Rebirth of the Millennial: Getting Rich After Parents Get Laid Off

Chapter 159 Rehearsal (Two Chapters Combined)

The last class on Friday is usually the most restless class for students, after all, the weekend is just around the corner.

So the biology teacher, who was teaching the last class on Friday, noticed that the students were not paying attention, so he simply stopped teaching the new lesson and asked them to take out their workbooks and went over the workbooks instead.

He also randomly called on students to stand up and explain their own answers.

Once roll call is brought out, even the most restless students can suppress their instincts and obediently focus their attention on their workbooks.

However, after a few roll calls, Shen Qingqing understood the biology teacher's pattern: he wouldn't call on students who were focused on their workbooks, but if he caught them daydreaming or spacing out, he would call on them frantically.

After 45 minutes of intense class time, the entire first week of school was over.

Shen Qingqing checked the time. If she was quick, she could still make it to her younger siblings' rehearsal time.

Just as Shen Qingqing finished packing her schoolbag and was about to leave, she saw Wu Fangyi also packing her schoolbag and preparing to leave. Shen Qingqing was stunned for a moment, then realized that the school cafeteria was not serving food on weekends, so boarding students could not stay overnight and had to go home.

"Sister Fangyi, is someone coming to pick you up and take you home?" Shen Qingqing followed her out of the classroom.

Wu Fangyi: "No, I'll take the bus home by myself. As for which home I go to, it depends on my mood."

Thinking about her family situation, Shen Qingqing wisely refrained from saying more and instead asked, "If you're not in a hurry to go home, would you like to come with me to watch my younger brother and sister's freshman welcome party rehearsals?"

Wu Fangyi turned her head curiously: "Your younger brother and sister both have performances at the freshman welcome party?"

Shen Qingqing nodded, then shook her head: "My younger brother is a little host in the kindergarten department, and my two younger sisters have performances."

"So amazing?" Wu Fangyi exclaimed in surprise.

Shen Qingqing chuckled a few times.

"Let's go, let's go take a look." Wu Fangyi put her arm around Shen Qingqing's shoulder.

"Let's go to the music room first. The multimedia building isn't far from us. My brother and his friends are rehearsing in the small auditorium near the kindergarten."

"Okay, I'll listen to you."

The two chatted as they walked toward the multimedia building.

The multimedia building is usually a very quiet building, only getting lively when students come to class.

However, the rehearsal periods for the freshman party, the Children's Day party, and the New Year's Day party are the liveliest times in this building.

Shen Qingqing saw that many older students had also come to watch, especially the ninth graders; she saw quite a few of them today.

Because the third grade at the Experimental Middle School has four classes in the afternoon, unlike other grades which only have three, by the time the third graders finish school, the rehearsals have already ended.

However, on Friday afternoons, the third-year students, like other grades, only have three periods of classes. The last period is a self-study period for students who voluntarily stay behind, and there are no teachers supervising it. Teachers only have three periods of classes scheduled.
That's why Shen Qingqing saw so many junior high students in the multimedia building.

Shen Qingqing had come several times before and led Wu Fangyi to the music classroom where Shen Yangyang was rehearsing with ease.

The song that Shen Yangyang and her classmates were rehearsing was a classic old song called "Childhood." The day before yesterday, when Shen Qingqing came, she heard the kindergarten choir singing "A Kind of Sun" in the music classroom on the floor below.

Upon hearing these two songs, Shen Qingqing couldn't help but recall the time in her past life when she was also asked by her teacher to rehearse these two songs.

Hearing these two songs almost triggered a stress response in her, but thankfully she gradually overcame it as she grew older and can now handle them with ease.

Wu Fangyi had met Shen Yangyang before, so when she followed Shen Qingqing to the music classroom, she could immediately see Shen Yangyang standing in the middle of the second row, singing along with the teacher's music, nodding her head left and right.

As Shen Qingqing listened, she unconsciously began to sing along softly.

After all, it was a song that she had almost memorized from her childhood in her previous life. Even without lyrics, Shen Qingqing could sing along with it with ease.

Wu Fangyi had never heard Shen Qingqing sing before. When she first heard it, she wondered who it was until she saw Shen Qingqing's lips moving.

After singing it once, Shen Qingqing belatedly realized that she had started singing along. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wu Fangyi looking at her. After a moment of silence, she finally spoke up and said, "Could you pretend you didn't hear me?"

Wu Fangyi couldn't help but laugh. Under Shen Qingqing's gaze, she covered her mouth with her hand, nodded repeatedly, and even raised her hand to make an "OK" sign.

Shen Yangyang is in the elementary school section, and she only has two classes every afternoon. When Shen Qingqing and the others came over after class, they were able to see Shen Yangyang's last rehearsal.

At the music teacher's command, the elementary school students who had been standing neatly in rehearsal scattered like birds in a flash.

Shen Yangyang was the first to rush into the pile of schoolbags, grab her own bag, and run towards Shen Qingqing: "Sister! Sister Fangyi! Let's go watch our brother rehearse!"

Shen Yangyang was sweating profusely from the heat, and Shen Qingqing took out a small pack of tissues from her bag with a look of disgust and gave them to her: "Wipe your sweat!"

As she wiped herself down, she followed her two older sisters toward the preschool section: "Sister Chun is in the dance studio over there, shall we go take a look?"

"Let's go!" Shen Qingqing had already seen Li Chunchun and the others' dance performance. They were all first-graders, and being in sync was already a very high standard of completion. There was no way to ask for any more power or beauty.

So seeing it once is enough, but she's still with Wu Fangyi now, and Wu Fangyi hasn't seen it.

However, Shen Qingqing did not expect that Li Chunchun and the others would have something new to their dance when she came to visit this time.

When Shen Qingqing came to visit before, they were still at the stage of rehearsing their movements in a neat and orderly manner. Unexpectedly, a few days later, they added a hand drum.

However, one of the children in the middle made a mistake in his positioning and bumped into another child next to him, which immediately disrupted the entire formation. All the children in the middle circle who were in position fell flat on their backs.

Li Chun Chun's positioning on the outside circle meant she was unharmed.

However, that didn't stop the people who came to watch the rehearsal from having a good time.

After the fall, and with so many people laughing, the children suddenly became hesitant to continue rehearsing. The teacher called them several times, but some refused to move. In the end, the teacher had no choice but to dismiss the class and tell them to practice at home so they wouldn't forget everything by Monday.

The two adults and two children went to the small auditorium near the preschool to watch the host rehearse.

Although it's already September and past five o'clock, it doesn't mean the weather isn't hot, especially since the small auditorium faces west and is directly exposed to the setting sun.

In addition, the process of hosting rehearsals is basically just reading from the script, which is much less entertaining than watching a show rehearsal, so students who dislike the sun and heat will not go.

When Shen Qingqing and her three friends arrived at the small auditorium, the people watching the rehearsal were mostly students who had bought ice cream or snacks from the convenience store and happened to be passing by to take a look.

Despite being the youngest child, Shen Hong showed no stage fright when co-hosting with older students. Her still-childish voice emphasized each word, as if she were afraid of making mistakes, so she slowed down her delivery of lines considerably.

All four hosts in the middle had different instances of forgetting, mispronouncing, or omitting lines. The instructor had the entire script and made them repeat it over and over again.

Because there are two upper-grade junior high school students, the rehearsal time for the hosting team will be an extra half hour.

As soon as Shen Hong stepped off the stage, his expression turned indifferent. He silently slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked toward Shen Qingqing.

"Where's your water?" Shen Qingqing asked, seeing that he hadn't drunk a drop of water after rehearsing for so long.

Shen Hong's voice was a little hoarse. "I've finished drinking."

Shen Qingqing looked at Shen Yangyang: "Yangyang, is there anything left in your pot?"

Shen Yangyang pulled out her water bottle and shook it. "There's a little bit left."

After saying that, he casually twisted open the bottle and handed it to Shen Hong, then took it back after watching him finish drinking it.

Their water bottles were filled with water infused with Malva nut and monk fruit. Li Xunli had prepared this specifically for them, knowing that one of them was rehearsing hosting and the other was rehearsing singing.

However, it seems that one pot each for two people might not be enough to drink.

After Shen Qingqing decided to go back, she told her mother to fill her kettle with this kind of water as well.

Shen Qingqing had already received Shen Rongzhou's text message; he was waiting at their usual spot at the school gate.

"Sister Fangyi, it's already this late, are you still able to catch the bus home?" Shen Qingqing only realized it was already past six o'clock when she looked at her phone.

Wu Fangyi also saw the time displayed on Shen Qingqing's phone, but she was not very familiar with the bus routes in Anlu Town and did not know what time the last bus was.

"I'll check the route chart at the bus stop later. If I miss the last bus, I'll go back to school and borrow a phone from a teacher to call home and ask my family to pick me up. Don't worry, go home with your younger brother and sister."

After walking with them to the school gate, Wu Fangyi turned around and walked towards the bus stop without hesitation.

Shen Qingqing hesitated for a moment, and after thinking about what she knew about Wu Fangyi, she realized that the chances of successfully inviting Wu Fangyi to live at her home were slim, so she gave up.

Unexpectedly, it was this decision of hers that almost prevented her from ever seeing Wu Fangyi again.

Today, their family was going to have dinner with Li Chun Chun's family. As soon as Shen Qingqing got into the car, she saw the video camera placed on the windshield in front of the passenger seat.

During the meal, Shen Rongzhou brought up the matter of recording the video.

When Auntie saw the video camera, she couldn't help but laugh. "You think the same way as Xun Jin. He also knew that he wouldn't be able to go in to watch Chun Chun's performance this year, so he bought a video camera a few days ago and asked me to record it and bring it home for him to watch."

“Doesn’t that just prove that we all love children equally?” Shen Rongzhou smiled as well.

His aunt took the video camera he handed her, turned it on and looked at it. "Is this brand expensive? Xunjin's cost over five thousand yuan."

"Oh, mine is about the same." Shen Rongzhou had actually forgotten how much it cost.

But once the price was mentioned, my aunt understood how to arrange things.

"Qingqing, after dinner, teach your aunt how to use this video camera," Shen Rongzhou said to Shen Qingqing.

Shen Qingqing was busy peeling mantis shrimp when she heard this. Without even looking up, she gave a perfunctory "uh-huh" twice.

Because her three younger siblings sitting on either side of her were starving and waiting for her to eat.

She had to peel the fruit for her three younger siblings all by herself.

There was nothing I could do; she peeled the mantis shrimp so perfectly that I could suck the whole thing out of my mouth.

Shen Qingqing couldn't peel them all, so she tried to teach Shen Yangyang and Li Chunchun, the two older girls, to peel them together. But she didn't expect that these two little brats had terrible hands and tore the mantis shrimp to shreds.

Having no other choice, Shen Qingqing peeled two strips for each of them, then gestured for a pause, telling them she would continue peeling for them after they finished eating.

So that she would have company while rehearsing at home on the weekend, Li Chunchun also stayed at the Shen family's house this weekend, sharing a room with Shen Yangyang.

Li Chun Chun's sleeping posture skills are just as good as Shen Yang Yang's.

The two of them were as close as sisters before falling asleep at night, but when Shen Qingqing woke them up in the morning, it was as fierce as a fight to the death.

The two people's heads were not heads, and their feet were not feet.

Shen Qingqing couldn't resist going back to her room, getting her phone, and taking a picture of the two of them sleeping in that position before waking them up.

When Shen Rongzhou and Li Xunli returned for dinner that evening, Shen Qingqing showed them the photo, which sparked laughter at the dinner table.

After laughing, Li Xunli talked about her driving test: "My sister-in-law and I have discussed it and we will take the driving test together. Then I will buy a car to pick up and drop off the children. Whoever picks up the children will drive the car."

Shen Qingqing and Shen Rongzhou both strongly agreed with this decision.

Shen Qingqing never expected that her aunt would decide to take the driving test so early in her life.

After all, in her previous life, her aunt didn't learn to drive until Li Chun-chun was in high school.

However, with so many changes in this life, the events of the previous life are no longer of much reference value.

“Speaking of buying a car, Lao Shang has saved enough for a down payment over the past few years. And today, I accompanied him to the 4S store to look at cars, right? Guess who I ran into?” Shen Rongzhou said mysteriously.

Looking at his expression, Li Xunli thought hard for a moment, but couldn't come up with any answer. She shook her head and asked, "I don't know. Who did you run into?"

“I ran into the owner of the garment factory where we used to work a few years ago,” Shen Rongzhou replied.

Li Xunli immediately remembered who it was, and rolled her eyes as soon as the person was mentioned.

She still remembers the look on that person's face when he deducted money from her pay.

"He was limping and sweeping the streets." Shen Rongzhou's next sentence was even more surprising.

See you tomorrow night~