"If you want to keep me, you'd better think carefully first about whether you can afford it.
"If I pass the exams and you still won't let me go to school, I'm going to make a scene."
Su Qiao finished speaking unhurriedly, then ignored them and moved back to her grandmother's side.
The Old Village Chief glanced at Old Lady Su and her son. "Xiao Qiao is right. Old Lady Su, Su Youqing, you'd better think this through yourselves. It's rare for our village to produce a college student. If you change your minds later, our Village Committee won't agree to it."
"This...?" Old Lady Su was stumped, unable to decide what to do.
"Mom, why don't we just forget it? Let's give them the fields and the money."
The moment Su Youqing heard that sending Su Qiao to school would cost eight hundred yuan, he immediately abandoned the idea of keeping her.
Old Lady Su refused to give both money and fields. "No. At most, we'll divide a few plots of land among them. As for the money, don't even think about it."
One academic year cost twenty-five yuan. Just five years of elementary school would cost 125 yuan. Three years of middle school at fifty yuan a year would cost 150 yuan in total, while high school cost eighty yuan a year, or 240 yuan for three years.
All together, that was 515 yuan. Where was she supposed to get that much money—steal it?
The more Old Lady Su thought about it, the more unwilling she became. She said rudely, "Old Lady Liu, forget about getting any money from us. At most, we'll divide the fields among you. There are exactly one and a half mu of fields at Xiahe Ridge, so you can have those."
Although giving