Despite wearing a straw hat, the scorching sun still made my head throb, and large beads of sweat kept dripping down.
Xiao Jiu took out his water bottle, took a sip of cool mung bean water, and then spoke slowly and deliberately.
"What's wrong with having a rural household registration? Both of them have salaries, so why would they worry about not being able to support their child? Besides, you yourself are from a rural area, so how can you look down on someone with a rural household registration?"
She wouldn't flatter anyone, but she also wouldn't allow anyone to bring it up. Fortunately, the aunt understood her unspoken meaning and quickly eased the tension.
"Look at what you're saying, girl. I didn't mean anything by it. Everyone knows that having a city household registration means having access to grain rations, which is different from us toiling in the fields for a living."
“I think my sister is doing very well now. Our whole family is very content. As for my brother-in-law, he is also a child who grew up in the countryside, relying on the kindness of many families. He is a descendant of eight generations of poor peasants. Even after becoming an official, he did not forget his roots. He took a liking to my sister at first sight. I believe they will grow old together. Auntie, just watch. My sister will definitely make a good life for them!”
Unexpectedly, the eldest daughter next to her chuckled: "Your sister may be doing well now, but things might change after she has the baby. The two of them will definitely fight over whose surname the child should take. Which son-in-law in this surrounding village is easy to be? Especially since your brother-in-law is an official. In the future, your sister might be serving him tea, water, washing his feet, and taking care of the baby. Whether he's a live-in son-in-law or not depends on the man's abilities."
The young men in the village also came over to gossip: "Hey little girl, why don't you ask your second sister how she changed her agricultural household registration to an urban household registration? She did, so your eldest sister can definitely do it too. Why don't you two find a way to get your eldest sister to do it as well!"
Xiao Jiu frowned: "When did my second sister change her rural household registration to urban? She still has a rural household registration. Changing it from rural to urban isn't that easy. Unless she gets into a vocational school, it will be extremely difficult!"
"Hey, you're still keeping it a secret? Everyone in our brigade knows that Tang Cuiju has already changed her status from rural to urban. The brigade leader said, don't think we don't know anything. Speaking of which, these Tang sisters are quite capable. They can even get rural-to-urban status changed, which shows they know more than one person at the higher-ups. Since they can get the second and third sisters to do it, I think it's not impossible for your eldest sister to get rural-to-urban status too. Don't you all agree?"
Xiao Jiu wasn't going to fall for that: "My third sister was lucky. She went to the city with a large number of migrant workers and got a job. My second sister didn't get a job, and I can't help it if you don't believe me. As for my eldest sister, she already has a formal job. So what if she doesn't get a job in the future?"
Did it interfere with her earning money, or did it involve having a baby?
Instead of wasting your breath on this, you should let your children study hard so they can escape rural life through their own abilities!
After saying that, Xiao Jiu didn't say anything more. If anyone asked her again, she wouldn't say a word. Except for occasionally drinking some water, she kept her head down and did her own work the whole time.
No one responded, and they felt bored, so no one asked any more questions.
Whether Tang Cuiju actually changed her status from rural to urban is no longer important. So what if she used connections? As long as the procedure is followed correctly, who can stop her?
However, we can't say it openly; if there's no evidence, we'll just deny it to the death.
Tang Cuiju lived up to expectations, sending a letter back before Xiao Jiu entered school to inform her that she had been admitted to Luosan High School.
In other words, the second sister passed the high school entrance exam through self-study. Although the school was not very prestigious, you can tell how difficult it was to get into high school in those days just by looking at Tao An, who worked so hard that he lost his hair.
She worked while studying on her own and passed the high school entrance exam, which is no ordinary ability.
What surprised Xiaojiu even more was that the school admired her learning ability and made an exception to allow her to attend morning and evening self-study sessions with the students.
This gave Tang Cuiju the opportunity to ask her teacher for advice. She wouldn't regress just because Xiao Jiu and Yuan Yuan entered the school. As long as she was willing to learn, she would still have opportunities.
Work has holidays, and the school only gives students a break every two weeks, which is quite generous. The high school is not far from home, so living on campus and cycling can easily balance both.
She only paid three yuan a semester, which included all the review materials. In Xiaojiu's opinion, this was a really reasonable price.
Eighth Sister is equally tireless in her efforts. Since Seventh Sister started working, Eighth Sister has taken on the opportunity to teach, and she studies even more diligently. She is afraid that if she doesn't understand something, she might get stuck or be unable to answer when she teaches Seventh Sister. So before going home, she makes sure to thoroughly understand the knowledge taught by the teacher that day before she goes home.
In her spare time outside of work, Seventh Sister would take out her homework to do, and Eighth Sister would bring it to school the next day for the teacher to help correct it.
They haven't regressed in the past few months, which shows how much effort the two sisters have put in.
Therefore, whether you can seize an opportunity depends on your own fate.
Xiao Jiu was admitted to the military medical university and will become a proud soldier. Before leaving home, she piled up a lot of canned meat in the cellars of both families, enough for about half a year's consumption. She planned to mail the rest, such as grain, to them when she had the chance.
When you go to military medical university, you don't need to prepare anything. Just bring your personal belongings and the admission notice. Once you arrive at the school, everything will be distributed to you.
Yuan Yuan had stayed at our house for a while before, and knowing that the two of them were leaving together, we didn't send any family members to see them off.
Before leaving, she had a family reunion dinner. Her parents stroked her head reluctantly and gave her some advice.
"A military doctor is first and foremost a soldier. Since you've chosen this profession, do it well. We're young, so don't be reckless when you get there. They'll definitely give you a break, right?"
Perhaps because Xiao Jiu had never caused her family any worry since she was a child, they weren't too concerned even though it was just a trip from Luo City to Xi City.
She even thought, "It's the weekend, I have time, so I'll go see your fourth sister. You two sisters live in the same city, so you can look after each other. And your second brother and his family, aren't they in Xishi too? Keep in touch, and come back when you have a holiday."
These nagging little drinks were silently remembered, and amidst everyone's anticipation, the eldest sister saw them off on the bus to Los Angeles.
When she went back to school to register for her university admission notice, she already knew that her roommates had all been admitted to university.
Just like her name suggests, Zhou Shengnan was determined and got into a good communications engineering college in the province. Although it was not as famous as the one in Nanshi, it was still a military academy, which was quite satisfactory.
Gao Mingxia did well on the exam and was successfully admitted to the Animal Medicine program at Henan Agricultural University.
Peng Juan and Pang Weiwei did only moderately well on their exams. Although they were admitted to ordinary finance and economics colleges and teachers' colleges in Luoyang, at least they got to study the majors they wanted and weren't assigned to other majors, which was fortunate.
As a result, after the start of the semester, she and Yuan Yuan went to Xishi, Zhou Shengnan and Gao Mingxia went to the provincial capital, and Peng Juan and Pang Weiwei went to university in Luoshi. Everyone went their separate ways.
Before they even had a chance to meet, Xiao Jiu started packing her bags. Before leaving, she even made a special trip to visit the Weng family elders.
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