Ruan Changgui and Sun Xiaohui were talking when they suddenly heard someone from outside: "Second brother, come out for a moment."

It was Ruan Zhigao who asked Ruan Changgui to go out. Ruan Changgui did not dare to pretend that he did not hear it, and hurriedly got up and went out.

Walking up to Ruan Zhigao, he called out, "Dad."

Ruan Zhigao didn't beat around the bush and got straight to the point: "I don't want to say anything more about what your wife did today, but that doesn't mean I don't have an opinion on it! You should know better than me what she's thinking. Even if this time is over, if it happens again, you and your wife, get out of here!"

Ruan Changgui didn't dare to say anything else, he just nodded, "I have already taught her a lesson, she also realized her mistake and promised to correct it. She will listen to me in everything from now on, and there will definitely not be a next time."

Ruan Zhigao was unhappy, "It would be better."

After saying that, he turned around and went back to the side room.

After dinner, Ruan Xi, Ruan Jie, Ruan Zhigao, Liu Xinghua, and Ruan Changsheng's family of five chatted privately. Liu Xinghua was still furious when she mentioned what happened today, and said to Sun Xiaohui: "If someone hadn't stopped me today, I would have beaten her to death."

In fact, if a real fight broke out, Liu Xinghua would not be able to beat Sun Xiaohui, after all, she is older. Today, she was the one who took the first step and knocked Sun Xiaohui unconscious when she was off guard.

Another point is that Sun Xiaohui is afraid of her mother-in-law from the bottom of her heart.

But no matter whether you can win or not, you must never lose in momentum and language!

If she is not severely punished, she will probably not remember the price of being a humiliator.

Ruan Zhigao smoked his pipe and said after a while: "This matter is hard to prevent. We can't control what others say or do, we can only control ourselves. So we must be more careful in what we say and do, and don't let villains catch us."

Then he looked at Ruan Changsheng and said, "It's mainly you."

Ruan Changsheng said: "I have been very well behaved recently. I go to work every day."

Ruan Changsheng has been performing really well recently, working at the construction site all day, so Ruan Zhigao stopped talking about him.

As for Ruan Xi and Ruan Jie, they were innocent girls, so he wasn't really worried.

Ruan Xi herself was not worried either, as she was confident in her words and actions. Furthermore, Sun Xiaohui had fallen into a big trap at her hands this time and suffered a great loss, which was enough to make her feel upset for a while, so she probably wouldn't cause her any more trouble.

Only Ruan Jie was there. She said nothing and her eyes were empty.

After washing up and lying down to sleep at night, Ruan Jie spoke aloud and said to Ruan Xi: "I must have done something wrong in my previous life, so I have to have such a mother in this life. It's really heartbreaking and shameful."

Hearing her words, Ruan Xi suddenly thought of "her" mother, the woman who abandoned her original body in the countryside when she was only three years old. She didn't feel anything, after all, she wasn't her biological mother, it was just a thought.

She came back to her senses and comforted Ruan Jie: "We have no way of choosing our background and parents, so accept the reality and move forward. The most important thing is to live your life well."

Ruan Jie took a deep breath and said, "How can we live well? In a few years, we will be of marriageable age. We will just find a man to marry and live like this, staying in the mountains for the rest of our lives."

Ruan Xi didn't expect Ruan Jie to have such deep thoughts. She turned sideways, facing Ruan Jie, looked at her through the night and asked: "Don't you want to live this kind of life? Do you want to get out of the mountains and see the outside world?"

Ruan Jie tilted her head and responded, "Of course I do, what about you, sister?"

Ruan Xi held her hand and said, "Then let's work together to get out."

Ruan Jie was inspired by Ruan Xi and became more ambitious, but she lost her temper after a moment and sighed, "We can't marry outside. It's not easy to marry in the town. Third Aunt was lucky enough to marry in the town."

As she spoke, she thought of something, "No, sister, you are different from me. Uncle will take you to the military region. When you get there, Uncle and Auntie will probably find you a cadre's son, and you can marry into a cadre family."

Ruan Jie was not very interested in marrying into a cadre family. She just held Ruan Jie's hand and said, "Trust me, I will take you out. We don't change our fate by getting married, we change our fate by working hard, how about that?"

Change your destiny through hard work?

This sounds inspiring, but it is too unrealistic.

They have no direction to work towards, nor any possibility of changing their fate through hard work.

Ruan Jie couldn't imagine such a thing at all, and asked hesitantly: "Is it okay?"

Ruan Xi said: "Just trust me."

Ruan Jie thought about it and realized that if she believed, she would still have an unrealistic hope. If she didn't believe, then there would be no hope at all. So she nodded twice and said to Ruan Xi, "Sister, I believe you!"

There were few people on the mountain path in the early morning. A girl with two pigtails and a pink and white floral short-sleeved shirt was humming a song with her schoolbag on her back. Together with the birdsong in the early morning, she added a touch of liveliness and vitality to the mountains.

Walking to the gate of the tailor shop, Ruan Xi knocked twice and pushed the door open.

Seeing the old tailor sitting in front of the sewing machine in the main room, she walked to the door of the main room, greeted him, and walked into the room. I walked over to the old tailor and saw him drawing with a pencil on brown recycled paper.

Seeing him drawing the shapes and styles of clothes, Ruan Xi was a little surprised - she didn't expect that her master was quite Western-style, and would draw the styles before making clothes for others, instead of simply making them according to a fixed style.

The old tailor didn't look up at her. He said as he was drawing: "I'll draw this today. You can watch from the side and learn as much as you can. If you are interested, you can find some paper and learn to draw."

Ruan Xi stood beside the sewing machine, leaned forward slightly and nodded, "Okay."

The old tailor drew very quickly, and he mainly just drew the general style, so even if he had to draw three sets of clothes, it only took him most of the day.

But today, Ruan Xi was still thinking about other things. After seeing the old tailor finish drawing the pattern, she said goodbye and left the tailor shop.

After leaving the tailor shop, she still did not go home. She went to look for Ling Yao on the hillside where he often grazed pigs and sheep. After finding him on a hillside, she ran over and asked him, "Do you have any books at home?"

Among the entire Fengyan Brigade, the first person she thought of who could borrow books was Ling Yao.

She said last night that she wanted to take Ruan Jie out of the mountains, but it wasn't as easy as she said. She knew in her heart that if they didn't get married, there was only one way they could change their fate, and that was to take the college entrance examination.

She hadn't thought about this before. After all, it was only 1973, and it was still a long time before the college entrance examination was resumed.

She had received intensive study training in a modern school and had attended high school and college, so she was not in a hurry to review. But for someone like Ruan Jie who has almost no foundation, more than four years is obviously not a long time.

She had the memories of her original body and she knew that the little education they had received before was almost the same as no education at all. The words they knew were only very simple ones, roughly at the level of a second or third grader in elementary school.

Ling Yao answered all her questions and asked, "What book?"

Ruan Xi said: "Just study books, textbooks, whatever."

Ling Yao thought for a moment and said, "Let me take you to look for it."

So he drove the pigs home early today and took Ruan Xi back to the stilt house where he lived.

Ruan Xi was naturally familiar with this place. He followed Ling Yao into the house and watched him take out a suitcase from under the bed. This suitcase was obviously often rummaged through. The zipper was not closed and there was no dust on it.

Ling Yao opened the suitcase, looked up at Ruan Xi and said, "The books are all here."

These were the things his father had brought up here at great length. When he was exhausted and collapsed, he thought about throwing away the luggage, but he didn't want to throw away the books in the box. But after bringing him here, he rarely flipped through the pages. Usually, Ling Yao was the one who picked out books to read.

Ruan Xi came over and flipped through the books with him and found that most of the books were about physics. Many of them were so profound that she couldn't understand them. The only two books she could understand a little bit were mathematics and physics textbooks for junior high and high school.

Ruan Xi flipped through the book and asked Ling Yao: "What did your father do before he went up the mountain?"

Ling Yao was now very frank with her and told her everything: "University professor, teaching physics."

Ruan Xi was stunned for a moment - no wonder, Ling Yao could understand such a difficult physics book at such a young age, it turned out that he was influenced by his father and learned it early. Of course, talent should not be underestimated.

Ruan Xi flipped through the book and asked, "Have you studied abroad?"

Ling Yao nodded: "Yeah."

"Then your family should be very rich, right?"

Being rich is not a good thing these days, Ling Yao did not respond.

Ruan Xi raised her head to look at his expression and didn't ask any more questions. She looked through all the books in the box, and found that none of them were suitable for ordinary people to read to learn literacy, so she sorted the books out and covered the box.

Ling Yao watched her close the box and asked, "Isn't there anything you want?"

Ruan Xi nodded, "These books of yours are too difficult. I'll look for someone else."

Ling Yao felt a little regretful, "I'm sorry I couldn't help you."

Ruan Xi looked at him and smiled, then thought for a moment and said, "Can you help me with anything else?"

Ling Yao didn't even ask what he needed help with, and simply nodded, "Sure."

Ruan Xi was stunned by him, then she smiled and said, "My sister and I want to learn, can you teach us? I'll go find the textbooks, and you can teach us from the simplest, okay?"

Ling Yao nodded decisively again, "Yes, okay."

Ruan Xi looked at him with a smile, thinking that he was an angel sent by God.

But in Ling Yao's heart, she is the angel sent by God.

When she came out of the stilt house, it was almost evening. Ruan Xi thought and hesitated for ten minutes on the way home. Finally, she decided to go all out and go directly to her former teacher's house.

In this isolated mountain, she really couldn't think of any other family that had books. In the past, when they went to school, they actually didn’t have textbooks. They just followed the teacher and studied by looking at the blackboard, learning as much as they could.

This teacher used to be the only teacher here, but because of his bad background, he was criticized during the revolution. After that, there were no more teachers here, and all the children became wild children.

Searching her memory for fragments related to this teacher, Ruan Xi felt anxious. She wondered what the teacher was like now and whether he still remembered her, the student who had once joined in the fun and thrown pebbles at him.

Ruan Xi found his house and happened to meet the teacher coming back from work.

He was completely different from what she remembered. He looked much older and more experienced.

Ruan Xi went up to him and greeted him: "Teacher Jin."

Teacher Jin didn't even look at her and said, "I'm no longer a teacher."

Ruan Xi followed him, "You will always be my teacher."

Teacher Jin put down the backpack on his shoulder in the corner and looked back at Ruan Xi, "What do you want to talk to me about?"

Ruan Xi didn't beat around the bush and said directly: "Do you have any books for studying? Textbooks or something like that. I want to study."

Teacher Jin stood there looking at her for a moment, said nothing, then turned and went into the house.

Ruan Xi stood outside waiting anxiously, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Teacher Jin's wife cooking in the house. His two children were lying on the door frame, staring at her as if she were some strange creature.

A few minutes later, Teacher Jin came out with a pile of books in his hands.

He walked up to Ruan Xi, looked at her and said, "There are only Chinese and math for grades one to five. There are no other books. If you want to learn, you can take them and read them yourself, but you have to return them to me after you finish learning them."

There is a lack of everything on this mountain, but the most lacking thing is books.

Ruan Xi breathed a sigh of relief and immediately felt grateful. He quickly reached out to take the book and bowed to Teacher Jin, saying, "Thank you."

Teacher Jin had no expression on her face. She turned around and went back into the house, saying to her, "Take good care of her."

Ruan Xi stood and responded: "I will."

Carrying a pile of books back home, Ruan Xi took deep breaths again and again, as if she was holding the most worthless, most despised, yet most precious thing in the world.

After returning home, she called Ruan Jie into the room, put the book in front of her, and said to her: "This is what I borrowed from Teacher Jin's house. It is just right for people like us to study. If you want to change your destiny, you have to start from here."

As she spoke, her voice dropped, "Knowledge changes destiny!"

After hearing her words, Ruan Jie was not excited. Instead, her eyes were full of confusion. She felt that Ruan Xi was just trying to make her happy.

After a long moment, she said, "Sister, are you serious?" Why does it feel like she is talking nonsense?

Can knowledge change destiny? It is obvious that knowledge leads people into traps and brings people into the mountains. For example, Ling Yao's family in the stilt house are a family of highly educated people, and so are the educated youth who were settled in other villages.

For example, Mr. Jin, whom Ruan Xi just mentioned.

Ruan Xi stared into Ruan Jie's eyes, and without saying anything else, he just asked, "Do you believe me or not?"

Ruan Jie held her breath and hesitated, looking into Ruan Xi's eyes carefully for a long time, making sure that Ruan Xi was not teasing her. She finally took a breath and nodded.

"letter!"