Chapter 7: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s 7

On the way to school, she ran into a few kids from the same village who were around her age.

Chatting and laughing, they all headed off to school together.

Shangsha Village was not exactly close to the township middle school. It took about an hour on foot.

Su Huandan’s family had a bicycle, but it was especially old. It creaked and squeaked when ridden, and everywhere except the bell made noise.

Even that beat-up bicycle was a rarity in Shangsha Village. Jiang Chunhua was afraid it would get stolen if left at school, so she wouldn’t let Su Huandan ride it.

In her previous life, Su Huandan had gotten quite angry with her mother over this.

In this life, even if you paid her, Su Huandan wouldn’t want to ride it.

Gewan Township had a total of nineteen production brigades¹, and this was the only middle school, teaching only the three junior high grades.

Each brigade had its own primary school.

Gewan Township Middle School was still made up entirely of one-story buildings. The three rows of brick-and-tile houses on the left were all classrooms, with eight classes in each grade.

On the right were the offices. Behind the offices were two neat rows of small courtyards that served as the teachers’ dormitories, and beyond those was the sports field.

Su Huandan’s classroom was in the last row. She was a student in Class 7 of the third year, sitting by the rear window, and beyond that window stretched a wide grove of Russian olive² trees.

In spring, when the trees bloomed, the whole school was filled with fragrance.

Now it was autumn, and the fruit on the Russian olive trees had long since been picked clean.

Back then, what village kid didn’t crave snacks?

The entire grove had basically been claimed by the students.

Although school had already started, only half the students were in the classroom.

A lot of them still hadn’t come back to class. Their families were busy bringing in the harvest. Never mind junior high students, even many fifth and sixth graders had to go work in the fields.

The teachers hated this situation most of all. Once lessons were missed, test scores would suffer, and then the parents would come knocking, saying the teachers hadn’t taught their children properly. With things like that, how could the teachers not be annoyed?

Morning self-study started at nine, with the class monitor leading everyone in reading the texts aloud.

Classes did not officially begin until ten.

The first class was Chinese. Their homeroom teacher, Old Tang, was a veteran teacher in his fifties. He spoke with a thick Hunan accent, had especially beautiful chalk handwriting, and was a genuinely literary sort who liked students who wrote good essays.

As luck would have it, Su Huandan’s overall grades were nothing special, but her essays were good. Old Tang liked praising her, and after being praised so much, Su Huandan felt too embarrassed not to pay attention in class.

As a result, Su Huandan’s Chinese grades were actually quite good.

That was the state of Su Huandan’s studies in her previous life. She could only take praise, and couldn’t handle even the slightest criticism.

Back in those days, no one talked about teaching students according to their aptitude³.

The teachers of the other subjects were not like Old Tang, the sort who would say a few kind words when they saw a student they liked.

The English teacher, Li Zhijin, was especially fond of cursing people.

The first thing out of his mouth was always: “You bunch of manure-making machines⁴!”

As for English, she didn’t know about other middle schools, but at their school, not a single student learned it well.

By the end of the morning, after two Chinese classes and two English classes, that was it.

Then came a whole pile of homework.

At noon, a lot of students brought their own meals. The school also had a cafeteria, run by one of the principal’s relatives.

The cafeteria food was especially monotonous, just rice and a dish. The rice was all old grain, and the dish was whatever vegetables were in season. Forget meat, it was just boiled vegetables with a little salt, and one serving cost twenty cents.

When Su Huandan had just started junior high in her previous life, she had happily run off to the cafeteria to eat, only to find out after going in that they collected meal fees in advance and cooked according to the number of people.

It was the kind where you paid for the whole semester in one go.

Su Huandan had actually paid for a whole semester, but after eating there for two days, she couldn’t take it anymore and started bringing her own food.

The meals at her home tasted far better than the cafeteria’s.

In order to get the meal money refunded, Jiang Chunhua had even come to the school and made a scene once.

As she ate the vegetable bun in her hand and thought back on the past life, Su Huandan felt she really did not have many good memories at school. She did not find these memories beautiful in the slightest.

After she finished eating, two boys came over to her side.

They were dressed neat and clean, completely different from most of their dusty, grimy classmates.

Zhang Jun and Zhao Hongbing were the two troublemakers in the class.

They never listened in class, never did homework after class, handed in blank exam papers, and their families were both fairly well-off. They were also sons doted on by their parents, with a dime or two always in their pockets, so there were always some students hanging around them hoping to get a little something.

And what kind of benefit were they after?

At that age, boys all liked to try smoking and see what it felt like.

The little shop across from the school sold Mohe Tobacco⁵, the kind you rolled yourself.

For ten cents, you could buy enough to roll about five cigarettes.

In the Russian olive grove, it was common to see more than a dozen boys gathered together, lighting a cigarette and passing it around, each taking a puff.

Zhang Jun and Zhao Hongbing smelled of smoke. You didn’t need to think hard to know they had just come out of the Russian olive grove.

Zhang Jun was very good-looking, with sharply defined features and a clean, striking jawline. His slightly rounded phoenix eyes⁶ gave him a distinctive look. He just wasn’t tall enough. Maybe he was the type who hit his growth spurt late, because right now he was half a head shorter than Su Huandan.

The moment he saw Su Huandan, he grinned, flashing a mouthful of gleaming white teeth.

“Back off. You reek of smoke. It’s disgusting,” Su Huandan said irritably, shooing him away.

In her previous life, Su Huandan’s first pursuer had been Zhang Jun. From the first year of junior high to the third, the whole school had known about it.

And Su Huandan really had never paid him any attention.

“Take it. Hurry and eat,” Zhang Jun said. Su Huandan had chased him off like this plenty of times before, but he never got angry. With a cheeky grin, he pulled out some White Rabbit milk candies⁷ from his pocket and set them on the desk in front of Su Huandan.

Three White Rabbit candies cost ten cents. The little shop across from the school had made quite a bit of money off Mohe Tobacco and White Rabbit candy.

Zhang Jun didn’t get mad when Su Huandan ignored him. He sat behind her, and every time she tossed the candy back, he would deliver it to her again. The rest of the lunch break passed just like that, back and forth.

In the afternoon, they had physics and chemistry. When classes were over, school was out and they went home.

On the way back, Zhang Jun and Zhao Hongbing would always escort Su Huandan all the way to the entrance of Shangsha Village before leaving.

From far off at the village entrance, she could already see her eldest sister waiting for her, her head wrapped in a kerchief.

After the two sisters met up, the eldest immediately tried to wrap the square kerchief she was holding around Su Huandan’s head.

“Some families in the village have already started threshing rice and milling grain. There’s chaff everywhere, and the dust is terrible. Cover up a little. Tomorrow, put a square kerchief in your schoolbag. Wrap it on before you enter the village. Otherwise, you’ll be washing your hair every single day.”

Even if she hadn’t said it, I already knew. The moment you reached the village entrance, the smell hit your nose and made you choke. Before the end of November, there was no escaping this kind of stifling environment.

When they got home, her eldest sister started shouting again: “Mom, I went to pick up Third Sister and saw those two boys again. They were following her pretty closely.”

Su Huandan: …

Seriously, how boring can they be?

I don’t even pay those two any attention. Besides, once we move to the city at the end of the year, we’ll never be in touch again. What’s there to talk about?

Just from that one shout from her eldest sister, Su Huandan had to listen to her mother nag her all the way until bedtime: you’re still young, don’t start dating, those two boys are no good, they’re good-for-nothings with no ambition, they can’t give you a good life…

Mm, she spent the whole evening listening to that same endless lecture. It was unbelievably annoying.

Translator’s Notes