Chapter 24: Unless Li Mu Liked Her First

“Come with me to the vegetable market; there are too many things for the hot pot, and I can’t carry them.” Lu Xiaoxi didn’t look at him again.

“Okay.” Li Mu sighed inwardly, wondering what was wrong with him.

Where had the calmness he had when receiving so many love letters in middle school gone?

It was all Lu Xiaoxi’s fault; she almost made him lose his composure.

During rush hour after work, everywhere was crowded with people. The market was bustling, especially close to mealtime, making it the prime time for the vegetable market.

The vendors were shouting loudly to sell their goods.

Li Mu rarely came to places like this; he couldn’t cook, let alone buy vegetables.

Buying vegetables required knowing the quality, which he didn’t understand. Every time his mom sent him to the market in a pinch, he always messed it up.

The vendors specifically targeted young people who looked naive and clueless; such people were the easiest to deceive.

He had a few experiences of being cheated at the market.

When he tried to buy two potatoes, he would ask the vendor to help him pick, only to end up with several that were eaten by bugs or sprouted, and he had seen plenty of price gouging and faulty scales.

Li Mu suddenly felt useless.

“Boss, how much for this baby bok choy?” Lu Xiaoxi squatted in front of a vendor, examining a decent-looking vegetable.

“My baby bok choy is very fresh; I’ll sell it to you for three yuan a pound.”

“Then I’ll go check other places; other stalls are selling for one yuan seventy a pound.”

“Wait a minute, young lady, I’m about to close up; I’ll sell it to you for one yuan seventy a pound.” The vendor waved his hand.

“Other stalls are selling for one yuan fifty a pound.” Lu Xiaoxi stood up, pretending to leave.

The vendor almost spat blood.

If he sold it for one yuan fifty, would she then say other stalls were selling for one yuan twenty a pound? And then would it be one yuan a pound? Finally, would it be free at other stalls?

“Hey, young lady, one yuan fifty is one yuan fifty.” The vendor shook his head and quickly packed the baby bok choy for Lu Xiaoxi.

Vegetables were hard to sell these days; even a little girl was so shrewd. Bargaining was one thing, but going from three yuan a pound to one yuan fifty, who could he complain to?

Li Mu was dumbfounded.

Bargaining? Cutting the price in half!

“Here.” Lu Xiaoxi handed the bok choy to Li Mu.

Now it was Li Mu’s turn to follow Lu Xiaoxi.

The vegetable market was Lu Xiaoxi’s battlefield.

Pork, tripe, spicy hot pot ingredients, enoki mushrooms… finally, they bought a pack of hot pot base, and the ingredients were ready.

“Is this too much to eat?” Li Mu looked at the large and small bags in his hands, his mouth twitching.

He knew Lu Xiaoxi could eat, but there was no way she could finish all this.

Unless Lu Xiaoxi had a stomach from another dimension.

“If I can’t finish, I can put it in the fridge and eat it the next day.”

“Sounds good.”

Before they knew it, they had arrived at the community entrance.

“Uncle Zhang, have you had dinner?” Li Mu waved at Uncle Zhang.

“I ate early. Back from school?” Uncle Zhang took a puff of his cigarette and smiled.

“Yeah, school started yesterday.”

“Haha, study hard, or you’ll end up like me, working as a security guard.”

“What’s wrong with being a security guard? I want to be one too; it saves me from taking detours.” Li Mu recalled a joke he had seen online.

“You sure know how to talk. How about your girlfriend?” Uncle Zhang glanced at Lu Xiaoxi, who was looking down behind Li Mu.

Lu Xiaoxi hurriedly explained, “Not a girlfriend, just a friend!”

“Hehe, friends are good. You two go ahead; I still have to go to work.”

“See you tomorrow, Uncle Zhang.”

“See you tomorrow, Uncle Zhang!” Lu Xiaoxi emphasized the last word, quietly greeting him before running inside with her head down.

Uncle Zhang extinguished his cigarette butt. Having someone to talk to made his security job a bit more enjoyable.

Lu Xiaoxi had been secretly watching Li Mu.

Girlfriend or something, it was too embarrassing!

The more she thought about it, the more shy she became, her face turning red to her neck. She took a few deep breaths to calm her restless heart.

If it were Li Mu… then absolutely not!

What a joke! Even if she ate ten poisonous mushrooms, she wouldn’t like Li Mu.

Unless… unless Li Mu liked her first!

In the elevator, a lady in her thirties curiously looked at the two, followed by a little girl with two pigtails.

The lady wanted to press the elevator button but found it was already set for the eighth floor. She curiously asked, “Oh, are you new on the eighth floor?”

Li Mu nodded. Since the lady didn’t press the button, she must be on the same floor as them.

They were neighbors, and even if they didn’t have much interaction, it was still necessary to greet each other.

“Haha, I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you before. You must be students, right?” The lady was very friendly.

“Yes, we are freshmen at Sanda University,” Li Mu replied. Shanda was the abbreviation for the university he and Lu Xiaoxi attended, the best key university in the province.

Upon hearing this, the lady’s face lit up with joy, as if she had won the lottery, her tone a bit excited: “You are from Shanda? Have you thought about tutoring?”

“Just call me Sister Xia. The thing is, I have a lot of work and rarely have time to help Yuanyuan with her studies.”

“My Yuanyuan is in the third grade; her math and Chinese are okay, but her English scores are a bit…”

Sister Xia hesitated, patting the little girl, Xia Yuanyuan, on the head. “Yuanyuan, can you show your English test paper to your brother and sister?”

Xia Yuanyuan’s face was as round as her name, and she nodded, clumsily pulling out a 30-point English test paper from her backpack.

Li Mu: “…”

Lu Xiaoxi: “…”

How to put it, quite impressive.

Scoring 30 points in third-grade English was, in a way, a sign of high talent in English for Xia Yuanyuan.

Li Mu was known as an English genius in middle school; he could complete any difficulty of English paper in just five minutes.

Writing the class name, name, and exam number took one minute, two minutes for multiple-choice questions, one minute for cloze tests, and the last minute to write a universal sentence the teacher required them to memorize.

With bad luck, he might score just over ten points, but with good luck, he could score fifty.

Once, Li Mu’s score jumped from 15 to 55, and he was publicly praised by the English teacher, who said he had made progress and worked hard, so much so that Li Mu felt he had indeed worked hard. Then, in the next exam, he reverted to his original score, making the English teacher furious, needing to soak goji berries in a thermos…

Although it was still low, Li Mu was in middle school English, while third-class English was just beginning; the two couldn’t be compared.

Even the “English genius” Li Mu could score eighty or ninety in third-grade English.

“English is so hard qaq,” Xia Yuanyuan pouted, poking with her fingers, looking quite aggrieved, as if the English test paper had scolded her.

The little girl’s pitiful appearance melted Lu Xiaoxi’s heart.

The elevator arrived, and the four of them exited, none returning to their respective homes.

“So I’ve been wanting to find a college student to tutor Yuanyuan. Since you are from Sanda, I wonder if you have any interest? Of course, all tutoring fees will be calculated normally, settled every Monday.” Sister Xia was friendly and approachable, without any airs of an elder.

Li Mu and Lu Xiaoxi exchanged glances.

Li Mu definitely had no interest; he could teach math, but English…

He himself was just cramming at the last minute, having played for three months, and had already forgotten most of it.

Meanwhile, Lu Xiaoxi’s English was consistently above 120, and she had even scored over 140 in a recent mock exam.

Only Lu Xiaoxi could take on this tutoring job.

“Sister Xia, I can tutor Yuanyuan regularly,” Lu Xiaoxi said with a smile.

Xia Yuanyuan was very cute.

“No, how can I trouble you? If you teach Yuanyuan, that would be tutoring, and I would have to pay you!” Sister Xia’s tone was firm.

Under Sister Xia’s insistence, Lu Xiaoxi went from being able to tutor for free to becoming Xia Yuanyuan’s tutor.

While the two were happily chatting in the hallway, Li Mu said he would take the vegetables back to their room first and proactively started washing rice and cooking.

“How did it go?” Lu Xiaoxi finally returned after about ten minutes. Li Mu hadn’t heard the conversation outside.

“Starting today, I am Yuanyuan’s tutor. I will teach two days a week, two hours each day, at two hundred fifty yuan an hour.” Lu Xiaoxi changed into her slippers and happily sat on the sofa.

“That’s so expensive?”

“Yeah, Sister Xia works at a state-owned enterprise, and her income is quite considerable. Plus, she is a single parent and busy with work, so she doesn’t have time to teach Yuanyuan.”

“Why do you want to be a tutor?”

“Yuanyuan is so cute; I can occasionally tutor her even without pay.

The main reason is that I want to buy a computer. I don’t want to ask my family for too much money. With this, I can buy a computer after just half a month of teaching.”

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