In 2006, National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival coincided.
However, the small factory where Li Xunli works does not give her a full holiday. Instead, she has to go back to work after October 3rd, and then she gets another day off on the Mid-Autumn Festival, October 6th.
Shen Rongzhou works for a legitimate company that observes national holidays, but he also needs to take reasonable time off in accordance with national regulations.
Even by the end of the National Day holiday, the two sets of twelve zodiac animal figurines that Li Xunli had promised to remake for Yao Runyang had only just been fired into blanks.
Because the vehicle management office was also closed for the National Day holiday, Shen Rongzhou's driving test was delayed for a whole holiday.
After the holiday, everyone in the Shen family, from Shen Rongzhou to Shen Yangyang, looked like they couldn't open their eyes properly on their first day back at work or school.
Seeing this, Li Xunli became inexplicably angry and scolded him for fourteen minutes out of the fifteen-minute breakfast.
"You have to take your driving test today. Go through it like this, mistaking the brake for the accelerator. Let's see if you're still sleepy!"
Upon hearing this, Shen Qingqing immediately snapped out of her daze. "Dad, are you going to take your driving test (Part 2)?"
Shen Rongzhou opened his eyes wide: "Yeah, the instructor said I signed up at the last minute. I was so anxious last night that I dreamt about how to drive."
Shen Qingqing glanced at her father sympathetically, stuffed the last piece of egg white into her mouth, grabbed her schoolbag, and patted her father's shoulder: "Dad, you can do it! You can definitely pass!"
On his first day back to school after the holiday, he rode his bicycle to school and was spotted by Chen Man as soon as he arrived at the school gate.
"Qingqing! You bought a bicycle!" Chen Man took off running towards Shen Qingqing, and Chen Yanfeng, who was behind her, wanted to say a few words of advice but didn't have time to do so.
"Hehe, I bought it during the National Day holiday! What do you think? Isn't it nice?" Shen Qingqing patted the seat cushion.
Chen Man looked on with envy. She couldn't ride a bike yet, and asked longingly, "After school this afternoon, can you give me a ride to your house to play?"
As Shen Qingqing pushed her bicycle toward the school, she said, "Sure, I can also take you to see my family's porcelain kiln!"
The school stipulates that students are not allowed to ride bicycles after entering the school, and a designated area at the far end of the playground has been marked out for students to park.
"Great! I've never been there before!" Chen Man nodded vigorously. "I've only been to my uncle's ceramics factory, and it's full of huge machines..."
The two girls were talking as they walked toward the classroom. Just as they stepped onto the steps in front of the classroom, they saw their homeroom teacher, the Chinese language teacher, coming down from upstairs.
"Qingqing, you've come at the right time! Come to the teacher's office!" She said this and left in a hurry.
Shen Qingqing and Chen Man exchanged glances. Chen Man then said, "Give me your schoolbag, you go ahead!"
Shen Qingqing didn't delay, took off her schoolbag and handed it to Chen Man before going to the office.
When she arrived at the office, she discovered that she wasn't the only one called in by the teacher; four older students had also been summoned.
Her homeroom teacher came over with an official document and called the five of them together: "I've called you five here to participate in a provincial primary school Chinese language knowledge competition. Eighteen schools in our city have slots. The first round consists of preliminary, semi-final, and final rounds. The top five in the final round will advance to the city-level competition, which also consists of preliminary, semi-final, and final rounds. After that, it's the provincial competition, with the same schedule."
"Let's not think too much about what comes next. Let's take a look at the first round of the competition. Here are the materials for the first round. The questions aren't difficult; they're basically drawn from this range."
"Furthermore, there are the Four Great Classical Novels, as well as some other famous works from home and abroad. This is a reading list. You can also find some books to read. This weekend is the first round of the preliminary competition. You will arrive at school at the same time as when you go to school, or you can arrive at the first-year classroom fifteen minutes early. Do you understand?"
Shen Qingqing nodded along with the older students, but her eyes seemed somewhat dazed.
She had participated in a similar competition in her past life, but that was when she was in fourth grade. How could it have happened so quickly in this life?
Did that table full of books I used to show off during the last home visit really work its magic so quickly?
Perhaps because Shen Qingqing's expression was too obvious, and because she was the youngest of the five students participating in the competition, the Chinese teacher specially comforted her: "Qingqing, you don't need to worry too much. This competition is just for you to get some experience. Just think of it as a trip for fun."
Shen Qingqing blinked and asked a question that all the students present were quite concerned about: "Teacher, what is the prize for this competition?"
"In the first round, the top five in the final will each receive a prize of fifty yuan, as well as a notebook and a fountain pen."
The Chinese teacher probably thought they had no chance of making it to the city competition, so she stopped there.
Shen Qingqing had no choice but to ask further: "What about the city and provincial competitions?"
The Chinese teacher paused for a moment, but seeing how eager Shen Qingqing was to know, she still told them, "The top five in the city competition will each receive 150 yuan, a medal, and a thermos."
"For the provincial competition, there are three first-prize winners, each receiving 1,000 yuan, a trophy, a schoolbag, a pencil case, and a box of pens. There are five second-prize winners, each receiving 800 yuan, and everything else is the same. There are eight third-prize winners, each receiving 500 yuan, and everything else is the same. There are also ten honorable mentions, who receive no prize money, but the trophy is replaced with a certificate, and everything else is the same."
"Any other questions?" the Chinese teacher asked, scanning the students again.
"Teacher, are the competition content for the city and provincial competitions the same as in the first round, all based on the review materials?" Shen Qingqing asked another question.
“Yes, the scope of the questions is the same, and it’s all in the book list and review materials. But for the city and provincial competitions, there will be more changes in the question types, and subjective questions will also appear.” The Chinese teacher paused and then said to them, “You can focus on the first round of the competition for now.”
Shen Qingqing wisely stopped asking questions, and after listening to a few more words of advice from the Chinese teacher, everyone went back to their respective classes.
After school in the afternoon, Chen Man told Chen Yanfeng and happily got on the back of Shen Qingqing's bicycle to go home with her.
"Qingqing, does that mean you have to memorize all this information after class and homework every day?" Chen Man sat in the back seat, flipping through Shen Qingqing's materials. The more she looked, the more dizzy she became; there were so many words...
"Yes, but the Chinese teacher didn't say we had to memorize it. She just told us to familiarize ourselves with the material."
In fact, Shen Qingqing didn't need to memorize half of the contents of this document, and she only needed to remember the other half.
She is quite familiar with many Chinese classics. After all, during her middle school entrance exam in her previous life, more than a dozen classics were included in the exam scope, and she practiced questions on them until she was sick of them.
The remaining parts about foreign classics are relatively simple knowledge points such as the author's nationality and the story's background, which are not too difficult to remember.
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