After school officially started, Zhu Yun Xuan realized that going to elementary school was really a painful experience.
However, he couldn’t skip school. After all, Jiang Yue Xiu and Zhu Cheng Cai had high expectations for him, and he couldn’t show off his “child prodigy” side just yet, before this, he could barely write his own name!
The day after the registration, they had half a day of classes. They got to know the Chinese and Math teachers, and then the class teacher, who was also the Chinese teacher, taught them a nursery rhyme. She said that when the class bell rang, everyone had to recite it together. After they finished, the class monitor was supposed to shout “Stand up,” and then all the students would have to stand and say, “Good morning, teacher.”
This Teacher Chen had already arranged the class leaders, and the boy who was pointed out as the class monitor was none other than the chubby boy, Yao Li, who had talked to Zhu Yun Xuan yesterday and then quickly ran away.
“Ding-ling, ding-ling, class begins, class begins, children, get ready!” The seats were arranged by height, and Zhu Yun Xuan, who sat in the third row, opened his mouth and pretended to recite along with everyone, he simply couldn’t get excited about saying something like that.
“Teacher Chen! He didn’t recite!” Suddenly, Zhu Yun Xuan’s deskmate, a chubby, fair-skinned girl, raised her hand and angrily reported him to the teacher.
Speechless… Zhu Yun Xuan suddenly remembered that kids at this age seemed very pure and righteous…
In the end, Zhu Yun Xuan, who was clearly distracted and didn’t have his hands obediently behind his back, was ordered by the teacher to stand and continue reciting with everyone… He even got stared at a few times, becoming the teacher’s next focus.
In Zhu Yun Xuan’s memory, when he attended elementary school in his past life, the school had very strict rules, and the teachers would even search students’ backpacks… Actually, he should have chosen to attend a rural school, right? There, he could probably live a life similar to Li Rui’s, because many teachers were just going through the motions in class.
After three lessons in the morning, Zhu Yun Xuan was punished to stand for most of the class.
“So, you’re saying that if you’re sitting at the back, the teacher won’t ask you to answer questions, and you can do whatever you want?” After school at noon, Zhu Yun Xuan first went to the market, then went to Li Rui’s house. The town was quieter at this time, and with his good behavior now, Jiang Yue Xiu let him go to the market to find Zhu Cheng Cai after school, and then she would bring lunch to both of them.
Li Rui’s meal was quite good. The maid, Xiao Hui, earned a high salary and therefore had a generous food budget, which ensured that his meals were always comfortable. At the moment, the table was filled with thinly sliced fish in scallion oil, braised pork with preserved mustard greens, loofah soup, stir-fried water bamboo shoots, and pickled vegetables made by Jiang Yue Xiu with white sugar mixed in by Xiao Hui.
“My mom gave them a heads-up, so those teachers don’t pay attention to me. And it’s not just me, no one’s watching. Do you know that fat kid from Class 2?” Li Rui asked.
“What happened?” The first and second classes were on different ends of the floor. Elementary schools didn’t allow students to switch classes, and Zhu Yun Xuan had never bothered to cause trouble, so he hadn’t visited yet.
“There’s a kid in Class 2 who has health problems. His mom came to school with him to take care of him.” Li Rui said. He didn’t know why the kid was unwell, but having a mother who took care of him so thoroughly was still something to envy.
“I kind of remember now. Back when I was in school, I think there was someone like that a year higher than me. I heard their heart wasn’t very good.” Zhu Yun Xuan also recalled his past life.
“You didn’t attend elementary school in your past life?” Li Rui asked, surprised. By now, Zhu Yun Xuan was already six years old, almost seven by traditional age, which was considered late in an era where everyone was eager to start school early.
“In our village, you had to be eight in traditional years to start elementary school.” Zhu Yun Xuan glared at Li Rui.
“No worries,” Li Rui smiled, “Do you want to eat something?”
“I already ate.”
“If you don’t eat it now, it’ll go to waste.” Li Rui pointed to the fish on the table. Zhu Yun Xuan loved eating fish, and in his past life, whenever he went to the staff cafeteria, he would always order fish if it was available.
“Alright, fine, I’ll eat!” Zhu Yun Xuan picked up his chopsticks and started eating the dish.
Watching Zhu Yun Xuan happily eat, Li Rui couldn’t help but smile.
He knew that Zhu Yun Xuan came to his house every day not to take advantage of him and get free food, but simply to keep him company.
The maid, Xiao Hui, didn’t engage in much conversation with him, and if Zhu Yun Xuan didn’t come over, he’d basically be alone. If it weren’t for knowing this, Zhu Yun Xuan probably wouldn’t visit as often.
In the first-grade Chinese textbook, the first thing they learned was Pinyin, and on the first day, they learned the sounds “aoe,” each with four tones.
Zhu Yun Xuan had done well with Pinyin in his past life, after all, it was tested during the college entrance exam, and later on, when typing on the computer, he had always used Pinyin input method. He thought he had completely memorized it. However, what he didn’t expect was that when the teacher called on him to pronounce the third tone of “a,” she suddenly told him that his pronunciation wasn’t accurate.
Not accurate? Zhu Yun Xuan didn’t think so at all, but the strict Teacher Chen frowned and said that when he pronounced the third tone, he accidentally followed it with the fourth tone.
Zhu Yun Xuan didn’t mind the teacher being strict when teaching. Since he was determined to study hard and make Zhu Cheng Cai and Jiang Yue Xiu proud, he didn’t argue when he was punished or scolded by the teacher. But this first day of formal classes almost pushed him to the brink of breakdown.
If she said he was blending the third tone with the fourth, then he should have just stopped earlier. As it was, he ended up only pronouncing the second tone…
Because he didn’t pronounce the Pinyin correctly, after school, Zhu Yun Xuan was kept behind for extra lessons. There were over ten other students who were also staying behind, all for mispronouncing their Pinyin. He didn’t know whether Teacher Chen was truly responsible or if there was another reason for it.
White cards with Pinyin written on them were handed out, and the students stood in line, taking turns reading. Zhu Yun Xuan tried his best to suppress his temper and followed along. Before long, some of the students’ parents came to the door to pick them up.
Teacher Chen spoke to them for a while before letting them take their children home. One by one, the students were picked up until only Zhu Yun Xuan and another short-haired girl remained.
The girl, seeing that the number of people was dwindling, couldn’t hold back her tears and began to cry. Teacher Chen looked at her with disgust: “Now you know how to cry? You didn’t even feel embarrassed before? You can’t even pronounce Pinyin properly. People from the countryside really are uneducated.”
Hearing such words from a teacher was truly hurtful. Zhu Yun Xuan’s face turned dark as he glanced at the girl. Although she looked confused, she cried even harder.
In such a small town, the people here had an inexplicable sense of superiority, while also harboring a deep disdain for those from the countryside. Meanwhile, people from the countryside, because of this contempt, had no favorable feelings toward the townsfolk either, often referring to them as “street turtles.”
This mutual disdain and hostility had existed for a long time. Townspeople viewed rural folks as dirty, uneducated, and uncultured. On the other hand, people from the countryside couldn’t tolerate being looked down upon, especially in the days when supplies were rationed. People in the town had wages, food rations, and various other coupons, while rural folk worked hard in the fields, handing over much of their grain. They couldn’t even slaughter a pig for themselves. If someone from the countryside had a pig that looked a bit plump, it would be taken away to support neighboring countries or something like that. In the 60s and 70s, they often went hungry. In such a situation, it’s only natural that rural people would envy the townspeople.
Zhu Yun Xuan learned many things from his father and grandfather. His grandfather, Zhu Ah Da, chose to sell meat because once he finally saved up enough to go to town to buy some, the butcher looked down on him and gave him two pounds of fatty pork neck with lymph glands attached.
When Zhu Cheng Cai was young, he had a strong craving for sugarcane, so he would pick up the leftover, less sweet sugarcane stubs that people in the town discarded while peeling their sugarcane. He would chew on them and then get chased and beaten by the town’s kids.
Zhu Yun Xuan also knew that most of the people from his parents’ generation in the countryside only attended elementary school, and his grandparents’ generation were mostly illiterate. Combined with their poverty, many people were seen as inferior by the townsfolk. But such situations were becoming rarer now.
Mutual hostility was quite common, but in a few years, such prejudice would mostly disappear, and it would shift to the local people being prejudiced against outsiders. However, it was still disheartening that even a teacher held such biases at this point… In his previous life, Zhu Yun Xuan had so many teachers, yet none of them were like this one!
Zhu Yun Xuan wanted to argue, but surprisingly, Teacher Chen waved at them and said, “You can go now!”
Walking toward the school gate with the girl who was still crying beside him, Zhu Yun Xuan asked, “What’s your name?”
“My name is Yang Min,” the girl wiped her eyes and spoke, stammering. It seemed like her Mandarin wasn’t very good.
“I’m Zhu Yun Xuan.” After leaving the classroom, Zhu Yun Xuan realized that the first and second-grade classrooms were completely empty, and the students from higher grades had already left. He couldn’t figure out whether Teacher Chen was just being really strict or if she was trying to intimidate them.
At the school gate, Jiang Yue Xiu was waiting outside. When she saw Zhu Yun Xuan, she immediately ran over and hugged him, while another man picked up the girl.
“Mom, why didn’t you come into the classroom to pick me up?” Zhu Yun Xuan wrapped his arms around Jiang Yue Xiu’s neck. All the other kids were picked up by their parents!
“Can we go in?” Jiang Yue Xiu asked, a little confused.
Zhu Yun Xuan paused for a moment, suddenly remembering his previous life. In that life, Jiang Yue Xiu treated all his teachers like they were divine beings, while at the same time, she avoided them whenever possible, almost as if she were a student of theirs herself.
Forget it, this matter was best solved by himself.
Since school ended late, Zhu Yun Xuan didn’t go to see Li Rui again. Instead, he went home, flipped through his Chinese textbook, and memorized all the texts, including “I love Dad, I love Mom,” and “You clap once, I clap once,” and other lessons.
If that Teacher Chen kept looking for trouble, in a few days, he’d go to the principal and apply for skipping a grade!
Zhu Yun Xuan knew that skipping a grade wasn’t common in this school, and the school didn’t encourage it. But if things kept going on like this, he was sure he’d go crazy!
Zhu Yun Xuan and Zhu Qiu Yue always went to the town with their father in the morning. After arriving early in the town, they would head to school together later. Zhu Yun Xuan sat inside the bicycle repair stall, where his father was fixing the brakes for someone. The bicycle brake was a piece of iron wire wrapped in rubber, and although Zhu Yun Xuan didn’t fully understand the mechanism, he knew that if the brake became loose, they could tighten the wire. If that didn’t work, they’d have to replace it.
“Yun Xuan.” Li Rui suddenly appeared in front of the repair stall, carrying his black cat policeman backpack.
“Why are you here so early?” Zhu Yun Xuan was a little surprised.
“What happened to you yesterday? Why did the teacher keep you after school?” Li Rui recalled what had happened yesterday. He had waited for Zhu Yun Xuan for a long time, hoping he could come over to his house to do homework. But after waiting for a while, Zhu Yun Xuan still didn’t come out. Later, since Xiao Hui had to go home to cook, he had to go home as well. It was fine, but he had waited for such a long time, and Zhu Yun Xuan never showed up.
“I was kept behind after school yesterday for extra lessons!” Zhu Yun Xuan was extremely frustrated. He had had experiences in his previous life where he didn’t do his homework well and had to stay behind to redo it, but he had never been kept after class like this before!
“You…”
“I’m fine. I just want to see if there will be any change today.” Maybe it was because he wasn’t paying attention in class and had let his mind wander, or maybe it was because he didn’t learn the nursery rhymes properly… He wasn’t sure if anything would change today.
Sure enough, as soon as the Chinese class started, Zhu Yun Xuan and the girl who stayed behind with him yesterday, Yang Min, were singled out by Teacher Chen and scolded. At the end, Teacher Chen said, “You two, move the chairs and sit by the podium. Pay more attention!”
Move the chairs and sit by the podium?
“Hmph, you think hugging someone will improve your grades? You two are going to end up useless!” Teacher Chen spoke again. She had no good feelings for Zhu Yun Xuan, who didn’t listen, or for the girl, Yang Min, who couldn’t even understand some of what she said. Yesterday, when she saw these two being carried out of the school gate, she thought they were just too spoiled.
Zhu Yun Xuan slammed his book on the desk and stood up.