Chapter 20
Jian Li really forgot why she broke up with Xia Liu.
Children are always like this, they are fine one second and start to act weird the next.
Especially when entering adolescence, good friends may break up over a small misunderstanding.
This was how it was in their previous life. For some unknown reason, the two of them suddenly stopped talking to each other, and then in the third year of junior high school, the school suddenly announced that it would reshuffle the classes, so Jian Li and Xia Liu were divided into two classes.
When the third year of junior high school finally ended, Jian Li failed to get into the local key high school, and Xia Liu left the cotton spinning factory with his parents and went to another place...
The two got in touch again after work.
Jian Li is a social animal in Beijing, and Xia Liu is a primary school teacher in Tianjin.
Time has not erased the friendship between the two who grew up together. Jian Li would go to Tianjin every weekend and stay in Xia Liu's little nest to play games and eat takeout...
Jian Li felt a little sad when she saw Xia Liu. She thought about how sad Xia Liu would be if she died suddenly in that world.
I wonder if she will cry for herself like Zhen Huan cried for Mei Zhuang.
…
The teacher on the podium tapped the table with the blackboard eraser: "Please sit in the same seats as last semester. I will call the roll after you are seated."
Jian Li bared her teeth at Xia Liule.
Xia Liu: ...I’m angry, but I don’t know what I’m angry about.
Or the girl sitting behind Jian Li poked her: "Jian Li, why are you sitting in Xia Liu's seat? Your seat is here."
He pointed to the side of himself.
Only then did Jian Li realize that she had made a mistake and quickly got up and sat in the back.
Xia Liu became even angrier.
I was angry that Jian Li sat in the wrong seat, but I was also angry that she changed back.
Fortunately, Jian Li was not someone who didn't understand the air. She sat back in her seat and called Xia Liu who was sitting in front of her.
"Xia Liu! Xia Liu!"
Xia Liu turned her head: "What?"
Jian Li said excitedly: "Will the teacher change the seats later? We can sit at the same table!"
Xia Liu didn't say anything.
Jian Li blinked her clear eyes and said, "Your grades are better than mine. Please save a seat for me later!"
The seats in their class were arranged like this: all the students stood at the door, and according to their scores in the last exam, they were called one by one. Those with good scores chose first, and those with bad scores chose later.
After you have chosen the final ones, the teacher will make a few minor adjustments and that’s it.
This seat is usually moved twice per semester.
Once at the beginning of the school year and once after the midterm exam.
Jian Li knew that her grades were not good last semester, so if she wanted to sit at the same table with Xia Liu, she had to let Xia Liu save the seat for her.
Xia Liu: ...I won’t let you have it.
We agreed to never speak to each other again after we broke up.
Jian Li wanted to say something, but the teacher's eyes had already swept over her, so she could only take back her words.
After the roll call, the head teacher asked everyone to go out and start arranging seats.
Names were called one by one, and Jian Li stood on tiptoe anxiously to see if anyone chose the seat next to Xia Liu.
By the time it was her turn, she was already among the last ten.
Jian Li rushed in, sat down next to Xia Liu, and then looked at Xia Liu happily.
"We are desk mates again. We can go home together after school!"
Xia Liu curled up the corners of his mouth unconsciously.
Jian Li took the opportunity to pull her aside and chattered about what she had done during the summer vacation. The two of them were whispering in private and were glanced at several times by the teacher.
After the seats were arranged, the teacher began to collect summer homework and then distributed textbooks.
Jian Li flipped through the new textbook in her hand and casually wrote her name and class on it.
Xia Liu didn't write hers, she planned to take it home and ask her father to write for her.
On the first day of reporting, the teacher basically didn't say anything useful. He just reminded some students to bring their summer homework home the next day, and those who were overdue with tuition to hurry up, and also said that the school was going to start a new course called information technology in the new semester.
Xia Liu secretly asked Jian Li: "What is information technology?"
Jian Li: “It’s a computer.”
Xia Liu was immediately excited: "Computer?!"
Oh my god, their school is going to have computer classes!
Xia Liu was so excited that the classmates in the class also started to discuss. The head teacher stood on the stage with a serious expression: "Quiet!"
"The Information Technology course is taught in turns, so don't get too excited. Every student should bring fifty cents to the class monitor tomorrow. The school will distribute shoe covers before class, and everyone must wear shoe covers when entering the computer room..."
Xia Liu was excitedly discussing the computer class with the students sitting in front and behind him.
"Their No. 1 Middle School opened last year, and my elementary school classmates went to Youcai, which was earlier than us."
“I haven’t even seen a computer yet.”
"That's great. I heard there's a chat room on the computer. We can sit together and chat with each other on the computer."
Jian Li: ...
"Jane Li, why don't you say anything? Have you ever seen a computer?"
Jian Li: ...More than that, she spent half of her last life in front of the computer.
She was not excited simply because the information technology class at school was completely different from what she had imagined.
The computer classes at the Cotton Mill Junior High School were not arranged in a computer room with rows of computers and everyone having their own computer.
But there are only three in the whole school!
The so-called computer class is just a formality.
Everyone went in wearing shoe covers, lined up in three teams, familiarized themselves with turning the computer on and off one by one, and then tapped the keyboard.
Some classes have so many students that it may take more than one class period to finish their turn.
Later on, computer classes were in name only. There were only one or two classes at the beginning of each semester in the computer room. After that, the classes were treated the same as physical education classes. It became the private domain of teachers of various subjects and could be used whenever they wanted.
However, Jian Li did not lose heart. Facing the excitement of others, she just ignored it.
She kept flipping through the textbook.
The school distributed several books, and she flipped through them again and again. The textbooks that she had found boring when she was a child were surprisingly interesting to her now.
The head teacher's surname is Fang. She is a middle-aged woman in her forties who teaches Chinese to four classes.
Teacher Fang saw that she had finished talking about everything for the day, and if she continued, the children might not be able to listen, so she announced the end of school.
"Go home today and write a 500-word essay titled "My Dream". Submit it to the class representative in a week."
Teacher Fang’s habit is to ask the children to write about their dreams at the beginning of each school year, and then return the essay to the children at the end of the semester.
Jian Li's thoughts on reading the textbook were interrupted, and she began to think seriously about how to write her composition.
She and Xia Liu finished school together. Instead of going home with their schoolbags on their backs, they bought a popsicle at the canteen opposite the school.
While eating a popsicle, Jian Li asked Xia Liu how he planned to write his composition.
Xia Liu: "My dream? Going to college."
Reform and opening up have been going on for almost 20 years, and everyone has naturally realized the benefits of studying. Children are encouraged to go to college, and if they are a little more aggressive, they can go to Peking University or Tsinghua University.
Jian Li bit her popsicle stick and said, "What about after college?"
Xia Liu: "Who knows? Just wait for the allocation."
Jian Li: "Don't you know that there won't be any work assignments in the next two years?"
Since last year, more and more universities have stopped guaranteeing job placements. By the time she and Xia Liu finished college, they were free to choose their own jobs.
Xia Liu had a headache thinking about it: "Who knows? Let's take it one step at a time."
Jian Li asked her tentatively: "So... do you want to be a teacher?"
Xia Liu: "I don't like it. I get a headache when I hear children screaming. This summer, I went to my aunt's house and I cried three times just because I helped the children with their homework! My aunt said that if I killed pigs in my last life, I would teach in this life. I definitely don't want to teach."
It’s hard to put Jian Li into words.
It seems that people's dreams are quite different from reality.
…
After school started, Wang Mengmei's stall was not so busy at noon and in the evening.
With Qianping's help, she felt much more relaxed.
Ever since Wang Menglan had that argument with her sister on the phone, she was unwilling to come and pick up Qian Ping.
In the end, it was Qian Ping's father Qian Jin who came.
Qian Jinlai came with two bags of fruit and found the family compound, where he met Jian Feng first.
After just a few words of greeting, Qian Jinlai said apologetically: "Pingping has caused you trouble during this period of time in your house. I came here today to take her back."
No matter how my wife and sister-in-law make trouble, my children cannot always stay here eating and drinking at other people's expense.
Wang Menglan couldn't bring herself to do that, so she asked her husband to take her daughter back.
Jian Feng tentatively asked him what he planned to do after bringing Qian Ping back.
Qian Jinlai took a deep puff of his cigarette and said, "It depends on her mother. She won't go to the United States. She has invested thousands of dollars and can't get them back. I think her mother has given up on this idea... At worst, we can just let her work with us on the construction site, help cook for her mother and give her a hand."
Qian Jinlai did reveal a bit of dissatisfaction with his wife in his words.
Since Qian Ping said that he would not go to the United States, Wang Menglan went to that family to ask for the money. However, the fellow villager, who had said so well before, now directly denied it. Wang Menglan was very angry and has been thinking about how to get the money back.
But this time, I don’t know if that woman will come back after she leaves.
And the rumors started after she left.
Someone in the town said that they heard the couple arguing in the middle of the night. The woman scolded the man for being useless, and the man accused the woman of making dirty money outside.
All in all, the couple's marriage was in name only.
When Wang Menglan went to ask for money, the woman's in-laws simply threw up their hands and said they had none.
When money comes, my heart is burning with anger.
Two thousand yuan, no matter how rich he is, he won't let anyone throw it into the water.
This money was spent without any response.
It makes people feel suffocated.
When Jian Feng heard him say that he wanted to take Qian Ping back to work on the construction site, he immediately frowned.
Qian Ping is a girl who has studied for many years and looks elegant. What were Qian Jinlai and his wife thinking when they brought their daughter to the construction site?
"Brother-in-law, have you asked Ping Ping what her plans are? It seems to me that the child still wants to study."
When Qian Ping came, half of the bag she brought was filled with textbooks.
Jian Li secretly told him that she saw Qian Ping secretly watching in the middle of the night.
"Brother-in-law, what I mean is that since the child has come to the city and you are not short of money, why not enroll the child in a refresher class here? It would be a shame if he didn't go to college after studying for so long."
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