When Xiong Jun was just remembering, there was often no rice at home, and from time to time he had to work at the homes of several relatives or towns in exchange for food, and hunger and cold often accompanied the family. When the season is scarce, the family often runs out of food, and the family has to cut back on food and clothing to support the food needed by the father and elders for heavy manual labor. The worst time was when I was 13 years old, I didn't eat anything for 10 days, and I was gnawing on tree bark and grass roots. What made the mother sad was that the younger brother ate the bark for three days in a row, vomited and diarrhea, and turned purple, and finally met a merchant in the countryside to receive a load of rice, borrowed dozens of copper coins and asked the pharmacist in the town to prescribe some medicine to save his brother's life, and the family relied on the merchant's loan to relieve his anger.

Because my father had learned a little arithmetic, he helped the merchant to purchase the products in the village, and exchanged the goods left by the merchant for rice and medicinal materials in the village. My father happily agreed to the contract of exchanging labor for loans. The merchant left a few truckloads of goods and left, agreeing to come back three months later to pick up the local goods on the list that his father and the villagers had traded. The change in the family's situation was quickly known to relatives and friends, and relatives who came to inquire about the situation crowded into the courtyard and stood full. Atlas of hundreds of herbs such as Houttuynia cordata, Radix radix, Prunella vulgaris, Licorice, Double-sided needle, grass coral, Angelica dahurica, Gynostemma, Eleutherococcus senticosus, pine nuts, pine pollen, Huoxiang, perilla, etc., as well as various minerals and minerals that may be produced locally (a pamphlet printed through the public, so as to facilitate the work of the agents of the rural development cooperatives). These are just some of the small ones that can make a profit, and the bulk of the local goods that are needed by the public are still those cash crops, agricultural and sideline products, and grain. Only a certain amount of professional skill can identify these medicinal materials and minerals, and it stands to reason that those with such skills should have made a fortune a long time ago, and it is strange that the villagers can afford to supply these medicinal materials and minerals in large quantities.

Utensils (ceramic cups, plates, dishes, pickles), agricultural tools (ploughs, guillotines, sickles, shovels, pickaxes, pickaxes), iron tools (pots, shovels, pliers, scissors, kitchen knives) on ox carts. Tough window paper, cheap printed New Year's pictures and wallpaper, satin quilts, ten barrels of coal lamp oil, and 500 candles. As long as the villagers have money, they can buy them, and those who don't have money can also exchange them for grain and agricultural and sideline products, and the exchange ratio is also stipulated in the booklet left by the merchant. Father Bear is just an agent who guards the goods, and when everything is made public, he only needs to sit at home and be a grocery store owner. This greatly alleviated the family's plight, and even made the Xiong family a large family in the village. The villagers had to exchange goods and curry favor with him, the lowest, most marginal temporary worker in the industry.

The days of suffering are gone, the Xiong family quickly achieved food and clothing in a few months, and the level of well-off was also achieved on the day half a year later, when the merchant uncle came for the third time, not only brought goods and a little gift, but also a major notice that the children in the village could enter the school set up by the Chenji Group in the town to start reading. The nature of the school's free tuition and part-time study determines that the school's funding comes from the grants of the Chenji Group and the profits created by the work of senior students (such as pasting matchboxes and some simple work to hone students' patience and hands-on ability).

I and several younger siblings were all sent to school by my mother, and all the family affairs were taken care of by my brother and father, first, to reduce the burden on the family, second, to do all kinds of urgently needed jobs in the chamber of commerce after studying, and to earn a lot of money, and third, the stupidest students could also work as various technical jobs in the countryside (cooperatives and merchants) under the recommendation of the school. The shrewd father also strongly supported the mother's decision, and persuaded five or six relatives to send the younger children to the town school as well.

Three years later, sixteen-year-old Xiong Jun has become the most famous person in Shili Eight Villages, the first place in the hope primary school in a town was sent to Fucheng No. 1 Middle School, it is said that the students of the first middle school can also be the head of the township and the treasurer of the Chenji Chamber of Commerce, and the minimum income can be earned at least 500 yuan a year. After the news spread, the matchmaker who proposed marriage to him stepped on the threshold of the Xiong family that had just been changed for a long time.

The head of the Xiong family refused all, and all the matchmakers were rejected on the grounds that Xiong Jun had to focus on his studies and must be crowned before he could get married. Even the eldest brother of the mother's family wanted to kiss and marry Xiong Li's (Xiong's mother) niece to Xiong Jun, and did not consider the request to marry before getting married. If the son is out of the woods and becomes a township chief or a member of the town and a rich man, wouldn't the villager-level in-laws lose face, even if they take concubines, they can't accept it, and the starting price must be the ladies of the city's scholars. How can you get married casually with an official body? Even if Xiong Jun's brothers are not as good as Xiong Jun, at least they are considered to have seen the world, and they are great people who have graduated from primary school, and as soon as they graduate, they were booked by the Chenji Chamber of Commerce to do not flow into the fields of outsiders, and they were arranged to work as assistants in the town's trading house, and they can earn at least 100 yuan of income a year, and the annual income of ten families in the village is the first class after the separation. How can a few village girls marry into the door? In the school in the girls' class of a few girls who have not yet reached the age of the year can not marry casually, the school that visited the home Mr. once said, into the school is a cultural person, marriage to be autonomous, the parents' order matchmaker words can only be used as a reference and advice, if a few daughters in the school to meet the man they like, it is also considered a good family, as long as the two are willing to the elders should not be blocked. These words are deep in Xiong Li's heart, and Father Xiong also said that Mr. Xiong's words are very reasonable.

In order to save for Xiong Jun and several children to study at a higher level, the family also expects them to have a big profit in their self-financed full-time secondary school and university tuition. In the future, not to mention worry-free food and clothing, it is also a good thing to be able to settle in the capital or the state capital after getting a school status. The tuition fee of Donghu Academy (the only university on Kuizhou Road where the Xiong family is located, the Kuizhou Road Branch of Chenji Academy) is 200 yuan a year, even if you can get a third-level scholarship for work-study, the family must prepare at least 300 yuan of tuition for the first year of the second and third children. In Xiong Jun's last year of primary school, he pasted 1,000 matchboxes a day, and only 100 wen a day, except for food, clothing, housing, transportation, books and miscellaneous items, he only saved 5 times a year. I still have to go out 140 times at home. It seems that only by working in the Chenji Chamber of Commerce for a year and saving enough tuition fees can he continue his studies.