Chapter 30 Chapter 30 Health Issues

"Comrade Wang." Cui Shulin walked straight into the shed and introduced the male teacher in glasses: "This is Mr. Jiang, the head teacher of the preschool class."

"Hello, Teacher Jiang."

Teacher Jiang had a serious expression on his face. He politely extended his hand and shook hands with Wang Nian. Then his eyes fell on Shi Shuwen.

"Have lunch first, and come to my office before the noon class. I want to talk to you about Shi Shuwen's situation."

Shi Shuwen lowered his head even lower, not daring to look directly at the teacher's face.

Seeing this, Teacher Jiang quickly calmed down and explained with a smile: "Look how scared this child is."

Cui Shulin saw Shi Shuwen and the others eating, and thought that these noble ladies had eaten a lot, so he smiled and changed the topic to family matters: "Comrade Wang even came to deliver the food."

Wang Nian's smile faded, and his eyes fell on the rice bowls of the two teachers: "Hey! There is braised pork today. I thought the teachers were eating muddy cabbage like the kids."

“…”

Everyone knows that the food in the student cafeteria is different from that in the teacher cafeteria, but no one says it openly.

I didn't expect to happen to hear Wang Nian ask such a straightforward question.

However, Wang Nian did not do this to embarrass Cui Shulin, so he spoke in a low voice and sighed right after he finished speaking.

"Principal Cui, Teacher Jiang, don't blame me for speaking bluntly... the truth is..." Wang Nian frowned and shook his head fiercely, then took a step forward and walked in front of the two of them to tell them what he had just seen.

"Students pay less for living expenses, so we parents understand that they eat simple food, but if the children get sick... wouldn't that be trouble for the organization?"

"I get terrified when I think back to the time when all the kids got food poisoning a few months ago."

"If there is another food poisoning incident at school..."

After Wang Nian finished the last half of his sentence, Cui Shulin's tightly bitten lower lip had already been bitten with teeth marks.

The words "food poisoning" hit his heart like a heavy hammer.

The school leaders condone the poor food in the student cafeteria. With limited funding, there is no way to demand delicious food.

But the sanitary conditions mentioned by Wang Nian are not a funding issue, but a problem of the attitude of the canteen staff.

When Cui Shulin thought about his daughter having to eat this kind of food in the future, he became even more angry about what Wang Nian said.

"I will deal with the cafeteria hygiene issue as soon as possible, and will propose rectification methods for students' lunch problems at the school meeting next week." Cui Shulin promised.

After saying that, he rushed all the food in his lunch bowl into his empty lunch box: "At noon, you will eat the teacher's food, and the teacher will eat your food."

Then he was seen carrying the jar to the dining table, where he scooped up some food with a spoon.

Wang Nian had good eyesight and immediately noticed the piece of straw paper hanging under the cabbage on the spoon. Cui Shulin, who was already observing carefully, immediately changed his face and threw the spoon back into the basin.

"Go and ask your canteen team leaders to go to the principal's office now!"

After saying this, he hurried out of the shed carrying the jar of "evidence".

Teacher Jiang watched Cui Shulin walk away angrily, and he looked at this legendary uneducated rural stepmother with a different eye.

These words took a sudden turn and directly hit Cui Shulin's sore spot...his precious daughter who he had finally gotten together with great difficulty.

"Teacher Jiang, eat first. I'll come to your office to see you later." Wang Nian brought Teacher Jiang back to his senses with a smile.

When I returned to the teacher's office, the food was already cold.

Teacher Jiang lost his appetite after eating a few bites. Somehow, he kept recalling the straw paper described by Wang Nian.

I looked at the motionless braised pork in the rice bowl and simply closed the lid to keep it out of sight.

"Teacher Jiang, is the parent of Shi Shuwen from your class here?" As I was distracted, Teacher Fu, who was sitting at the opposite desk, suddenly raised his head and said in embarrassment, "I need to confirm it before I can fill out the seating chart for next semester."

"The day before yesterday, I told Shi Shuwen to call his parents, but the child didn't seem to tell his parents."

"Why?"

"I don't know either. Today I saw his mother and she didn't seem to know anything about it."

Teacher Fu pondered for a while and made a guess: "Could it be that... the stepmother is not good to the child?"

"It doesn't look like that. Comrade Wang even brought lunch to the child today. I saw a big meat bun in the lunch box, but..."

Teacher Jiang thought again of Wang Nian’s complaint, which had taken a lot of twists and turns at the beginning of the journey. It didn’t seem to be that simple.

"Don't judge things by appearances. Some stepmothers are good at putting on a good show. If they really treat Shi Shuwen well, why don't they dare to tell their family about such a good thing as skipping a grade? As the saying goes, if you have a stepmother..."

Knock knock knock——

Before the stepfather could finish his words, a knock on the office door suddenly interrupted the two teachers' sighs.

Although the office door was wide open, Wang Nian still knocked on the door very politely.

"Hello, Teacher Jiang. I am Shi Shuwen's parent."

Teacher Jiang coughed a few times in embarrassment, and Teacher Fu was busy lowering his head to pretend to be busy, holding the pen and tapping a few times on the ink bottle with the cap still on.

"Hello, come and sit here."

Teacher Jiang quickly calmed down, took out a chair from under the desk next to him and pushed it to the opposite side.

"Did Shuwen cause any trouble in school?" Wang Nian asked as he sat down.

"It's not a bad thing, don't be nervous, it's like this...After discussing with Teacher Fu, we decided to let Shi Shuwen skip to the first grade and continue his studies."

Skip a grade...and skip the most important pinyin learning in the first half of the first grade and go directly to the next semester.

If there were no other reasons, Wang Nian would definitely not agree. After all, how could he skip the crucial half year of laying the foundation for no reason?

“Can I ask what is the main reason for wanting to skip a grade?”

"Shi Shuwen has already learned pinyin, so there is no need for him to waste time in preschool..."

At first, Shi Shuwen did not show any abnormality and learned the basic pinyin one by one with other children.

But gradually, teachers discovered that Shi Shuwen not only knew the pinyin letters by heart, but also had no problem writing down idioms based on pinyin.

This means that this child not only learned pinyin, but also knew many more characters than other children of the same age.

The teachers specially prepared the first-grade final exam for the children to do, and finally...

Teacher Jiang handed the test paper directly to Wang Nian for him to read.

The first half of the first year final exam Chinese paper - 98 points.

"I felt something was wrong, so I gave Shi Shuwen another math test paper. Look at the result... 100 points."

This year's final exam was so difficult that no one in the entire grade got a perfect score.

As soon as the test results came out, Teacher Jiang quickly reported it to the school leadership office, and the first-grade director also agreed that Shi Shuwen could skip a grade and go directly to the first grade.

"Last month I suggested that Shi Shuwen call his parents, but he never told his family. Did they disagree?"

Wang Nian quickly shook his head: "This is a good thing, how can I not agree?"

Teacher Jiang smiled and said, "Then I feel relieved. The child is so smart, he should be able to be admitted to a technical school in the future..." Teacher Jiang kept talking, seemingly happy, but in fact, every word he said was a reminder to Wang Nian not to ruin the child's future.

It seems that Teacher Jiang still took the word "stepmother" to heart.

But this time Wang Nian really had other plans in mind.

A year and a half later, the college entrance examination will be resumed. If Shi Shuwen is really a good student, he will have to... go to university in the future.

But Wang Nian would definitely not say that now, otherwise she would really become the stepmother in the teachers' eyes.

After all, as Teacher Fu had just said, if there is a stepmother, there must be a stepfather, and she even added the word "stepfather" in her mind.

***

After the last ray of sunlight fell below the mountain, the sky gradually darkened, and the cold air rose up from the ground with bared fangs and claws, with the intention of shrouding the entire Changsheng Valley in coldness again.

The lights were on in the three houses to the right of Building 43; it was dinner time.

The first one was very deserted at the moment, with not a single bit of steam coming out of the stove.

After working all day, Xiao Hua came home and sat silently on the sofa smoking a cigarette. He really didn't want to get involved in the quarrel between his wife and daughter-in-law.

His son Xiao Jianmin huddled on the side like a quail, not daring to say a word.

At this moment, a faint fragrance suddenly floated in the air, and laughter could be heard from next door, which made Xiao Hua even more angry.

Zhang Guiqiang and his wife were invited to Shi Xiangming's house for dinner again, but Shi Xiangming didn't even mention the slightest intention of calling them out from beginning to end.

It wasn't that Xiao Hua was greedy for food, he just didn't expect that even though they lived close to each other, their relationship with Shi Xiangming didn't get any closer.

"Recently your workshop has requested an engineer to conduct maintenance. Is it brought forward to this week?" Xiao Hua asked.

Xiao Jianmin nodded with a bitter face.

There are four factory areas and more than a dozen workshops. The lathes are routinely inspected every six months. If they fail the inspection, not only will all the workers in the entire workshop be punished, but their bonuses and benefits for that year will also be cancelled.

Xiao Jianmin works in the fourth workshop of the third factory area. Normally, it would take half a month after the application is submitted to get a date.

Unexpectedly, they set the inspection date just two days after submitting it, which is this Friday.

Workshop 4 hasn't hired an engineer to come and help check it out in advance, and the response I got from asking for help these days was that they didn't have time.

"Did you offend anyone?" Xiao Hua asked again.

Some of the factory's operating methods were well known from top to bottom. If they hadn't offended anyone, how could they have carried out such a surprise attack?

Xiao Jianmin's face became even more bitter: "I just don't get along with Manli and Shi Xiangming's lover, but I haven't offended anyone else!"

"It shouldn't be Shi Xiangming." Xiao Hua put out the cigarette butt in the ashtray, his face gloomy and unclear: "If it was really Shi Xiangming, you should have written a self-criticism now."

"Dad." Xiao Jianmin was shocked and asked quickly, "Did you hear any rumors?"

"It's not a rumor, it's true!" Xiao Hua still felt a little scared when he mentioned it now: "Deputy Director Zhou Tong was dismissed, that's..." He pointed his chin at the next door: "It was Shi Xiangming who did it."

Three days ago, Zhou Tong was removed from his position as deputy director of a workshop due to serious dereliction of duty and demoted to an ordinary fourth-level workshop worker.

Due to Zhou Tong's personal wrong decision, a large number of parts produced in a workshop were defective. In order to conceal the accident, he secretly erased the defective parts from the inventory records.

"Everyone in our factory knows how professional Shi Xiangming is, but he never gave us a single reminder from beginning to end... Can you guess why?"

"Did Zhou Tong offend Shi Xiangming?" Xiao Jianmin's heart trembled and his voice trembled.

"I haven't heard whether Zhou Tongde offended Shi Xiangming, but his wife Wang Wenfang..." Xiao Hua shook his head and deliberately raised his voice in the next words: "Wang Wenfang scolded Shi Xiangming in the single dormitory, you know?"

Xiao Jianmin nodded.

"After that incident, Shi Xiangming did not target Zhou Tong at all. Didn't he even help design and add a transmission device, which won the first factory a first prize?"

"Why is that?" Xiao Jianmin felt that Shi Xiangming didn't seem to be so petty.

"You must not have noticed that Wang Wenfang and Wang Nian had a quarrel, and Zhou Tong's son pushed Miss Shi Xiangming." Xiao Hua said.

Compared with being scolded in public, his wife's quarrels with others and his children's fights were not worth mentioning in Xiao Jianmin's eyes.

But it was this trivial matter that angered Shi Xiangming.

You can bully yourself, but you must never bully your family members.

After listening to this, Xiao Jianmin suddenly looked at the closed door of the small bedroom in silence.

"Jianmin..." Xiao Hua patted Xiao Jianmin's shoulder earnestly and said, "You don't know a lot of the inside stories of the factory. Even though Shi Xiangming is just a chief engineer, that's just a superficial title. Didn't you see that even our factory director is usually very friendly to him?"

Shi Xiangming himself has the ability, for one thing, and there is also the Academy of Engineering behind him...

The relationship involved is too deep. Although Shi Xiangming is now in trouble at Factory 431, he will definitely not stay in this mountain valley for the rest of his life.

The eagle...will definitely fly back into the sky.

"Dad! I understand." Xiao Jianmin raised his hands and patted his face: "I'll go make dinner."

I opened the door and walked out, and the fragrance coming from next door became more and more obvious.

"That won't do."

Wang Nian suggested that Zhang Liye have lunch at her home from now on, but Liu Chaoxian didn't feel comfortable taking advantage of this, so he refused without even thinking about it.

Zhang Guoqiang also shook his head and didn't even have time to swallow the food in his mouth.

"Let the kids go home for lunch, and my mom will cook for them at noon."

Granny Hu must have wanted her grandson to have lunch at Wang Nian's house, if for no other reason... the Shi family was doing well.

But she was not the shameless kind of person, and she was reluctant to spend money, so cooking for herself was definitely the best option.

After hearing this, he immediately replied: "I'll make it. I have to eat alone anyway."

Zhang Liye looked at his parents, not wanting to cry, and the food in his mouth suddenly lost its flavor.

The food my grandma cooks is not as good as the food in the school cafeteria. At least they are willing to add salt. The food my grandma cooks is tasteless!

Wang Nian smiled. Since Liu Chaoxian and his wife said so, there was no point for her to continue insisting.

"Eat some pea tips. After dinner, you can go back and cook noodles."

The pea tips that were so precious during the frost period began to grow explosively in the past few days. They grew very tall if they were not pinched for two days.

Speaking of pea tips, Granny Hu, who has been farming for half her life, has a lot to say.

"Why are the pea tips you grow better than mine? I water them with manure."

The difference in taste is obvious when the pea tips from the two shops are cooked in the same pot. You can tell whether they are chewy or not by looking at the difference in taste.

"I'm also confused. If I really have a trick, how can I hide it from my aunt?" Wang Nian smiled and took the chopsticks to stir-fry the bamboo shoots for Shi Xiangming.

There must be a reason, but I can't tell it...

Since the fifth layer of the spatial spice rack appeared, Wang Nian has been exploring its many evolutionary functions.

One day, I had a sudden idea and scooped a spoonful of stream water and put it on the shelf.

A bucket of lake water suddenly appeared, and it was said to be special fertilizer water produced in a certain world for planting.

Just a few drops per plant are enough to provide all the nutrients it needs for growth, without the need to add additional fertilizers.

If we put tap water into evolution, the evolved water will be suitable for human drinking.

The Evolution Grid has the ability to automatically identify the evolved items.

Wang Nian tried diluting the Evolved Water and pouring it into the vegetable garden, and the effect was amazing within half a month.

These days we don’t have to buy vegetables at home. We pick them and eat them every day. If we can’t eat them all, we have to give them away.

"If you can't finish it, just sell it. It's good to get some money."

Liu Chaoxian's casual suggestion made Wang Nian's eyes light up.

The weather has been cold recently, and the supply of vegetables has not yet fully recovered, so there are not many vegetables produced in the small vegetable gardens.

If we sell it in a small square, it will definitely sell out quickly.

Shi Xiangming moved his lips, but still suppressed what he was about to say.

The factory recently raised his salary, and with the subsidy from the Academy of Engineering, his family actually doesn't need to sell vegetables to supplement the household income.

But looking at Wang Nian's sparkling eyes, he couldn't say a word.

"Okay! I'll go to the small square after I finish my book and writing."

"What's the matter, Shuwen?" Several adults looked at Shi Shuwen, who seemed to have pressed the pause button.

"That's a good thing." Wang Nian put down his chopsticks and announced loudly and solemnly: "Shuwen can jump directly to the second semester of the first grade next semester."

After saying this, he led the applause.

Snap, snap, snap——

Several adults were moved to applaud. Shi Shuwen looked around shyly, but she couldn't lower her raised lips.

The shy look is exactly the same as Shi Xiangming's.

Wang Nian thought about it and suddenly raised his hand to the air: "So today's meal is to celebrate our son Shuwen's upcoming entry into the first grade."

"Hahaha——" Zhang Guiqiang laughed out loud, and at the same time, he did not forget to slap Zhang Liye who was only concerned with eating: "From now on, you and Shuwen will be classmates, so you have to take better care of him in the future."

"Brother is the best." Shi Wan clapped her hands.

Shi Xiangming smiled at his wife who was making a fuss, and just raised his hand to touch Shi Shuwen's head.

After Liu Chaoxian's family had helped to clean up and went home, Shi Xiangming stopped Wang Nian who was about to bring water for foot washing and asked, "Do you have anything else to say?"

Wang Nian's flattering radar was activated instantly, and he hugged Shi Xiangming's arm with a smile: "Our Chief Engineer Shi must have good eyesight, otherwise he would not be able to become the Chief Engineer..."

"Why did I find you so good at talking before?" Shi Xiangming smiled and called Shi Shuwen, who was lying on the table doing homework, to his side.

As soon as the couple sat down, Shi Wan immediately climbed from the other end of the sofa and sat on Wang Nian's lap, moving smoothly without any hesitation.

"The teacher said that you clearly learned pinyin and knew how to read, so why didn't you mention it before?" Wang Nian asked directly.

Shi Xiangming raised his eyebrows in surprise, then thought about it and directly excluded his parents and brother and sister-in-law.

"Who taught you?"

Shi Shuwen moved his lips, lowered his head and refused to speak, but it was obvious that the question Shi Xiangming asked was indeed in the right direction.

Wang Nian thought for a moment and added, "Don't worry, I promise I won't let anyone else know."

This assurance seemed to work. Shi Shuwen rubbed the corners of his clothes with his hands and stammered out a name: "Second Uncle."

"Second uncle!"

This was a name that Shi Xiangming could never have imagined.

There are four children in the Shi family. Shi Xiangqian is the eldest, his second sister is Shi Guizhi, and he is the third. The fourth sister was given away by her grandmother.

The second sister insisted on marrying He Jian, who lived in the same alley, despite her parents' opposition.

Ten years ago, He Jian's father was labeled a reactionary and was sent to a labor farm for reform.

As a result, He Jian lost his teaching job and had to work as a dung truck driver. His second sister then did odd jobs for other people.

Shi Xiangming often sent some money to his second sister during his first few years of work. Later, his second sister's father-in-law died while saving people on the farm, so the organization specially approved the restoration of He Jian's identity.

However, he could no longer be a teacher, so He Jian was assigned to work in the school library.

From then on, the second sister stopped letting Shi Xiangming send her money, and her life finally started to improve.

"How did your second uncle teach you to read?" Shi Xiangming asked again.

The old house that my second sister's family originally rented in the suburbs had long been occupied by my second brother-in-law's relatives.

"Second Aunt lives in Jade Lane, just a few minutes away from us..." Shi Shuwen always paid attention to Shi Xiangming's expression, and only dared to continue when he saw that he was not angry: "Grandma didn't allow us to hang out with Second Aunt's family. My sister and I went to see Second Aunt secretly."

Shi Wan covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes rolling around: "Go secretly, Second Aunt will give us meat to eat."

"What about your second uncle going to work?"

"My second uncle didn't go to work, and my second aunt didn't go to work either."

"Not working?"

From what the child said, my second sister and her family moved back to the old house. It was obvious that they took the house back, and neither of them was working...so where did they get the money to buy meat for the children?

Shi Xiangming wanted to ask more questions, but it was hard to get any information out of two kids who were only a few years old.

Shi Shuwen kept shaking his head and learned that every day his grandfather went to work, his grandmother went to help his uncle clean the house, and he and his sister went to his aunt's house.

Their aunt helped them bathe and cooked for them. The brother and sister did not go home until their grandfather came home in the evening.

Just when the couple wanted to give up, Shi Shuwen's casual remark finally made Shi Xiangming grasp the key point.

These changes are all related to my second sister's eldest son, He Liang.

Every time He Liang's cousin came back, he would bring new clothes for the siblings and take them all out to eat.

"I like my cousin the most." Shi Wan followed her brother's lead.

Shi Xiangming remembered that He Liang was only 19 years old this year. Before coming to Changshenggou, he used his connections to get him into the technical secondary school corresponding to the steel factory. If all went well, he should be interning in the factory now.

But the internship was definitely not so easy, otherwise He Liang would not have entered the factory at all, but would have done other things instead.

When asked what industry is the most profitable nowadays, Shi Xiangming immediately thought of... the business of being a profiteer.

"That kid won't be speculating, right?" Wang Nian obviously thought of something and was a little worried: "Why don't you write a letter to persuade him? It's too dangerous."

Shi Xiangming pressed his forehead and chuckled: "If it were last year, I would have written a letter now, but... the situation is different now."

"What's different?" Shi Shuwen half understood what he said, and asked curiously with his eyes wide open.

Wang Nian slapped his forehead and laughed too.

How could she forget what Professor Wu Bin had pointed out? She clearly had an extraordinary perspective, but she was even more dull than Shi Xiangming.

"But I still have to remind her. I'll write a letter to my second sister later." Shi Xiangming said again.

Shi Shuwen: “…”

Why didn't anyone answer his question?