Reborn in a small mountain village in 1991

Chapter 30 The Best Second Brother

Xu Chunsheng was completely baffled by You Xiaoxia's words.

"I am sincere towards you."

Xu Chunsheng then heard You Xiaoxia say something, but before he could speak, he suddenly felt a warm sensation on his right cheek.

You Xiaoxia then turned around and went inside.

If it were Xu Chunsheng from his previous life, he would definitely be overjoyed by this.

But Xu Chunsheng remained silent.

After all, he only thinks about his wife from his previous life, with whom he went through many trials and tribulations.

You Xiaoxia secretly rejoiced, as if by doing this she had completely bound Xu Chunsheng to her grasp.

So, before entering the room, she actually asked Xu Chunsheng to say:

"Come help me with the chores tomorrow, and come shopping with me at the market the day after tomorrow. Buy me a dress too!"

"You're crazy! Why should I buy it for you?"

Xu Chunsheng turned and left.

He considered his mission complete once he had taken You Xiaoxia home.

"Is your Ophiopogon japonicus really that important? Can't you even take a day off?!"

"I've already taken the initiative to contact you, and you're not even appreciating it!"

"Xu Chunsheng, I hate you!"

In the midst of ordinary days, time flew by, and it was time for Xu Yaomei to go to school.

"Wow, the dress you and Mom made for me is so pretty!"

"Second brother, third brother, isn't my new dress pretty?"

"Dad, I want to wear a new dress to school tomorrow!"

Time is passing quietly, and Xujia Village is still the same Xujia Village, but Xu Chunsheng's house is unusually lively today.

Xu Yaomei's crisp voice broke the summer heat.

Xu Yaomei is going to start first grade!

Xu Yaomei is going to wear a new dress to register for school!

Xu Yaomei was very excited. She took out the dress that she had made two months ago and put it on a day in advance. She also found the hair accessories she had bought before and begged her older sister to give her a hairstyle for school the next day.

The new dress she had been holding back from wearing was so that she could "dazzle" her friends in the village when she went to school.

Gushan Primary School.

Although it's called a school, it's not really a school in the strict sense.

There is only one "primary school" in a brigade and five villages.

The school has no walls or gates, only a vertical wooden board with the words "Gushan Primary School" written on it. It silently watches the sunrise and sunset, quietly living in this deep mountain.

Decades ago, the village elders thought that the children running all over the mountains, with eleven or twelve-year-olds followed by a string of seven or eight-year-olds, and finally a string of snotty-nosed ones, spent their days climbing trees to steal bird nests and catching crabs in ditches. They thought that the bunch of kids together had no idea what the world was like and couldn't even write their own names. So they joined forces with the brigade cadres to discuss setting up a school together with several villages.

The entire Gushan Brigade is shaped like a folding fan, with Xujia Village at the handle and the other villages on the blades. Because Xujia Village is closest to the town, the brigade cadres decided to build the school there.

Initially, there was no money and no place to build a school. The production brigade decided to use two unclaimed mud-brick houses as the "school" site. Only the foundation of the houses could be seen. The walls were dilapidated and looked like they would collapse if pushed. Not to mention the roof, which was as big as the sky.

It was only after the brigade gathered people in the village and calculated work points that people came to help repair the school. The blackboard was just a makeshift solution of blackening the wooden boards with ink. The desks and chairs were prepared by the families who had children who wanted to study there. Some families used old wooden boards from home to make a simple table shape, while others didn't even make a table and just brought a stool to use as a desk, where people would sit directly on the ground.

Whether it was decades ago or now, the entire school, including teachers, only had thirty or forty people. Leaving the teachers aside, the children were all six or seven to twelve or thirteen years old from the whole brigade. The older ones were already able to help with chores at home, while the younger ones still had runny noses. If you lived far away, you had to walk for more than half an hour or an hour along mountain roads to get to school.

"Teacher, the tuition and fees are so much higher this year!"

"Teacher, can I pay this semester's tuition and fees now, and then pay the rest later?"

"Master Xu, did you bring your child to register?"

"Your child will have to go to town to continue their studies next semester after finishing third grade."

……

The sounds of voices rose and fell in the mountain primary school; acquaintances greeted each other, and people asked the teachers about tuition fees—it was very lively.

When Xu Chunsheng and his older sister brought their younger sister to the school, there were already some children and adults from various villages who had come to register in the courtyard. They were all from the same production brigade, so they were somewhat familiar with each other and were greeting one another.

Listening to the voices of the people around him, Xu Chunshan's thoughts gradually drifted away. He had also studied here for two years when he was six or seven years old.

The village primary school only taught up to the third grade because there were only two teachers in the whole school. One teacher taught labor, was in charge of safety, and was also responsible for the children's daily life, which meant heating up the lunches they brought to the school.

Another teacher was responsible for teaching Chinese and math. Back then, there were far fewer children in the school than there are now; there were only about a dozen or twenty children from several villages combined.

Various sizes of children were crammed into one room, and there was no fixed schedule for classes:

First, teach a few words to the first graders, letting them read them quietly. Then, have them write the words on the table with their fingers, and then write them in their notebooks later.

He then went on to teach arithmetic to second and third graders. As for music and art, there were none. There was no need for physical education either. After school, the children in the mountains had to help with chores at home, and some had to walk one or two kilometers to get home. There was really no need to offer a physical education class. He would just take the children for a run in the yard once a week and then hold a flag-raising ceremony.

Thinking of this, Xu Chunsheng looked up at the flagpole. It was no longer the wooden one he used when he was in school, but the one he was using now looked like it had been used for several years. There were two iron rings on it, and the rope was passed through the iron rings. Pulling the rope down, the red flag was raised. When the wind blew, a red flag quietly guarded the small school in the sky.

"Erwa, what are you looking at? You're so engrossed in it." The eldest sister nudged Xu Chuansheng's arm and asked.

"It's almost our turn to register. I'll stand in line here. Go and call Yaomei over."

The three sisters were originally queuing up together, but as they waited, Xu Yaomei couldn't stand it and went to play with the other children.

Xu Chunsheng nodded. When he found Xu Yaomei, he could hear her talking loudly among a group of children from afar:

"My skirt is made of the prettiest floral fabric in town. My second brother bought it for me and my older sister. After we got home, my older sister and my mother made the skirt for me together."

Xu Yaomei occasionally swayed her skirt, twirled around to show off her little dress, and then touched the pink hair accessory on her head, saying:

"And this flower headdress, I bought it with the money I earned from digging up Ophiopogon japonicus. I made a full fifty cents that time!"

Wow! Xu Yaomei, you've even learned how to make money!

"Hmph, I also want my brother to buy me floral fabric to make a dress."

……

Amidst envious whispers and a hint of grievance, Xu Yaomei finally completed her "task" for the day.

"Little sister, come quick, it's your turn to register."

After the two siblings left, from time to time, a voice could still be heard from the group of children behind them:

"Is that Xu Yaomei's brother?"

"It looks so tall!"

"Her brother is so nice, unlike my brother who only bullies me."

Xu Yaomei turned around, smiling, and shouted loudly:

"My second brother is the best brother!"