After the final exam, I took classes for ten consecutive days before the school finally had a holiday. Because Taoxi Bay is very far from the county's No. 1 Middle School, Taoxi usually lives and studies and returns home once a month.
He put the study materials and clothes into a big snakeskin pocket, and took the county bus twice a day back to Taoxi Bay.
Taoxi Bay is the farthest village in Qingshui County. It is beautiful but poor. The tea trees and green trees in the terraced fields of the mountains are intertwined with each other. When the spring rains and crisps, the hundreds of peach blossoms on the Qingshui River in the mountain pass are a misty brocade. Falling flowers.
However, most of the local villagers do not have the leisure to enjoy the scenery and flowers. In recent years, the Internet has attracted some idlers who come to sketch and take pictures. Several wealthy farmers have opened farmhouses. With the improvement of roads in the county, they are very famous More and more guests come.
Tao Xi's house is halfway up the mountain beside Qingshui River. It is a low brick house with white walls and grey roof. His mother Guo Ping and father Tao Jian are both villagers who were born and raised in Taoxi Bay. From time to time, I occasionally go to the village's farmhouse and tea factory to do odd jobs. My sister, Tao Le, is thirteen years old this year and has just had a summer vacation on the first day of the new year.
Tao Le had sharp ears, and when he heard the movement in the main room, he ran out to meet Tao Xi, and almost tripped over the fertilizer bag on the ground in excitement.
As soon as Tao Xi saw Tao Le coming out, he grabbed her arm and hurriedly took her to the room.
"Don't come out, the sun is too poisonous today." He put down his luggage, closed the wooden door, turned and looked down at Tao Le's face carefully.
The little girl is a little fat, with tight long-sleeved trousers on her body, a shiny natural curly head, and a pair of big almond eyes that are lively and lively, but there is a large butterfly-shaped erythema on her face, which spreads from the bridge of the nose to the left. Face.
Tao Le suffers from lupus erythematosus and has been taking medicine to maintain it.
"Brother, I heard from my classmates that you are the number one in the county this time! You are going to study in Wenhua City after school starts!" return.
The news spread very quickly, and it is estimated that Guo Ping knew it too, saving her the effort of telling her.
Tao Xi nodded, but his face didn't have the excitement he had just found out. If it wasn't for Tao Le, he wouldn't want to go back to this house at all.
The two brothers and sisters put the tea leaves drying on the dojo into their bags after sunset. Later, when Guo Ping came back from the tea factory, Tao Xi was cooking in the kitchen.
She picked up the enamel cup on the chopping board, took a few sips of herbal tea, and walked to the kitchen. When she was young, Guo Ping was famous for her fiery personality in Taoxi Bay. The skin is black and yellow and wrinkled, the once good-looking almond eyes have become dim and drooping, and the character has become taciturn and silent.
Guo Ping looked at the son in front of him. He was born with fair skin. He grew up in the countryside for so many years and did a lot of farm work, but he was still fair and clean like those art students who came to Taoxi Bay from the city to paint and sketch.
"Listen to Sister Zhang's son, are you going to study in Wenhua City next year?" Guo Ping sat on the stool beside the stove and turned towards the fire, her tone not like Tao Xi's mother.
Tao Xi held the spatula and didn't look at Guo Ping. He didn't like the way Guo Ping looked at him, which always reminded him of his ridiculous fate behind this look.
"The living expenses of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School will subsidize me, 1,500 yuan per month, and I will leave 800 yuan for Lele to see a doctor and buy medicine." Tao Xi said with his eyes down, his tone not fluctuating.
Guo Ping was silent, and took a piece of wood into the stove with tongs.
The irritability in Tao Xi's heart suddenly surged like a stove filled with firewood. What he hated most was Guo Ping's seemingly tolerant silence, which made him always want to say something unpleasant.
"Don't worry, I won't go to your son and destroy his life. Wenhua City is so big, even if I want to find him, where will I go?"
"I didn't mean that." Guo Ping said.
That's what you meant.
Tao Xi sneered silently, but after all, he didn't speak any more.
During the only 30 days of summer vacation, Tao Xi was not idle. In addition to some farm work, he set aside a fixed time every day to review the content taught by the teacher of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School. He also helped Tao Le with his homework. Exclusion, can not learn.
When there is a chance, he will be a mannequin for the art students, and he charges 100 each time. Because the mouth is sweet and good-looking, the art students will sometimes give him some other tips.
He will also be a model for some photographers, but the fee will be much higher, because these photographers like to inquire about his family situation in the first place, euphemistically, they record different lives. Tao Xi knows their psychology and makes up what he likes. Some tragic stories, either the father died or the mother died.
Occasionally I also paint with art students, who generously lend out their own brushes and paints.
"Wow, little brother, have you really never learned to draw? How can you draw better than what we have learned?" A few girls from the Academy of Fine Arts originally painted landscapes, but now they all come to Tao Xi's side to watch his paintings.
The paintbrush in Tao Xi's hand stopped, not wanting them to see it, because he painted Lin Qinhe.
In the painting, the boy in a white shirt leans down to read a book. The peach blossoms outside the window are covered with a bright moon.
He doesn't know how many pictures of Lin Qinhe he has drawn. He has a sketchbook, and every picture in it is of Lin Qinhe, sitting or standing, reading or writing. In fact, he can see the real Lin Qinhe. He is very limited, these paintings are the moon in his imagination.
"So handsome, who is this person?" The girls asked in amazement.
Tao Xi smiled and said a few words perfunctorily. After painting, he thanked them and ran away with the painting.
In fact, he liked to draw since he was a child, and he was born to draw better than others, but once Guo Ping saw his paintings, Guo Ping went crazy and put all the paintings in the stove and burned them to the ground. I was frightened, and then I only dared to paint quietly.
Later, he finally understood why Guo Ping was so gaffe.
The summer vacation passed quickly, and Tao Xi kept most of the more than 2,000 yuan he earned to buy medicine for Tao Le, and only 500 yuan was left as extra expenses for Wenhua No. 1 Middle School.
At the end of August, when Tao Xi packed up his luggage and was about to leave, Tao Le insisted on sending him out. He snorted a handful of his sister's natural rolls and categorically refused.
Tao Xi didn't speak to Guo Ping, and took the luggage directly onto the bus to the county's No. 1 Middle School. Several leaders of the school and many teachers came to see him off.
The teachers surrounded Tao Xi and encouraged and exhorted like an old mother, as if sending the child to the battlefield, let him go without too much pressure.
The language teacher is an old man who has always liked Tao Xi very much. The old man stuffed a bag of home-made sesame candy into Tao Xi's arms and encouraged, "Son, you are very good, you are no worse than the students of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School, or you should be humble and confident. a little!"
Tao Xi nodded and said thank you. He has always liked to eat candy, but even if he had it at home, he gave it to Tao Le. He knew that the old man said that he was neither humble nor arrogant, but it was actually to let him not feel inferior.
But in fact, he has never experienced inferiority since he was so grown up. Even when he saw Lin Qinhe, he was madly wanting to approach him, stand by his side, and become a person as good as him, instead of being ashamed.
Feng Yuan, who had been silent for a while, suddenly said, "Don't fight if you have a conflict with your classmates, there is not necessarily someone there to protect you."
Tao Xi suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Feng Yuan.
You must know that he never fought in Qingshui No. 1 Middle School, and has always been a good student, at least in front of the teacher.
Feng Yuan coughed and said in a low voice, "Don't worry about your sister, she will be transferred to Teacher Ding's class soon, and no one will dare to bully her in the future." His wife Ding Fang is a language teacher in the county junior high school and a class teacher .
Tao Xi looked at Feng Yuan for a while, then suddenly bowed very solemnly to all the teachers present and said thank you.
"I will definitely be the first student in Qingshui County to pass the exam."
This time he wasn't perfunctory.
The teachers took Tao Xi to the school gate, Feng Yuan took Tao Xi, and the two of them carried large and small bags. They took the bus for half a day to the nearest prefecture-level city. They ate two buckets of instant noodles at the train station and waited until midnight. I just got on the high-speed train, and after a night of sitting, I finally arrived at Wenhua City at noon the next day.
Tao Xi had never been out such a long way, and Feng Yuan rarely went out. The two were very dizzy at the high-speed rail station for a while, and they didn't quite understand the bus and subway routes. In the end, Feng Yuan gritted his teeth and called a taxi to arrive. In Wenhua No. 1 Middle School, Tao Xi wanted to pay the taxi fee, but Feng Yuan sternly refused.
The moment he got out of the car and saw the gate of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School, Tao Xi felt that he was dreaming, and his feet were a little weak.
Two people, one big and one small, accompanied by a large bag and a small bag and pestle at the school gate are very out of place and bleak. Feng Yuan was stunned for a while before he took out his mobile phone and made a call. Tao Xi raised his head and looked greedily at Wen Huayi. in the school gate.
A tall building with simple lines, the seven characters of "Wenhua No. 1 Middle School" are engraved on the white marble, looking past the automatic metal door is a wide asphalt road. .
Tao Xi tutted in his heart, this is much more imposing than the crumbling rusty iron gate in Qingshui No. 1.
Soon, a short and stout middle-aged male teacher walked quickly along the road. Tao Xi saw this teacher on the screen for nearly a year. He was the head teacher and math teacher of the first class, Zhou Qiang. He saw with his own eyes the hair above his head. Step by step back.
The feeling that the person on the screen suddenly became a living person is quite strange. Tao Xi squinted his eyes and raised the corner of his mouth to reveal a shy and obedient smile when Zhou Qiang came to him.
"Report! The first place in Qingshui County has come to our class! There are still 500 meters away from the classroom!"
In the early morning of the first day of school, a boy rushed into the classroom at the end of the third floor of the Wenhua No. 1 teaching building from the corridor.
"Xiaofeizi, male or female?"
"Man!" The boy who reported the news was called Bi Chengfei, and he flew back to the desk in a flash to continue copying his English homework.
The boys suddenly let out a disappointed voice. Their class was full of yang and yin, and they had imagined a beautiful and simple peasant girl.
"Are you handsome?" asked Jin Jing, the representative of the English class who was rushing to hand in his English homework.
"Wait! There's still one more space left!"? Bi Chengfei chased after and wrote an option, and finally said with a sigh of relief: "I didn't see it clearly, it seems to be quite thin and white."
Jin Jing glanced at the empty seat behind Bi Chengfei and sighed.
Bi Chengfei knew who she was thinking, and said in a sour tone, "Even if he is handsome, can he still be more handsome than Lin Xueshen?"
Jin Jing rolled his eyes at him and said, "Just be more handsome than you."
Tao Xi, who was imagined to be a peasant girl, was wearing a new school uniform that was washed last night and thankfully dried in the morning, and was following Zhou Qiang to the classroom.
After Feng Yuan sent him to the dormitory yesterday to settle down, he rushed back without stopping.
Because the school hadn't started yet, so the roommates didn't come. Tao Xi slept in a four-person room all night, and was brought to the cafeteria by Zhou Qiang to eat a free hearty breakfast early in the morning.
Along the way, Zhou Qiang has been tirelessly introducing the situation of the school and the class, occasionally mixed with the encouragement of "don't be nervous", "take it easy" and "you can".
Tao Xi has always been a person who talks to people and talk to ghosts. At first, he responded with a slap in the face, but he couldn't hold it anymore.
He was not used to others being too attentive to him, and finally understood why Zhou Qiang was nicknamed Zhou Auntie.
When passing by the hall on the first floor of the teaching building, Aunt Zhou, oh no, Zhou Qiang also took Tao Xi and stood in front of the tall glass curtain wall to enjoy the honor list.
"Look, there are a lot of students from our first class here, and they will become your classmates in the future." Zhou Qiang smugly glanced up and down at the photos and names of the students in his class, and there was a sentence under each photo. Learning without thinking is useless, thinking without learning is perilous".
Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe's photo at a glance. First, he appeared the most frequently, and second, he was the best-looking, but there was only a name under the photo and no sentences.
When Zhou Qiang saw Tao Xi staring at the photo in a daze, he secretly screamed badly, thinking that the students from the mountains would feel inferior when they saw the excellent classmates. The top is lively and enthusiastic, humble and cheerful, you will definitely fit in well!"
This is the third time Tao Xi has heard Zhou Qiang speak lively and enthusiastically.
Tao Xi raised the corner of his mouth and smiled, and said for the third time, "I will get along well with my classmates."
Well, he was still a little nervous at first, but after Zhou Qiang did everything like this, his emotions were gone.
There is even a sense of relief when walking to the door of the classroom.
A class of classrooms heard the English recitation of the early self-study, and the moment Zhou Qiang and Tao Xi walked in, it clicked like a cassette and went silent.
Tao Xi instantly felt Qi Shushua's eyes shot at him. He didn't have the heart to try to figure out the meaning of these eyes, so he darted his head and quickly glanced down the stage in the dense line of sight.
No.
Tao Xi suppressed the doubts and disappointments in his heart, and after Zhou Qiang's passionate opening remarks, he was asked to introduce himself to the class.
"Hello everyone, my name is Tao Xi, I am from Qingshui County No. 1 Middle School, and I am very happy to study at Wenhua No. 1 Middle School."
In fact, he thought about introducing himself countless times over and over on the way, but now he suddenly lost his mood.
Zhou Qiang was stunned, is this over
That's all, nowadays children like to pretend to be cool, maybe they are too nervous. Zhou Qiang thoughtfully gave Tao Xi a reason, pointed his finger to the last row of the classroom, and said kindly, "The last seat in the fifth row is for you. Yes, it was all cleaned up yesterday."
The whole class turned around and aimed at the last row, where there were two empty seats next to each other, one of which was added yesterday, and the other...
Tao Xi nodded, and just as he was about to step off the podium, a tall figure suddenly walked into the door of the classroom.
He subconsciously turned his head to look over, and immediately nailed it to the spot.
"Lin Qinhe, why are you late on the first day of school!"? Zhou Qiang said sadly to the boy who walked in at the door, as if he was looking at his unfilial son who had gone astray.
Nizi was carrying a black schoolbag behind him, one hand hooked the schoolbag strap casually, and the other hand held a bottle of ice mineral water. His stern face showed no expression, and his tone was indifferent: "There was a car accident on the road."
Tao Xi groaned in his heart, but the expression on his face did not change, and looked at Lin Qinhe quietly.
No matter how clear the live broadcast screen is, it will inevitably be distorted. After seeing the real person, I find that my painting still has many flaws, and it does not look half as good as my own.
Zhou Qiang's expression froze. He obviously believed the nonsense. He scanned Lin Qinhe up and down, left and right, and after confirming that he was all right, he showed a pleasing smile. He pulled Tao Xi and said to Lin Qinhe in the tone of a supermarket salesman selling new products:
"It's fine! But you just missed the self-introduction of the new classmate. Come, let me introduce you. This classmate is called Tao Xi, and he is the number one in Qingshui County! Do you think he will be your roommate in the future? "
Zhou Qiang asked for his opinion, but in fact he had already put the desk next to Lin Qinhe. He was confident that Lin Qinhe would not refuse such a trivial matter.
"No." Lin Qinhe glanced at Tao Xi, his voice emotionless.
The whole class suddenly fell silent.
The smile at the corner of Tao Xi's mouth also froze.
The author says:
Decided to publish a few more chapters