Chapter 18: Chapter 18

Tying Up Some Small Braids (2)

Jiang Xiaoman secretly looked at the mirror. The more she looked at it, the more she felt that this hairstyle was very similar to the doll that appears in New Year pictures. It looked uglier the more she looked at it, to the point where she almost cried.

By the second day, she was already unhappy.

She solemnly said, “Uncle, I want my hair tied into four braids.”

“Four, that many? Can they even fit on your tiny head?”

“Keep pretending.” Jiang Xiaoman held out her hand and counted. “Last time, Grandma tied them into eight braids.”

“…Ah, so many.” Jiang Xing was taken aback. With her hair ties hanging from his mouth, he started braiding her with both his hands.

It was a very simple thing, but he was sweating a lot and it made it very difficult.

Jiang Xing carefully tied Jiang Xiaoman’s hair, but it felt as if even the Heavens were going against him. He ended up tangling her hair together and couldn’t untangle them.

He pulled on the hair tie with all his strength, but Jiang Xiaoman cried out in pain when he made a move. Suddenly, he had a flash of inspiration. With a ‘Kacha!’ sound, he clicked the scissors together and cut off the knot. He excitedly showed Jiang Xiaoman, “Look, it’s done.”

Jiang Xiaoman already felt that something was wrong when she heard the ‘Kacha’ sound, and her face had turned dark long ago.

Seeing the cut off the hair on Jiang Xing’s hand, she touched the top of her head and found that it was a bit prickly.

How short did he cut it?

“!!!” Jiang Xiaoman cried out a ‘waa!’ sound. “You rotten egg! You cut off my hair, I’m not going to play with you again! Wuu wuu wuu! You big rotten egg! I don’t care about you anymore! I’m going to tell you to Grandma. Wuu wuu wuu… I don’t want to talk to you anymore!”

Jiang Xiaoman ran to school while crying. Jiang Xing could still hear her cries splitting heaven and earth from far away, he yelled at her but couldn’t catch up.

Jiang Xiaoman cried all the way and went to find her Grandma. When she found her, she didn’t need to say anything. When Jiang Xiumei saw her hair that looked like it was bitten off by a dog, her face instantly turned dark.

She touched Jiang Xiaoman’s hair and angrily said, “Who cut it?”

“It’s my uncle, wuuuu…”

“Wait until I come home, I’ll teach him a lesson! Even if he’s ugly, why did he try to make you ugly too?”

When Jiang Xiaoman heard the word “ugly”, she felt as if her heart was pierced with a knife. Her tears flowed down uncontrollably, and her cries sounded very pitiful.

“Alright, Grandma will buy you candy. Wait for me a bit, we’ll go home together after school.” Jiang Xiumei coaxed Jiang Xiaoman with much effort using candy before continuing her work.

Jiang Xiaoman licked the lollipop she received and tried to hold back her tears and calm down. Right now, she didn’t want to go home at all. If she saw her uncle, she would be reminded of her hair and want to cry again.

After randomly playing around for a while, Jiang Xiaoman decided to go play outside the classroom.

She had followed her grandma to school many times and was already familiar with the place.

Most of the teachers and students in the school were neighbors from the same village. They all knew her and would not chase her away if they saw her.

The school in the village had three grades and three teachers. All the teachers taught everything regardless of subject or grade. After all, it was already good in the first place that they could have teachers in this place, and it was hard to find a new teacher to teach.

The students on the first floor were first-year students, just a little older than Jiang Xiaoman. She liked to go there to play.

The class was taught by Teacher Tang, who was even older than Grandma. He was a highly respected person in the village. Grandma said that he had been teaching there for many years.

Today, Teacher Tang was telling the children the idiom of ‘haste makes waste’. After finishing the story, he turned around and asked the children, “Okay, who can tell me what is the meaning of this story? What does it tell us?”

The children looked at each other, but could only see confused looks on each other’s faces.

One kid raised his hand. “Teacher, the story tells us not to pull up the seedlings in the field.”

“…well, that’s not exactly wrong.” Teacher Tang did not know whether to laugh or cry.