A Girl Who Wants to Be a Beneficial Person to Society

41 - 50

Chapter 41

Su Xiaoqi woke up at three o'clock after a long sleep. It felt as if she had passed out. She had been physically active lately.

Upon waking up, her whole body was sore and she felt lazy, not wanting to get out of bed. However, going back to sleep didn't feel comfortable either. She was drenched in sweat, even the back of her head was damp.

She got up and went outside to the water basin to wash her face, which helped her fully wake up.

Since she didn't feel like going to the bookstore or the library in the afternoon, and it was neither early nor late, she decided to tidy up her aunt's dormitory. The walls were dark and greasy. Usually, she was the one sleeping there, while her aunt mostly stayed in the hospital ward, only coming back for a nap occasionally.

Su Xiaoqi was an impulsive person. Once she thought of doing something, she wanted to do it right away.

After washing her face, without applying any sunscreen or anything like that—summer and putting stuff on her face made it greasy, and it would smudge once she started sweating—she simply put on a duckbill cap. It was given to her during her sophomore year, on the school's centennial anniversary. The cap had the school's name, "Yizhong," written in red.

With the cap on, Su Xiaoqi went to the three stationery stores near the school gate. She remembered that they had special paper for sticking on walls, and many boarding students used posters or other things to decorate their walls.

But when she arrived, only one of the stores was open. It had a small door, and there were no lights inside.

The other two stores were closed. Probably not much business during the summer vacation.

Su Xiaoqi knocked on the door, and a young man with sleepy eyes poked his head out.

"Do you have any wallpaper for sale?" she asked.

The young man rubbed his eyes and saw that it was a little girl wearing a particularly silly little red cap, but she looked delicate. He quickly nodded and said yes.

While on the phone, he said, "Hello, Mom, Mom, where did you put that stack of wallpaper for sticking on walls? What? The one Dad said nobody wanted to burn? The attic? Oh, got it."

Su Xiaoqi: ...

The young man hung up the phone and smiled kindly at Su Xiaoqi.

"Just wait a moment, I'll get it for you right away."

Then he climbed up a small ladder and came down with a big pile of wallpaper.

The outer layer was gray and yellowed, and the corners were curling up. But after removing the outermost sheet, a creamy white wallpaper with some dark patterns showed, it looked quite textured. Su Xiaoqi estimated the size of her aunt's dormitory and the size of the wallpaper. Each sheet seemed to be about one square meter. She roughly calculated that she would probably need the whole stack to cover it completely.

"How much are these?" she asked.

"How many sheets do you want?"

They almost spoke at the same time. The young man looked surprised and said, "You want all of them? Let me ask."

He made another call to his mom, "Mom, Mom, how much for the wallpaper? Not per sheet, all of it. Oh, oh, can the customer get a discount? Oh, okay..."

After hanging up, he looked up and smiled at Su Xiaoqi.

"My mom said if you take all of them, it's 198 yuan at the lowest, no less."

Su Xiaoqi didn't know the exact price, but she felt that the stores near the school gate shouldn't be too overpriced. She nodded and was about to pay.