Shi Zhen arrived in town at around 6 a.m. in the morning, and it was already after 8 a.m. when he sold out a pot of pig head meat. The sales were much slower than before.
He didn’t let Qian Qilai accompany him to sell. Qian Qilai went to a nearby place to eat a bowl of mustard greens and pork noodles and waited for him to close the stall before coming to find him.
“Master, are you going home now?” Qian Qilai asked.
Shi Zhen shook his head. “We’ll go back later. Let’s go to Xinhua Bookstore first.”
He planned to buy some exercise books or something and give them to Guan Baiyu.
He had asked Guan Baiyu, and Guan Baiyu had said that there would be an exam in school in one week. After the exam, the quota spots for recommendation to No.1 High School would be determined. The recommendation was based on the scores of this exam and the scores of the final exam of the previous semester.
He had confidence in Guan Baiyu, but he felt that it was better for Guan Baiyu to consolidate his knowledge in all aspects.
And even if he was recommended, according to the regulations of J City, Guan Baiyu still had to take the high school entrance examination. The recommendation just meant that he could go to the recommended school with a much lower score.
Let’s put it this way – if the school that Guan Baiyu attended did not have a quota for recommended students, there would not be a single student from their school admitted to No. 1 High School in Changxi City. But with a recommended place, the entrance score to enter No. 1 High School could be dozens to one hundred points lower than normal. In this way, Guan Baiyu would definitely be able to get in.
For children twenty or thirty years later, their parents often bought them a lot of exercise books, but they still didn’t complete them. However, at this time… Xinhua Bookstore sold very few exercise books. Even if Guan Baiyu wanted more, there were none.
In addition, Guan Baiyu had no extracurricular books at all and had only read some books in their school’s library.
There was a Xinhua Bookstore in town, which was also the only bookstore. Next to Xinhua Bookstore was a stationery store.
Shi Zhen didn’t have much money on hand. He remembered that Guan Baiyu had already bought stationery last time, so he didn’t go to the stationery store and only went to the bookstore.
At this time, the prices of many industrial products were similar to those 20 or 30 years later, and the prices of books were not cheap. Shi Zhen searched around and chose two exercise books for junior high school students, which cost 12 yuan in total.
After choosing the exercise books, he looked at the extracurricular books… There were not many extracurricular books available at this time, and the prices were not cheap. Shi Zhen finally chose a book called “Up and Down Five Thousand Years”, priced at 18.70 yuan.
After paying the money to the cashier who didn’t like to talk to people, Shi Zhen walked home with the books in his arms.
When Qian Qilai saw the books, he sympathized with Guan Baiyu. “You have to ask Guan Baiyu to do these questions? This is such a thick book. Can Guan Baiyu finish reading it?”
Shi Zhen said, “There are not many questions. As for that book, it shouldn’t take him long to finish.” He remembered that Guan Baiyu read books very quickly. Of course, Guan Baiyu had not done a lot of reading now, so he should read a little slower, but he didn’t think it would be by much. How slow could it be?
Qian Qilai sympathized with Guan Baiyu even more.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Vtl Itfc jcv Hljc Hlijl mtjaafv ktlif kjixlcu, wbrais jybea Hljc Hlijl’r peclbg tlut rmtbbi. Cr atfs mtjaafv, Vtl Itfc mbeivc’a tfiq yea kbggs jybea atf afjmtlcu dejilas bo Xejc Djlse’r peclbg tlut rmtbbi.
Lf tjv jikjsr xcbkc atja atf afjmtlcu dejilas bo gegji rmtbbir ja atlr alwf kjr nfgs jnfgjuf. Dea Hljc Hlijl vlvc’a fnfc xcbk atf bgvfg bo vscjralfr remt jr “Kjcu, Vbcu, Tejc, Zlcu jcv Hlcu”, ktlmt kjr j yla abb wemt.
But Guan Baiyu should know this knowledge.
After all, Qian Qilai was a school tyrant who barely finished his third year of junior high school, but Guan Baiyu was the first in the advanced class.
When Shi Zhen returned with the books, Guan Baiyu was sewing a quilt cover.
He only recently discovered that Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo didn’t even have bedding. They could only put straw under their bodies and wear cotton-padded jackets to sleep.
They actually slept under a bridge before!
Guan Baiyu felt a little distressed, so he thought about making some quilts for Shi Zhen and Shi Xinghuo – his grandmother used to weave cloth on a loom in the early years, and because she didn’t want to give it to her daughter-in-law, she saved a lot of fabric.
Originally, if these fabrics were new, they would definitely be snatched by his adoptive mother and aunt after his grandmother passed away. However, his grandmother had been bedridden for almost two years before she passed away. At that time, she knew that she would not live long. Not only did she try her best to eat well, but she even took out all the quilts and clothes that she couldn’t bear to wear before and put them on.
When old people were about to pass away, it was common for their bodies to have a smell. So when his grandmother passed away, his aunt didn’t want these things, and his adoptive mother adamantly didn’t take them either.
He had asked Shi Zhen. Shi Zhen didn’t mind using the things left by his grandmother, so he took out those quilt covers, washed them, dried them, and then sewed them up.
Seeing Shi Zhen coming back, Guan Baiyu immediately stood up. “Brother, why did it take so long to come back?”
“Business has not been very good recently,” Shi Zhen said. No matter what kind of food it was, more people would buy it when it first became available, but as time went by, business would not be so good.
But if no one else was doing this business, he could still sell three pig heads a day.
As for the future…he would definitely develop other products.
Guan Baiyu was a little worried, but Shi Zhen didn’t take it seriously. He took out the books he bought and gave them to Guan Baiyu. “Xiao Yu, aren’t you taking an exam soon? You can do the questions in the top two books to practice. As for the last book, you can read it when you have free time.”
Guan Baiyu didn’t expect Shi Zhen to buy books for him, and was a little surprised. When he saw the price of the books, he was shocked again. “It’s so expensive!”
“It’s okay. Books are naturally expensive… I can read them with you,” Shi Zhen said.
Guan Baiyu gently touched the books in his hands. “I will definitely read them well!”
It was still early, so Shi Zhen put down the empty basin, took another basin, and went to town again.
This time Qian Qilai didn’t follow. His master told him to do some things and he needed to arrange them.
Shi Zhen went to town three times that day and sold three pig heads.
A few days ago, because the iron pot at home was often used to braise pig heads, Shi Zhen and the others ate simply and didn’t do much cooking at all.
But today the pot was empty, so Shi Zhen cooked a few dishes in the evening.
Scrambled eggs with buckwheat and green onions, stewed tofu with lettuce leaves, and a piece of pig head each made the three of them very full.
Guan Baiyu was smiling when he went to bed that night.
But the next day…
Guan Baiyu pulled two plastic bags from the pile of plastic bags Shi Zhen bought for business that day and put them in his schoolbag.
After lunch every day, Yan Jiangtao would go outside the classroom and smoke with a few friends leaning against the teaching building.
He always thought it was a particularly handsome thing.
That day, while he was smoking, two plastic bags filled with water suddenly fell from above his head and hit him on the head.
Before he could react at all, his entire face was wet. The smell of mud spread, and the cigarette in his mouth was extinguished instantly.
Yan Jiangtao, who had been showing off the bicycle he had just bought, was stunned for a moment. What made him feel even more disgusted was… the water was dirty!
What the hell was this?
Yan Jiangtao was so angry that he looked up quickly, but saw nothing. “Who hit me!”
After Yan Jiangtao’s family became rich, he became very particular about cleanliness. Naturally, he was very angry when he was hit in the face like this, and he wanted to find the person who hit him.
Their teaching building only had three floors in total. He went to the classrooms on the upper two floors. There were people eating inside. Everyone said they didn’t see anyone throw water to hit him. He could only go to his own class to check.
Those in his class who had conflicts with him were all enjoying their meals. Guan Baiyu, whose living conditions had improved recently, had just finished his portion of pig head meat mixed with rice.
After a lot of trouble, Yan Jiangtao not only failed to find the person who hit him, but many people saw his embarrassed appearance. He finally left the school in anger and went home to take a shower.
Guan Baiyu took the enamel food container he brought with him and went to the sink to wash it.
Before eating, he went to the rooftop on the pretext of going to the toilet.
There were two doors to the rooftop. One was a wooden door that was bolted and could be opened by anyone, and the other was a locked iron gate.
The iron gate only had a few iron bars, one of which had corroded. One could make a bigger opening by forcefully moving the corroded bar. He was small, so he could get through the iron bars by taking off his coat.
When he got to the rooftop, he calculated the position, made a small mechanism, put a plastic bag filled with water and another with a little mud in it, and then returned to the classroom.
As soon as he returned to the classroom, the two bags of water and mud were thrown at Yan Jiangtao’s head…
He thought he would have to try a few more times before he could succeed, or that he might not be able to hit Yan Jiangtao’s head, but he didn’t expect that he would succeed on the first try.
Guan Baiyu heard everyone in the classroom talking about Yan Jiangtao, but instead of following along, he took out the math problems Shi Zhen bought for him to do.
Many of the questions in this book he had never seen before, and it would take some effort to solve them.
Yan Jiangtao would definitely not come to school this afternoon, so he could solve them slowly.
Yan Jiangtao did not come to school in the afternoon, which made several junior high school students who rarely came to school a bit dumbfounded.
They prepared water from the ditch and wanted to pour it all over Yan Jiangtao and then make fun of him. Now that Yan Jiangtao was not here…the bucket of water could only be used to water the vegetables grown behind the school.
This water was not ordinary water. It was extremely dirty!
Next to the ditch, a family built a shack and raised more than a dozen pigs. When their family cleaned the pig pen every few days, they would flush the pig manure into the ditch with water.
The weeds near the ditch were much thicker than other places. Last time, a child accidentally fell in, and his parents immediately washed him three times from head to toe.
***
T/N: In case it’s not obvious, exercise books contain practice questions. What they call extracurricular books I think are just books outside the curriculum that you can read for extra knowledge.
Guan Baiyu has a sneaky side!
hahaha😆.. l am smiling at Guan Baiyu’ action.
So, Guan Baiyu had the same idea as the people who were a part of Qian Qilai’s “gang”?
Well deserved 😤 good job little baiyu~ such a smart little cookie 🤭