Chapter 147

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Although Wang Xiaohua felt his parents were unlikely to sign him up for a tutoring class, when he returned home for the weekend he still mustered the courage to ask, because deep down he desperately wanted to master English.

"The English teacher said my English foundation is too weak, and hopes I can sign up for a tutoring class to catch up."

During dinner that evening, Wang Xiaohua hesitated for a long time before bringing this up to his parents.

Wang Zhanggen and Li Xiulan both couldn't help but be stunned upon hearing this.

Their expressions turned somewhat strange.

Wang Dashan kept his head buried in his rice bowl, acting as if he hadn't heard.

Wang Erhai, on the other hand, said with a grin:

"Little brother, your grades are already this good and you still want a tutoring class — you're just asking for suffering!"

Wang Erhai also said to Wang Zhanggen and Li Xiulan:

"I have no objection if you sign my little brother up for a tutoring class, but absolutely don't sign me up — signing me up would just be wasting money!"

Wang Erhai did have self-awareness; his grades had always been at a middling level — middling in primary school, and still middling in junior high.

By rights, with grades like his it would be very difficult to get into high school.

But starting last year, high schools expanded enrollment.

With Wang Erhai's current middling grades, getting into high school was practically a done deal.

Wang Erhai was very chill about it; anyway, he definitely wouldn't go to any tutoring class.

Wang Zhanggen, who had been holding it in for a long time, finally spoke up:

"What tutoring class? Those are nothing but ways for those unscrupulous teachers in the school to make money — you just study on your own! As long as you're willing to put in the hard work, you can learn just as well without a tutoring class; if you don't put in the hard work, even hiring teachers from Tsinghua or Peking University to teach you won't make you learn!"

Li Xiulan comforted him instead:

"Xiaohua, we're poor people, not spoiled like city folks — we don't do tutoring classes. Besides, even if we signed you up, how would you attend? You stay in town on weekends — should the tutor come to our village to teach you? That's a problem. And I've heard tutoring classes are very expensive, charged by the hour."

Although he had long anticipated his parents would react this way, Wang Xiaohua still felt deeply disappointed.

He had matured early, and keenly realized that his parents' stingy behavior would greatly hinder the ceiling of his life's development, yet he was powerless to resist, because he was merely a teenager who had just entered his first year of junior high.

A sense of powerlessness was etched deep into his heart, making him feel even a hint of despair.

At that moment the naive youth seemed to grasp what the "hand of fate" meant, understanding why so many people in this world cannot change their destiny.

Family and environment, while shaping a person, also restrict a person's development at every turn.

When children from wealthy families grow up proudly amid flowers and encouragement, children from poor families not only have to struggle in the mud, but also face all kinds of invisible restrictions from their own families.

If you are a dragon and phoenix among people with exceptional talent, perhaps you can break free of such restrictions, leap the dragon gate, and fly into a higher world.

It's just a pity that the vast majority of people in this world are ultimately nothing but ordinary people.

Even Wang Xiaohua is actually just a slightly cleverer ordinary person.

The reason his primary school grades were so good wasn't entirely because of extraordinary IQ; it was more because he had access to books earlier than the vast majority of rural children, and learned arithmetic, pinyin, and writing characters earlier.

This made learning easier for him than for others in primary school, allowing him to gain a sense of achievement and honor in his studies, and this sense of achievement and honor encouraged him throughout his entire primary school career.

Until junior high, the achievements and honors he gained gradually decreased, and this driving force of his also gradually diminished.

What sustains his hard study now is that stubborn refusal to accept defeat in his heart — he still feels he has a chance to test into the top five of the whole grade, as long as he's given a suitable environment!

However, when his parents refused to sign him up for a tutoring class, that stubborn drive of his deflated all at once.

He knew he simply could not change his parents' mindset.

He was simply powerless to put up any struggle.

He no longer had that fighting spirit.

He gradually accepted the reality that his English wasn't good, stopped fighting with English, and stopped fighting with himself.

In the blink of an eye, the end-of-semester final exams arrived.

Wang Xiaohua ranked twenty-something in the grade; this result let him smoothly enter the Special Elite Class when he moved up to his second year of junior high, but he couldn't be happy at all.

Because his English not only hadn't improved, it had actually regressed a bit — he only scored in the eighties.

He even felt somewhat depressed.

But back then the term "depression" wasn't popular in schools yet; he just felt he couldn't be happy all day long, and could no longer feel that childhood sensation of his heart racing.

When he brought his grades home, his parents were very pleased.

Wang Zhanggen even said proudly:

"I told you early on — as long as you're willing to put in the hard work, you can learn well even without a tutoring class. See? You got into the Special Elite Class, your grades improved a lot!"

Li Xiulan chimed in agreement:

"Right, right, right — learning depends on the individual; relying on a tutoring class counts as what skill!"

Wang Zhanggen added:

"Not signing up for a tutoring class and still testing into the Special Elite Class — if you had signed up, who knows what would've happened! Good thing we didn't sign you up back then!"

This ignorant couple actually attributed Wang Xiaohua's grades to the fact that they didn't sign him up for a tutoring class!

Faced with this kind of understanding from his parents, the already gloomy Wang Xiaohua could hold back no longer and erupted directly.

"You don't understand anything at all!"

Wang Xiaohua suddenly roared.

Then he turned and went back to his room.

Wang Zhanggen and Li Xiulan were both dumbfounded.

Completely unable to understand why the Youngest Brother would have this kind of reaction.

"What nerve is he striking?" Wang Zhanggen was quite displeased, immediately pulling a long face, hurriedly going over to bang on the door hard, banging it bang-bang loud, "Wang Xiaohua what are you doing! We raised you with handfuls of shit and handfuls of piss, and this is your attitude? Hurry up and come out for me, let's see if I don't beat you to death!"

"Probably adolescent rebellion, you don't go hit him, let him digest it himself and it'll be fine!" Li Xiulan said so.

They indeed understand nothing, the fatal thing is they still have to pretend to understand everything.

And Wang Xiaohua's tragedy lies in that he gained awareness too early, saw through this family's essence too early, at this age powerless to resist, he could only watch helplessly as his original family trampled and ground him down bit by bit.

This process is long and painful, either needing until he can gain economic independence, or needing until he is completely ground down spiritually.

Li Xiulan and Wang Zhanggen no longer paid attention to Wang Xiaohua, turning instead to concern themselves with Wang Erhai.

Wang Erhai took the high school entrance exam this year, his scores had just come out.

"Erhai, how were your high school entrance exam scores?"