Canteen.

Zhou Weilie looked down at the yellowish and black rice in the bowl, as well as the stones and mouse feces mixed with the rice, and suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Although Mei Yiqi and Hua Luogeng's rice is also very rough, at least it is clean, and no special "nutrients" will be added.

Freshmen learn from old students to keep knocking on the bowl, which is said to be an essential skill for eating at the United Nations General Assembly. Zhou Weilie also asked for the trick, but it was difficult to master it for the first time, and finally he slowly picked up the debris with chopsticks.

Today's dish is boiled kidney beans again, and the dishes on the 50 large tables only use half a catty of oil, and there is no oil and water when you can't eat it.

Zhou Weilie took a few bites of food with difficulty, felt his throat choking, and hurriedly picked up the rice soup to moisten his throat and deliver the meal.

"Phew!"

A mouthful of rice soup spurted out, and Zhou Weilie exclaimed: "Is this rice soup or vinegar?" It's sour! ”

Peng Xu, who has already owed six laundry errands, said with some schadenfreude: "The rice soup cooked by Chen Mi is so sour, appetizing and spleen-invigorating, the more you drink, the more hungry you become." ”

Zhou Weilie completely lost his appetite, but his family education made him unwilling to waste food, and swallowed the rest of the rice in the bowl with his eyes closed. He didn't want to drink the rice soup anymore, the taste of that thing was no different from drinking vinegar, he put down the dishes and chopsticks and asked, "Is there a store in the school?" ”

"No," Peng Xu smiled, "do you want to buy food?" There are villagers selling things at the school gate, stir-frying some peanuts, beans and the like to peddle. ”

"I'll take a look." Zhou Weilie said.

After he left, the students at the table began to talk:

"This Senior Brother Zhou doesn't seem to be used to eating in the cafeteria, and the food in Mr. Zhou's house must be abundant."

"Don't talk about Mr. Zhou's family, my family's food is not so unpalatable."

"How long do you think he can hold out?"

"What lasts long?"

"Crying nose and shouting to go home to find my mother. After all, he is only 12 years old, and he has never suffered a crime, how can he stand it? ”

"Maybe after a few days you get used to it."

"It's hard to say."

“……”

At the age of twelve or thirteen, it is the time to grow the body, and a bowl of rice will definitely not be enough.

Zhou Weilie walked quickly to the school gate, and sure enough, he saw a few fellows selling snacks. He didn't ask the price, he walked up to a seller of fried peanuts and said, "Bring me two catties." ”

"Two catties for 28 yuan." The fellow said.

Zhou Weilie held the fried peanuts in discarded newspapers, ate them and walked away, and returned to the dormitory in a leisurely manner, where he discovered for the first time that peanuts were so delicious.

The students in the same dormitory came back one after another, smelling the aroma of fried peanuts, and they all watched Zhou Weilie swallow his saliva.

The more Zhou Weilie ate, the more uncomfortable he became, there were too many people and not enough points, and he felt bad eating alone. After thinking about it, he simply went outside the school gate again and said to the fellows who sold snacks: "I bought all your things, please help me move to the dormitory." ”

"Little classmate, do you have so much money?" A fellow asked with a smile.

Zhou Weilie took out a stack of banknotes: "I don't have enough money, but I still have some oceans in my dormitory." By the way, I'll buy a few more frames and sell them to me along with the moisture-proof rags in the frames. ”

Because the teachers and students of the school are very poor, a basket of peanuts and beans cannot be sold for several days. Now that someone is directly wrapping up, the villagers are overjoyed, and they hug Zhou Weilie to the student dormitory with baskets on their backs.

This ticket swept through the campus, attracting a burst of side eyes.

Back in the dormitory, Peng Xu pointed to the fellows waiting outside and asked, "Junior brother, what are you doing here?" ”

"Eat, please." Zhou Weilie said with a smile.

Rummaging through the ocean from the box to pay, Zhou Weilie's pocket money has been used two-thirds. He opened another soap box and wrote on the cardboard: "Snacks are free, you can pick them up." Due to the limited quantity, there is a limit of one per person. ”

Zhou Weilie mixed peanuts and beans together, and placed a basket under the eaves of each row of dormitory buildings, and even the girls' dormitory was not left behind.

Putting the cardboard in front of the basket, Zhou Weilie went back to the dormitory by himself, leaving hundreds of strange-looking students.

At first, no one was embarrassed to do anything, Peng Xu was more likely to do something, grabbed a handful with a smile and said, "You're welcome, everyone, this is Zhou Gongzi's treat." Remember to cover the cloth well, so that the peanuts and beans will not get wet. ”

"You're welcome, you're welcome, the landlord has eaten a meal, haha." Another student also jokingly grabbed a handful.

Another student said, "Save a little bit, don't finish eating all at once, the students in the library don't know yet." ”

The students are still very self-conscious, and they only catch a small half. Because the number of these snacks is obviously not enough, if you catch it too hard, the students behind you will not have a chance.

Most of the students chose to accept Zhou Weilie's approach, but a small number of students thought that he was inviting fame to be in the limelight. The hatred of the rich exists in every era, and it is inevitable.

Peng Xu ate peanuts and went back to the dormitory, sat next to Zhou Weilie and said, "Junior brother, don't be like this in the future, the impact is not too good." ”

Zhou Weilie didn't care about this, he said: "My pocket money is almost running out, and I can't afford to buy it in the future." ”

"You still buy so much if you don't have money?" Peng Xu was surprised.

"Money is meant to be used." Zhou Weilie has no concept of financial management at all.

Peng Xu was convinced: "It is worthy of Zhou Gongzi, generous and heroic!" ”

……

In the afternoon, I went to get the textbooks, and the next day the class officially started.

Finally eating boiled eggs on Monday morning, Zhou Weilie missed the food at home while eating eggs, and at the same time looked at the gobbling up classmates thoughtfully.

There is no such thing as being isolated, Zhou Weilie's personnel at school are surprisingly good, whether it is teachers or classmates, they take good care of him. On the one hand, it is for the sake of Zhou Hexuan's face, and on the other hand, because he is too young, his classmates often take the initiative to help with chores such as laundry.

About half a month later, Zhou Weilie's pocket money ran out. Only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings can I eat eggs, and on weekends I go to Mei Yiqi's house to have a tooth sacrifice, and the rest of the time I am forced to accept the pig-like meal at school.

After pulling his stomach twice, he got used to it, Zhou Weilie had learned the skill of knocking on the bowl and sifting the stones, and the rice soup that was as sour as vinegar was also sweet. It's a pity that there is too little oil and water, and I drool when I see anything to eat, and I am half hungry and half full every day.

At this time, the noble man appeared.

It was another day after school, and Wu Mi stood at the door of the classroom and shouted, "Wei Lie, come here!" ”

"Uncle Wu." Zhou Weilie respectfully greeted.

Wu Mi hooked Zhou Weilie's shoulder and said with a smile: "Let's go, uncle will take you to eat delicious food." ”

Zhou Weilie subconsciously swallowed his saliva and said, "When I get to Chongqing, I will invite Uncle Wu back." ”

"Let your dad invite me when the time comes, I won't suffer anyway." Wu Mi joked.

During the entire Anti-Japanese War, Wu Mi was the number one person in the Southwest Associated University. This gentleman had just been divorced when he came to Kunming, and the whole family was not hungry when he fed himself, and he had a lot of part-time jobs, and he could have an income of six or seven thousand yuan a month. He went to the restaurant every day, and even invited three ladies with ambiguous relationships to have a friendship dinner at the same time, and his life was not too chic.

Wu Mi hated the professors' vegetable planting behavior very much, and the two vegetable plots cultivated by Chen Daisun were just outside Wu Mi's house, and he was noisy every day - "From morning to night, they all planted vegetables outside Mi's window, and Mi hated them."

Shen Congwen's income is also very high, but his money is used to buy pottery and books, and he only eats a bowl of rice noodles when he invites his student Wang Zengqi to go to the restaurant.

Wu Mi has a deep personal relationship with Zhou Hexuan, and is often pulled by Liang Qichao to play mahjong together in Tsinghua Garden, and he was also invited by Zhou Hexuan to be the editor-in-chief of the supplement of "Ta Kung Pao" for more than half a year. For a while, Wu Mi returned from abroad and lived in Tianjin Sanletang for half a month, and Wei Lie was also very familiar with him.

One big and one small, the two of them went to the restaurant and ordered three dishes and one soup, which was so rich that it was almost luxurious.

Zhou Weilie was like a flower child who hadn't eaten for a few days, gobbling up three bowls of rice, killing a few dishes on the table, and finally simply pouring the rice into the dish and boiling oil and water.

Wu Mi shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Your father is also ruthless, but he has a good life, but he has to throw you to Kunming, a ghost place, to be poor." In the future, if you are greedy, I will come to you Uncle Wu, and I will definitely let you eat well. ”

"Thank you, Uncle Wu," Zhou Weilie said as he took the last few grains of rice on the plate into his mouth and wiped his mouth, "I understand what my dad meant, he is showing me the true face of China." ”

Wu Mi smiled and said, "Yo, you still understand the truth." ”

Zhou Weilie said: "When I was in Tianjin and Chongqing before, my father often told me this, but I didn't understand it at the time, but now I finally experience it." ”

"It's good to be able to understand it, you have a very promising future." Wu Mi nodded in approval.

Zhou Weilie said: "I am thinking about whether I should change my major and study physics, chemistry or mechanics. ”

Wu Mi asked, "You are so good at math, what do you do when you change majors?" ”

"Mathematics is of little use to the country," Zhou Weilie said, "Since the beginning of the school year, two students in our class have changed departments, and several other students have also plans to do so." ”

Wu Mi rebuked: "Who said that mathematics is useless? Mathematics is the foundation of all natural sciences and can lead to the development of other science and engineering disciplines. ”

Zhou Weilie muttered: "Professor Hua said the same, and wrote a letter to my father last week. ”

"Your task now is to study with peace of mind and not to think nonsense, you know?" Wu Mi said solemnly.

"Got it." Zhou Weilie was a little depressed.

Wu Mi is not the only one who has improved Zhou Weilie's food, but whenever conditions permit, many professors will stand up to help. For example, Shen Congwen basically asks Zhou Weilie to go to the restaurant two or three times a month, or asks his wife Zhang Zhaohe to make wine-stuffed eggs for Weilie.

Wine-stuffed eggs are Zhang Zhaohe's specialty, and in Zhu Ziqing's words, it is simply the most delicious food in the world.

In the second month of the first semester, Fairbank visited the Southwest Associated University as a special envoy of the United States. This old man is more familiar with Zhou Hexuan, and whenever he came to Tianjin in the past, Fairbank and his family lived in Zhou's house, and they also lived in the Zhou Mansion in Shanghai for a few weeks.

Fairbank learned of Zhou Weilie's situation, and immediately invited the kid to a big dinner, and left a red envelope of $200.

Fairbank wrote in his memoirs: "The Chinese have two extreme ways of educating their children, one is to spoil and want to give everything to future generations to enjoy; The other is to let children endure hardships, and only then can they become superior people. I beg to agree with Mr. Zhou's choice, because his son is in a critical period of development and should not be semi-starved every day. But it is undeniable that this type of cultivation has been very successful. I had a deep conversation with Zhou Weilie, who was only 12 years old at the time, and he was more mature in his thinking than many adults. He said that he used to only focus on mathematics, but after entering the Southwest Associated University, he began to pay attention to social and political issues. Perhaps it was the change of thinking during this period that contributed to his later choice......"