Aunt Zhang propped her elbows on the counter, watching the kids playing excitedly in the corner, and couldn’t help but laugh:
"I really don’t get what’s so fun about this game."
Li Zhiyuan gave Aunt Zhang a shy smile but didn’t answer.
The fun part might not be the cards, but the feeling of a group of friends coming together to focus on one thing.
The latter is irreplaceable, as for the former, even if they’re not these Water Margin cards...
Li Zhiyuan glanced at the cigarette cabinet behind Aunt Zhang. Even if the cards were replaced with cigarette boxes, the kids would still have fun.
After leaving Aunt Zhang’s small shop, he returned to Grandmaster’s house and found that Cui Cui had come.
She had brought her homework, intending to ask for help.
Cui Cui’s academic performance is good, and Li Zhiyuan knows this is just an excuse for her to come and hang out with him.
After he helped her with two problems, Cui Cui began doing her homework on her own, while Li Zhiyuan sat on the stool, gazing at the distant scenery, experiencing everything meticulously, feeling deeply, and trying hard to remember.
A while ago, during a class on political theory taught by Professor Zhu, the professor used Jiangsu’s example of mobilizing the masses to dig rivers over the decades to explain a theory.
This was an example Li Zhiyuan had personally experienced.
Later, he asked other students from different provinces in the class, and similar large-scale civic projects had been carried out nationwide.
One student from Inner Mongolia said that from childhood, he would follow his parents to press grass to stabilize the sand.
Students who had never lived near desert areas didn’t understand what this meant, and despite the Inner Mongolian student trying hard to describe it, he couldn’t convey it clearly. In the end, it was Professor Zhu himself who thoroughly explained the principle to everyone.
The old professor had a wide range of knowledge and didn’t mind his political theory class deviating from the topic.
This class benefited Li Zhiyuan greatly, though the point of benefit wasn’t desert management.
His emotional state was like a desert, and the biggest problem or most direct management issue of a desert wasn’t the lack of water, but the inability to retain water or stabilize the sand.
It’s like every time he dealt with evil spirits, the extreme emotions and consciousnesses would flood into his mind, and he could only experience and feel them like watching fireworks. When it ended... it just ended.
Because it couldn’t be retained.
First, stabilize the sand so it won’t move and bury large areas, then choose specific types of grasses and trees to plant as the initial foundation, and then proceed step by step gradually to eventually turn the desert into an oasis.
The old home, this village, the village’s rice paddies and people, are like the hay I use to stabilize the sand.
Alii, Grandmaster, are the first seeds I’ve sown in this circle of sand, and then I also planted Run Sheng, Binbin, and Meng Meng one by one.
He didn’t understand the principle of stabilizing sand before, as he hadn’t learned it, but through practical exploration, he was doing exactly that. Now that he knows the principle, his work becomes clearer.
With them by his side, this barren desert of his will gradually turn into an oasis in the future.
Li Lan also has a desert, but her approach is naïve, like an outsider’s. She hopes to directly grow a tree called "Son" so that it can thrive in the desert and provide shade and protection for her.
So, she really is a foolish mother.
Li Zhiyuan raised his hands, pressing his temples, and thought to himself:
Can’t think this way, can’t think this way, thinking this way easily triggers problems.
Li Lan is truly a stumbling block on his road to recovery.
Cui Cui would write her homework for a while and then look up at Li Zhiyuan sitting next to her.
A youth looking at the scenery, while also being a scene in others’ eyes.
After finishing her homework, Cui Cui chatted with Li Zhiyuan about things at school; it was clear she was making an effort to make those things she found interesting sound even more interesting.
She also told Li Zhiyuan that this morning, the family who asked her grandmother to write a couplet showed up specially to thank them, bringing along relatives from the village to place another order.
Because when the previous batch of couplets they took from there was burned together with paper boxes and paper figures during the ritual, the couplets crackled and smoked more than expected!
Friends and relatives all praised that it was his filial piety that moved the deceased ancestors, who would ensure the safety of his family.
Li Zhiyuan was slightly taken aback upon hearing this, but then relaxed.
He hadn’t thought that the couplets he wrote could have such an effect, but it was quite normal for them to do so.
For dinner, Li Zhiyuan took Yin Meng to eat at his grandfather and grandmother’s house.
His four uncles and aunts were also there, with Grandma Cui Guiying organizing two tables of dishes.
It was during these times, when Li Sanjiang wasn’t home, that they secretly held this family reunion meal, knowing that if Li Sanjiang were around, they’d definitely get scolded.
But sometimes parents are ; one is willing to give, the other to receive, and both sides seem to accept it as natural.
Li Weihan drank a bit more wine and, with reddened eyes, said to Li Zhiyuan:
"Little Yuanhou, your grandfather and grandmother haven’t helped you much, but when you grow up, you must honor your Grandmaster well; he truly cares about you."
Li Weihan said that Li Sanjiang had proactively asked people to settle payments and urged the household for faster paper making; even though he had long set aside that work, he started making paper again these days.
Because he had to send money to his great-grandson who was attending university, he couldn’t let the child be looked down upon by classmates for having no money.