Chapter 377: The Angry Warlords of the Republic of China vs. the Educated and Well-mannered Overseas Daughter
Quan Jiu took a quick look and found that everyone had only a desk without a pen or rice paper. The only two things on the table were a branch dipped in ink and discarded old newspapers.
"These are all children Mr. Xu sponsored for free. Their families are more or less biased towards boys, and they haven't thought about letting them learn to read or write. They just wait until they are old enough to marry them off quickly, and use the dowry they get to find a virtuous wife for their son..."
The woman who brought the wine into the room met the clear black eyes and couldn't help but sigh.
"Sons can carry on the family line, but daughters are like spilled water. Sigh..."
The girl closest to Quan Jiu was about ten years old, with two pigtails, and she stared at her beautifully embroidered cheongsam with curiosity.
What a beautiful sister.
Quan Jiu rubbed her head. The little girl blushed shyly but did not hide away.
The middle-aged woman leaned close to Quan Jiu's ear and whispered:
"Her name is Afang. She's the eldest in the family, with three younger sisters and a younger brother. Because her wife couldn't give birth to a son, the old lady at home forced her to keep having more... But her father was just a small carpenter and couldn't afford to support five children, so he made her work with her mother in a beer factory since she was little..."
She was the eldest in the family at the age of ten. Quan Jiu roughly calculated that this mother gave birth to five children in ten years. Almost every time she gave birth to one, she would rest for a year and then start preparing for pregnancy again without stopping.
She walked around the house and the woman introduced the children's life stories to her one by one.
There was a thirteen-year-old girl from a Feng Jian family. Because of foot binding for many years, her five toes were stuck together and could no longer be separated.
There are mentally retarded girls who are forced by their parents to marry middle-aged men because their mothers suffered difficult labor and prolonged lack of oxygen, resulting in intellectual disability.
A poor female student with great ambition who wants to devote herself to her country but has no way to do so.
"Mr. Xu has always advocated for gender equality, but the public is still ignorant. The idea of favoring men over women has been passed down for thousands of years and is deeply rooted. It is simply not something he can change on his own..."
To this day, many women are still not allowed to sit at the table to eat, are still ashamed to wear skirts, and still have to follow the orders of their parents and the words of matchmakers.
The middle-aged man, who had been silent all this time, spoke for the first time. His fighting spirit had long been extinguished. He lowered his eyes and smoked:
"Mr. Xu is too idealistic. Gender equality is not so easy to achieve. In my opinion, in another five thousand years, men will still be in charge of the world..."
Quan Jiu thought of what Xu Danbin said in the alley and took the initiative to ask:
"What did you come to see Xu Danbin about today?"
The woman's face turned red:
"The children's textbooks and teaching materials are too expensive. We recently accepted a new batch of students. My wife and I have been depleted of our savings and simply cannot afford such a large sum of money... Unfortunately, Mr. Xu's family is in trouble now. He can't take care of himself and certainly can't take care of the school... Sigh..."
She was afraid that Quan Jiu would misunderstand Xu Danbin, so she added another sentence.
"Don't get me wrong, young lady. Mr. Xu is a good man. If he hadn't been supporting us, this girls' school would have closed down three years ago... I heard that Mr. Xu sold all the valuables in his house to raise money."
The man also took over:
"Mr. Xu is a talented man. If he had found a stable job at a newspaper, he wouldn't have been rich, but he could have lived a comfortable life. But he chose to keep a bunch of dependents, dragging himself down to the point where he could only afford vegetables and steamed buns for three meals a day... It's really a sin..."
Quan Jiu accompanied the children in reading and writing in the school. After playing for a while, he turned around and went to the hospital.
In the hospital corridor, she met Xu Danbin again.
Compared to last time, the man had an extra warm blanket at hand, and seemed to be planning to stay in the corridor for a long time.
When he saw Quan Jiu, he just nodded politely, just like he did a few days ago.
Unexpectedly, this time, Quan Jiu did not walk straight into the ward, but stopped in front of him.
Xu Danbin was surprised: "Miss Liu, is there something wrong?"
Quan Jiu sat down next to him: "I didn't understand why she liked you before, but now I understand."
Xu Danbin is a man with the integrity and pedantry of a scholar. To put it bluntly, he is stubborn.
But this era needs people who are stubborn and refuse to give up.
With Xu Danbin looking bewildered, Quan Jiu continued:
"Why don't you manage the school anymore?"
Xu Danbin was initially surprised by her knowledge of the academy, but the surprise faded in an instant. He lowered his head, like a dejected lion that had once been full of fighting spirit but was ultimately defeated by reality.
"I can't control it anymore..."
He can't even save the person he loves, so how can he save millions of his compatriots?
"Maybe it's really like what they say... I'm just a madman who relies entirely on imagination. This world will never see a peaceful and beautiful day... The land of China, scorched by war, will continue to be riddled with scars, and true gender equality will never appear. We will forever live in feudal rule, never to see the light of day."
When the youth prosper, the country prospers; when the youth are strong, the country is strong. He once made lofty ambitions to enlighten the people, guide the people, and revitalize our great China.
But when he wanted to break into the banquet hall to save Manqing that day, but because of his humble status, he couldn't even enter the banquet hall, he suddenly felt a sense of sadness.
"Miss Liu, you are a good person. Before I met you that night, I had already kowtowed to eleven people, but no one was willing to help me."
No one is willing to offend the powerful for the sake of a scholar with nothing or an actor of low status.
A trace of sadness and sarcasm flashed in his eyes: "I have always tried to be a good person, but facts have proved that good people are not rewarded. Although the Third Master is not a good person, he is at least a strong man."
And the strong can at least protect the people they want to protect in troubled times.
Xu Danbin closed his eyes, and Quan Jiu's voice was so soft that he could barely hear it:
"Ms. Liu, I suddenly don't want to be a good person anymore."
In the torrent of the times, everyone is a grain of sand. It is he who overestimates his own abilities, like a mayfly trying to shake a big tree, trying to change this difficult and painful era.
Maybe he really is wrong.
As he finished speaking, the hospital corridor suddenly became quiet.
Quan Jiuwei sighed and looked at the man with his face buried in his hands and his shoulders heaving. She took out a handkerchief from her bag and handed it to him, her tone gentle but firm:
“It will happen.”
“It will all come true.”
Another hundred years.
In the future twenty-first century.
"At that time, schools no longer divided boys and girls. In the morning, the sound of reading could be heard, accompanied by the chirping of birds and the fragrance of flowers outside the window."
"Girls back then would wear beautiful floral dresses, put on beautiful makeup, and look confident, independent and brave."
"There are tall buildings and bustling traffic, and all the revival and hopes will eventually be realized."
All the pioneers' contributions will be meaningful.
All suffering and misery will end.
All seeds watered with blood and flesh will take root and sprout, and bloom into the most dazzling sunflowers.
And the fragrance of flowers will fill the entire land of China.
——Dividing line——
"Xu Danbin" is not a person, but a group of people.
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