Zhou Dongdong walked ahead with a huge backpack on her back, rising onto her toes with each step, her arms swaying left and right as she strode with the noble, elegant gait of a first-grade elementary school student.
Actually, carefree kindergarten children had the noblest and most elegant gait, while first-graders came in slightly below them.
The higher the grade, the greater the academic pressure and the heavier the backpack. It became increasingly difficult to keep one's steps light and lively, so naturally, one could no longer be noble and elegant.
By that logic, senior-year high school students lived like dogs, barely hanging on, with nothing to do with nobility or elegance. Even after entering college, they had already forgotten their former carefree days and learned only to slack off and rot.
Lu Si'en was no longer as tremblingly cautious as he had been at first. He had recovered some of the relaxed attitude toward life that a dog brain could understand, chewing on curbs one moment, then leaping into the landscaping and flopping about the next, displaying the distinctive bearing of being Zhou Dongdong's dog.
"Zhou Dongdong, why do you always linger in front of all kinds of shops after school? You barely have any money in your pocket," Liu Chang'an said, hoping the cruelty of reality would help Zhou Dongdong grow a little.
Zhou Dongdong dug around in her pocket. There was still a one-yuan coin and a one-yuan bill inside. Two yuan could buy four pieces of spring-water tofu, or four little skewers that would fill half a plastic takeaway container.
The spring-water tofu vendors were often shrewd about controlling costs. If an elementary school student spent too little, even those foam plastic takeaway boxes that melted when touched by hot oil would be torn in half