Top Student at Their Peak
Chapter 49 - 49 49 One of Qiao Yu's Dreams

49: Chapter 49 One of Qiao Yu’s Dreams 49: Chapter 49 One of Qiao Yu’s Dreams Late at night, Keke in the next room had already finished her homework and climbed into bed to rest.

The couple was also lying in bed, unable to sleep, chatting away.

“Is the kid from the Qiao Family really that amazing?

Wasn’t it said that he was falling behind in his studies, yet he casually scored first in the entire grade?” Liu Lu still found it hard to believe.

“It should be true.

You also saw in the WeChat group that the teacher mentioned a new student joined the class today and was admitted through exams; that must be Qiao Yu.” Old Xia replied casually.

“Nonsense, it’s not that I doubt it, just that it feels…

feels…” Liu Lu suddenly found herself unable to describe her current emotions.

It was probably a feeling of great confusion.

In fact, they clearly understood the situation of the Qiao Family downstairs—a single mother raising a child, with Qiao Xi’s health being poor—and had thought about helping the mother and son by applying for some subsidies from the community and workplace.

After all, the previous generations were good friends, and Xia Keke and Qiao Yu played well together when they were young.

The whole family was still willing to lend a helping hand.

But they were all turned down by the mother and child.

They always thought that the Qiao Family’s source of living relied solely on the savings left by Qiao Yu’s grandparents and the pension from the workplace.

They even discussed with the older generation that if Qiao Xi ever came to ask for help, they would lend up to fifty thousand.

Then they’d advise Qiao Xi that saving face isn’t worth suffering for.

Applying as a low-income family—although the subsidy isn’t much—it could at least save on Qiao Yu’s tuition and Qiao Xi’s medical expenses, securing their basic livelihood.

But it’s been years since this family resolution was made, and not only has the family downstairs never asked them for help, but according to the news brought back by Xia Keke, they seem to be doing okay.

And they’re even relying on Qiao Yu to make money, which is quite startling.

After all, Qiao Yu is only a fifteen-year-old child, and he’s smart.

If he focused his efforts on studying, he might get into a prestigious school and achieve something great.

Today, they even heard from Keke’s grandma that the family suddenly had two boxes of foreign brand beer, which was brought up by Qiao Yu.

It can only be said that this family is thoughtful, as the summer is coming, and Old Xia indeed enjoys having a couple of bottles during meals.

With this understanding in mind, the news of Qiao Yu casually scoring first in the grade was somewhat shocking.

People of a certain age all know a truth: it’s generally difficult for a person to excel in both areas.

But suddenly, the little kid downstairs, whom they were very familiar with, broke this theorem, being able to earn money and score first in the grade?

And he’s still a minor—this is beyond just being smart; it’s almost otherworldly!

“Isn’t it unbelievable?

I feel the same.

Speaking of which, we haven’t had kids from our workplace get into Tsinghua or Peking University for years?” Old Xia sighed.

Next to him, Liu Lu didn’t say a word, just thinking to herself how this Qiao Family kid always takes unconventional paths?

Either mixing in the worst class or suddenly soaring to the top of the grade, scaring everyone!

“Ah, forget it, let’s sleep.

We’ll get up early tomorrow to make breakfast for Keke.”

“Alright, by the way, make one for Qiao Yu too.

He brought up two boxes of beer yesterday.”

“Do you even need to say it?”

…

Qiao Yu never considered what impression his sudden breakthrough would leave in the eyes of his neighbors.

As he always felt, exams were a very simple matter for him.

Simple often meant no challenge.

Naturally, it was hard to generate emotions like pride.

His greatest dream is to someday have nine figures in his bank account, return home in glory, and invite everyone who helped his family from the whole block to the best hotel in Star City for a lavish three-day feast.

If the bank account exceeds ten figures, he would demolish the old neighborhood and replace it with new buildings capable of withstanding a magnitude ten earthquake.

More than that, it would have spacious and bright underground parking, beautiful green belts, and wide fire escape routes.

Qiao Yu had even thought of a name for the neighborhood, using his grandfather’s name: Qiao Guozheng Railway City.

Then, he’d make a statue of his grandfather at the entrance, carving Qiao Guozheng’s biography and achievements on the plaque below.

So as long as the neighborhood stands, no one will forget he had a good grandfather.

Also, he planned to find his father, and Qiao Yu even hoped from the bottom of his heart that his father, grandfather, and grandmother would be healthy and alive.

That way, he could invite the whole family to Star City, even initially covering their expenses, letting them travel in the most luxurious and comfortable transport to Star City.

Then, they could see his grandfather’s statue and the beautiful new neighborhood firsthand, and Qiao Xi would tell those things to get lost as far as possible.

Qiao Yu was someone who believed in repaying kindness.

When that family left back then, they didn’t forget to leave his mother three thousand yuan.

This amount could be deducted from the road fare bill they received coming to Star City, and he could generously add two thousand interest too.

Won’t pay?

Even better, he’s willing to spend ten times or even a hundred times more to hire the best lawyers worldwide to pursue the matter through cross-border litigation.

This is a scene Qiao Yu dreams of often.

The only pity is that, for now, it can only be dreamt of, as for a fifteen-year-old, making money is evidently much harder than studying and taking exams.

So, even though the whole building had quieted down, Qiao Yu continued to absorb knowledge frantically in front of the computer.

Making money is tough now, so for any opportunity to earn quick cash, he needs to work harder than others—this is Qiao Yu’s understanding of the world.

He used to think studying wasn’t the quickest way to make money at this stage, so he slacked off, but circumstances change, and now, under these circumstances, Qiao Yu felt he had no right to slack.

Thus, after a bland Children’s Day, the time came to June 7th.

During the day, he specifically asked the new homeroom teacher, Teacher Han, for leave to skip Saturday tutoring, and at ten at night, he went to bed early to sleep.

Because at eight the next morning, the Little Alibaba preliminaries officially began, lasting until eight on Monday morning—a total of forty-eight hours for answering questions, and it was an open-book exam.

But truth be told, Qiao Yu had no idea what the point was of having an open-book exam in Mathematics?

You can’t possibly be looking up formulas, right?

Of course, this kind of complaint was meaningless.

At seven thirty the next morning, Qiao Yu got up on time, washed up, brushed his teeth, and then sat at the computer ten minutes early, started watching videos, to give his brain a pre-exam massage.

For the Little Alibaba mathematics competition, his main grievance was perhaps that the preliminaries did not publicly announce the score needed to enter the finals but set the score based on the preliminary results.

This, for Qiao Yu, who usually wanted to take exams entirely at his own pace and usually didn’t care much about less important exams, evidently added difficulty, leaving him no choice but to try and score as high as possible.