Xu Qingzhi asked directly: "I want to ask you something, is it convenient now?"

"Well, Zhizhi, you ask."

Huo Fengyan's voice was a little softer than usual.

Xu Qingzhi didn't think much about it and asked, "The day before New Year's Day, you were with a woman?"

"I was working at the company that day, and I went back to my old house after work. There was no woman there." Huo Fengyan said, and then he seemed to remember, "If Huo Ying counts as one, I gave her a ride along the way."

Xu Qingzhi had some idea in his mind and guessed that it would be like this.

"I see. Have you had lunch?"

"Not yet. I'm in a meeting right now."

Xu Qingzhi asked: "Now?"

"Um."

"I'm in a meeting, so why don't you answer the phone?"

"Zhizhi, you rarely call me, I thought you had something urgent."

Xu Qingzhi: “…”

"Then you go ahead and hang up."

After hanging up the phone, Xu Qingzhi said seriously: "I have found out, Sister Ping, that girl is his cousin."

Zhou Ping obviously didn't believe it, "Then just treat it as a misunderstanding."

Xu Qingzhi did not want to explain further. She had little affection for her relatives. She was just concerned about the relationship between her aunt and uncle, so that was all she had to say.

The elementary school was very small, so she went to take a look at the old classroom.

When she was in preschool, she was still in the dilapidated building that was demolished. This is the newly built classroom. The new teaching building has four floors. It was built by people from the village, mostly parents of students. They also paid wages, but the wages were low. Her parents participated in the construction.

She studied here in the first grade.

The old iron gate here is still there, but it is locked and can't be entered.

Xu Zijun also studied here. When this iron gate was in her class, everyone was well-behaved. But when it came to her brother's class, every student lined up to play, and the teachers couldn't control them.

He jumped down from the stairs several floors high, then grabbed the bars on the iron gate with both hands and swung in the air.

Everyone also has to compete with each other to see who can jump up more stairs.

Her brother broke his hand and came back crying. He was scolded by his parents and sent to the hospital. His hand was first treated and bandaged, and then his buttocks were severely beaten.

At that time, I had no idea what was going on and was talking about causing trouble for the school.

After all, there are so many students, and they are at a naughty age, so it is impossible for the teachers to manage them all.

Most of the time, parents beat children when they are disobedient, and never blame the teachers.

Now the door of the classroom on the first floor is half-open, and inside is piled with rice bags belonging to someone unknown family.

She took a picture of the old classroom with her mobile phone and shared it with Huo Fengyan.

The old classroom in the photo is no longer the clean and tidy classroom in my memory.

I still remember that every Wednesday was a time for cleaning, and the marble floor would be mopped and rubbed until it was shiny. At first, in order to maintain cleanliness, the teacher asked everyone to take off their shoes before entering, but since we were young, there was a pile of shoes at the door, and we squeezed in front of the door, and it took a long time to put on shoes.

Within a few days, this rule was abolished.

The yellow paint on the wooden frames, glass windows, and vertical iron poles has become so mottled that no traces of the previous appearance can be seen, revealing only the original appearance of rust.

There are still some vague traces on the blackboard newspaper at the back of the classroom. I don’t know which class it was left from, but it must be the last traces of students in this school.

The tender children's voices always responded to the teacher in unison, "Please sit down."

The little body stood straight with his hands folded across the wooden desk.

These are the rules taught by the new young female teacher.

She remembered that winter when it was snowing heavily and her parents were afraid that she would be cold, so they asked her to carry the stove from home to school.

Several students in the class brought stoves, and the others who didn't bring any would gather with the students who had stoves to keep warm after class.

The winter at that time was really cold, it seemed much colder than in recent years.

At first she brought a bamboo stove from home, which she could put her feet on to keep warm during class. Later, when she was going downhill one time, she slipped on the snow and fell on her butt, breaking the stove.

Her father used an empty paint bucket from another household, burned holes in it on both sides, and then went to a car repair shop to get a piece of thick wire, which he hooked through the holes and wrapped tightly around it to use as a handle, and it became a stove.

Xu Qingzhi really likes this stove.

If the charcoal inside is not burning vigorously, use a wooden stick to turn it over and bring up the unburned black charcoal underneath. It is very simple to ignite it quickly.

Just hold the stove with your arms stretched straight, drawing big circles. The yellow fire inside is burning very vigorously, and you can see with the naked eye that the yellow fire is spreading on the black charcoal bit by bit like veins.

In winter, she and her classmates would always compete to see who wore more clothes and pants.

She always wears at least three pairs of pants: a pair of inner pants, a pair of woolen pants in the middle, and a pair of black fleece pants on the outside.

Black pants are stain-resistant, so you only need to wash them once a week and wear them for a week.

Wear four or five pieces of clothing.

An inner shirt, two sweaters, and a coat, either purple or bright red.

The sweater was not bought. It was either knitted by my great aunt or given to me by a relative.

Sometimes when she didn’t win the competition, she would complain to her mother when she got home, saying that some classmate wore more clothes than her and that she would have to wear two more pieces of clothes the next day.

Her mother came with her, and when she asked for more clothes, her mother really gave them to her.

In my memory, she was always wrapped up like a chubby little girl in winter.

Of course, in this atmosphere of "comparing with each other", all students have this image without exception.

Even though so many years have passed, these memories are still crystal clear in my mind.

When I was in elementary school, I have few memories about studying. Most of the time, I would play around with my classmates pretending to be the Jade Emperor and the Queen Mother during breaks, or I would pinch the yellow soil from the school flower beds and mix it with water to play with it. We would try to beat it into a square cube and compete to see whose soil was more square.

There is even a small river next to the school, and the low earthen slopes by the river have become a place for everyone to play with soil.

Dig a hole up and down, then fold a wooden stick and insert it into the hole, pour in the loose soil from above, and after repeated screening, you can get particularly fine and soft yellow soil.

Even this is a competition to see who can sift out the finest yellow mud.

Now think about it, what’s the point of playing like this?

But at that time, I just thought it was so fun.

You can buy a picture card of Journey to the West for 2 cents, and cut them out carefully one by one with scissors.

It was only 20 cents per set, but among classmates it was like hard currency, and Gu set his own set of rules.

Even during holidays, I couldn't stay at home at all. I only stayed at home during meal times.

After dinner, I can go to my classmates’ homes, visit friends here and there, or make plans to go out and play somewhere.

The locations are mostly either a mountain or a ditch.