This humble Taoist priest wants to take the college entrance exam.

Chapter 86 Hands Without Palm Prints
Because of the extra two and a half hours of weekly Chinese quiz, tonight's evening self-study session seemed to end particularly quickly.

After finishing the weekly test and studying for a class period, the bell rang to signal the end of evening self-study.

No wonder the evening self-study time needs to be extended in the senior year of high school. Although the weekly tests are also part of the learning, they obviously squeeze out the time for independent study. It is obvious that there are significantly more students staying in the classroom to study a little longer tonight.

Chen Shi'an didn't have the habit of continuing to study outside of study time, and as usual, he packed up his things and prepared to go home.

Lin Mengqiu, who was quietly doing her homework, turned her head and glanced at him.

After she looked away, her voice rang out softly as she continued working on her problem:

"You're only going to study for such a short while before leaving?"

"I still have things to do when I get back."

"What brings you back..."

"Let's organize the herbs we picked in the mountains this afternoon, and then make some pine nut candy."

"..."

Lin Mengqiu was truly convinced. Why did everything he did seem to be more important than studying, even though he was a high school student?

Making pine nut candy... this is really an important thing!
"Has the squad leader ever eaten pine nut candy?"

"No."

"I'll make it tonight and bring some over for you to try tomorrow."

Upon hearing Chen Shi'an's words, the girl's initial sense of blame inexplicably vanished.

She paused, then turned to look at him and said, "I would probably be happier if you used the time you would spend making pine nut candy to study math."

"Don't worry, class monitor, I won't fall behind in math. I've collected a lot of herbs and bought some good quality medicinal materials at the market. I'll make you some stomach-soothing tea later."

"Need not……"

Even Lin Mengqiu herself didn't realize that her tone of refusal was much softer than that of the pine nut candy, like cotton in a piston, which only needed to be pushed a little harder to ignite.

"Yes, you gave me such a nice cup and lent me so many study materials."

"...Was this the same thing that Wen Zhixia said you promised to give her?"

"No, the stomach-soothing tea is only for the class monitor."

"~~~"

The cotton, which had put up a stubborn resistance, was finally pushed to the bottom. Lin Mengqiu withdrew her gaze and felt her cheeks burning.

Forget it! It's no big deal to slack off for one or two nights! We can figure out how to catch up on the missed progress later!
wrong……

If he wasn't sending stomach-soothing tea to that annoying cicada... then what was he sending?
Lin Mengqiu wanted to ask, but she was afraid that asking too many questions would seem strange, making her appear to care too much... Who would be interested in his relationship with Wen Zhixia! Wen Zhixia, on the other hand, acted as if she was afraid she wouldn't know that Chen Shi'an had given her something, and even exclaimed, "Childish!"

As the girl pondered this matter, she completely forgot that she had repeatedly emphasized the fact that someone was coming to her house for dinner...

While she was thinking about whether the stomach-soothing tea Chen Shi'an had prepared would upset her stomach, whether it would be bitter, whether it would be effective, and whether the pine nut candy would taste good, out of the corner of her eye, Chen Shi'an had already picked up his backpack, stood up, and pushed his chair under the table.

"Let's go, I'll treat the squad leader to some dried meat."

As Chen Shi'an spoke, he handed over a package of dried meat and placed it on Lin Mengqiu's table.

"Need not."

"Take this and eat it; it's your meal fee for sitting at the same table today."

Chen Shi'an left the classroom with his bag on his back.

Lin Mengqiu picked up the package of dried meat and looked at it, feeling as if she had seen it before...

That stinky Taoist priest... it wasn't the snack my dad gave you the other day, was it?!

The girl was speechless for a moment.

Students like Chen Shi'an who didn't like studying gradually left the classroom, while those who loved studying, like her, quietly stayed.

She had to continue studying until 10:30.

I'm a little hungry.

The girl's slender, white fingers gently tore open the package of dried meat, squeezing out the pink meat inside.

She glanced quietly at the other students who were still studying in the classroom.

Nobody noticed her.

She, who never ate snacks in the classroom, secretly took a bite, just like she had done with the lollipop Chen Shi'an had given her before, hiding it behind the pile of books on her desk...

The honey sauce on the surface of the jerky melted in her mouth. As she chewed, the meat gradually released its aroma, the fibers softened slowly, and her hungry stomach was gradually satisfied.

"~~~"

Lin Mengqiu gently swung her legs.

Even though they're the same brand of meat jerky snacks, the ones I keep at home just don't taste as good as the ones Chen Shi'an gave me.

After finishing the dried meat, she took a bottle of milk from the box next to the chair and placed it on Chen Shi'an's table.

She put the snack bag into the trash bag next to her, tore off a tissue to wipe her mouth, and continued to quietly read and do her homework.

……

The camphor trees along the sidewalk cast a dense net of shadows, and the streetlights shone through the leaves, casting dappled light on the two people walking by.

Chen Shi'an didn't know if Wen Zhixia had a 'pebble attraction' constitution. Whenever she walked on the sidewalk, she could always find a pebble in some unknown corner and kick it.

In fact, Wen Zhixia only acts like this when she feels relaxed enough.

Walking home slowly with him every evening was one of the few truly enjoyable moments of her day.

"Are you taking so many books home today?"

"You have to check it when you get back, otherwise you'll really only have one evening self-study session and then go home to sleep."

"Then why are you walking so slowly? Why don't you hurry home and study?"

"Can't you take a break?"

As the girl spoke, she kicked at the pebbles, and the presence of the pebbles seemed to give her a good reason to walk very slowly.

"You guys just had your weekly Chinese quiz, right? How did it go?" Wen Zhixia, with her backpack on her back and a few books in her arms to take home and read, turned to talk to him.

As they were talking, a small stone was kicked off course and flew towards Chen Shi'an.

Then the pebble became Chen Shi'an's.

Chen Shi'an's stone-kicking technique was clearly much better than hers. With each light kick, the small stone rolled a distance as if it had been measured precisely, always returning to his shoe tip exactly two steps after he took, only to be kicked a little further away by him. "It feels alright."

"So how many points do you estimate you can get?"

"I don't know, it's just a weekly test, so the score shouldn't matter. I mainly followed Teacher Liang's standards to standardize my answers. I don't know how many points I can get, but it shouldn't be too bad."

"Hehe, that's how Chinese is."

"So, how do you feel about your performance?"

"Not bad~"

As she said this, Wen Zhixia's face clearly showed a relaxed expression, and the corners of her mouth even curled up slightly.

"You want to get a perfect score?"

"Nonsense. Getting a perfect score in Chinese is much harder than getting a perfect score in math. The highest I've ever gotten is 145."

"That's all~" Chen Shi'an mimicked her tone and chuckled.

Wen Zhixia was annoyed and tried to snatch her pebble back.

When Chen Shi'an got playful, he acted like she was playing Cuju (ancient Chinese football), and the two of them fought over the small stones.

But Wen Zhixia was no match for him. Her little legs were fighting with him for pebbles, while her little hands were pulling on his school uniform, his arm, and his waist, showing her spoiled attitude.

While playing and fooling around, they unknowingly arrived at the intersection near her house.

"Stop!" Wen Zhixia shouted.

"What are you doing?" Chen Shi'an stopped kicking the stones.

The girl moved quickly, bent down, picked up the small pebble from the ground, held it in her hand, and ran away.

"?"

"See you tomorrow!"

"Hey, aren't you going to kick it for me to kick? Or take it home as a souvenir?"

"Who wants to collect this!"

As she spoke, Wen Zhixia made a throwing motion right in front of him.

"I won't let you play with it even if it's lost, you dared to steal my things!"

Then she ran upstairs in a flash.

Chen Shi'an was left standing there in a daze.

No way... do you think my eyes are just for show? If you want to throw something, go ahead and throw it. Who are you trying to fool with this fake gesture?
……

When Chen Shi'an returned home and opened the door, Li Wanyin and the cat on the sofa both turned to look at him.

"I'm home?"

"Hmm, is Sister Wanyin shelling pine nuts?"

"Yeah, I was bored, so I peeled them while watching TV. Look how fast I am, I've already peeled half a plate."

Li Wanyin has already taken a shower. Now that she has a formal job, she is no longer like before, when she would sit in front of the computer every day after her part-time job to send out resumes and look for work.

The TV was on, so Li Wanyin and Black Cat sat on the sofa together to watch it.

Lazy cats naturally don't do any work, but the diligent older sister sees work everywhere.

While hiking in the mountains in the afternoon, Chen Shi'an picked a lot of pine cones. He said the pine cone shells could be used to make incense, and the pine nuts naturally had to be shelled before they could be eaten.

Li Wanyin peeled pine nuts while watching TV.

In fact, shelling pine nuts is not easy. First, you have to remove the pine nuts from the pine cone. The pine nuts are hidden among the layers of scales in the pine cone. You need to use a knife to pick them out one by one, or wear gloves to break the pine cone open. At this point, the pine nuts cannot be eaten directly. There is a hard seed shell on the pine nuts, which cannot be crushed like peanuts. You need to use small pliers or a small hammer to break the hard pine nut shell. Only then can the pine nut kernel come out.

While Chen Shi'an was studying in the evening, Li Wanyin spent the whole night doing this.

The first step, peeling pine nuts from pine cones, was easy; she had already peeled all the pine nuts from half a basket of pine cones. The only difficult step was the last one, which required patience and care. She had been peeling for more than two hours and had only peeled a small half plateful. Although she had small pliers to help, her fingertips became numb after holding the tiny pine nuts for so long.

It wasn't Chen Shi'an who asked her to do this; it was just that when she heard that Chen Shi'an was going to make pine nut candy, her sister, who always had a job to do, took the initiative to help.

"Thank you for your trouble, Sister Wanyin. Please leave it here and I'll come over. I promised to make you pine nut candy, so I can't let you work so hard."

"Haha, it's just some odd jobs I have to do. I'm just killing time anyway. I don't know how to make pine nut candy, and there's nothing else I can do to help, so I can only peel pine nuts."

Seeing that Li Wanyin insisted, Chen Shi'an didn't say anything more and sat down with her on the sofa to finish peeling the remaining pine nuts.

"Shi'an, are you making these pine nut candies tonight?"

"Yeah, soon."

"Huh? We haven't even finished shelling the pine nuts yet...?"

Li Wanyin was suddenly dumbfounded. The pine nuts, which were so hard, were really like peanuts in Chen Shi'an's hands. He used the same way he squeezed peanuts, and without him using much force, the hard pine nut shells cracked open with a pop, revealing the golden pine nut kernels inside.

"You...you're so strong! Doesn't your hand hurt?"

"I'm used to it; we often peel pine nuts to eat on the mountain."

Li Wanyin was stunned, and naturally took Chen Shi'an's hand and opened it to take a look.

Pinch his fingers; they're not very rough or hard. How could he so easily crack such a hard pine nut shell?
Let alone squeezing it with her hands, she even had trouble clamping it with small pliers. It required a lot of skill; if she used too much force, she would crush the pine nuts inside, and if she used too little force, she couldn't even crack the pine nut shells.

"...Oh right, why don't you have any palm prints?"

Li Wanyin's gaze shifted from his fingertips to his palm, and she was surprised to find that Chen Shi'an's palm did not have the usual obvious palm lines such as the life line or career line, but only some normal skin texture.

"Yes, it has never been there."

"That's amazing, you're the first person I've ever met without palm lines..."

"Sister Wanyin."

"Well?"

Chen Shi'an looked at her, and at his hand being examined by her, and said somewhat awkwardly, "Are you going to read my palm?"

"No, just taking a look."

After holding his hand and studying it for a long time, Li Wanyin finally came to her senses and quietly let go of his hand.

The warmth of my fingertips still lingers.

After letting go, she didn't look up immediately; only the tips of her ears, hidden in her hair, were quietly flushed with a light pink.

(Thank you so much, Qiuqiu, for the 90,000 reward! You're so generous, Qiuqiu! May the boss make a fortune! Thank you so much for your continued support!)
(End of this chapter)