"The last one is Wu Mingxia."
Under the watchful eyes of the Huang family, Old Lady Wu walked to the blackboard. The questions that the village secretary had given had already been completed by the pretentious male educated youth.
"Just erase whatever comes to mind and write whatever you want."
After thinking for a moment, Grandma Wu slowly wrote four large characters on the cleaned blackboard.
With sharp strokes and splattering foam, the village secretary stared at Old Lady Wu's handwriting for a long time, unable to recover from the shock as the last stroke was forcefully pulled.
The four Huang brothers also had tears in their eyes as they looked at the words written by Old Lady Wu.
The illiterate villagers looked at their writing with some anxiety, saying, "What is this written? It looks quite well drawn."
Gou Cuifen raised her chin slightly and said proudly, "Don't you recognize it? I'll read it to you." She cleared her throat and, with her voice, pronounced the four characters in a loud and rhythmic tone.
"A prosperous nation, strong people!"
As soon as he finished reciting, the surroundings became completely silent; you could hear a pin drop.
The village party secretary snapped out of his daze and shouted "Good!" three times.
My face flushed with excitement. "A prosperous and strong nation"—those four words are wonderful.
The village secretary glanced under the platform and spotted the carpenter inside. He quickly asked him to make a rubbing and carve out the four characters.
Even the illiterate villagers were deeply moved by Gou Cuifen's shouts.
Even after they got home, everyone had serious expressions, a stark contrast to the earlier praise from Gu Qing and the others for how well the calligraphy was written.
Knowing they would be going to work the next day, the villagers huddled together, whispering amongst themselves.
"I remember Wu Mingxia's four sons were named Huang Xiaoguo, Huang Xiaofu, Huang Xiaomin, and Huang Xiaoqiang, right?"
Yes, you're not mistaken.
"That's right. Naming your son represents your wish for the prosperity and strength of the motherland. No wonder they can raise pigs back to life."
The woman listening to her words scrunched up her face. Is this how "bringing someone back from the dead" is used?
All day long, everyone was talking about Old Lady Wu's ideological awareness and how she had no selfish motives.
As night fell, the village secretary set up a large blackboard, sat down below it, and called out to each person in turn.
"Today is a pre-lesson. Do your best. Today's task is for each of you to teach everyone five words. If you can remember three of them and recognize them by tomorrow, you will pass."
Three words? That's easy.
Isn't that a piece of cake?
Zhang Jian raised his hand directly. Being the first one has an advantage. Which character to teach and how to teach it will definitely leave a deep impression on everyone.
"Okay. Zhang Jian, you go."
Seeing that he looked like he deserved a beating, Luo Chao turned his back on him. He didn't believe that someone like this could teach people to read.
Zhang Jian stood on the makeshift podium, his arrogant expression clearly visible under the lights.
A hint of displeasure unconsciously flashed across the village party secretary's face.
"Okay, let's get started."
"Okay, okay, I'll begin."
After basking in everyone's attention, he slowly and leisurely wrote five... numbers on the blackboard...
Staring at the numbers 'one, two, three, four, five' on the blackboard.
The village party secretary's face turned dark. "Comrade Zhang Jian!"
"Please don't try to cheat or take advantage of loopholes!"
Zhang Jian looked at the five words on the blackboard and said, "No problem, village secretary. Ask everyone if they know me. Just say it's me."
You dare to talk back?
The village secretary's mustache twitched, and before he could speak, someone retorted angrily, "Who do you think you are, you little brat! Even if we're incredibly skilled, we can't be so ignorant as to not know the most basic numbers, can we?"
"Do you think we weigh the grain every year, how we put it on the scales, how we keep track of the statistics?"
"That's right, don't think that just because you've had a few years of schooling you can look down on us working people."
Everyone chimed in with their own comments, making Zhang Jian on stage blush with embarrassment.
"Alright, alright, everyone, let's all keep quiet."
The village secretary tried to calm everyone down, and looking at Zhang Jian, who was standing on the stage looking helpless, he said, "Why don't you switch groups?"
Zhang Jian completely suppressed his previous smugness and arrogance, and obediently replaced the words with five normal ones.
'Sky, big, man, small, moon.'
The strokes are simple and everyday, so there shouldn't be any problem. Zhang Jian nodded in satisfaction.
But when it comes to actually teaching, you realize how difficult it is.
After teaching for a long time, the villagers could only barely remember the word "person".
Each person is limited to fifteen minutes; otherwise, the time will be too long and affect everyone's rest at night.
The village secretary, keeping track of the time, saw him sweating profusely and waved him down.
Tie Niu stood by early on, watching Zhang Jian to prevent him from cheating and refusing to come down.
Zhang Jian glared at Tie Niu, who was staring at him, and reluctantly threw the chalk in his hand into the box before turning around and walking away.
The village party secretary didn't even bother to look at it anymore.
This petty man is worse than Qi Niuhua from their village; he's utterly pathetic.
Fifteen minutes passed, one after another, as people walked down the stairs.
The villagers were getting impatient. "Village secretary, there are still several people left. How much longer? Everyone has to go to work early tomorrow. If we don't get enough rest at night, how will we have any energy during the day?"
They were just being so boring, all they did was ask, "Did you remember? Did you remember?"
Their brother sat below, wanting to shout out loud, "I didn't remember! I can't remember! These damn city folks!"
Seeing that they were all yawning and their eyes were watery and blinking, the village secretary had no choice but to shorten the time to five minutes, and if that didn't work, they would leave.
In this way, it will be over in no more than half an hour.
Hearing that there was only half an hour left, everyone had no choice but to sit on their chairs and obediently listen to the remaining students give them a lesson.
"Cuifen, call me later."
As he spoke, he leaned on her shoulder, closed his eyes in a daze, and felt like he was in fire one moment and in water the next.
In my half-asleep state, I felt as if I had flown to the moon palace and seen the moon rabbit under the laurel tree.
Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her hand, and Old Mrs. Wu opened her eyes with a start.
"Mingxia, it's your turn."
Gou Cuifen rubbed the back of her hand. "I didn't mean to. It's just that you were sleeping so soundly. I couldn't wake you up no matter what I did."
Grandma Wu shook her head to indicate that she was fine, and then quickly went up on stage.
Seeing Grandma Wu standing on the stage, Gou Cuifen rubbed her fingers together and thought, "My goodness, they feel so nice to touch."
Grandma Wu composed herself and scanned the audience with a serious expression.
Seeing the words written on the blackboard, I had a general idea in my mind.
The characters marked with checkmarks are probably the ones that the people in front taught everyone to recognize.
As for the rest, those were the ones who hadn't been taught.
Old Mrs. Wu erased what they had written, and then, after a moment's thought, replaced it with her own.
'Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth'
Metal, wood, water, fire, wood; heaven and earth are divided into upper and lower. Old Mrs. Wu opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly stopped.
She almost blurted out something when they started cracking down on these feudalistic ideas.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com