiao Qi could already see her maternal uncle.

Her maternal uncle was tall and slender, standing there holding a cigarette. He wore a suit that looked new but was rather wrinkled. The hair at his temples should have had styling gel applied to stand it up, but it seemed he had a habit of scratching his head while smoking, so his hair was also a bit messy.

Her maternal uncle also spotted them from far away. Without even having walked over, he shouted,

"Xiao Qian, why are you so late? There's not enough alcohol. No one's moved it over - go move some!"

Her young uncle cheerfully shouted back, "Sure, uncle! Let me record the gift money first. Mom told me I have to record it first in case I lose it." "With that little bit of money, how would you lose it? Go move the alcohol first. We're running out of time!" Her uncle was a bit impatient - there was a lot going on today and he felt frazzled.

Xiao Qi had originally wanted to greet him first since she was part of the younger generation, but before she even made it over, her uncle was already ordering people around. Xiao Qi opened her mouth but didn't manage to call out.

Her young uncle was a simple-minded man. Whatever mom had instructed, he would be sure to do first and arrange things in the proper order.

He paid his uncle no mind and still headed over to the gift money recording table first to log it.

As a result, her young uncle pulled a bit of a trick. The money wasn't all put into one pocket - the 2,000 RMB. He laboriously fished 500 RMB out of one pant pocket.

Seeing that 500 RMB, her uncle harrumphed.

"I already said you wouldn't lose that little bit of money. Who would take yours?"

Then her young uncle fished out another 500 RMB from his other pocket, also with great effort.

Seeing he had more, he bent over, pulled up one pants leg, tugged 500 RMB out of that shoe, then pulled up the other pants leg and from the other shoe - the money in that shoe had shifted around some. He took his shoe off before getting the money out.

In total it came out to 2,000 RMB, neatly laid out on the table.

He had been running around all morning...the money fished out of his shoes was soaked through....

Li Dalong looked down on his rural niece's destitute family, feeling far beneath his own. Seeing his nephew act like a fool, he truly couldn't stand watching.

However, in the current log of gift money amounts, this was definitely the highest. The others were all 200 or 300 RMB, 500 RMB at most, with 1,000 RMB very few. This 2,000 RMB was currently the sole amount that high.

"This money is from us three brothers together with Mom's personal savings," Su Youqian said while taking out the money, feeling it was a sizable amount and raising his voice.

Little did he know that his honest play-by-play was making for an awkward scene.

Xiao Qi stood at the side resisting whether to laugh or cry. She felt granny had miscalculated. All these years, whatever the family had, granny would force them to give to maternal uncle, anxious that they might take advantage of even a tiny bit from him and also liking to give him face. As a result, she hadn't let second uncle come but instead let this fool of a youngest uncle come....

Seeing the 2,000 RMB, her uncle felt it was still not bad. But the way he took out the money and explanation about pooling money really slapped his face.

He was even a bit embarrassed, making it sound like he was taking advantage of his niece's family. Wanting to redirect people's attention, he finally noticed Xiao Qi.

He had actually spotted her early on - next to his nephew was walking an exceptionally pretty young girl, and he had assumed she wasn't with them.

Don't look down on his great-nephew's family - destitute eating dirt, only knowing how to dig in the fields day in and out. What kind of talent could come out of there?

But she had actually walked over together with them. He hadn't paid any attention before. Now he opened his mouth and asked, "Little miss, are you here for the wedding banquet or the one-month celebration? The one-month banquet is upstairs."

"Maternal uncle, it's me Xiao Qi! You don't recognize me anymore? One time I went with my dad to deliver vegetables to your place, and dad also helped you fix your pipes. You even gave me a bottle of mineral water?" Xiao Qi's memory was rather deep. Because at that time she was quite young, in elementary school. She rarely came into the city. When she was handed the bottled water, she even thought it was some tasty beverage. As a result when she opened it to drink it turned out to just be water, not as tasty as the water at home even. For a time she even suspected something inside had been swapped out....

Li Dalong still couldn't recall her. But since she called him maternal uncle, she should be the daughter of one of his great-nephews. He only had one daughter. Plus she was disabled - he hadn't paid her any mind at all and hadn't imagined a young girl from that rural Gumula Village place could grow up looking so spirited and standing there full of poise, strangely emanating a hard-to-describe aura. Seeing others cajole and laugh, she also stood there perfectly calm and unperturbed.