Chapter 545 - 183: The 80s Drama Queen is Forced to Become a Top Student (18)
Chapter 545: Chapter 183: The 80s Drama Queen is Forced to Become a Top Student (18)
The kids glanced over the three densely packed pages and felt their heads spin from all the text.
They all turned in unison to look at Sheng Leyun. "Sister Yun, do we... do we have to participate in all of them?"
Sheng Leyun, however, looked toward Gong Zicheng.
The latter said with a smile, "Weren’t you all clamoring to enter competitions? There are many different kinds. Normally, you just need to add two or three extra classes to your daily studies, and whenever a competition comes up, you sign up and participate."
"Success depends on human effort. The more you participate and the more knowledge and skills you accumulate, the better your results are bound to be."
"Just think of these competitions as checkpoints on the racetrack of your education. With enough practice, you’ll eventually be able to produce some impressive results."
Sheng Leyun nodded as well. "Listening to our Brother Cheng is never wrong."
"Anyway, we’re only in the first year of middle school, so we still have five and a half years. As long as we can get outstanding results in high school, we basically won’t have to take the brutal college entrance exam, and we’ll still get into the universities of our dreams!"
’In the past six months, she’d completely figured these kids out.’
’Bringing up the schools they all dreamed of attending was like dangling a juicy, meaty bone, beckoning to them from five and a half years away!’
After a moment’s hesitation, the kids all gritted their teeth, steeled themselves, and accepted the challenge.
Gong Zicheng smiled and nodded. "Alright then. Your winter break has started, so take the first week off to rest. I’ll also take some time to figure out a reasonable class schedule for you all."
The moment they heard the word "rest," the whole group couldn’t help but get excited.
They hadn’t had a proper break in a long time and had been wound as tight as a drum string. Even their parents, seeing how desperately they were working, had been tempted to secretly approach Gong Zicheng and plead for a little leniency.
Even when Gong Zicheng mentioned he would be assigning extra homework, their faces showed no trace of unhappiness.
After Gong Zicheng finished assigning the daily memorization and practice tasks, everyone copied them down neatly.
Since she’d had to start her education all over again, Sheng Leyun discovered her handwriting was atrocious. It was as if her hand had no bones, producing big, ugly, squiggly characters that looked like tangled earthworms.
So she roped her friends into practicing their penmanship with her, one page a day, until her handwriting was finally presentable.
They didn’t just practice with pens; they practiced with calligraphy brushes, too!
When Gong Zicheng announced that everyone could go home, she waved the group over.
The others moved their stools and gathered around.
Even Gong Zicheng couldn’t resist. He stood off to the side, hands in his pockets, curious to see what scheme the little girl was cooking up now.
Sheng Leyun said with a grin, "Postnatal is the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month, the official start of the Little New Year. From that day on, the streets will be very lively, and the festival market will run right up until the fifteenth of the first lunar month, the day before we go back to school."
"So I was thinking, why don’t we set up a stall to join in on the fun and earn a little spending money on the side?"
Setting up a stall?
Us?
"I-I don’t know about that. What if we run into someone we know?"
"Yeah, whenever my parents got mad at me for not studying, they’d threaten to set me up with a street stall when I grew up. I guess this would be me adapting ahead of schedule?"
The group couldn’t help but chuckle at that.
At that time, however, most people saw setting up a street stall as something done out of financial desperation, even if the official line was that all people are equal and no job is better or worse than another.
Deep down, people still considered it an embarrassing, shameful business—something you wouldn’t want to be caught doing by anyone you knew.
Sheng Leyun scoffed. "What’s there to be afraid of? Are we stealing or robbing anyone?"
"We’d be earning money honestly through our own hard work. What’s wrong with that?"
"Strictly speaking, you could call this a work-study program. We’d be helping our parents out and earning our own pocket money. That’s a lot more meaningful than just running wild all break, isn’t it?"
"Besides, developing a healthy attitude toward money will have a huge impact on the rest of your lives. It might even mean that when you finally enter the workforce, you’ll already be standing at what is the finish line for other people!"
The kids all fell silent.
’It’s not like we said we wouldn’t do it...’
"Just tell us what to do, Sister Yun. We already gave you our word. We’re not going to break our promise."
Sheng Leyun nodded and pushed her notebook in front of them. "I’ve listed a few different ideas for stalls. Take a look and see what you like."
"I picked games that require little startup capital, make money quickly, and are popular with everyone."
The light in the room was bright, and Gong Zicheng, who had always had excellent eyesight, could see the list at a glance: Ring Toss, Balloon Pop, Darts, Ping Pong Toss, and so on. They all looked very festive.
The kids stared, stunned for a moment. If these were the games offered at a stall, even they wouldn’t be able to resist spending some money to play.
But now *they* were going to be the stall owners...
"Sister Yun, technically, these are all games of chance. We’ll need to put up some decent prizes to attract customers."
"That’s right, and we’ll need a spot with good foot traffic..."
They were completely drawn in now, chattering away as they brought up potential problems. Before Sheng Leyun could even respond, they had already started proposing solutions among themselves.
Soon, they decided to pair up to run their stalls.
One of them had a relative who was in charge of that sort of thing. They just had to register, pay the stall fee in advance, and they’d be able to pick a good location. Plus, they wouldn’t have to worry about security.
"What kind of stall are you going to run, Yunyun?" Gong Zicheng asked casually as he strolled over, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.
"Ring toss, of course," Sheng Leyun said with a light laugh, counting on her fingers. "I’ve already researched it. The rings need to be light and bouncy to make them hard to aim."
"You also put the prizes on pedestals to raise them up. That way, if a ring misses its target, it won’t accidentally land on another prize as it bounces away."
"And since we’re lowering the odds of winning, we can offer better deals for buying more rings, like bigger discounts for bulk purchases..."
The group blinked, amazed. They never imagined there could be so many tricks to a simple ring toss game!
They each took the game they were interested in and crowded around Sheng Leyun, asking for her advice.
Before entering this plane of existence, Sheng Leyun had crammed her head full of knowledge from various eras, with a particular focus on research related to making a quick buck.
She gave each of them at least two detailed tips on how to lower the win rate for their chosen game.
They got so caught up in their chat that it grew late, and their worried parents started coming to look for them.
The kids all agreed to wake up early the next day to finish their homework. Then, once it warmed up a little, they would start prepping everything for their stalls, aiming to be open for business by the Little New Year!
Sheng Leyun didn’t rest when she got home. Instead, she racked her brain, trying to think of everything and anything that could be used as a prize.
She also took out a piece of paper on which she had drawn a diagram for several parts, complete with detailed measurements. She handed it to Grandma Guo. "Grandma, can you get all the things on here for me by tomorrow?"
"It would be best if you don’t source them all from the same factory," Sheng Leyun added with a faint smile.
The old woman put on her reading glasses to look it over. "These are all pretty common parts. It should be easy to gather them. Yunyun, what are they for?"
"You kids finished your lessons a bit late tonight. What were you all talking about? I could hear those boys yelling from a block away."
Sheng Leyun smiled, happy to satisfy her grandmother’s curiosity. "Oh, Brother Cheng just told us that since we’ve all been studying so hard for the last six months, he’s letting us rest at home for a few days now that winter break is here."
"They went crazy when they heard. They were so excited they didn’t know what to do with themselves, completely forgetting how late it was. Each one was more worked up than the last."
After explaining that, she pointed to the paper in her grandmother’s hand and said mysteriously, "Then, I got everyone on board with a plan to set up stalls on the back street. We’re going to run them from Postnatal right up until school starts again."
"There’s hardly anyone around in the mornings, so we’ll study. We’ll run the stalls from eleven a.m. until everyone goes home for dinner."
"As for me, I’m planning to run a ring toss stall, so I’ll go look for prizes tomorrow. The parts on that list you’re holding, Grandma? They’re for building a little money-making contraption for you."
"The principle behind this gadget is pretty simple, so if people figure it out, it’ll be easy to copy. We have to be the first ones to take the plunge!"