Qian Qi didn't have much formal education, but he was a decent person. In his youth, he was brave and aggressive and liked to fight, but after getting married and having a son, he devoted himself to his son. During the years he followed Shi Zhen, although he would use his position to help relatives, he didn't go too far, and Shi Zhen could accept it.
Not to mention that money nowadays is nowhere near as greasy as it was later.
Shi Zhen had lived a long time and knew Qian Qiqi well enough. He casually mentioned that he had practiced kung fu in the mountains since he was a child and had defeated many people, which made Qian Qiqi admire him.
Shi Zhen then praised Qian Qi a few more times: "You are two years younger than me and haven't grown up yet. You'll be at a disadvantage if you fight me. If you seriously train for a few more years, I might not be able to beat you."
"I'd like to practice, but I don't know how... Can you teach me? I'll become your apprentice!" Qian Qi wanted to be invincible in all the nearby villages.
"I can, but I don't have much time."
"It's okay, I have plenty of time! I'm available whenever you're free!" Qian Qi said.
He didn't continue his studies after graduating from junior high school. As for work, he can't find a suitable job for a while, so he just stays at home every day doing farm work or watching TV with others, which is incredibly boring.
If I could become a martial arts master... that would be so cool!
Shi Zhen didn't mince words. He immediately taught Qian Qiqi a few classic exercises and then shared some modern fitness knowledge with him: "In ancient times, there was a saying that 'the poor study literature, the rich study martial arts,' because practicing martial arts requires a good diet. This doesn't mean eating fatty meat, but rather protein, such as lean pork, chicken, duck, and eggs. Only by eating enough protein can you build muscle. Try to eat more eggs every day. If you don't have any at home, find a way to earn money to buy some."
Qian Qi suddenly realized what was going on.
Shi Zhen pondered that if Qian Qiqi followed the movements he taught him, and practiced crunches and push-ups diligently, and ate enough protein... he couldn't guarantee how good Qian Qiqi would be at fighting, but he would definitely develop biceps, chest muscles, and abdominal muscles.
"My parents would never let me eat this well... I don't really have any way to make money right now..." Qian Qi was a little annoyed. His family was just average, and their income came from raising pigs and silkworms. Although they raised chickens and usually had plenty of eggs, he had several siblings, parents, and grandparents... It was impossible for him to eat a plate of fried eggs all by himself.
But this person in front of me says that if you don't eat meat, you wouldn't mind eating five or six eggs a day. This...
"Go to town more often, you might be able to find a job," Shi Zhen said to him, and gave him Guan Baiyu's address, telling him to come and visit him when he had time.
After finishing all this, Shi Zhen went back and continued his work.
That evening, Qian got up and came to find him.
When Qian Qi came over, Shi Zhen was stewing a pig's head that he would sell the next day. As soon as Qian Qi came in, he was attracted by the rich aroma and couldn't help but swallow: "Master, what are you stewing?"
"Pig's head," Shi Zhen said.
"Pig head... I love eating pig head meat the most. Every year during the Spring Festival, we eat salted pig head. I can finish a whole bowl of rice with just a small piece of meat." Qian Qi said with a nostalgic look.
Qian Qi ran around Shi Zhen, talking to him, while Guan Baiyu glanced at him curiously.
Qian Qi was quite famous in his junior high school. He had started a gang called the Green Dragon Gang with more than a dozen members... However, the Green Dragon Gang disbanded after Qian Qi graduated from junior high school.
This "gang" usually likes to skip classes, climb over the wall to go out and play... Their school is not strict, they can go out through the main gate, I don't know why they like to climb over the wall.
They've gotten into quite a few fights with people from other schools since they started making money.
Last year, when Qian Qi and his classmates graduated from junior high school, they went to the high school in town to take their graduation exams. However, because some people at that high school looked down on the students from their school, they beat up several high school students.
However, Qian Qilai would not bully people for no reason; on the contrary, he would protect the weak, so Guan Baiyu had a good impression of him.
Now, Qian Qi calls his brother "Master"?
Guan Baiyu looked at the money and seemed a little unhappy.
Qian Qi also saw Guan Baiyu at this moment: "Hey! What's your name? You look familiar."
“He is my younger brother, Guan Baiyu. You went to the same junior high school, so you should have met him before,” Shi Zhen said. “He is currently in the third year of junior high school and is ranked first in his grade.”
"First in the grade? That's amazing!" Qian Qi said with some admiration. "Sigh, I used to have very good grades too, I could always get scores in the eighties. But I broke my leg in fifth grade and had to stay home to recover for a few months. When I went back to school, I couldn't understand anything."
Guan Baiyu: "..." Is scoring in the 80s in elementary school considered a very good grade?
Qian Qiqi was very talkative and told Shi Zhen a lot of things. He also wanted to test his "kung fu" skills with Shi Zhen again.
Shi Zhen did not refuse and pressed him to the ground again.
Men, especially young men, get to know each other as they fight. Qian Qi chatted with Shi Zhen for a long time, and when he left, he even bought two catties of pig's head meat.
Although he was unemployed, he would sometimes go to the river to catch small fish and shrimp, and collect snails, which he would then take to town to sell, earning him a little money.
After Qian Qi left, Guan Baiyu asked Shi Zhen, "Brother, how do you know Qian Qi?"
Shi Zhen said, "I heard he was very powerful, so I challenged him to a fight, and that's how we met."
Guan Baiyu was a little confused. He had always thought his brother was a very steady person. It turned out his brother liked to fight.
However, men of this age do like to play around and joke around, and his brother does look like a young man now.
Shi Zhen lived thirty years longer than Qian Qi, twenty of which were during the information explosion era.
He also read many books.
In this way, no matter what Qian Qilai says, he can chime in and even talk about things that Qian Qilai doesn't know. For example, if Qian Qilai mentions martial arts novels, Shi Zhen can recount the life experiences of those masters who wrote martial arts novels.
This made Qian Qiqi admire him even more, and he came again early the next morning.
Upon learning that his master was going to town to sell pig's head meat that morning, he decided to come and help.
It's not right to learn from others for nothing, right?
Shi Zhen didn't refuse. He told Guan Baiyu to rest at home while he and Qian Qiqi took the pig's head meat to town to sell, and continued chatting with Qian Qiqi along the way.
He casually steered the conversation to the junior high school that Qian Qilai and Guan Baiyu attended, and then mentioned Yan Jiangtao.
“My brother gets excellent grades at school, which makes him the target of jealousy. There’s a guy named Yan Jiangtao who always talks about him being dirty and bullies him,” Shi Zhen said.
"Such a thing happened? Master, should I teach him a lesson for you?"
“Do I need you to teach him a lesson? It would be so easy for me to beat him up, but my brother still has to go to school… If I beat him up, I’m afraid he’ll cause trouble for my brother,” Shi Zhen said.
That day, after Yan Jiangtao cursed Guan Baiyu in front of him, Shi Zhen wanted to teach the man a lesson that very night.
But there aren't many outsiders in this rural area, the buildings are low-density, and there are hardly any trees or anything like that, so it would be difficult for him to secretly beat up Yan Jiangtao when no one could see him.
And if he were seen by someone... Yan Jiangtao would definitely retaliate against Guan Baiyu.
He can't be by Guan Baiyu's side to protect him all the time. What if Yan Jiangtao hits Guan Baiyu when he can't see him?
Even if Yan Jiangtao doesn't hit Guan Baiyu, if he goes to the teacher or his parents, he and Guan Baiyu are likely to suffer losses.
Guan Baiyu's adoptive parents don't care about him, and he... he's an outsider with no roots here.
Therefore, Shi Zhen decided to find another way to deal with Yan Jiangtao.
He delayed doing this for a week, hoping that Yan Jiangtao wouldn't suspect him and Guan Baiyu.
“That makes sense… So what should we do?” Qian Qi asked, conflicted. “If I were still in school, I could tell people that I’m in charge of your brother, Master, but I’ve already graduated…”
Shi Zhen said, "There's a way... Didn't you say you have a few underlings who are still in the third year of junior high school? You can do it like this..."
Shi Zhen shared his thoughts with Qian Qi.
He wouldn't let Qian Qi and his associates do anything illegal, but Yan Jiangtao's mouth was too foul, so he had to be taught a lesson.
What Shi Zhen said wasn't difficult to do, and it even seemed quite interesting. Qian Qi readily agreed, eager to give it a try.
Meanwhile, Guan Baiyu was also pondering Yan Jiangtao's matter.
He used to ignore Yan Jiangtao's insults, but when Yan Jiangtao insulted him in front of his brother and said that his brother's products were bad, he got a little angry.
That might affect his brother's business!
But Yan Jiangtao still comes to school happily every day, complaining that the pig's head meat he brings for lunch is disgusting... This matter definitely can't be left like this.
Shi Zhen arrived in town around 6 a.m., and by the time he sold a bowl of pig's head meat it was already past 8 a.m., which was much slower than before.
He didn't let Qian Qiqi help him sell. Instead, Qian Qiqi went to a nearby shop and ate a bowl of noodles with pickled vegetables and shredded pork. He only came to find him when he was closing up shop.
"Master, shall we go home now?" Qian Qi asked.
Shi Zhen shook his head: "Let's go back later. Let's go to Xinhua Bookstore first."
He planned to buy some practice problems for Guan Baiyu to do.
He asked Guan Baiyu, who said that there would be an exam at school in a week, after which the spots for direct admission to high school would be determined, and that the direct admission would be based on the scores of this exam and the scores of the previous semester's final exam.
He had confidence in Guan Baiyu, but felt that Guan Baiyu should further solidify his knowledge in various aspects.
Even if she is admitted through the recommendation program, according to J City's regulations, Guan Baiyu still has to take the high school entrance exam. However, as a recommended student, she can get into the school with a much lower score.
Let me put it this way: if Guan Baiyu's school didn't have a guaranteed admission quota, I guarantee that not a single student would get into a top-tier school in Changxi City. But with a guaranteed admission quota, even if you score a few dozen or a hundred points lower, someone like Guan Baiyu would definitely get in.
Twenty or thirty years from now, children's parents often buy them a lot of extra practice problems, but they still don't do them. But at this time... Xinhua Bookstore sells very few extra practice problems, not to mention that Guan Baiyu couldn't even get the ones he wanted.
In addition, Guan Baiyu had no extracurricular books at all, and had only read some books in their school's reading room.
There is a Xinhua Bookstore in the town, which is also the only bookstore. Right next to the Xinhua Bookstore is a stationery store.
Shi Zhen didn't have much money. He remembered that Guan Baiyu had already bought stationery last time, so he didn't go to the stationery store, but went into the bookstore instead.
At that time, the prices of many industrial products were similar to those twenty or thirty years later, and books were not cheap either. Shi Zhen looked around and selected two exercise books for junior high school students, which cost a total of 12 yuan.
After choosing his workbook, he looked at some extracurricular books... There weren't many extracurricular books available at that time, and they weren't cheap either. Shi Zhen finally chose a book called "Five Thousand Years of Chinese History," priced at 18.7 yuan.
After paying the cashier, who was rather unfriendly, Shi Zhen carried the books home.
Qian Qi glanced at the book and felt some sympathy for Guan Baiyu: "You're going to make Guan Baiyu do all these problems? And there's such a thick book, will Guan Baiyu even be able to finish reading it?"
Shi Zhen said, "There aren't many questions, and as for that book, he probably won't be able to finish it in a long time." He remembered that Guan Baiyu read very quickly. Of course, Guan Baiyu hadn't done a lot of reading before, so he would probably read a little slower, but he didn't think it would be too slow.
Qian Qi felt even more sorry for Guan Baiyu.
As Shi Zhen and Qian Qilai walked and chatted, they mostly talked about Qian Qilai's junior high school days. As he listened, he couldn't help but worry about the teaching quality of Guan Baiyu's junior high school.
He always knew that the teaching quality of rural schools was generally poor at that time, but it was a bit much that Qian Qi didn't even know the order of dynasties like "Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing".
However, Guan Baiyu should know this knowledge.
After all, Qian Qi was a school bully who started going to school in the third year of junior high, while Guan Baiyu was the top student in the fast class.
When Shi Zhen returned with the books, Guan Baiyu was sewing a quilt cover.
He recently discovered that Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo didn't even have bedding; they could only sleep on straw mats and wearing cotton-padded jackets.
They even slept under a bridge before!
Guan Baiyu felt a pang of heartache and thought about making some quilts or something for Shi Zhen and the others—his grandmother used to weave cloth on a loom in her early years, and because she didn't want to give anything to her daughter-in-law, she had saved up a lot of cloth.
Originally, if these cloths were new, they would definitely have been divided up by his adoptive mother and aunt after his grandmother passed away. However, his grandmother had been bedridden for almost two years before she died. At that time, she knew that her life was not long, so she not only tried to eat well, but also took out all the blankets and clothes that she had been reluctant to use before and used them to cover herself and wear them.
Before the old woman passed away, she inevitably had a lingering odor, so much so that when she died, her aunt didn't want those things, and her adoptive mother also stubbornly refused to take them.
He asked Shi Zhen, who didn't mind using his grandmother's belongings, so he took out those quilt covers and sheets, washed and dried them, and then sewed them together.
Upon seeing Shi Zhen return, Guan Baiyu immediately stood up: "Brother, why did it take you so long to come back?"
"Business hasn't been very good lately," Shi Zhen said. No matter what kind of food it is, there will be more customers when it first comes out, but business will not be so good after a while.
However, if no one else is competing for his business, he can still sell three pig heads a day.
As for the future... we'll definitely need to develop other products.
Guan Baiyu was a little worried, but Shi Zhen didn't take it seriously. He took out the books he had bought from his bag and gave them to Guan Baiyu: "Xiaoyu, aren't you going to have exams soon? You can do some of the questions in these, and you can also read this book in your spare time."
Guan Baiyu was pleasantly surprised that Shi Zhen had bought him a book, but was shocked when he saw the price tag: "So expensive!"
"It's alright, but books are definitely expensive... I can read with you," Shi Zhen said.
Guan Baiyu gently touched the book in his hand: "I will definitely read it carefully!"
It was still early, so Shi Zhen put down the empty basin, took another basin, and went to town again.
He didn't go this time because his master had given him some instructions, and he needed to make some arrangements.
Shi Zhen went to town three times that day and sold three pig heads.
A few days ago, because the iron pot at home was often used to stew pig's head, Shi Zhen and the others ate very simply and didn't cook any stir-fries at all.
But the pot was empty today, so Shi Zhen cooked a few dishes for dinner.
Stir-fried eggs with scallions and buckwheat, stewed tofu with lettuce leaves, and a piece of pork head meat for each person—the three of them were all very full.
Guan Baiyu slept with a smile on his face that night.
However, the next day...
Guan Baiyu tore two plastic bags from the stack that Shi Zhen had bought for his business and put them into his schoolbag.
Every day after lunch, Yan Jiangtao would go outside the classroom and smoke with a few friends, leaning against the teaching building.
He always thought it was a really cool thing.
He was smoking when two plastic bags filled with water suddenly fell from above and hit him on the head.
Before he could react, he was hit all over the face, the smell of mud spreading, and the cigarette in his mouth went out instantly.
Yan Jiangtao, who was showing off his newly bought bicycle, was instantly stunned. What disgusted him even more was that the water was dirty!
What on earth is this thing?
Yan Jiangtao was furious. He quickly looked up, but saw nothing: "Who threw me!"
After Yan Jiangtao's family became wealthy, he became very particular about cleanliness. Being pelted with something like that naturally enraged him, and he was determined to find the person who threw it at him.
Their school building only had three floors. He went to the classrooms on the top two floors, where people were eating. Everyone said that no one would throw him away, so he went to his own classroom...
Those classmates who had conflicts with him were all eating peacefully. Guan Baiyu, whose living conditions had improved recently, had just finished his pig's head meat rice.
After all that trouble, Yan Jiangtao not only failed to find the person who threw him, but also had his disheveled appearance seen by many people. In the end, he left the school in a huff and went home to take a shower.
Guan Baiyu took his enamel mug, which he had brought with him lunch, and went to the sink to wash it.
Before eating, he made an excuse to go to the toilet and went to the rooftop.
There are two doors on the rooftop: one is a wooden door secured with a bolt, which anyone can open; the other is an iron door that is locked.
The iron gate consisted of several iron bars, one of which was corroded. If you pried it open, you could make it bigger. He was short, so he could take off his coat and squeeze through the iron bars.
Once on the rooftop, he calculated the location, set up a small mechanism, placed a plastic bag filled with water and a little mud on it, and then went back to the classroom.
He had just returned to the classroom when those two bags of water were thrown at Yan Jiangtao's head...
He thought he would have to try several times to succeed, or that he might not be able to hit Yan Jiangtao on the head, but he succeeded on the first try.
Guan Baiyu heard everyone in the classroom talking about Yan Jiangtao, but instead of joining in, he took out the math problems that Shi Zhen had bought for him and started working on them.
He had never seen many of the questions before, and it would take him some effort to solve them.
Yan Jiangtao definitely won't be coming to school this afternoon; he can take his time.
Yan Jiangtao did not come to school in the afternoon, which left several junior high students who rarely came to school a little dumbfounded.
They had prepared water from the ditch, intending to drench Yan Jiangtao and then make fun of him, but now that Yan Jiangtao wasn't there... they could only use that bucket of water to water the vegetables planted behind the school.
You should know that this water is no ordinary water; it's incredibly fertile!
Beside that ditch, a family built a shack and raised more than a dozen pigs. Every few days when they cleaned the pigsty, they would use water to flush the pig manure into the ditch.
The weeds near that ditch are much more lush than in other places. Last time, a child accidentally fell in, and his parents washed him three times from head to toe without a second thought.
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