The moon is full in the sky, but only half full on earth.
Mid-Autumn Festival is probably the most important holiday in the year. This year, it falls on the last day of September in the Gregorian calendar, and tomorrow is National Day.
The benefits of a long holiday for National Day will not be available until 1999. Today is Thursday, so I have to study in the classroom.
At the beginning of this semester, although history, geography and biology textbooks are still available, they have been removed from the curriculum.
Although the curriculum includes one music and two physical education classes per week, music is usually taken up by mathematics classes, and physical education classes are taken up by subjects other than mathematics on a rotating basis. It is guaranteed that they can have one class every two weeks.
Course progress: Feng Yiping and the others have almost finished the entire second year of junior high school curriculum. It is estimated that after the midterm, they will start studying the third year curriculum. By the end of the second year, they will have completed the entire three-year junior high school curriculum, and they will systematically review it in the third year.
Feng Yiping is still relatively relaxed, but he expects to feel some pressure when he starts to study the third year curriculum, mainly in mathematics. However, it is much better than before. After all, the logical thinking ability of a person in his thirties is much better than that of a teenager.
Today is also the last day of the lunch break. After the fourth period, Wang Changning rode his bike with Xiao Zhijie and together they returned to Room 502 with Feng Yiping.
The two of them didn't really care about the date, but Feng Yiping, the eccentric, really didn't want to eat alone today.
The autumn heat wave was no joke, it was really intense! The scorching sun made them sweat all over, even after just a short while.
It was midday, there were very few people or vehicles on the road, and the crops in the fields and the leaves of the street trees were wilting in the heat. Only they were the only ones who were spreading their vibrant laughter all along the way.
It was a very hearty lunch. A hen that had been stewed last night was kept in a pan in the sink, and had not gone bad, so it was just heated up. Feng Yiping had braised seven or eight small crucian carp, each weighing less than half a catty, in a pot, and there was also some stir-fried pork. There was also a plate of cold tomatoes and a bowl of lettuce. When the chicken was almost finished, it was dipped in the chicken stock to heat it through.
The fan was whirring away in the corner, and the three of them, each with a towel draped over their shoulders, were eating with gusto.
Just as they were enjoying their meal, there was a knock at the door.
Feng Yiping was a little surprised. Apart from his uncle, who delivered some vegetables every week, he didn't usually have any visitors.
He looked suspiciously at the door and saw Xiao Jianping standing there, carrying two big bags.
Feng Yiping hurriedly ushered him into the house. 'Dad, why are you here?' Xiao Zhijie was surprised to see his father walking in, with a towel in one hand to wipe away the sweat and a chicken leg on the chopsticks in the other.
'Why am I here? Your mother said today was a big day, and told me to bring you food. I said at the time that there was no need to go to school at all, that you would definitely be here, and sure enough, here you are.'
Feng Yiping brought him a basin of water, 'Uncle, you wipe yourself off first.'
'Yes, Dad, blow on this side,' Xiao Zhijie said, pausing the electric fan and blowing on his father.
'You guys have a pretty good life! No wonder Zhijie doesn't want to come home during the holidays,' Xiao Jianping said, looking at the food on the table.
Fortunately, there were four chairs, so Xiao Zhijie went to get the bowls and chopsticks. 'Dad, do you want me to buy you a beer?'
'It's not a matter of whether you want it or not, you should be asking how many bottles to buy,' Feng Yiping said with a smile.
'Right, and remember to keep it cold!'
After Xiao Zhijie had left, Xiao Jianping asked Feng Yiping, 'Yiping, be honest with me, how is Zhijie doing this semester?'
'He listens carefully, Uncle.'
'So there's still not much progress?' Xiao Jianping heard what he meant in his words.
'He's quite good at maths and physics, but he's a bit worse at English and Chinese,' Feng Yiping said honestly.
Now it seems that Xiao Zhijie's memory is indeed average and he is not very talented in languages. But Feng Yiping knows that Xiao Zhijie can clearly remember the prices of the thousands of goods he sells, accurate to two decimal places. Now he just needs to find a way to motivate him.
'With only one and a half years left, that's still quite difficult!' Xiao Jianping sounded a little downhearted.
Wang Changning also felt a little down when he heard this. Yes, if he can't even rank in the top ten in his year at school, there's basically no hope of him getting into County No. 1 High School.
Feng Yiping of course didn't dare make such a promise, but he could only say, 'Uncle, there's still over a year left, and we will definitely urge him to work hard. If he still isn't quite ready by then, that's fine, he can repeat the year and he'll definitely get into County No. 1 High School.'
'Haha, that's right, I was prepared for the idea that he would have to repeat the year,' Xiao Jianping said.
In the past two years, every year there have been transfer students in the third grade of the school, all of whom come from families with average financial conditions and parents who have some ideas, so they let their children try again.
After dinner, everyone also ate some mooncakes that Xiao Jianping had brought, which is also a regular Mid-Autumn Festival treat for Feng Yiping and the others every year. They are the kind of old mooncakes wrapped in white printed oil paper, with a crispy crust and rock sugar inside. Now they are quite expensive, costing one yuan each.
After sending Xiao Jianping off at noon, Feng Yiping was greeted by an unexpected visitor during the second lesson in the afternoon: his sister, who hadn't seen him for a few years, had come to visit him at school.
...
On the 29th, Feng Yuxuan set off from the city to return home. She had very little luggage and only had 400 yuan in her pocket, which she had saved up over the past two months.
She went to the town and weighed two catties of oranges and two catties of meat, and bought some mooncakes. With these things, she took a bus to the township and then walked home along the mountain path.
As she looked at the familiar yet strange landscape along the way, she felt a mixture of familiarity and impatience. So many years have passed, and the outside world has changed rapidly, almost like a new look every year, but at home things have hardly changed at all. It's just like the theme song from a TV series she watched once, 'The Fence Woman and the Dog': 'The mountains are still the same mountains, and the beams are still the same beams.'
She was dressed fashionably in a blue dress and white high-heeled sandals, but such an outfit was really inconvenient for walking on such a mountain path. She gritted her teeth and persevered for a while. Seeing that there were no people in front or behind her, she took off her high heels, held them in her hand, and walked barefoot.
The mountain path was not clean, with gravel and glass shards all over the surface. The most difficult thing to guard against were the various thorns in the gravel, such as the thorns on the chestnut balls that had fallen from the chestnut trees along the road, and the thorns that had fallen from the brambles on the way home with firewood. She had no choice but to put on her high heels again. In short, the whole journey was really not easy.
She took a few steps and rested for a while, and then took a few steps and rested for a while again. The walk that had always taken her half an hour at most took her almost two hours today.
It wasn't until after 3:00 p.m. that she finally entered the village. The road had also smoothed out a bit and was much easier to walk on. She let out a sigh of relief, straightened her back, and returned to her hometown, which she had left years ago, with the proud bearing of a city dweller.