In any case, the slap against Yang Mawa completely drew the line between me and my peers and classmates, and those who tried to make fun of me by chance, and those who wanted to try the soft temper of the new gentleman, all came to the conclusion that they deserved it, and the order in the school continued according to my father's old pattern.

Yang Mawa dropped out of school. On the day of the beating, he didn't come back to school, and went uphill with his father to dig the ground. The reaction that quickly fed back to my ears from all corners of the village was absolutely one-sided. No one sympathized with Yang Mawa, and I heard that even his father scolded him for not knowing the depths. Deacon Yang Buming ran to the school that afternoon and supported me: "Good fight! After studying for a few years, I don't even know how to have etiquette, and I don't have any rules! If I don't fight, tomorrow will turn the sky upside down!" He deliberately spoke loudly so that the dolls sitting in the school hall could hear it. Not only Deacon Yang Buming, but almost all the farmers who sent their sons to school supported my move to move the board in the streets and alleys where I came and went. However, I knew in my heart that no one would sympathize with the deviant actions of disrespecting the teacher, so I was not surprised.

I don't regret Yang Mawa's withdrawal. According to the unique curriculum that my grandfather pioneered in this school (which was later supplemented by my father), the enlightenment students began to read and write from 12345, then learned "Hundred Family Names", and the middle grades learned "Seven Words Magazine", about three years. The additional course is abacus, first learn addition and subtraction, and then learn "Nine Returns". In three years, the descendants of those poor farmers learned the miscellaneous words used in daily life, and they could make calculations, so they went out of the school to make crops with their father and brother, or went to a shop or workshop in Xi'an to be an apprentice. Leaving behind a small number of children from wealthy households, he opened the Analects and studied step by step. This set of tutorials, founded by my grandfather, is quite popular with croppers, it can be said that it is suitable for both rich and poor, there is popularization and improvement, taking care of the "surface" and ensuring the "point". Yang Mawa should have dropped out of school a long time ago to do crops or become a husband, but he was born short, and his parents hurt his physical exhaustion, so they asked him to mix in the school for a few more years...... Sooner or later, it will have to go.

Two months have passed, there have been no accidents, the order is normal, and Deacon Yang Buming has praised my father several times: "The cultivation is good!" My father was naturally very pleased. I feel very good about myself, too. When I walked through the village, I could take a slow and urgent step, and I was no longer nervous. I sat upright at the front of the desk for a while, reading a book or lecturing, and I no longer felt sleepy and sleepy. People say that I am alive and well like my dad was twenty years ago, and even my temper is exactly the same as my dad.

I also realized that my temper had changed. I loved to laugh when I was young, my mother said that I had a smiling Bodhisattva face, and there were two dimples on my cheeks when I smiled, and my father trained me for my love of laughter, saying that I had a face without edges and corners, and especially hated the two unlucky dimples on my face...... Now, I've gotten rid of my love of laughter, and dimples are rare. When I faced a group of students with different personalities, I couldn't do it without the power of deterrence, and my father said that I must not giggle with the students, because if I laughed, I would lose my power. Another reason why it is inconvenient to say is that I can't laugh since I married my daughter-in-law.

She came in a sedan chair, and walked into the wing room with the support of the bridesmaids, and as soon as I lifted the red cloth covering her face, my heartbeat sank at once, and I couldn't jump anymore. I really couldn't predict that my father would marry me such a daughter-in-law. Of course, my father's peculiar theory, I don't dare to contradict it, think about my current status in Yangxu Village, think of the prestige established by the three generations of the Xu family in Yangxu Village, I feel very heavy, I can't embarrass my ancestors, let alone be too lazy to be a woman and ruin the spirit of "reading and cultivating" on the gatehouse of the Xu family in my hands, and the position and proportion of this woman have been cut off at once.

When I came home from school, she timidly greeted me: "Sir, eat." "She never dared to look me in the eye. When I realized she was looking at me, she immediately looked away as soon as I turned around. She can't be coquettish, she can only light the fire, wash the pot, wash the dishes, sew clothes, and make shoes. I don't speak, and she doesn't speak, probably because I'm afraid that it won't be appropriate, and I won't have anything to say when I see her, so it's always quiet in the small room.

The dissatisfaction of my spouse and the unpleasant relationship between husband and wife were diluted by the enthusiasm and interest of my new teaching work, and I felt that I enjoyed teaching very much. The wish on one side is mixed with the unsatisfactory on the other, and I live like this, and I don't feel that I can't live, although life seems old-fashioned, but it is also peaceful.

My calm state of mind was suddenly shattered!

At the end of school that day, it was raining, and the heavy rain made a white blister on the stagnant water in the yard. The college students ran out of the school hall with their necks bent despite the rain and slippery roads, and there was a chaotic sound of fluttering footsteps in the courtyard, and only a few little dolls hid under the eaves at the door, not daring to go out. I stood up, stretched my waist, walked under the eaves, and persuaded the little dolls to wait a little longer, and then go after the rain stopped. At this time, a woman wearing a cheongsam walked into the courtyard of the school, and a red paper umbrella covered her head and face. But I already recognized that this was Yang Guinian's second daughter-in-law. I walked back to the school and sat down on a chair.

The woman walked to the door of the school, and her son had already jumped on her knees and hugged her waist. She touched the child's head and said with a smile: "Send this umbrella to your husband, you can just get an umbrella with your mother." ”

I immediately got up from my chair, excused myself, and asked her and the child to have an umbrella each, and I waited until the rain stopped. Her son put the umbrella on the table and jumped out the door, she took his hand, turned and walked away, in the muddy water of the yard, carefully picking a place where he could put his feet, and went out of the yard. The remaining three or five little dolls, probably estimating that their parents would not send umbrellas or straw hats, ran away in the rain.

The school room was silent, and I was left alone, looking at the red painted paper umbrella on the table. I picked up my umbrella and lifted it, but I smelled a faint fragrance, the alluring smell of something like fat powder. I sat in my chair and there were two watery eyes in front of me, and if I hadn't seen her eyes so closely, I really didn't know there were such beautiful eyes in the world. She wore a purple red cheongsam, draped in curly hair, fine skin and tender flesh, but she was only twenty-four or five years old, and the cheongsam tightly wrapped around her plump breasts and buttocks. I suddenly wondered, if I had such a good-looking woman, would I really waste my studies?

The rain was light, and the rippling rain mist shrouded the dense treetops, and the yard was dark. I took one last look at the red umbrella, finally didn't use it, locked the door, and walked home.

About ten days later, or half a month, she took the child by the hand and walked into the school. Standing in front of my desk, she scolded her son for wanting to skip school, and she brought him by the hand. I asked her son to take his seat. But she didn't leave, took out a piece of paper from her waist, spread it out on the table in front of me, and asked, "Mr. Xu, how do you pronounce this word?"

When I looked up, I saw that she was not looking, but looking into my eyes, and there was a heartwarming look in them. I hurriedly answered the pronunciation of the word, and avoided my face. She smiled, said "thank you" and walked out the door.

Since then, whenever I walk in front of the gatehouse of Yang Guinian's house, I can't help but turn my head and glance at the deep mansion compound. In the past, like my father, I disdained to glance at this corner pavilion-like gatehouse. At a glance, I didn't see anything. On this day, I finally bumped into her at the door. I nodded to her and walked over, but she called out again, "Mr. Xu—" and I stopped and turned around.

"The child has a stomachache and can't go to school anymore. ”

"That's good. Let the baby rest at home. ”

"Missing ...... out of class"

"The baby is well, I'll make up for it. ”

"I'm really bothering you!"

"You're welcome. ”

When I got home, those watery eyes flickered before my eyes, and I was in the school, and those eyes blinked between the lines......

When I came home that night, I saw my father, with a displeased face, returning from plowing the field and slamming his plough staff on the steps. When he returned home, he was already working as hard as his uncle and second uncle. Are you tired and irritable?

It wasn't until the dead of night that the eldest uncle and the second uncle and the cousins were asleep, and my father finally called me into the upper room, closed the door, suppressed the voice, and was so stern that he was afraid of people: "What do you have to say to that stinky **?

I felt like I had been hit with a brick on the head, and my eyes were dark, and I said, "She asked for leave for the child......"

"I don't want you to reply!" the father stood up, his terrible eagle-like eyes, "I just want to tell you, that ** will talk to you again, you don't know what! That's a goblin, a ghost! You should respect yourself!"

I lowered my head, feeling ashamed, as if I had really had something to do with that woman, but in fact I had only spoken two or three times, all about her children's schooling, and each time it was so simple. I want to distinguish and explain, not only because my father is angry and difficult to accommodate, but because I myself feel embarrassed to speak.

"Let's go!" said the father with a negative wave of his hand.

I don't know how I got out of my father's upper room and back to my own room. After lying down, I couldn't sleep, my heart was burning and stuffy, and my head was buzzing.

This woman is the little wife married by Yang Guinian's second son in Henan, and she was sent back to her hometown because of the war. Yang Guinian didn't know that his son had married a little woman outside, so he was so angry that he blew his beard and stared, but the woman led a lovely little grandson, after all, she was a descendant of the Yang family, so she was contained, but she couldn't see this woman with a foreign accent in her heart. The eldest lady who is marrying through the Ming media hates this sister even more. This woman has no assistance or sympathy in the Yang family, and her life is tasteless, and the people in the village say that she secretly cries every night! The people in the village do not know the details, and they say one after another that the foreign woman sent back from Henan by Yang Guinian's second son is a woman from a good family who robbed the tyrant; some say the opposite, saying that she was originally a kiln sister in a brothel in Kaifeng Mansion......

No matter how blunt my father's attitude was, it was unbearable, but after I calmed down, I couldn't help but secretly convince my father's perceptive eyes, although I didn't have anything to do with that foreign woman, I could reflect from my heart, those watery eyes did make me a little distracted. If it weren't for my father's warning, if it didn't go on like this, even if it wouldn't develop into something ugly that would damage the style of the family, it would be extremely dangerous, and any half-word of gossip might ruin me, ruin my father, and ruin the family style that the Xu family has built up for generations of people to observe festivals and rituals...... The brick that my father threw directly at my head was ruthless and timely.

My heart was contracting, and the chaotic clouds stirred up by the foreign woman dissipated. I no longer paid any attention to the woman who had been scolded by my father as a fairy and a ghost, and even all the young women in the village. I can't let Peach desecrate the gatehouse of the Xu family......

Yangxu Village was liberated, and the people sent three gentlemen to Yangxu Village, which was really eye-opening to me. They wore short coats with four pockets and octagonal hats, abolished my curriculum, and distributed to the students textbooks compiled by the Northwest Military and Political Commission, and set up classes in Chinese and arithmetic, as well as music, physical education, and drawing.

I resigned automatically. There was no way, I didn't know arithmetic, I hadn't even seen those Arabic characters, and I couldn't teach the new language textbooks, even though they were plain vernacular. I left the school where my grandparents had been teaching for three generations, and gave way to the three new gentlemen who had been sent in, and went with my father to farm. My blue robe has been taken off, and it is too inconvenient to wear it for the crops!

Half a year later, one day later, my father and I were ploughing the fields by the official road in the west of the village, and the communicator of the township sent a notice asking me to go to the normal school in the south of the city for further study. To go, to dare not to go, to go, to go, I can't make up my mind, I don't know what to do. My father couldn't make up his mind, since the three new gentlemen entered Yangxu Village, my father ridiculed more than once: "Jumping, walking, singing, drinking, male and female, everyone wants to talk, what a good gentleman!" Now he understands that the gentlemen trained in the normal school must be like that, and I may be like that in the future, he can't make up his mind. For this matter, he specially visited the county education department, and when he came back, he made a decision: Go!

The night before I left, I sat in the upper room where my parents lived, listening carefully to my father's teachings on how to talk to my husband, how to get along with my classmates, and how to get along with my classmates. The mother then told the trivial things in life, avoid eating raw and cold food, and pay attention to the addition and subtraction of clothes. My daughter-in-law stood by in a daze, looking uneasy, and didn't interject, and then asked, "Which clothes should I prepare for my husband to go out?"

I was stunned. This is a matter that my parents and myself have neglected for the time being, should I wear a short coat or a robe? I thought about it, but I didn't have an idea. Looking at my mother, my mother looked at my father, and it seemed that I didn't know what to wear. My father was polishing ink on the table, pondering, then looking up and saying, "Wear a blue robe." ”

I was a little puzzled: "Dad, I see that the three new gentlemen from our village are not wearing robes." Liberated, no longer happy to wear robes. ”

"Liberated, I haven't heard that you are not allowed to wear robes!" the father said mockingly, "Look at those three foreign gentlemen, wearing a short coat, and they are so short! What kind of system does it become!"

The conclusion was decided: wear a blue robe. So my daughter-in-law withdrew, and prepared my packing for tomorrow.

My father had already sharpened the ink, pulled out the cap of the brush, repeatedly followed the tip of the brush on the lid of the inkstone, and then suddenly hung his wrist and wrote two words on a piece of hard paper: Shen Du. When the ink dried, it was handed to me, and he looked at me sternly and implicitly. I took my father's instructions with both hands, and put them in the small folded wallet and put it in the pocket of my underwear, indicating that I must be cautious in everything in a strange environment away from my father, especially when I am alone, not in my father's sight......

In the morning light of the next day, I packed my bags and hit the road. When I walked out of the village for a long time, I turned around and vaguely saw my father's tall figure standing on the side of the road at the entrance of the village, because he was standing still like an ancient black tower because his back was facing the morning light shining from the east mountain......

I turned and walked away, nervous and a little hurried, what would the world that awaited me look like......? In any case, this trip became the first major turning point in my life......