Genius Club-Chapter 191 - 33 Mother

"More than 300 points?"

Lin Xian remembered clearly that in their college entrance examination year, a score of over 300 couldn’t even get you into a junior college, let alone close to the cutoff line... much less being admitted to Hunan University.

"Yes," the class advisor said, his eyes tinged with melancholy,

"That year, you were all already filling out your college preferences online, and with his score not even passing the vocational college admission line, he didn’t qualify to apply... so how could he possibly be admitted to Hunan University? Not to mention Hunan University, no university could admit him."

Lin Xian understood.

He sifted through the file box, which contained photos of admission notices printed by the class advisor. He saw many from acquaintances, his own, and also saw Gao Yang’s junior college admission notice.

Right at the bottom, there was a single folded printout.

Lin Xian unfolded it to take a look...

As expected.

It was Zhou Duanyun’s admission notice.

Hunan University, Computer Science major.

Just from this printed photo, Lin Xian couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. It had all the elements it should have, including the principal’s signature and the school’s red stamp.

But in the current internet era, creating a fake admission notice wasn’t difficult at all; it was just a matter of photoshopping and taking some effort to color print.

The main thing is that forging this was futile...

Taking the admission notice to the school for registration was only a formality.

The key was that the school had to have your admission information on file. In fact, even if you lost the admission notice, it wouldn’t affect your ability to report to the university.

So.

Lin Xian roughly figured out the ins and outs of Zhou Duanyun’s incident—

Most likely, vanity got the better of him, or for some other reason, he made a fake admission notice.

Because Zhou Duanyun didn’t have many friends in class and didn’t interact much, everyone had not paid much attention to him.

And when the class advisor was collecting pictures of the admission notices, Zhou Duanyun certainly didn’t want to send his to the class advisor.

But after his mother found out, she traveled from afar to proudly show her son’s admission notice to the class advisor.

The class advisor naturally knew that Zhou Duanyun’s admission notice was fake; he knew better than anyone how many points Zhou Duanyun had actually scored.

It’s just...

Faced with this joyful and excited mother stricken by hardship, he couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth, so he let it slide.

"Later, I also asked some classmates about Zhou Duanyun."

The class advisor turned around and continued,

"After all, his admission notice was fake, so it was impossible for him to go to college for registration. I was definitely concerned that this kid might go astray or get into trouble outside, so I inquired about him indirectly."

"But everyone didn’t know much about him, they all thought he went to university, and there were even rumors that he won the lottery after the college entrance examination, bought designer clothes, an iPhone, a high-end computer, a belt that cost a lot of money."

"But actually... the lottery thing was also fake."

Lin Xian narrowed his eyes:

"That was fake too?"

Was there anything real about Zhou Duanyun? Why was everything fake?

"The reason I know this is fake is because when his mother came to deliver the admission notice, I talked with her a lot. His mother had worked hard her whole life and hadn’t saved much money, but Zhou Duanyun’s father left some compensation when he died, which she had been saving for Zhou Duanyun’s university education. Once she knew her child was admitted to a prestigious university, she gave all the money to Zhou Duanyun for him to go to school properly."

"The designer clothes, shoes, mobile phone, and computer that Zhou Duanyun bought were all purchased with that money. As for why everyone thought he won the lottery, I don’t know, nor am I clear if it was Zhou Duanyun himself who said it."

"Since then, you have all gone your separate ways, and Zhou Duanyun also left his hometown. Sometimes when your classmates come to visit me, I’d casually ask about him. The majority don’t know what Zhou Duanyun is doing. Some who do know speak all sorts of rumors that he got into pyramid schemes, dropped out of school, or made it rich... Basically, they say all kinds of things, and I don’t know what his exact situation is now."

...

Lin Xian didn’t say a word.

Hearing the class teacher say this, Zhou Duanyun’s life was far from as brilliant as he had described it, and even a bit disheveled. But even if the admission notice and the lottery ticket were fake, surely the Rolls-Royce Phantom wasn’t, right?

Even if the car was rented, it would cost several thousand yuan a day. Only someone extraordinary could afford such a rental, and besides, Zhou Duanyun drove it every day, which clearly indicated it was his own.

Now, Zhou Duanyun was indeed prosperous, and that was a fact.

But exactly how he had become successful remained a mystery, and it wasn’t just any mystery—it was an unusual one with secrets inside that I desperately wanted to know.

"Zhou Duanyun is doing pretty well now," Lin Xian said truthfully:

"He’s quite wealthy, probably a big boss, driving a Rolls-Royce Phantom with a personal driver."

"Really?"

Upon hearing this news, the class teacher burst into happy laughter:

"Is that true? If it is, I’m relieved!"

"It is true," Lin Xian nodded:

"We saw him at a class reunion. Zhou Duanyun is probably the most successful among our classmates."

"That’s good… that’s good…" The class teacher’s expression completely relaxed, and he happily lit another cigarette:

"Ah, no matter what, you students are like my own children in my eyes. A teacher always hopes for you to do well. No matter what happened before… as long as you’re doing well now, that’s what counts! Zhou Duanyun is also a child who has suffered. I can understand why he did what he did back then."

Lin Xian asked the class teacher from whom he had heard the rumors about Zhou Duanyun winning the lottery and engaging in pyramid selling.

His intuition told him…

Perhaps these disreputable matters were indeed Zhou Duanyun’s real life.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

Life is full of disappointment; failure is a constant presence, and being unsatisfactory is the norm. Where is there so much glory and legend?

Even the autobiographies of famous people tend to downplay the negatives and engage in hindsight bias, let alone the lives of ordinary people.

The class teacher told Lin Xian that he had heard all this from Zhou Le.

Zhou Le and Zhou Duanyun grew up in the same village, attended a local college in Hang City, and after graduation, worked in their home county, so he was in closer contact with the class teacher.

After saying goodbye to the class teacher, Lin Xian got in touch with Zhou Le.

Because of some matters during the New Year, Zhou Le didn’t attend the reunion. Lin Xian, pretending to just be passing by, called up his old classmate to have a meal together.

Lin Xian was very popular in high school, and Zhou Le was very happy as well, so they had a small drink at noon.

When classmates meet, there’s no end to the talking.

Zhou Le asked about many things that happened at the reunion, so it was natural for the conversation to turn to Zhou Duanyun… because he was the most eye-catching person at the whole reunion, and it was unavoidable.

"I heard you guys are from the same village?" Lin Xian asked.

"Yes, even though we both have the surname Zhou, we’re not from the same branch," Zhou Le said as he drank a glass of liquor and smacked his lips:

"Zhou Duanyun’s father passed away from illness when he was young… Their family was very poor, and you know how it is in the countryside, without a male head of the household one is always bullied."

"I found out about these things only after I grew up. Zhou Duanyun’s family’s land was basically taken over by neighbors, it was no different from being forcefully seized. Every time they plowed the land, they would move closer and closer to Zhou’s side, and soon Zhou’s family was left with very little."

"Same with their house plot. Zhou Duanyun’s family didn’t have money to build a house, so when the neighbors built theirs, they occupied land unjustly. But what could Zhou Duanyun and his mother do? Mother and son, with no one to support them, just endured the bullying."

"Where did they get their income from?" Lin Xian asked.

Listening to Zhou Le’s story, Lin Xian finally understood why Zhou Duanyun used to be so poor. No wonder he never had decent clothes.

It was common for people in the countryside to fight over land for building houses, and many conflicts arose from this. But Zhou Duanyun, without a father and facing such overbearing neighbors, really had no way to respond.

"Zhou Duanyun’s mother was indeed a very strong person…" Zhou Le sighed:

"She cultivated some wasteland that nobody else wanted, growing peanuts."

"Over time, once she had cultivated the land well, others would take it back. Then she’d have to start cultivating other wastelands… like that, Zhou Duanyun’s mother really had it tough…"

"She managed to raise Zhou Duanyun on nothing but peanuts."