On August 30th, Zhu Yun Xuan’s grandmother came to the Zhu family’s house. According to local customs, before school started, the grandmother was supposed to help buy a school bag, pencil case, and pens.
Various fancy school bags were laid out in front of him by his grandmother, who had always doted on him. Zhu Yun Xuan looked helplessly at them and, in the end, insisted on picking a black school bag with bright red edges. Although it wasn’t the type that children typically liked, it was the only one he could bear to look at.
Next, they went to a stationery shop, where he bought a two-layer pencil case and ten pencils, each costing one cent, along with erasers and other items.
The next morning, Zhu Yun Xuan, now dressed neatly, followed Jiang Yue Xiu out the door. Zhu Qiu Yue was taken by her mother to the kindergarten next to the elementary school for registration. Zhu Qiu Yue had been eagerly waiting for this day for a long time, she was particularly envious of the slide at the kindergarten.
The entrance to the elementary school was very crowded, with bicycles, motorcycles, tricycles, and so on all squeezed together. In such a situation, a car trying to drive up to the school gate was especially conspicuous.
In the front passenger seat, Li Rui sat with a serious expression, holding a sky-blue “Black Cat Detective” school bag.
“Rui Rui!” Zhu Yun Xuan called as soon as he saw him. The road at the school gate was narrow, and since both the elementary school and kindergarten were on the same road, the car couldn’t move forward or backward. Seeing this, Zhu Yun Xuan couldn’t help but laugh.
Li Rui also saw Zhu Yun Xuan, and without saying anything, he made a move to open the car door.
“Rui Rui, take it slow. Wait until Dad parks the car first,” Li Yue quickly said. He had arrived in Wendé Town the night before, bringing all the things that Li Rui might need. This morning, he had come to the school to register with Li Rui.
Li Yue had long known that his son cared about Zhu Yun Xuan, and had even come to this place to study because of it. However, he didn’t expect that, even though he had hardly paid any attention to his son, Li Rui would want to get out of the car as soon as he saw Zhu Yun Xuan.
“Rui Rui, let’s go register together!” Zhu Yun Xuan squeezed up to the side of the car. The road conditions in Wendé Town were bad enough, and with the six grades of the elementary school and the kindergarten all registering at once…
“Mm.” Li Rui spoke as he got out of the car, holding his schoolbag. Although his learning supplies now seemed very childish, they were much better than the hand-me-downs he used to get from his cousins.
Last night, when Li Yue brought all those things to see him and told him the story of the tortoise and the hare, Li Rui felt both happy and a little sad inside.
After Li Yue greeted Jiang Yue Xiu, he led the way ahead, repeatedly reminding himself not to argue with a child. How could his son be so fond of a child he’d only met a few times?
There were many pieces of paper posted at the school gate, each with names written in calligraphy. Wendé Town was small, and this elementary school had five first-grade classes, each with between 45 and 50 students. Li Rui’s name was written boldly at the top of Class One’s list, while Zhu Yun Xuan, after searching for a while, found his name at the very end of Class Four’s list.
The names were supposed to be listed alphabetically, so how did Li Rui’s name end up at the very top? It seemed like a privilege! After this realization, Zhu Yun Xuan sighed and went to sit with his class. Li Rui, however, looked thoughtful. He knew that as soon as Zheng Xiao Qing mentioned it, he could join Zhu Yun Xuan’s class.
Zhu Yun Xuan’s previous class teacher was a freshly graduated young woman. They had changed teachers in third grade, and again in fifth grade. He had already forgotten most of it, but the new teacher this time was a woman in her thirties, with shoulder-length hair. When he looked at her face, the first word that came to mind was “strict.”
The kids in the class were all noisy, and the parents had gone to the office to pay the fees. After paying, they stood by the window, watching their children inside.
A chubby little boy was sitting next to Zhu Yun Xuan, staring out the window. He pointed to a large, overweight man outside and proudly told Zhu Yun Xuan that the man was his father.
Zhu Yun Xuan had no idea how to interact with small children. He nodded but didn’t respond. The chubby boy gave him an unhappy look, and after another student entered the classroom, he immediately ran to speak with the other student.
Zhu Yun Xuan listened to the childish chatter around him and suddenly realized that these kids had already formed small groups. He paused for a moment before realizing that many of them had known each other from kindergarten.
“Quiet, everyone stop talking!” Teacher Chen, standing at the podium, suddenly spoke. She tapped the podium with a small bamboo stick, and immediately all the children became quiet.
Wendé Town Elementary School required children to have attended kindergarten before starting school, probably for easier management. Zhu Yun Xuan remembered that in his previous life, when he was in the big class of kindergarten in town, he would rarely get to play outside, as he was busy learning how to write and do arithmetic. He wondered if Zhu Qiu Yue would regret it later, those slides were there to look at, but you couldn’t actually play on them!
Then, the teacher began to explain the rules. Essentially, they weren’t allowed to run around or go to other classes. Once class started, they had to return to the classroom and sit upright with their hands behind their backs. She even mentioned that they could only use wooden pencils, not mechanical ones, and that all the books had to be covered with book covers.
Finally, she handed out the textbooks.
There was a thick Chinese language textbook, a thick mathematics textbook, and thinner music and art textbooks. In total, there were just four books. It seemed that by fifth or sixth grade, they would start learning English and general knowledge. The so-called general knowledge class was basically a mix of simple chemistry, physics, and biology.
Everyone carefully placed their textbooks into their bags, and once they knew that tomorrow would be a half-day in the morning, and the official classes would start the day after, they all quickly rushed out of the classroom.
Zhu Yun Xuan was the last to leave. As soon as he stepped out, he saw Jiang Yue Xiu, and then Li Rui, whose classroom was at the other end of the floor, also came over with his father.
“Sister Jiang, it’s already noon. Let me treat you to a meal,” Li Yue said with a smile. He had just visited the school and thought it was better than expected.
Actually, it was fine for Li Rui to stay here. Compared to Hangzhou, this place was closer to Shanghai, and he could visit often in the future.
“No need, no need. I still have to go home and cook!” Jiang Yue Xiu quickly declined.
“My son, Rui Rui, will need your help in the future. Don’t worry about cooking today. Let’s find a place to eat together,” Li Yue said again.
Jiang Yue Xiu wasn’t sure how to refuse, so in the end, she agreed.
It was a restaurant in the town. Li Yue asked Jiang Yue Xiu for suggestions and then ordered stir-fried sponge gourd with eggs and pig’s blood tofu soup. He also added white-cut chicken, white-cut lamb, stir-fried water bamboo with pork strips, and sweet and sour fish.
At that time, the drinks were all a kind of orange soda in glass bottles. Zhu Yun Xuan used to love it when he was little. After drinking seven or eight bottles, they would put the empty bottles in a basket and go exchange them for more. But now, he wasn’t interested in it at all, so he asked for plain white rice instead.
The four of them had dinner, and there was still quite a bit of food left on the table. Jiang Yue Xiu looked at it with regret, but Zhu Yun Xuan smiled and said, “Uncle, my dad hasn’t eaten yet. Can we take these leftovers home?”
Li Yue, having experienced hard times himself, had slowly given up the habit of taking leftovers after being with Zheng Xiao Qing for a long time. But hearing Zhu Yun Xuan say this, his opinion of him actually improved.
A few dishes were packed into plastic bags, and Jiang Yue Xiu had the kitchen pack a box of rice. Now, she only needed to send food to Zhu Cheng Cai, Zhu Ah Da and Zhu Cheng Gong would come home for lunch, take a nap, and then go back to selling meat.
Jiang Yue Xiu went to deliver the food to Zhu Cheng Cai, while Zhu Yun Xuan followed Li Yue and Li Rui to the stationery store, they needed to buy book covers for their newly bought school bags.
There were plastic covers that fit perfectly and paper covers with various patterns printed on them. Zhu Yun Xuan picked a few large sheets that could be cut to size and then poked Li Rui with one of the rolled-up sheets. “Can you wrap a book cover?”
“I can’t,” Li Rui replied, looking at it. He had never wrapped a book before. His previous school didn’t require it, but the teachers at this school insisted on it.
“I’ll help you wrap it!” Zhu Yun Xuan said proudly. “I know several ways to wrap book covers!” Besides, he also wanted to visit Li Rui’s house. Li Rui had asked the maid, Xiao Hui, to buy some books for him, many of which were classics. He could read them for fun, right?
“Thanks,” Li Rui smiled. “Do you want to sell clothes designs?” He remembered the clothes designs Zhu Yun Xuan had drawn last time, and he had to admit, they didn’t look great.
Without Jiang Yue Xiu, who was a tailor, Zhu Yun Xuan wouldn’t even be able to sell clothes designs.
“I want to make some money first… My mom’s a tailor, so this is perfect,” Zhu Yun Xuan said. The designs he remembered were only a few, all drawn from memory. But compared to the clothes people were wearing at the time, they looked much better. However, he wasn’t really in this line of work, so he probably wouldn’t be able to make a living from it.
But once he earned his first bit of money, maybe he could do more?
“I could convince my dad to open a clothing factory,” Li Rui suddenly said.
In his past life, his father had started his own business in 1996, leaving his mother behind. He had opened many factories, made a bit of money, but in the end, most of them went bankrupt.
In this life, he never wanted his father to keep failing and growing more self-conscious, only to burden him with everything!
Zhu Yun Xuan’s eyes lit up. “Actually, besides a clothing factory, curtains, bed sets, and things like that can also make a lot of money!” In his past life, he had a classmate whose family ran a curtain factory. Their curtains were exported to many countries. There was supposedly a very large curtain base near Hangzhou as well.
Even though there were already curtain factories, there were still luxurious curtains, multi-layered curtains, bamboo curtains, wooden curtains, embroidered curtains, and mesh curtains…
As for bedding, when he went shopping with Lu Ming back then, he had been heartbroken by the prices… But now, the quilts at home were still made of coarse cloth that Jiang Yue Xiu wove herself on a loom.
“Many people here raise silkworms and grow cotton. The raw materials are plentiful…” The most important thing, however, was getting a head start. Li Rui’s eyes brightened.
“What are you two talking about?” Li Yue had just gone to pay when he saw the two kids talking and noticed that his son actually had such a lively expression on his face. He couldn’t quite describe how he felt inside.
“Dad,” Li Rui glanced at him and extended his hand.
This was the first time in a long while that Li Rui had asked him to carry him! Li Yue was so happy that he immediately picked up his son. Holding his child, who felt so heavy in his arms, he developed a good feeling toward Zhu Yun Xuan. “Come on, I’ll buy you all ice cream!”
Li Rui pondered how to bring it up to Li Yue. After thinking for a while, he decided to wait until Jiang Yue Xiu finished making those clothes first.
If his father could open a successful factory this time, they wouldn’t have to live with all that tension at home anymore, right? And maybe his mother wouldn’t look down on him so much anymore?
What Li Rui didn’t know was that in his past life, Li Yue’s actions had a lot to do with the influence of his grandparents. He couldn’t bear the way others looked at him differently. Now, after having a big argument with his parents, Li Yue’s feelings had changed a lot.