Farmer's Struggle

Chapter 23 Competition
Ten yuan of New Year's money may not be much in other homes, but it is quite a lot in Ju's.For so many years, the three sisters only got two yuan of New Year's money at one time. It is really generous to give ten yuan at once.

Qiao Jue didn't know this, when he received the New Year's money, he only felt that the three sisters looked at him strangely, indescribably complicated.

Later, Qiao Jue felt embarrassed when he realized that the ten yuan lucky money was worth to the Ju family. When Qiao Dongcheng and Qiao Dongcheng went to the county town to watch the lanterns on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, they bought a lot of things and gave them to the Ju family.

After fifteen, Qiao Jue will leave too.

The parting this time is different from the last one. This is probably the last time Qiao Dongcheng set foot on this land, so parting is a farewell to him.

On the day of leaving, the old man couldn't hold back his tears, and old man Sun cried too. The two gray-haired old men held hands tightly together and asked each other to take care of themselves and live a few more years.

Qiao Jue was also very sad, and bid farewell to the Ju sisters Yiyi, and finally called Ju Ling aside to say goodbye to her alone.

"I still have some photos here that haven't been developed, and I will post them to you after they are developed. Remember to write back to you when I write to you, and you can call me when your phone is fixed." After hesitating, Qiao Jue asked again: " You have also been promoted to junior high school in two years, so you can't slack off in your studies, don't think about or do extra things, you know?"

Ju Ling didn't know, she honestly shook her head and asked for advice: "What's superfluous?"

Qiao Jue scratched his head, blushed rarely and said awkwardly, "Just make love or something."

Ju Ling was a little speechless: "How old am I, what kind of partner do I want to be."

After hearing this, Qiao Jue was a little relieved and at the same time felt a little lost, as for why this happened, he didn't delve into it.

After Qiao's grandfather and grandson left, old man Sun became seriously ill and stayed in the county hospital for seven or eight days before returning.

Chatting in private, both Ju Wenqi and Zhang Yongmei said that Old Man Sun's situation is not good and that he might not make it through this year.

Regardless of what other people do, you have to live your own life.

March entered the stage of preparation for farming, and both Ju Wenqi and Zhang Yongmei got busy, and the three sisters also started school.

Just a few days after the start of school, a big news spread among classmates and teachers that their elementary school will be merged into San Fatzitun Elementary School, which has a large number of students and a large scale in the next semester!
The three teachers in the school are all private teachers, and they will lose their jobs if they haven't become regulars when the school is merged, so the teachers don't want to merge schools.

But merging schools is the general trend, and of course the small mountain village teachers can't change it.

Like everyone else, Ju Ling was anxious for a few days. Later, she also wanted to understand why there was anything to be anxious about. Although the competition was fiercer when she went to a bigger school, the No. 1 won by the fierce competition would have more weight.

She expressed her ambition in the letter to Qiao Jue, and asked him if the photos had been developed, and why they hadn't been mailed.

This letter has been sent for more than a month and there is no reply, which is very abnormal.

Ju Ling felt that something might have happened to Qiao Jue, so she decided to go to Old Man Sun to inquire, but Old Man Sun was seriously ill and hadn't contacted Qiao Dongcheng for a long time.

There is nothing to do but wait.

As a result, Ju Ling didn't wait for Qiao Jue's reply but instead waited for a new classmate.

A new family has moved into the village. Their surname is Zhou. I don’t know the exact name. Everyone in the village calls the man from that family Wednesday.

Wednesday's son came to join his brother Tuesday.Conditions at home on Tuesday are not good either. His biggest hobby is drinking and beating his wife. Two daughters, one son and three children are raised by them.

Zhou Fang's second daughter is called Zhou Fang. She and Ju Ling are classmates and share the same table. They have a pretty good relationship.During the chat between classes, Zhou Fang talked a lot about her third uncle and the children in his family.

Zhou Er has four children, three girls and one boy. The first three are girls and the last one is a son.The eldest girl and the second girl are already married in their hometown. The third girl is one year older than Ju Min and does not go to school to help the family. The youngest son is Zhou Yan, who is one year older than Ju Ling. He is in the fifth grade in his hometown. The grade can only read another fourth grade with Ju Ling and the others.

At Zhou'er's age, it doesn't make sense for her to travel all the way across several provinces to seek refuge with her second brother, who is not well-off at home. There must be something inside this.

Ju Ling didn't care about this inside story, adults' affairs had nothing to do with children, she only cared about her new classmate Zhou Yan's academic performance.

"He is very good at studying. I heard that he is the first in the exam every year in his hometown. He came to us and squatted another level. Ju Ling, I don't think you can pass him in the exam," Zhou Fang said with some pride and regret.

The pride is because her cousin will be the first one in the future, but the regret is because her good tablemate and good friend can't get the first place, and she is quite contradictory.

Ju Ling only smiled slightly: "Just wait and see."

Probably because he was a newcomer and didn't know anyone well, Zhou Yan was very silent in get out of class, and would just sit in his seat and study without playing with his classmates after class.

Ju Ling didn't want to be compared with the new students, so she worked hard to study. Two classmates who had never spoken a word in the same class for more than a month met for the first time in the mid-term exam, and Ju Ling lost!

She didn't pass Zhou Yan's exam.

It was a bolt from the blue.

Unlike the first time when she didn't pass the exam because of diarrhea, this time she tried her best to cope with the exam results but failed to pass the exam. This was a great blow to her self-confidence.

Both Ju Min and Ju Jing knew how much she cared about her grades, so they tried to coax her.Looking at the whole family's cautious appearance, Ju Ling felt embarrassed, and reassured them repeatedly that she was fine.

She absolutely does not allow herself to fall twice in the same pit, so she studies harder and only waits for the final exam.

When the final exam was less than a month away, Ju Wenqi and his wife fell into an unprecedented entanglement.

The merger of primary schools has been finalized, and all students will go to San Fatzitun Primary School when the next semester starts.There are no students in the school in the village, and the whole house and the playground have to be vacated. The location is pretty good. It’s a pity that the place is deserted, so the village plans to sell the house and the playground.

The school house is too big to live in, and the price is not cheap. There are not many people in the village who are really thinking about buying it. Ju Wenqi belongs to the very few people who are thinking about it.

He wanted to buy it, but Zhang Yongmei didn't want to buy it. The husband and wife refused to give in. They almost quarreled over this matter, and finally decided to hold a family meeting and vote with a show of hands.

Spending tens of thousands of dollars to buy old houses and houses is a big deal, and the three sisters did not deal with it casually. They listened carefully to Ju Wenqi and Zhang Yongmei's views.

Ju Wenqi thinks in the long term, buying a piece of land like the school can raise pigs, cows and chickens, do whatever you want, and sooner or later you can earn back the money you spent.

Of course, in addition to the superficial purpose, he has a deeper idea.

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(End of this chapter)