Cutting In and Crashing – Is This Your Driving School Instructor? 57

Chapter 57: Is This Female Star This Brave?

It was said that if she didn’t come to practice driving for a day, she wouldn’t come for a whole week. Gu Yin hadn’t seen Xia Xiangsi for a week.

Lately, Gu Yin had been terribly busy. A couple of days ago, his mother insisted on dealing with her fried skewer shop, wanting to reopen it. However, due to the seasonal temperature drop, she caught a cold…

Gu Yin’s mother had some underlying health issues. She’d had poor respiratory health since she was younger, and two years ago, she was diagnosed with mild asthma. While it wasn’t serious enough to require carrying emergency medication, every time she coughed, it lasted for at least one or two months.

These past couple of days, after catching a cold, she’d been coughing incessantly…

The cough was keeping her up at night, making her drowsy all day. Gu Yin felt heartbroken, so he booked an appointment with a specialist at the Provincial Hospital’s Traditional Chinese Medicine department to take her to see a doctor.

Why Traditional Chinese Medicine?

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see a Western doctor; it was mainly because many Western medications contain hormones, and excessive hormone intake at her age could be even more harmful. Traditional Chinese medicine would be better for nourishing her body.

Every night, after Gu Yin got off work, he would boil two bowls of medicine, giving one to his mother that night and reheating the other in the microwave the next morning. Just taking care of his mother was enough to make him overwhelmed, and then there was Gu Yue causing all sorts of trouble…

This little girl had been coming home later and later from evening self-study recently, and she was nowhere to be seen early on weekends. Gu Yin suspected something was up, but a few days ago, her teacher praised her for consistently good grades during a parent-teacher meeting. This left Gu Yin feeling like he’d punched a cotton ball – completely unable to exert any force.

Finally, he caught her on the weekend. His first words were: “Sister, do you have any money?”

“Am I an ATM? No questions asked?” Gu Yin’s mouth twitched upon returning home.

Unexpectedly, his high school sister, with her high ponytail, didn’t get angry; instead, she pouted and said something strange: “You shouldn’t be short of money, right?”

Gu Yin felt his sister was oblivious to the hardships of life, so he simply showed her his two pockets, cleaner than his face: “Look, does your brother look like he has money?”

“Nowadays, it’s those with dirty pockets who have problems.” Gu Yue rolled her eyes. “Everyone uses WeChat’s wealth management features; who still carries cash?”

“If you mouth off again, I’ll cut off your allowance!” Gu Yin’s mouth twitched.

“Hmph, fine, whatever…” Gu Yue pondered for a moment and said, “Then can you help me get an autographed item?”

“Autographed item? What’s that?” The misheard word left Gu Yin completely confused.

“It’s a personalized autograph written just for me.” Gu Yue mercilessly mocked her country bumpkin brother.

“? Whose autograph?” Gu Yin didn’t understand for a moment.

“Stop pretending, okay?” Gu Yue ran out of patience. “Xia Xiangsi! The big star, who else could it be?”

“? How did you know…” Gu Yin realized halfway through his sentence that it was probably because of Tong Liang’s recent visit and gossiping back to his hometown.

“Why do you want her autograph?” Gu Yin asked. “You haven’t been home lately; have you been chasing stars?”

If that was the case, he’d be relieved. His sister chasing stars, especially a female star who doesn’t have a bad reputation with fans, at least meant he didn’t have to worry about her being tricked by a bad guy.

Gu Yue shrugged indifferently and continued, “She’s been on the hot searches quite a bit these days. Bro, if you see her, tell her I said ‘加油’ (jiāyóu – add oil, meaning “good luck” or “go for it”).”

“Hmm?” Hearing this, Gu Yin’s brows furrowed.

Xia Xiangsi had been out of contact for more than a week, and this was the first time he’d heard any news about her from someone else.

Coming to think of it, he had been too busy lately and hadn’t had time to browse videos online…

That evening, finding a spare moment, Gu Yin opened his phone, searched for Xia Xiangsi, and several trending topics immediately popped up:

“#Xia Xiangsi Exposes Industry Secrets, Company Executives Blackmailed Her into Sleeping with Them for Music Copyright!”

“#Xia Xiangsi Appears at the Mansion of Beijing Circle Young Master Du Jingrui Late at Night, Publicly Slaps Du Jingrui!”

“#Xia Xiangsi Unilaterally Announces Termination of Contract with Yixing Entertainment and Abandonment of All Music Copyrights!”

“Whoa…”

Gu Yin was dumbfounded.

No way, is this female star this brave?

She’s exposing secrets and slapping people; everyone online thinks she’s gone crazy.

“This… could it be because of me?” Gu Yin felt a chill run down his spine, remembering Xia Xiangsi’s complex gaze that day, as if she had learned something from him…

He couldn’t take responsibility for this!

Just as he was lost in thought, his phone “dinged.” Gu Yin picked it up and almost dropped it…

Xia Xiangsi: “I’m back. Driving lessons tomorrow?”

Just eight simple words, without any emojis, but for some reason, Gu Yin inexplicably felt like a queen was returning and expected him to welcome her.

Gu Yin shook his head: “Lessons, who can beat you?”

Xia Xiangsi: “?”

…

The next day, at dawn, as the sun rose, Gu Yin got up early, heated his mother’s medicine and placed it on her bedside table, then grabbed his car keys and went out.

It was very early, not even 7 o’clock. Gu Yin wasn’t driving the instructor’s car today; he had gotten a ride back from Liu Ge yesterday, primarily because his own “battle chariot,” the BYD Qin, had been repaired, and his older male cousin had notified him to pick it up yesterday.

To be honest, compared to his beloved BYD Qin, the instructor’s car was far inferior. Although manual transmission had been ingrained in Gu Yin’s DNA, the smoothness of an automatic electric car was something everyone should experience.

He remembered those old drivers he used to know. In the early years of electric cars’ rise, they would say that electric cars were trash, useless, only to try them once and be instantly converted, their faces slapped hard.

After picking up the car, he still had plenty of time. Arriving at the driving school wouldn’t be late at all, but after leaving home and driving less than 3 kilometers, he saw snow cones (traffic cones) blocking the road ahead…

“Road construction, road construction, damn road construction again!”

Gu Yin was furious. Those officials didn’t know what was wrong with them; was road construction the only way to show their achievements in office?!

All the money the rural cooperative medical insurance increased every year was wasted like this?!

Forced to take a detour, he arrived at the driving school a little late. Gu Yin hurried to clock in, only to realize he’d forgotten to turn on the live stream for “Reconciling with Life.”

“I’ll have to stream longer tonight,” he thought, as he turned on the camera.

The moment he went live, the live stream was filled with viewers, and the comments flew by:

【I’ll be the number one! Whoever takes it is a loser! Wakaka!】

【Ahhh, Goddess Xiangsi hasn’t been here for a week, where is she?!】

【Daily Question: Is Xia Xiangsi here yet?】

…

Perhaps because of Xia Xiangsi’s frequent appearances on the hot searches, some people speculated that her recent wild behavior was related to Gu Yin. Therefore, Gu Yin’s traffic on “Reconciling with Life” was incredibly high every day, with a large number of people calling for Xia Xiangsi every day.

…

(End of Chapter)

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