Hu Kehao took He Xin back to his hometown in Huaishu Village, Baishi Township. This is a village in the hilly terrain of S County, the ground is rugged and full of slopes and bumps. There is a dirt road leading to Baishi Township outside Huaishu Village, which is like a microcapillary in the human body, exchanging materials and agricultural products with the outside world. The people of Huaishu Village have lived here for generations, facing the loess with their backs to the sky, and there have never been big people, only a very small number of nouveau riche legends have been left on the rivers and lakes.

In the hot and humid weather, He Xin looked at the deserted village and dilapidated scene in front of him, and thought of his own painful experience, and wanted to escape from this place. Hu Kehao saw He Xin's thoughts and said to him: "If you believe me, just stay in our house for a few days, it won't be too long." I have to rush to U City Polytechnic University as soon as possible to report for employment. ”

"You saved my life, and you are about to become a people's teacher, so it seems that you are not a bad person." He Xin said.

"I'm not a black sheep yet." Hu Kehao replied.

Hu's father and Hu's mother asked if they saw He Xin and asked who the girl was. Hu Kehao wanted to say that she was an old classmate she met when she was in the market, but he felt that there was no need to hide it, so he briefly told what happened.

After hearing this, Hu Mu trembled with anger and scolded: "These people are simply lawless. You can't have the heart to hurt others, and you can't have the heart to defend people. Xiao He, you should pay attention to protecting yourself in the future. ”

Hu Kehao graduated from university, although he is not as good as the small bosses who went out in the village, but he has also become a small celebrity in Huaishu Village. With nothing to do, Hu Kehao took He Xin to the field to relax. He Xin almost didn't know the crops in the field, and Hu Kehao carefully explained to him what a corn strain is, what is a red vine, what is a loofah vine, and what is a pumpkin vine. He Xin had only seen pumpkins, loofahs, and winter melons, but he didn't know what the pumpkin vines, loofah vines, and winter melon vines that produced pumpkins, loofahs, and winter melons looked like. Now she finally got to know her.

"If you don't have to worry about food and clothing, this rural life is comfortable." He Xin said, "I am very envious of Tao Yuanming who picked chrysanthemums under the east fence and leisurely saw Nanshan." ”

"The village is so poor. Our village is not too far from the road, which is a little better. In the villages that are even more isolated, where the birds are so poor that they don't, life is miserable. If you only cook crops at home, you will not be able to support your family. Hu Kehao said.

"You can think differently, the villagers live in villas, eat all natural and organic food, the air is fresh, and there is no smog." He Xin has always dreamed of having a nest of his own in the city, and it would be wonderful if there was a garden and could grow vegetables. In her eyes, the people of Huaishu Village have already realized her ideals.

After walking the field path, they came to the foot of the stiff hill again. He Xin felt scared and wanted to turn back. Hu Kehao said: "Do you dare to go again? ”

"Where are you going?" He Xin asked.

"Go through my path of studying in primary school again, and let you know that rural education is not easy." Hu Kehao said.

"Let's go! Who's afraid of whom! He Xin said.

"You're not afraid that I'll sell you again?" Hu Kehao joked.

He Xin patted Hu Kehao on the shoulder and said, "You, you really can't open any pot!" ”

The path on the stiff hill is sparsely populated by pedestrians during the day, and the sun casts a dappled circle of light on the ground through the dense foliage. Knowing the shrill bark in the hot and humid air, dogtail grass grows wildly on both sides of the road, and its fluffy tail greets pedestrians on the road with a smile, like the watchdog wagging its tail and begging for mercy in the village.

Hu Kehao and He Xin felt stuffy all over their bodies, in order to add a touch of coolness to He Xin, Hu Kehao told the story he heard when he was a child: According to rumors, many years ago, when the sky was just dawning, an early man passed by the deadlock and saw a woman in white sitting on a grave, unhurriedly took off her head, put it on her hand, gently combed her hair with a comb, and after combing, she put her head on her head again, and then disappeared into the grave. The man was almost frightened to death when he saw all this, and then rumors of a haunted stalemate became popular. Normally, people only dare to work in the fields near the zombie gang after the hour has passed. He Xin heard Hu Kehao tell this story, screamed in fright, and turned back.

Hu Kehao moved out the old bookcase at home, which contained all kinds of books he had since elementary school, and he wanted to sort out the important books and bring them to the U City where he was about to work to treasure. Opening the lid of the bookcase, the first thing I saw was a schoolbag sewn from linen. This schoolbag is a large pocket sewn from two pieces of cloth, with an opening at the top, and a needle and thread connection between the bottom and the left and right sides, and he carried it for three years in elementary school. His schoolbag was also hard to come by, which his grandmother sewed for him with a needle and thread. Grandma bought cloth from the street that year, and instead of letting the village tailor use a sewing machine to make clothes, she sewed them herself with a needle and thread. She sewed the kind of clothes that were very old with buttons under the armpits, and the buttonholes were rings made of strips of cloth, and the buttons were small cloth balls. She had a piece of cloth left after she finished dressing, and sewed a large pocket, which was his school bag. Grandma also sewed him a pen pocket, the length of a pencil, and the mouth of the bag had a sole cord to pull and tighten. His schoolbag was ridiculed by his classmates, who said it was a pee pocket. The schoolbag carried by others was bought from the township store, colorful and beautiful, and his schoolbag was the ugliest one in Huaishu Village Primary School. He was afraid that others would laugh at him when he saw his school bag, and often walked at the back of the school line.

At that time, the tuition fees were not easy to come by. The parents worked hard to support the whole family, and the family's income was completely dependent on those few acres of barren land. In addition to meeting the family's various expenses of firewood, rice, oil and salt, my grandmother also needs money when she is old and sick. The only things that can be sold for money are pigs in the pen and grain in the cupboard. At that time, TV commercials often advertised Hope Group's "red and black" and "100-day fat" pig feed, but the villagers rarely fed pig feed. The pigs ate greens, red vines, and weeds from the ground. Hu Kehao often followed the yard maidens to hunt pigweed on the hillside and in the field, which was not only manual work, but also had a lot of fun. Pigs grow very slowly, and they can only be sold once a year for money. When there is no money, I have to sell millet and rice, and there is not much food at home, and when there is no green and yellow, life is very difficult. His mother took the grain from the cabinet to the village farm station, beat it into rice and chaff, carried it home, and carried the rice to the street to sell, which was his tuition. The mother could also sell the millet directly, but she would not get the bran to feed the pigs, so she had to go through a lot of trouble.

A row of low tiled houses, with low walls of stone slabs and high walls plastered with lime, this is the primary school in their Huaishu Village. Walking at the school gate, he heard the sound of reading in the classroom - "The river passes in front of my door, and I leave the river to play." Xiaohe shook his head and did not agree, and hurriedly went to water the fields. The river passed by my door, and I asked the river to make a stop. Xiaohe shook his head and hurriedly went to generate electricity. Xiaohe refuses to play, Xiaohe refuses to stand for a stand, does not stop for a minute or a second, and runs forward day and night ......".

Hu Kehao's most unforgettable memory is the school days in the spring. The sun is shining, and the rape flowers are in full bloom, and the ground is golden. Walking on the canal in the middle of the rape field, the fragrance of flowers is fragrant, and bees and butterflies are flying around. When the butterfly rests on the petals, gently walk behind the butterfly and extend the thumb and index finger of your right hand to grab the butterfly. When catching butterflies, you don't need to rush away, otherwise "children rush to chase yellow butterflies and fly into cauliflower and nowhere to find them." "Be careful when catching bees, you can't catch them directly with your hands, otherwise you will be stung. You can fold a clip on the work paper and put it on the thumb and index finger of the right hand, and in the same way, you can catch it by walking gently behind it. After catching it, put it in a glass medicine bottle, put a few rape flowers in the bottle, close the bottle cap, and drill a few holes in the lid, so that the bees can breathe and breathe, and collect honey and make honey in the bottle with peace of mind. Unfortunately, a day or two later, the bee died inside the bottle.

There is a commissary in the school, which displays a wooden shelf with biscuits, peanuts, melon seeds, twist flowers, and all kinds of sweets. Fruit candy is two cents a piece, licking candy is five cents a piece, and twist a dime. There are also a lot of Chinese herbs on the opposite side of the shelf, which give off a strange smell. Old man Luo in the commissary often carried the bottles and cans containing candy, and took out a broom from the corner of the wall to sweep the floor, and the uneven mud floor was swept shiny. Where did Hu Kehao, who passed by the commissary, have the money to buy candy to eat?

As soon as the bell rang after class, the rich classmates rushed to the commissary and handed a few cents to Old Man Luo, who took out the small scale like a treasure, put the scale in advance in the position of two taels, and then put melon seeds in the weighing pan one by one, carefully paying attention to the balance between the left and right. He sometimes put melon seeds in, sometimes grabbed melon seeds, after several times in and out, after several hesitations, decided to weigh two taels, and poured the melon seeds in the weighing pan into a small iron pinch, put them into the child's bag.

There are also mischievous mischievous tricksters in the class. Once, the head teacher went out for something and asked a young beautiful teacher to substitute for the teacher. A few mischievous students came to trick the governess by hiding the classroom door and placing a broom between the door and the door frame, and the broom, the door frame and the door formed a triangle, and half a basin of water was placed on it. As soon as the female teacher pushed open the classroom door, she was hit on the head by the falling broom, and her whole body was splashed with the fallen water, and she was embarrassed. The female teacher was so angry that she punished a few naughty ghosts to stand on the podium and beat a dozen handboards with thin wattle strips. At that time, teachers had the right to manage students, were able to physically punish students, and punches, kicks, and slaps were common. It is said that some of the students who had been beaten later came back to thank their teachers. Some have been holding grudges and coming back a few years later to take revenge. It was also reported that after a certain number of years, teachers who physically punished students were dismissed from their teaching positions.

At that time, children did not have any toys. During the fifteen-minute break between classes, they played all sorts of strange things. A group of girls are grabbing seeds, that is, small seeds that are broken tiles are beaten into round buttons and grabbed on the ground, and they are still dusting around in the palms and backs of their hands, and if they win, they will get a seed. A group of girls are playing the game of "repairing the house", that is, drawing a lot of squares on the ground, kicking around with abacus beads tied to a string of ropes, sometimes limping and kicking in the grid with one foot, sometimes kicking with both feet and kicking with the right foot, and after kicking all the squares, they will advance to the next level. Some boys are playing glass beads, that is, burying the glass beads in a small pit in the ground, slowly bounce to other people's glass beads, and one person takes turns to play them once until one person's glass beads touch another person's glass beads. A group of boys fan the skin or matchskin on the ground, that is, all the matchskins are stacked face up and face down, all of them are stacked together, and then they take turns to fan the air with the palms of their hands in turn, and turn the fire skins over to win. A group of students were still carrying the plague pig, like five horses splitting the corpse, five or six people carried a person's head and limbs, put it in the ground, and then ran away, and the plague pig then got up from the ground and went after the others, and the first person who was chased was the plague pig, and then everyone carried it down to the ground, and he got up and grabbed the other plague pigs. With a "boom", a stone wall in the classroom that had long been broken was collapsed by several students carrying the plague pig. The class leader hurriedly ran to report to the head teacher: "Teacher Zhang, the stone wall of the classroom has collapsed!" The office was in the middle of several classrooms, with only a hand ringing bell and a few desks, and Teacher Zhang anxiously asked, "Did you smash anyone?" "No, only the wall collapsed." The squad leader replied. When the class bell rang, the head teacher came to the classroom in a rage, called them to the podium, and severely reprimanded them: "You naughty little brutes, you must compensate for the damage to public property!" Bring your parents in the afternoon! "The most feared thing for the students is to invite their parents, and if they invite their parents, they will be beaten solidly, and they all beg hard not to invite their parents, and the head teacher finally asks them to ask a stonemason to repair the broken stone slab wall.

Pushing hoops and beating ancient cattle are generally played in winter. On winter mornings, a large group of children in the village go to school together. Some go to school with iron hoops, and some go to school with spinning tops. In our place, the common name of the spinning top is "Digu Ox", which is generally cut from wood, and some are ingenious, and they also make it into a jar or jar. The whip of the ancient cow is generally made of rotten cloth strips, and if the shoelace of the Jiefang brand rubber shoes is used as a whip, then it is the most effective to beat the ancient cow. It was that winter that two new things happened at Huaishu Village Primary School that Hu Kehao would never forget. The first is that the school has installed electric bells, and the second is that the classrooms have been installed with electric lights. In the past, when there was no electric bell, I relied on manual ringing of the bell when I went to and from class and after school. In the past, when there were no electric lights, on a foggy morning, they walked down the hill path and could only see the foggy classroom in the distance. Ever since they had electric lights, they walked on the hill path and saw the lights coming out of the classroom, and they felt extremely excited, feeling that the classroom was the sacred temple where they could climb the "peak of science". At that time, many of them wanted to become scientists. The teacher assigns an essay and asks them to write their dreams, and as a result, 80% of the people want to be scientists. At that time, if you wrote your own real estate developer ideals, you would definitely fail the essay. At that time, Hu Kehao pinned his dream of climbing the peak of science on this small light bulb, and the light bulb in the classroom at that time was only an incandescent lamp of about 60 watts. It was under the guidance of his childhood ideals that Hu Kehao applied for the theoretical physics major of U University. In his eyes, only those who are engaged in physics, chemistry, biology or medicine are authentic scientists.