"Patriarchs of the Nine Dynasties"

Volume 1 The Zhao Family

Chapter 1 Returning Home after Graduation

1.

July 13, 1993.

In the spring, after graduating from Dongzhou Normal College in S Province, he returned to his hometown Hushan Town, Huxian County, Dongzhou City, from Huxian County, more than 100 miles away, with a simple bag on his back and a piece of paper.

The town of Toyama is named after the fact that the mountain is the highest peak in the county.

This is a small town located in the rolling mountains, poor and backward, remote and desolate.

The town is bordered by Hushan Mountain in the north and Yuntai Mountain in the south, and more than 200 families gather on a soothing slope between the two mountains. A potholed, dusty loess road runs through the town. A few government offices, a few small shops, and a few scattered street vendors are pretty much all there is to the town.

The town is full of low blue brick houses and mud-walled grass houses, and occasionally one or two slightly imposing red brick gatehouses can be seen, showing the wealth and glory of the owner's family. The newly built two-storey office building of the rural credit cooperative, opposite the town health center, stands out among the messy and dilapidated village houses, just like a brightly dressed city man suddenly appearing from the ragged village households, which looks a little dazzling, and also adds a bit of modernity and civilization to this old, bald, simple and humble town.

Old buses wobbly stop at the town's stops, and spring follows the people out of the carriages as they get off the train. Almost in the blink of an eye, the crowd soon dispersed to all corners of the town, leaving only Spring alone at the station.

The driver threw a burning cigarette butt from the cab window, poked his head out and spat out a mouthful of thick phlegm, and started the car, which staggered out of the station panting, leaving behind a thick cloud of smoke and flying loess.

2.

Standing on the depressed and cold streets that are a little familiar and a little unfamiliar, there is a sudden feeling of loss in spring, and at the same time, there is a trace of helplessness and frustration in my heart.

Once upon a time, in order to jump out of the peasant gate facing the loess with his back to the sky, he used to keep his hands on the books in the shabby classroom of Hushan Middle School in the spring; once upon a time, in order to escape from this poor ravine, he used to read at night in the leaky school dormitory in the spring; once upon a time, in order to change the fate of life with knowledge, he spent more than a thousand days and nights in this small town, as if it was just yesterday, as if it was right in front of him.

The emperor lived up to his hard work, and the ten-year cold window finally came to the day when the phoenix nirvana. However, fate seems to have played a joke on this young man, and after going around for so many years, spring seems to have returned to the origin of life.

Now, after a gap of five years, Spring is once again standing on the streets of the town, returning to the starting point of his life's dream. Perhaps, this dilapidated town will become a place to fight for a lifetime in spring.

Spring sighed lightly, straightened the backpack on his body, touched the dispatch order in his pocket, and walked in the direction of the Toyama Town Government.

The town government compound sits in the north and faces south, and is located in the center of the town, adjacent to the town supply and marketing cooperatives in the east and the town health center in the west. Inside the rusty iron fence wall, several rows of white, gray and red tile brick houses are hidden among the red flowers and green trees, which looks a little simple and cold, and only a few long wooden signs hanging on both sides of the gate of the government department make this shabby and humble government compound show a bit of majestic grandeur.

Spring slowly approached the gate of the town hall, and a few old men were squatting there in the shade of the trees at the gate, chatting with dry tobacco sticks.

The communication room was empty, and there was a skinny old yellow dog lying at the door, spitting out a red tongue and panting, watching Spring approach, he didn't bother to raise his head, just opened his eyes slightly and wagged his tail towards Spring.

The town government compound was quiet, the doors were closed, and there was not even a shadow of a person in the courtyard. In the room closest to the communication room, a sign reading "Party and Government Office" was hung on the door.

Spring knocked on the door with trepidation, and after a long time no one answered, but you could hear that someone was in the house, and the noise and laughter were loud.

Standing at the door of the office of the "Party and Government Office" hesitated for a while, I don't know why, Spring suddenly felt a little nervous, he didn't know what kind of person would decide his fate, and he didn't know where his future life path would go. And all this may be frozen at the moment when the door is opened.

Taking a deep breath and calming down his nervous mood a little, Spring gently pushed open the door of the "Party and Government Office".

The noisy room suddenly fell silent, only the ceiling fan on the ceiling was still whirling and turning.

The four men in the room looked to be gambling with playing cards, and there were colorful piles of change on the coffee table.

"Hello, I'm here to register, where should I go for the registration procedures?" Spring's cautious words were slightly apologetic, and his shy and shy smile looked like a child who had accidentally done something wrong.

"Registered? I haven't heard that the government is going to recruit new people! Do you know?" A middle-aged man in the middle of the sofa with a big back comb and a beer belly, who looked like a leader, looked surprised, turned his head and asked the three young people who were playing cards with him, and the three of them shook their heads and said they didn't know.

Spring hurriedly took out the dispatch order from his coat pocket, and handed it to the middle-aged man sitting in the middle of the sofa with both hands, and the header of the dispatch order was issued by the Huxian Personnel Bureau to the Hushan Town Government.

The middle-aged man took the dispatch order and glanced at it, then smiled and threw the dispatch order back: "The young man turned out to be a newly assigned teacher, this matter is not under the control of the government now, you should report to the town education committee..."

"Where is the town education committee?" asked in the spring, and he had the impression that the education system in Hushan Town did not seem to have a "education committee" department before.

"Let's go to Toyama Middle School, it should be in the school compound..." A young man next to him replied lazily, and then impatiently urged the house to play the cards.

The four of them played cards again with shouting, and no one cared about the spring anymore.

Spring was stunned, and then his heart was relieved. Even if he is officially working, in the eyes of the "officials, old men" of these government departments, he is just a poor teacher with a humble status, and it is reasonable for him to be treated a little coldly.

Still, Spring politely thanked him. However, these people were only busy playing cards, and no one paid attention to Spring's sincere thanks.

Spring had to awkwardly withdraw from the "party and government office", casually took the door up, and the hustle and bustle were locked in the house.

3.

Standing outside the door of the office of the "Party and Government Office", Spring suddenly felt a little ridiculous about the inexplicable nervousness he had just had, he had already fallen into such a situation, could there be worse things waiting for him in the back?

Spring sighed lightly, and the negative bald emotions caused by the graduation assignment hit my heart again.

Early this morning, full of hope, Spring took the morning bus from Dongzhou Normal University to the Huxian Personnel Bureau to get the dispatch order for graduation assignment. The reality poured cold water on the head of the spring who had just walked out of the school gate and was full of passion for life, and only one of the ten classmates from the county was assigned to a remote mountain town.

Seeing the students complacent, cheering and dancing, Spring quietly slipped out of the conference room with his own order, and went to the long-distance bus station alone along the bustling streets of the county, and reluctantly embarked on the road home.

In fact, Spring knew in his heart where he was worse than his classmates. Isn't it because the family has no money, no power, and no status? Without money, power, and status, will there be a future in one's own life in this world where the law of the jungle preys? Reality is cruel and ruthless, and perhaps, what one has just experienced today is the true face of this society! Since we are powerless to fight, do we have no choice but to pretend to turn a blind eye or turn a deaf ear? Or do we have no choice but to go with the flow?

All of these made Spring, who had just stepped out of the campus gate and first set foot in society, feel at a loss.

In the spring, I secretly prayed in my heart, that Toyama Education, which I was about to fight for all my life, would have a sky where I could fly freely.

Exhaling a breath of heat, Haru wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand and put the dispatch order back in the pocket of his shirt. Looking up at the sky, it was almost noon, the sun was scorching the earth, there was not a trace of wind, the willows in the yard were hanging down their branches motionlessly, and a few of them were screaming desperately in the treetops.