Chapter 301: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 301: Mid-Autumn Festival Eve

·

·

·

Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Time flew, and in the blink of an eye it was the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival.

This year's Mid-Autumn Festival fell on September 30th, back-to-back with National Day, and the country mandated an eight-day holiday.

Wang Xiaohua returned home from school on break.

He was now in his senior year of high school.

In the second semester of his junior year, he participated in the Mathematics Competition and won a National Second Prize, but there was still a huge gap between that and a guaranteed admission to Tsinghua or Peking University.

This left him disappointed.

He had originally thought this would be a shortcut for him.

He never expected that on this shortcut, there would be far more monsters than he had imagined.

He had to admit he did have a bit of mathematical aptitude, but only a tiny bit; compared to those monsters nationwide, he was nothing.

He looked at some national competition ranking score sheets; the people ranked at the top had all scored nearly perfect marks.

A national competition, yet they could get near-perfect scores.

This left Xiaohua astonished and, beyond that, sighing at his own insignificance, his own mediocrity.

Even if he stood out like a crane among chickens in this small county town, placed in the nationwide scope, he was nothing.

Although Wang Xiaohua was dissatisfied with his competition results, this was already the school's best performance in recent years; the school commended Wang Xiaohua across the entire school, and even called his parents to congratulate them.

Wang Xiaohua didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this; he really didn't know what there was to celebrate.

He hadn't achieved the results he originally wanted.

He felt he had completely botched things.

He had let down the competition teacher's cultivation of him.

During his time in the competition class, the competition teacher had given him plenty of one-on-one tutoring.

They were all aiming for a special admission quota.

In the end, they got nothing but a National Second Prize title.

This matter left Wang Xiaohua depressed for quite a few days, and this was also why Li Xiulan and Wang Dashan, when they called, would say Wang Xiaohua got good grades but wasn't happy.

Li Xiulan didn't understand, and she couldn't bring herself to say anything to Wang Xiaohua, let alone point fingers; she just carefully protected him. After Wang Xiaohua came home, he stayed cooped up in his room studying all day, and she didn't interfere, only calling him out to eat when mealtime came.

Sometimes Wang Xiaohua got so absorbed in a problem he wouldn't come out to eat for a long time, and she didn't dare nag either; usually she just called once, not daring to disturb Wang Xiaohua too much.

So now, on the evening before the Mid-Autumn Festival, at dinnertime, Wang Xiaohua was again cooped up in his room studying, unwilling to come out for dinner.

Tonight Wang Zhangtian and Zhao Lifen, the couple, also came over to eat together; their son Wang Yaohua did not return.

Li Xiulan went and knocked on the door, calling out:

"Xiaohua, dinner's ready. Your Uncle and Aunt are here. Come out and eat together."

From inside the room came Wang Xiaohua's impatient voice:

"You guys eat first, don't worry about me."

Wang Zhanggen felt this youngest son wouldn't even come out for a meal — very impolite. Normally he didn't interfere, but now that his eldest brother and sister-in-law were visiting, he was still like this, which made him lose face.

"Wang Xiaohua, you get out here right now! If you don't come out, no dinner for you tonight!"

Wang Zhanggen shouted at the door.

There was no response from inside the room.

Wang Zhanggen was very unhappy inside, but couldn't say anything more.

He could only return to the dining table and say to his eldest brother and sister-in-law:

"Let's eat first, ignore him. It's my fault for not teaching him well, so that this kid is this old and still doesn't know a bit of etiquette, making you laugh at us."

Wang Zhangtian chuckled:

"No matter, no matter. Then we'll eat first."

Zhao Lifen said:

"If Xiaohua is studying in his room, let him be. If my kid were this hardworking, I'd be over the moon!"

Wang Zhanggen chuckled:

"I'm just afraid he'll study himself into a bookworm, and later in society won't know a lick of survival skills! Deadbook learning is useless!"

Then he hurriedly changed the subject:

"Big Brother, how come Yaohua didn't come back with you?"

Wang Zhanggen didn't want to discuss Wang Xiaohua anymore; he felt this youngest son had embarrassed him too much, made him lose face.

The key was he couldn't really discipline Wang Xiaohua either, because while Wang Xiaohua made him lose face, he also made him gain face; Wang Xiaohua, this academic ace, usually brought him no small amount of vanity.

Whenever the topic of children's grades came up, he could straighten his back, beaming with pride.

He could even righteously criticize other people's poor parenting, unlike him, who had raised his youngest son into the county's number one; getting into university was a done deal.

Most importantly, others couldn't say anything, and would even come humbly asking for advice on how to raise children.

Every time this happened, Wang Zhanggen would lay out his so-called parenting method:

"Kids can't be spoiled. When they need a beating, you beat them. Additionally, the most important thing is, absolutely never let them touch any electronics. All kids nowadays play on phones, but my Xiaohua — never mind a phone, before he wanted a tape recorder and I wouldn't buy it, later he played with some MP3 player and I smashed it right in front of him, and after that his high school grades skyrocketed."

Others hearing this theory all nodded in agreement, expressing deep approval.

They all thought their own kids were ruined by phones, by online games.

Little did they know, the actions he took such pride in actually provided no help whatsoever on Wang Xiaohua's path to growth, and instead seriously hindered Wang Xiaohua's development.

Wang Xiaohua had always remembered these things; they were the shadow of his upbringing, and he could never forget them in his lifetime.

"Yaohua is busy with work and didn't come back for this year's Mid-Autumn Festival."

Wang Zhangtian answered thus, his eyes somewhat evasive as he spoke.

Actually, his son Wang Yaohua had come back, but at the house in County Town, Wang Yaohua did not want to return to Shangou Village, finding it meaningless, and would rather spend two days in County Town.

"Dashan and Erhai didn't come back either?"

Zhao Lifen asked this at that moment.

Li Xiulan said: "They're coming back tomorrow."

Wang Zhangtian said: "Then it would be better to have them come back tonight; tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival, the first day of the holiday, and the roads will probably be jammed."

Wang Changgen replied with a smile:

"They'll come back early tomorrow morning, setting off just as day breaks, so there shouldn't be any traffic jams."

"Setting off just as day breaks—can they even get a car?" Zhao Lifen asked doubtfully.

"They're driving back themselves," Wang Changgen answered; it seemed casual, but was full of vanity.

Wang Zhangtian and Zhao Lifen were both stunned, a hint of surprise on their faces.

The atmosphere turned subtle, and silence lasted for a full three seconds.

Wang Zhangtian then asked:

"They bought a car?"

Wang Changgen said with a beaming face:

"Yes, they bought a car; the two brothers partnered to open a company, earned some money, and bought a car."

Zhao Lifen said instead:

"Buying a car is not as good as buying a house; cars don't hold value, you lose money once you buy one, but houses—house prices rise every year, so you make money once you buy one."

Wang Changgen answered with a chuckle:

"Yes, I think so too, but there's no choice; their work requires them to run around, and it's inconvenient without a car. As for a house, there's no rush, because we plan to first build a new building in our hometown."

When Wang Changgen said this, Wang Zhangtian and Zhao Lifen were both surprised again.

Envy and jealousy welled up in their hearts.

It seemed Wang Changgen's family truly had good fortune—buying a car was one thing, but they were actually going to build a new house in their hometown!