Chapter 111

Extra: "Yan Xiang's Daily Life at the Radio Station"

Mom doesn't have a watch, but Yan Xiang can tell how long it takes to travel this distance by feeling.

When he first told his mother, she was surprised, then she touched his head and sighed: "Alas, the genius is too full."

Genius Yan Xiang understood.

What does "too full" mean? Does it mean to eat too much?

Every day he and his mother went to that section of the road hand in hand.

Humming songs.

The sun was bright and the morning breeze was clear.

Mom would greet people she knew loudly, calling them sister-in-law or elder sister.

Everyone had a smile on their face. Some people walked hurriedly and would turn around and call their mother: "The Li family said they have pork elbows today! Hurry up! I'll go and help you line up first!"

The mother would quickly pick him up and jog after them.

The pork elbows were so hard to get. It was very hard to

get them.

The mother was very happy to get the pork elbows. That night, the family had pork elbows with sauce.

The mother also cut a bowl and brought it to everyone in Zhao's family.

Yan Xiang kindly reminded Junjun to brush his teeth after dinner, and Junjun stuck out his tongue and made faces at him.

Later, Junjun's teeth broke and he cried in pain. Yan Xiang was not surprised at all.

Humph.

After buying groceries every day, he would go home leisurely in the sunshine, clean up the house, and then his mother would take him to work at the radio station.

Yan Xiang heard his mother exclaim more than once: "It's a god's job."

Yan Xiang: "?"

I don't quite understand.

But Yan Xiang likes the radio station very much.

Starting from the gate of the town committee compound, he began to greet people: "Hello, uncle!"

The uncle in the communication room would wave to him with a smile: "Yan Xiang is here."

Along the way, he would politely greet every uncle, aunt and uncle he knew.

Some people even opened the window and called him when they heard his voice: "Hey! Little Yan Xiang! You haven't said hello to me yet!"

Yan Xiang would stop politely and greet them seriously.

He didn't understand why those adults laughed. But those laughs sounded cheerful and made people feel good.

And they would often take candy out of their pockets and say, "Here you go."

The town committee compound was a great place to earn candy!

As long as the children were polite, they would get candy!

The thing Yan Xiang was most proud of was that he had his own table in the radio station.

But unfortunately, none of Gangzi, Huazi, Yingzi, or Junjun believed him. They said he was bragging.

This made Yan Xiang very angry, but he couldn't prove it. He couldn't bring them to work.

Yan Xiang could only work hard.

A serious day started with going to the library to select books.

The library was simply a treasure trove.

It was just that the librarian was a little lazy. He was always drowsy on the table and often could not be found.

He only cleaned the library, but was often careless about tidying up the books and sorting them.

Yan Xiang had no choice. As a very big kid and working in the town committee, Yan Xiang had to take on the responsibility of sorting the books.

There were many books that could be classified at a glance.

For some that could not be seen, he would ask his mother.

He quietly put the misplaced books back to the category they belonged to and left. No adult noticed until he left the radio station with his mother and went to the county.

Many years later, Yan Xiang told his mother about this.

Dad didn't believe it. He said, "How old were you then? Don't brag."

Mom was surprised, but not shocked. She wasn't surprised at all.

Yes, she was never surprised by anything he did.

She would just touch his head and laugh.

But she never mentioned the word "mengsung" again.

Choosing a book from the library was the beginning of Yan Xiang's day.

His favorite books were those with both text and pictures.

Because many of the nouns in the text represented things he had never seen before. Illustrations could help him better understand what those nouns meant and how those principles were realized in reality.

Of all the books, the one that fascinated him the most was the Militia Training Manual, because it used very simple and straightforward language, supplemented by a large number of pictures to explain, from the most basic conditions to the imperialist missiles flying through the white clouds in the blue sky.

It was so fascinating.

This set of books was very important in Yan Xiang's childhood.

When he was at the radio station, he read it over and over again.

His serious reading often made the uncles and aunts at the radio station laugh.

Yan Xiang never quite understood these laughters of adults, but there was no malice in these laughters.

Uncle Tianming also liked to read books. According to Yan Xiang's understanding, his job at the radio station was to read books and water the flowers.

Every day when he came to the radio station, he would carry a kettle to get hot water and make tea. Then he would go to water his precious flowers.

Everyone had a pot of flowers on the windowsill or desk. Later, my mother also had a pot of flowers, and she did not take it with her when she left.

She thought she would come back.

But she never came back to the radio station.

The pot of flowers belonged to Uncle Tianming, and it was said that Uncle Tianming took good care of it.

After watering the flowers, Uncle Tianming began his day's work - reading.

He would read books all day, from the time he got to work until he got off work.

Yan Xiang thought this class was great.

When he grew up, he also wanted to attend such a class, a class dedicated to reading.

Aunt Hu's job is to clean.

Aunt Hu is a diligent person. She cleans every table very well. There are no dead corners in the office.

But when she wants to go to the radio studio, everyone's face changes.

The radio station must lock the door after the broadcast.

This rule has always been there, but Uncle Tianming said that everyone was too lazy to lock it before. It was really implemented after Aunt Hu came to work at the radio station.

But Aunt Hu's fried melon seeds are especially delicious.

Sometimes Aunt Man and Mom don't leave immediately after finishing their work in the afternoon, and everyone gets together to eat melon seeds.

Usually they start eating in the afternoon, because the stationmaster uncle said that they have to behave in the morning and eat melon seeds in the afternoon. It's too unbecoming to start eating early in the morning.

So in the afternoon, everyone gets together to eat melon seeds and drink tea.

Aunt Hu always has endless things to say about the compound.

Everyone listens with gusto.

At this time, Mom is just like everyone else, sitting cross-legged and eating melon seeds.

The afternoon sun shines through the glass window and falls on her face. Her eyebrows are relaxed and she smiles.

Yan Xiang sometimes sees this and suddenly understands the word "comfortable". The explanation in the dictionary is embodied on Mom's face.

The call room is another world.

The call room is also a magical place where you can hear voices from far away.

The daily work of the aunts is to eavesdrop.

Sometimes they will come over and shout: "Come quickly!"

The stationmaster and Uncle Tianming are embarrassed to go over because they say: "They are all lesbians."

Although they want to, they can only watch.

Mom and aunts didn't care at all. They would sneak in and eavesdrop on conversations that should not be known to others.

At that time, many people didn't know that the calls they made were monitored by the operators. They would say a lot of things on the phone, thinking that no one else knew.

Only those who had been in the switchboard knew that this was the case.

Every time mom and aunts walked out of the switchboard with satisfaction on their faces, and then repeated what they heard to the stationmaster uncle and uncle Tianming.

They also listened with gusto.

Mom once told everyone a very scary story:

when a man was making a phone call, the operator connected him to the wrong line, and he heard the conversation between two people on the line.

A "Section Chief Wang" said that he had already bought a train ticket for a certain day and was about to go from place A to place B and place C, and he could go back after he finished all the trips.

Section Chief Wang also mentioned "payment for goods" and the number "10,000".

The man didn't react at the time and hung up the phone. But then he suddenly realized that there was such a "Section Chief Wang" with a huge amount of money going from place A to place B.

The man was tempted by this huge amount of money. He was in place A.

He checked based on the information he heard on the phone and found that there was only one train to place B that day.

The man managed to apply for a business trip to place B and bought a train ticket for the same day.

He found this "Section Chief Wang" by observing and chatting in the carriage.

He gained the trust of this Section Chief Wang, and the two of them quickly became familiar with each other, got off the bus at B together, and stayed in the same guesthouse.

This man secretly killed Section Chief Wang, hoping to steal the "10,000 yuan" from him.

As a result, he only found a document with an official seal in Section Chief Wang's briefcase. The payment owed by Factory A in Place A to Section Chief Wang's unit was directly transferred to pay the money that Section Chief Wang's unit had to pay to Unit B in Place B.

He became a murderer for this "10,000 yuan" that did not exist at all.

He fell to the ground and was dumbfounded.

Yan Xiang thought this story was so scary.

Aunt Hu, Aunt Man, and even Uncle Tianming thought so too.

But the stationmaster uncle raised many questions based on his extensive life experience, thinking that it was full of loopholes and illogical.

Finally, my mother got a headache and yelled, "It's a story, a novel, not true!"

My uncle said, "Hey, this author doesn't write well. If it were me, I would have to write it this way..."

He even started writing.

But he didn't finish it until the end of the day, and he kept scratching his head at the manuscript.

For several days afterwards, he kept muttering, "This is hard to revise, hard to revise..."

My mother whispered to my father that she didn't expect the stationmaster to have a literary dream.

My father asked what the story was, and my mother told it again. After listening to the story, my father also raised many questions, similar to the stationmaster uncle.

Mom: "It's a story! A novel! It's not true! Of course there are loopholes in something made up!"

Dad took the opportunity to teach me: "You see, as long as it's fake, people will definitely see through it. So how can a child lie?"

The thing that Yan Xiang was particularly proud of in the radio station, in addition to having his own desk, was that he really had a job to do.

In the past, when the stationmaster needed someone to run errands, he would randomly assign anyone in the office.

But one day, when the stationmaster finished writing a piece of paper and was about to call someone, he suddenly pushed his glasses and looked at Yan Xiang.

From that day on, he felt that he should also assign work to little comrade Yan Xiang.

"Yan Xiang, I have a task for you. Send this to the logistics department. Do you know where the logistics department is?"

Yan Xiang was so excited when he received the task for the first time that he stood up straight and said, "I know!"

"Give this to Sun, the official in the logistics department, and tell him that this is from the radio station. Give it to him in person." The stationmaster said, "If he is not here, you can give it to someone else, but you must get it back on the spot. If you cannot get it on the spot, you must ask who the person is and tell me who you gave it to when you come back. This will save you from losing it and not being able to find the person responsible."

Yan Xiang promised that he could do it, so the stationmaster gave him the production sheet.

Later, thinking back, it was just a work order for applying for a few folders and bottles of ink from the radio station. But to Yan Xiang at that time, it was more valuable than an imperial edict.

He went there with the things in his arms. He

came back carefully carrying the things in his arms. Because the aunts in the logistics department told him: "Don't run. It will be troublesome if you drop the ink bottle and it breaks."

How could Yan Xiang make such a mistake that only ordinary children would make?

He is a genius! He is a child who eats a lot and is very strong!

He completed the task assigned to him by the stationmaster uncle safely and successfully.

After the first time, he gained the trust of the stationmaster uncle.

After that, the errands of the radio station were handed over to Yan Xiang.

Later, he went to the county with his mother, and Yan Xiang could no longer continue to "go to work". He always missed the time at the radio station.

But it doesn't matter. Talented people should shine wherever they go.

Yan Xiang later successfully became an assistant teacher in a kindergarten of a county government agency.

Yan was a very prestigious assistant teacher.

His words were more effective than those of the teacher.

When Yan Xiang later wrote about these things in his memoirs, he couldn't help but smile.

[My childhood seemed different from others, but also seemed the same as every other child.]

[I was different from other children, but I had a happy childhood like other children.]