4660 Never Too Late to Love (67)
“Alright, I’ll give you a reasonable explanation!” Ye Yuqin got ready to do business with Gu Chengze. “When she was young, Bai Sheng needed daily essentials, right? This requires money, so the tuition fees is money too, right?! I provide for the two children to study, that is a considerable expense!”
“Uh huh.”
Bai Sheng felt disgusted when she heard that. Goodness! Did she have to be so calculative?
Ever since she was young, she and her cousin ate junk food and wore Ye Yuqin’s hand-me-downs. When it came to clothing, their uniforms had to be bought. These weren’t expensive, just tens of yuan a set and a hundred yuan for both winter and summer. Ye Yuqin did not want to pay for these, hence Bai Sheng became the only student in the school who did not wear school uniform.
This was nothing. The hand-me-downs from Ye Yuqin were all gaudy and old-fashioned. But Ye Yuqin did not have much money at that time and certainly did not have any spare money to spend on her clothes. She could understand and she had never complained.
However, now that she had taken this into account to ask for money, she did not see how those auntie-style clothes were worth anything!
It was even worse when it came to essential items.
Sometimes, after school, Bai Sheng would deliberately stay behind to do cleaning. It was not because she was very diligent, but because this way, she could retrieve the thrown away pencils and erasers from the recycling box. These were items she didn’t have.
Some students were lazy and would discard their pencils when they were blunt, rather than sharpen them for re-use. Bai Sheng would sharpen them with a small knife and continue to use them.
In those days she had to practice writing with a fountain pen. However, fountain pens were very expensive at that time. When she asked Ye Yuqin for money to buy one, the woman would give all kinds of excuses to make a point that she had no money.
She only had one fountain pen which she used right up till high school and it was given to her by her form teacher.
That was because during the calligraphy class, the teacher saw that Bai Sheng was using a pencil and the girl was too embarrassed to mention it. All the other children in the class used fountain pens, but only Bai Sheng used a shabby pencil. Hence, she gave the girl one of her own fountain pens.
This fountain pen was very durable. Furthermore, it was hard to come by and Bai Sheng cherished it very much. This fountain pen accompanied her to university. Later on, when the pen broke, she kept it wedged in her journal.
When it came to food…
Bai Sheng had never participated in class activities such as spring and autumn outings, summer camps, and winter camps.
Especially the summer camps and winter camps. At that time, the quota was set based on academic results. Bai Sheng had the best results in class, but she did not have the chance to take part in these activities because they cost money.
She didn’t have money. She had never been to spring or autumn excursions. She could only stay at home and do her homework. She imagined her classmates participating in the spring and autumn outings. It would have been fun?!
Actually, she did not feel inferior or sad to receive such treatment because the Ye family’s conditions were not particularly good. She was grateful enough that they would take her in and support her.
But… It was too much for Ye Yuqin to ask Gu Chengze for money!
Bai Sheng was extremely angry, but Ye Yuqin continued, “When I was young, Bai Sheng’s parents had an accident and I did my part. This is also money, right? Also…”
“Eh?”
“When Bai Sheng went to university, in order to come up with her tuition fees, I almost sacrificed my own son’s opportunity to study!”
Hearing this, Bai Sheng really could not hold back any longer. “This is too much! What? He was the one who failed his studies!”
