"The kitten looks healthy, but it's best to have the tabby spayed after a while. It's good for her and for you. I suggest you let them stay here a bit longer, and bring her home after the tabby is spayed."

Fu Huixing's credibility was high with Shi Li. She thought about it and felt his suggestion made sense.

Cats should indeed be spayed, so it might as well wait until after the procedure to bring her home.

"If you really like the cats, you can take the kitten home, and then bring the older cat back after she's spayed."

(Tabby cat: Looks like it'll be hard for me to be taken home by the mistress)

"Never mind, I'll just bring them both home together in a while."

Shi Li had originally planned to bring her own cat home. Although the result differed from the plan, she was still quite satisfied, after all, petting cats itself was very therapeutic.

After leaving the pet hospital, Shi Li treated Fu Huixing to dinner, then had her family driver pick her up to go home.

Upon returning to the villa, Shi Li discovered that her father had returned to the country.

When Shi Li entered, he was sitting with his legs crossed, reading a newspaper.

Shi Li's voice was filled with pleasant surprise, "Dad, you're back!"

Ms. Huang Jie and the housekeeper were rolling out noodles in the kitchen. "Have Uncle Zhang bring the suitcase upstairs. Dinner will be ready soon. We'll eat early today so you and your dad can rest early."

Huang Jie and the housekeeper were busy in the kitchen, and soon steaming hot noodles were ready.

Shi Li, who had been sitting on the couch chatting with her father, immediately went to the kitchen to help serve dishes when Huang Jie called that dinner was ready.

Huang Jie had prepared many pickled side dishes. Once all the dishes were on the table, a dinner worthy of a Korean state banquet officially began.

Shi Li had already eaten dinner with Fu Huixing, so she wasn't hungry. When serving herself noodles, she only symbolically put a couple of strands in her bowl.

Even if she couldn't eat much, sitting at the dinner table chatting with her parents was still nice.

Noodles were Huang Jie's specialty. Shi's father had only eaten a few bites before repeatedly praising, "Your noodles are still the most delicious. Compared to this, the food I eat outside is like pig slop."

Since his wife's return to the country, he had only been able to eat work meals with everyone else. He had a typical Chinese palate and couldn't get used to foreign cuisine.

Huang Jie was pleased by the compliment. Seeing her daughter, who used to eat heartily, now eating small bites, she asked with concern, "Are you not feeling well? No appetite?"

Indeed, Ms. Huang Jie was this confident about herself. Even when suspecting her daughter might be unwell, it never crossed her mind that her daughter might not like the noodles she cooked.

"I ate with classmates before coming home, so I'm not hungry yet, but I can still eat a bit of mom's noodles."

Shi's father had always been generous with praise for his wife's cooking skills. "It's a waste of talent that your mom doesn't open a restaurant."

Shi Li thought that Ms. Huang Jie's confidence in her cooking skills was probably 80% due to her father's flattery, and the other 20% was Huang Jie's inherent overflowing self-confidence.

The Shi family of three didn't have the custom of not speaking while eating. At the dinner table, Shi's father inquired about how his daughter had been doing at school lately, then proposed visiting the Fu family in a few days "to properly thank that boy."

Shi Li didn't mind this. If her parents felt it necessary to go and express thanks again in person, then so be it.

After all, Fu Huixing had indeed helped her a great deal, so a house call seemed to demonstrate her gratitude.

(Fu Huixing, haunted by the shadow of appreciation plaques: That's... not necessary)

Shi's father needed to rest early, so Shi Li didn't chat with him for too long.

There would be plenty of opportunities in the future anyway. After Shi Li returned to her room, Shi's father and Huang Jie also went back to their bedroom.

Although Shi Li hadn't been home for a few days, she didn't feel tired.

She glanced at some practice problems for a couple of minutes, then tossed the books aside. It was winter break after all, so she'd play for a few days first. As for homework and such, that could wait until just before school started.

She turned her attention to scrolling through her phone, opening her social media to find many classmates had posted beautiful photos from their recent outings.

Unsurprisingly, their homeroom teacher's eyes were dazzled by the screen full of photos of student gatherings.

The students had gone out together, but not a single one had invited him. He had thought their relationship was different, having shared watermelons together.

Reality, however, gave him a harsh blow.

He puffed up like a puffer fish in anger. While scrolling through photos, he accidentally liked a student's post, which he quickly unliked after noticing.

No one discovered this childish behavior; he just silently stewed in his own frustration.

Then everyone received a message before bed that they should go to school the next afternoon to collect their final exam results for this semester.

Everyone was puzzled. The winter break had already started, yet they had to return to school to get their results. This seemed very elementary school-like.

A few classmates were not too happy with the teacher's announcement, but most were indifferent. After all, they were high school students, and it was related to the final exams.

So the next day, at Qianpu Middle School where only the security guard was working, all members of Class 1, Grade 1 gathered to learn about their results from their first high school final exams.

The exam papers and report cards had already been piled on the desk by the homeroom teacher. Sitting in their seats, they could see their dismal scores.

The homeroom teacher, still in the corridor and not yet entered the classroom, could already hear waves of wailing coming from inside.

Before entering the classroom, he suppressed his slightly upturned lips, putting on a stern face.

"The results are all on the desk, you should have already seen your report cards."

"To be honest, our class's performance this time was particularly poor. Our class's average score ranks third from the bottom in the entire grade. The class ranking last is the art class, so we're actually second from bottom. I don't understand how you managed to achieve such scores."

This confusion was genuine. He had always led top classes, and this was his first encounter with a bottom-ranking average score.

[In exams, if someone comes first, there will always be someone who comes last. It's very normal.]

Homeroom teacher: If this wasn't your inner voice, I would suspect you were being sarcastic about these guys along with me.

After all, when the person who came first says such things, no matter how sincere the tone, it's not very convincing.

Sometimes Shi Li's inner voice would undermine what he was saying, greatly weakening the impact of his words. Most importantly, she couldn't know about what was coming next.

So he said, "Shi Li, there are rewards for the top scorers in the teacher's office. Could you please go bring them over?"

The homeroom teacher had always instructed the class monitor to run errands. Today, he suddenly asked Shi Li to do it, which surprised even him.

However, she didn't show any confusion. After remembering where the rewards were, she left.

Afraid that Shi Li might suddenly return, he got straight to the point, "According to school tradition, there will be a class reassignment exam at the end of the second semester of first year. Our class is the future top science class. Based on Shi Li's scores, she will stay in our class, but given the scores of most of our classmates, you won't be able to stay. You don't want to be separated, do you?"

"You should know that if you're separated, you won't be able to continue sharing gossip with Shi Li."

The homeroom teacher deliberately made the consequences sound more severe, "You might even lose the ability to hear Shi Li's inner thoughts because of this."