After the National Day, it will soon be winter - winter in Shanhe Town has always come early, and Shanhe Middle School has also ushered in the most troublesome but most interesting thing in winter: setting up a stove and making a fire. As if cursed, Zeng Fan has never had more than thirty percent of the stoves allocated to their classes every year since elementary school. Most of these stoves were rusty, the chassis was broken, and no one knew how many years these old antiques had been used, and Zeng Fan once suspected that they were already the age of Dinghe Bridge.

Although these stoves were neatly arranged in the same broken storeroom, they had to be taken separately, because the bottom of the stove and the body of the stove were separated, like those of a condemned prisoner.

When the stove first came out of the warehouse, it could not be used directly, because the hearth was as big as a gluttonous stomach, and it was estimated that it could swallow the coal issued by the school for a week. As long as the coal is burned in one day, the school will never reissue it. At this time, it is necessary to coat the furnace with a layer of yellow mud to reduce the furnace to the thickness of a beer bottle or chimney; Yellow mud is the most indispensable thing on the Loess Plateau, which can withstand high temperature scorching, and the more it burns, the stronger it becomes.

The thickness of the furnace not only determines the daily consumption of coal, but also determines whether the furnace can burn vigorously. Of course, these are difficult for Li Dabiao.

Every Monday afternoon, the school distributes the next week's coal, regardless of the pound or two, only one basket can be loaded. When it comes to receiving coal, the students make full use of the geometry knowledge they have learned, and choose the coal that is not large or small, and the surface is neat, so that they can fill more in the basket. In this way, the school has indeed made a qualitative leap in students' practical ability. In the field of teaching, this teaching method that combines theory and practice is indeed a great innovation.

Sometimes, however, no amount of geometry knowledge is enough to carry a few lumps of coal in the big pocket of your clothes. Therefore, on Monday afternoons every winter, two people can always be seen carrying a basket of charcoal in the playground of Shanhe Middle School, and the other hand is still holding a few pieces, talking and laughing, as if they have just dug a gold mine.

Starting a fire is also a hassle, and it is common for the whole class to take turns doing their work. The person who started the fire needs to come to school early, and the fire must be lit before the whole class is there. Making a fire is not as good as being angry, and there are many people who can't make a fire. In the past, he was very nervous every time he went to Zeng Fan to make a fire, and sometimes he even had insomnia the night before, and the more nervous he was, the more he couldn't catch the fire, which made him wonder if all the five elements belonged to water. Fortunately, there is Li Dabiao. Li Dabiao became extremely active in the winter, often coming to school early, and by the way, he also lit the fire. However, it may also be that the place where he lives is too cold, and he grits his teeth in bed every night, waiting to go to the classroom to light a fire to keep warm.

Although it is inevitable that the indoor stove is dusty, the stove has its own wonders, and the radiator does not have it. Later, when Zeng Fan was in high school, the school had long since switched to heating instead of stoves. Although the heating is cleaner and warmer, there is no warmth anymore, and warmth is the soul of the stove. Later, Zeng Fan went to college in the south, and when he was shivering in the winter, he missed the stove as much as he missed home.

The best at using the stove in the class are Ma Tao and Liu Jianxiong. Ma Tao stewed tea on the stove, while Liu Jianxiong roasted some potato chips on the stove, and of course, sometimes corn kernels, peas, etc. When Liu Jianxiong bakes potato chips on the stove, he is always rare and serious, and after baking, he does not hesitate to share a few slices with the people around him who are already salivating - this is probably the time when he is the most generous.

As soon as the wet potato slices stick to the walls of the oven – they can't be put on the lid and will burn – they stick to each other, and with a "zing" sound, a white mist emerges, mixed with the peculiar smell of legume plants. Once one side is baked, turn it over and stick it to the wall as usual. Experienced people know that potato chips are best when they are baked until they are half-baked. Li Dabiao always said while eating: "It would be better if there was salt." In the afternoon, Li Dabiao really brought a pinch of salt, and there was also monosodium glutamate and chili noodles. In winter, there are always all kinds of scorched smells wafting from the fourth-class classroom, which makes the saliva of the third-class students next door flood like the Yellow River.

Ma Tao likes to drink tea, but when Zeng Fan sees the cup that Ma Tao uses to drink tea, he often even spits out the meal he just ate - his teacup is not much stronger than the teacup of the old man on Nanshan, the only difference is that Ma Tao's teacup is transparent. Ma Tao's transparent teacups are always printed with various fingerprints and handprints, because there are always many people who drink tea with his cups.

Although Ma Tao's teacup is unpleasant, he is really a person who can enjoy it. In the small enamel jar where he stewed tea, in addition to the tea leaves, you can always see some precious accessories such as raisins, wolfberries, red dates, and longan. Of course, he would never forget to throw two pieces of rock candy, sometimes shiny white and sometimes yellow, into his stewed tea. This is probably the reason why so many people like to drink Ma Tao's tea, so that they don't even care about dirty teacups.

However, the small enamel jar, which has carried countless precious materials and brought happiness to many people, finally ended its brilliant career with an explosion. This was done by Li Dabiao. Li Dabiao has always regarded himself as a generation of celebrity chefs, but he failed to create admirable delicacies on his stove, for which he deeply blamed himself. Later, he finally found a way to get rid of his guilt: popcorn on the stove.

When the lid of the furnace was burned to the point of almost red, Li Dabiao sprinkled a few grains of corn on it, and then buckled Ma Tao's small iron cylinder. It didn't take long for the corn kernels to start jumping up and running in the iron jar, constantly beating on the small iron jar, making a "ping-pong" sound, as if the blacksmith was forging some divine weapon.

As the corn kernels jumped more and more violently, the sound became louder and louder, and finally in the sound of "bang", the small iron cylinder jumped high, and then the popcorn was baked. After many operations, Li Dabiao's popcorn technique has become quite proficient, but this obviously does not satisfy Chef Li.

Li Dabiao sweated on his forehead, and kept increasing the number of corn kernels he sowed each time. Finally, the little iron cylinder had enough of this rollercoaster up and down life, and with a loud bang it split in half - its bottom was gone, it was a thin layer of small pieces of iron. After the small enamel jar was broken, not many people showed their regrets, and the people around erupted in thunderous applause and cheers. Ma Tao didn't feel sad for long, because he soon bought another new and bright little tin can with a metallic luster; Five a piece is not too expensive.

Later, Li Dabiao had another idea: popping bean curd. But in the end, his idea could not be realized, because Ma Tao would no longer lend him a new tea tool.

During extracurricular activities, the stove of Class 4 was always burned red, because they never lacked the means to get coal, and even if they saw the teacher's bed full of coal, they would never envy it. The biggest advantage of this is that you can save a lot of matches: the smoker has a cigarette in his mouth, approaches the stove, touches the lid lightly, and then inhales deeply, and the cigarette is on fire.