An Ning had only meant to tease him, but when she saw the look in Jiang Xia’s eyes, the smile in her own faded.

"What’s with that look?"

Jiang Xia looked a little awkward. He forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes and tugged at his cheek. "My face has a mind of its own. Don’t blame me."

"So you’re saying you’re shameless?"

Jiang Xia’s smile froze. That was a difficult question to answer.

"Thanks. I really need to get going."

"Goodbye."

When An Ning said goodbye, she meant it. She turned away, and Da Huang obediently followed, its steps noticeably jaunty.

Jiang Xia had been feeling quite melancholy, but her abruptness completely shattered the mood.

Not only was it shattered, he was so exasperated that he actually laughed.

Still, it was for the best. At least he could truly rest easy leaving Da Huang with An Ning.

Jiang Xia wasted no more time and went back for his grandfather. After a roundabout journey, the two of them boarded the train to Beijing.

None of this concerned An Ning in the slightest. The day Jiang Xia left, she switched into full-on study mode.

She woke up to read at the crack of dawn and continued until breakfast. After eating, she went out to work in the fields. She came home for lunch, and while everyone else took a midday nap, she studied.

The afternoon followed the same pattern: work in the fields, come home for dinner, and study every moment she wasn’t eating.

A week went by. An Ning used her spiritual power to scan books in her spare time. Then, during the day while she was out in the fields, she would mentally break down and analyze the contents.

A week later, An Ning started tutoring An Guoping in the early mornings.

Early in the morning, crystal-clear dewdrops clung to blades of grass, ready to fall at any moment.

In the An family’s small courtyard, a blackboard had appeared on the eastern wall—a makeshift one, painted with black ink.

Holding a stick as a pointer and a box of chalk she had bought, An Ning began the lesson.

"Newton’s First Law, also known as the Law of Inertia, states that every object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line..."

Sitting on a small stool, An Guoping felt his mind was exceptionally sharp that day. It seemed as if he could remember every single word An Ning said, each one leaving a deeper impression than ever before.

An Ning stood and taught at a steady pace. After explaining each concept, she would produce ten, sometimes more than a dozen, practice problems. She had An Guoping solve them first, then she would correct his work and explain further.

When An Guoping finished the last problem, he couldn’t hold back his question any longer. "Sis, where are you finding all these questions?"

An Ning checked his answers, asking nonchalantly, "Do I need to find them?"

"You don’t have to? Our teachers can’t even get their hands on the workbooks from the provincial capital. They’re expensive, for one, but more importantly, they’re just impossible to buy."

An Ning finally looked up at him, her expression serene. "Once you understand the concepts, you just write the problems yourself."

’Just write the problems yourself.’

The sentence replayed in An Guoping’s mind over and over. He felt like asking on behalf of his teachers, ’Is that really something you can just make up on the spot?’

Coming up with one or two might be doable, but his sister had already produced eighteen fill-in-the-blanks, thirty multiple-choice questions, and thirteen long-form problems.

She was like a walking workbook!

"You got this one wrong. Looks like you still haven’t quite grasped the concept. Let’s do another thirty problems."

An Ning turned, and with a flurry of motion, began scribbling problems on the blackboard. She even had a moment to glance back at the frozen An Guoping.

"Copy them down."

"Yes!"

An Guoping lowered his head and began to write. An Ning had her back to him, but her spiritual power enveloped him, helping to keep his mind clear and focused.

Elsewhere in the An family’s home, everyone moved about as quietly as possible, the only sounds being the murmur of the ongoing lesson.

Her sister-in-law, who was supposed to be on bedrest for her pregnancy, was now able to walk around, but Lin Cuihua still wouldn’t let her do any work.

It hadn’t been easy for her eldest son’s family to conceive, so it was best to be careful.

Even though her sister-in-law insisted she was fine—she had been taking a slice of the ginseng An Ning brought home every few days, and the dull ache in her lower abdomen had long since disappeared.

"The fact that it doesn’t hurt means you need to be even more careful. We’ve used so many precious things on you, we can’t let it all go to waste."

"You’re right, Mom. I’ll just sit here and get some fresh air. I can still shell some vegetables, and I can listen to my little sister’s lesson, too."

Lin Cuihua didn’t mind her shelling vegetables, but as she listened to the gibberish An Ning was teaching, she looked at Zhou Guifen and said, "What are you even listening for? I can’t make heads or tails of what she’s saying. I don’t understand a single word."

Her sister-in-law gave a small smile. Beckoning Lin Cuihua closer, she whispered, "I don’t understand it either. I just want the baby in my belly to hear it, so he’ll grow up to be as smart as his aunt."

That was a clever thing for Gao Guifen to say. As soon as Lin Cuihua heard it, a proud smile spread across her face.

"You’re right. Keep listening. My grandson will get into a university in the future, too."

In a rural village, the three words "get into college" held an irresistible allure.

While the two women whispered to each other, An Sancheng was also watching the siblings from a distance.

An Guoming, who had mostly recovered, came over and squatted beside An Sancheng. "Dad, we should make a desk and chair for our little brother. It must be uncomfortable for him to write and copy things like that."

An Sancheng nodded in agreement. "You’re right, we need to. I’ll go up the mountain today and look for some wood."

Before this, the An family never had a dedicated place for An Guoping to study.

When he was little, An Guoping would do his homework lying on the edge of the heated brick bed, or even propped up against the rim of the cooking wok. Basically, he wrote wherever he could find a spot.

Once he got to middle school and high school, he did most of his work at school. At home, he mostly just reviewed his textbooks.

During school breaks, he rarely studied, since he had to help out in the fields.

The morning session ended with Lin Cuihua’s call for breakfast. An Ning stopped the lesson and called for An Guoping to come eat.

After breakfast, An Guoping started to head out to the fields, but An Ning stopped him.

"You’re staying home," she said, handing him a notebook. "You can go to the fields after you finish all the problems in here."

An Guoping took the notebook. Its pages were covered in dense, handwritten text.

It was filled with practice problems for math, chemistry, physics, and biology, all laid out like a full exam.

"One practice test a day. As for Language Arts and Politics, you’ll have to wait. I haven’t quite figured those out yet."

An Ning looked troubled as she said this.

She walked out of the courtyard with her brows tightly knit, her mind consumed with thoughts of the Language Arts questions.

She had already memorized the entire textbook, but she was still struggling with reading comprehension and poetry analysis.

And then there were the Politics analysis questions. ’How can a single word or sentence possibly hold so many different meanings?’

In just one week, Language Arts and Politics had given An Ning her first real taste of a headache.

An Guoping was getting a headache at the same time. He stared at the problems in his hands. ’At this rate,’ he thought, ’does this mean a new test every single day?’

If he really took the college entrance exam again next year, wouldn’t the stack of practice tests he’d have completed be taller than he was?

"My dear sister, you could be writing the actual college entrance exam questions."

An Guoping picked up his pen and started on the test.

As he was writing, he accidentally smudged the ink, staining his hand.

His nose tingled, and his eyes welled up. ’She must have stayed up all night writing this, didn’t she?’

An Guoping’s focus intensified. And this time, An Ning’s spiritual power wasn’t there to help.