Chapter 2: Depressed Ah Depressed

  Walking slowly to school, Liu Jia Shan Primary School was indeed the dilapidated and incomplete shape in memory.

  I heard the crisp and clear reading voice, I suddenly realized that the first problem after crossing over had appeared - I simply couldn't remember what my childhood friends' names were. Nor did I know what my primary school teacher's name was in the first grade, or even what she looked like.

  Fortunately, I still remember the general direction of the classroom.

  Next to the left hand side, but can't remember if it's the first or second room.

  Solving this problem isn't difficult, there are two methods. The first is to stand outside the school for a while and wait for familiar classmates (I don't know them but they must know me), then enter the classroom together. The second method is to go from room to room to take a look, classmates who recognize me should greet me.

  At the same time, I remembered another thing. I recall that I have three sisters, and my third sister is only two years older than me. In our past life, we should have been in the same elementary school. Logically speaking, she should be attending school with me, but why haven't I seen her? If my third sister were attending school with me, at least I could ask her what the teacher's name is and which classroom it is.

  Is it possible that even the structure of family members will change after crossing back? Heaven, I won't become a single seed, will I? That would be terrible. Although my previous life was unhappy and unfulfilled, my siblings and I were close and loving. I don't want to cross over and lose all those relationships.

  "Willow Jun..."

  I couldn't help but nod in agreement, and when I looked up, a young woman with short hair that reached her ears was smiling at me.

  Although I don't remember the name and appearance of my primary school teacher in my previous life, I still remember that it was a female teacher. Look at this woman holding a textbook, she should be a school teacher.

  "Hello, teacher!"

  I hastily and respectfully inquired after his well-being.

  The woman was taken aback, then smiled and nodded repeatedly, walked over to pat my head, and praised: "Children of working-class families are different from a young age, so polite."

  I couldn't help but smile inwardly.

  What's wrong with that? We've lived for forty years, and as law-abiding citizens of the 21st century, can't we understand this basic courtesy?

  When a person is excited, their brain works especially fast. I thought to myself that I was just a little kid who had only been in elementary school for a few days, and this teacher had already called out my name, probably the homeroom teacher of our class.

  "Come on, class is about to start, let's go in with the teacher."

  As expected, haha!

  As I walked into the classroom, I was in a dilemma again - I didn't know which seat to sit in!

  I hesitated for a moment, and fortunately, a little girl solved this problem for me. She was originally sitting in the middle position (at that time, rural elementary school, not one person per seat, but two people sharing a long table and a long bench), seeing me walk into the classroom, naturally moved a bit to the side, making room for me.

  Haha, this is my seat.

  Classmates, turn to page 5 of your language textbook. In this lesson, we will still be learning student characters...

  I took out the Chinese textbook wrapped in newspaper from my backpack, turned to page 5, and saw several Chinese characters such as "day" and "earth" with pinyin annotations, and couldn't help but smile wryly.

  TNN's, in my previous life on the internet, I only saw all sorts of wonderful things about crossing over, but no one told me that if I unfortunately crossed over into a seven-year-old elementary school student, day and night, I would be sitting obediently in class with my hands clasped behind my back, reciting texts, talking about the sun, moon, water, and earth, how would I get through each day?

  Besides, in my previous life, I had a big problem - no meat, no satisfaction. If I didn't eat meat for one day, I would feel anxious. In 1976 China, it was an era of extreme material scarcity and poverty, not to mention being hungry and cold, at least there were no good food or clothes to wear, how could I get through the three meals a day with just vegetable mixed rice?

  Feeling depressed!

  If I were to say that as a 21st-century time-traveler, returning to the elementary school classroom at the end of the Great Revolution, I would listen attentively and learn the "new characters" that I was already extremely familiar with, it would definitely be nonsense. In fact, for the entire class, I was daydreaming, and not a single word the teacher said entered my ears. It wasn't until the young female teacher walked over to me and gently knocked on the desk that I snapped back to reality.

  "Willow Jun, why don't you write characters?"

  "Ah...... Oh oh...... Alright alright......"

  It's time for self-study. At that time, in elementary school grade one, each class learned about four or five new characters and then frantically copied them. I couldn't help but think of the joke where a traffic police officer caught a primary school teacher who had committed an offense and was overjoyed to have her copy "I have committed an offense" 500 times.

  Hurry to open the school bag and look for paper and pen.

  It's actually a brush pen!

  Right, I remember in primary school, we used brushes. At that time, fountain pens were absolutely luxury goods, and those who wore a pen on their chest were mostly educated people (above junior high school), if they wore two pens, it was almost certain that they were office workers, maybe even cadres. What if someone wore three pens? Sorry, then you must be a pen repairman!

  Sharpen your pen!

  Hehe, at that time, there really was such a profession. The repair of pens could become a skill to make a living, which shows the importance of fountain pens at that time. How can we expect students in rural areas to have a fountain pen each?

  So pencils are also a luxury. Think about it, how much income did a strong laborer have after working in the fields for a day? It was uncertain. The production team used a work-point system, where young men received 12 work points per day, men over 40 and young women received 10 work points, and older women and young men received 8 or 6 work points. At the end of the year, based on the production team's harvest, if it was good, each person could get a few hundred kilograms of grain and tens of yuan. If the harvest was poor, or there were many people in the household who borrowed grain from the production team, by the time the accounts were settled at the end of the year, they might even owe the collective money and grain. Pencils, as a purely consumable item that is used up quickly, are clearly not suitable for widespread promotion in rural elementary schools.

  In this way, the brush passed down from our ancestors became the only reasonable choice. A small brush, a piece of ink, an inkstone, all together cost more than one yuan, and if used sparingly, can last for a year.

  In the 21st century, a seven or eight-year-old child holding a brush to write is absolutely a family of book fragrance, determined to become a calligrapher.

  Alas, I haven't touched a brush for almost twenty years. There's no choice but to force myself to start again.

  I carefully opened my homework book, took out a small glass bottle containing ink (used to hold pen ink, as ink and inkstone were valuable items that children couldn't carry around, in case they got lost or damaged), carefully opened the lid, dipped some ink, and started copying characters.

  To be honest, my handwriting was quite good in my previous life. Because my old man's brush calligraphy was well-written, I followed him to practice for a few years when I was young. Although I didn't persist, after all, it wasn't a complete loss.

  I glanced at the little girl sitting next to me, she was writing very seriously stroke by stroke.

  "Ah...... copy each word several times?"

  I asked in a low voice.

  Luckily, I was transported back to my hometown, where the local accent is what I'm used to. If I had accidentally been transported to a strange place, just getting past the dialect barrier would be difficult. Heaven knows how many tens of thousands of dialects there are in China?

  "Five times."

  The little girl looked at me with some curiosity and replied softly.

  She is my deskmate and also a playmate from the same village, she should be very familiar with me. Unfortunately, time has really been too long, more than 30 years. I furrowed my brow, racked my brains for half a day, but still couldn't recall anything. Had to give up reluctantly. Anyway, there is still plenty of time to spend together in the future, and with my IQ at 40, I shouldn't be afraid of not being able to handle such small things?

  But in just two or three minutes, while the other kids were still struggling to copy, I had already finished writing all four characters. The bell for the end of class hadn't even rung yet (it wasn't really a bell, but rather a rusty iron plate that needed to be struck with an iron hammer to make a sound). What should I do? I looked up and saw that the female teacher was paying attention to me, and when she saw that I wasn't writing diligently, her brow furrowed slightly and she came over again.

  It's all because of that sentence "Good teacher". Otherwise, why would she keep staring at me?

  "Willow Jun, why don't you write characters..."

  The teacher didn't finish her sentence and suddenly fell silent. I clearly saw that her eyes were wide with fear.

  "This... is this written by you?"

  Oh no, I forgot about this one. You're writing too neatly! What's the point of a little kid like you writing so neatly? Are you trying to ask for trouble on purpose?

  But it's too late now, and there's no use trying to shirk responsibility.

  I had no choice but to grit my teeth and admit it.

  "It was written by me."

  The teacher's eyes lit up, took my notebook, and praised: "The children of working-class families are different, at a young age, the brushwork is written so beautifully, it's all thanks to Teacher Liu's good teaching..."

  Teacher Liu? Ah, that's what my dad used to be called. I remember him saying he used to be a teacher before. Who knows if this teacher of mine now was his student back then.

  My father and mother are both state employees, of course, ordinary cadres only, not holding any power. However, in the Liujia Mountain Brigade, this is already a remarkable figure. Moreover, my father is multi-talented, proficient in playing musical instruments, singing, and especially writing good calligraphy with a brush, famous throughout the surrounding villages.

  It seems that having an awesome dad has its benefits at all times. "A heroic father, a good son", I guess the teacher thought I inherited my dad's talented genes. In fact, this is absolutely a misconception, my dad's advantages, I almost didn't inherit any of them.

  Well, that was a past life. Now that I've been reborn, there should be some differences, no matter how small. Learning more things can't hurt, right?

  The teacher praised me for a while, and casually tore off the two pages of new characters, saying that they would be posted on the wall for all classmates to see, as an example.

  My mom, this is going to make me a child prodigy. I remember in my previous life when I was in elementary school, my handwriting with a brush pen was all crooked and messy, but not good enough for the teacher to use as a model. In this reincarnation, it's already started like this, and it can be said that I'm accidentally showing off.

  In my previous life, in terms of IQ, I was still relatively high. From a young age, I would read books and my parents were really happy about it for many years. However, as I grew older, I gradually lost interest in reading and ultimately didn't get into a good university, barely scraping by with a junior college diploma. This greatly disappointed my parents and directly affected me for the rest of my life - I couldn't find a good job, couldn't earn money, and was just a working-class nobody.

  As the only son of the old willow family, my previous life was a typical failure. To this day, I still feel deeply guilty towards my parents, relatives and wife and children. It's all because our family is not capable enough, letting everyone down.

  Heaven has opened its eyes, let's be reborn once, and we don't want to be rich and noble. As the saying goes, "heavenly fate has a return", and there is also the saying "three points are determined by heaven, seven points rely on hard work". Whether it is crossing over or being reborn, the matter of becoming rich and noble has always been decided by Heaven. We can't rely on our prior knowledge of future events to demand undeserved blessings. However, we can do our best to be filial to our parents, loving to our wives and children, and righteous towards our relatives and friends. I am seven years old this year, my wife from the previous life is still a little girl who doesn't understand anything, and it's not even possible to talk about having a son. Let's focus on becoming a prodigy and making our parents happy for now. Can't we even make them happy for a few more years after being reborn?

  This is probably also the first formal decision I made after crossing over and rebirth.

  However, making a decision is easy, but the actual implementation is not easy. It's not that the first grade curriculum will stump me, it doesn't make sense. But to sit up straight and listen carefully to the teacher say "1+1=2" is really a tough job. They say "ten years of hard work", but for me, just these five years of primary school (at that time, primary school was five years, not like later changed to six years), I don't know how to get through it.

  I've just traveled back, my mind is in a mess, I have no idea how to live from now on. In 1976, society was not just rigid, it was petrified. Don't even mention crossing provinces or counties, even within the same county, going from rural areas to the county town, without an introduction letter from the production team, you wouldn't even be able to stay in a guest house, and squatting on the street would get you in trouble with the police station and the neighborhood committee. Although I have 40 years of experience and insight, and can predict the country's development over the next 30 years like a modern-day Zhuge Liang, but with the body of a 7-year-old child, it's impossible to leave home after school and go out for a stroll on my own. All this knowledge is useless, I have no way to put it into practice.

  Continue to be depressed!