Before, our family was poor, and my grandparents didn’t want us to continue studying. Moreover, he wanted his younger sister to attend university—it didn’t matter if he did or didn’t go.
He was aware of the family’s situation and also knew the difficulties his parents faced.
Last year, Xu Zhihao didn’t get into university and found a formal job at the supply and marketing cooperative.
He married a girl from the city and spent quite a bit of money. His grandparents only planned to support two college students, him and his younger sister, so only one of them could go.
Xu Nian’an was naturally lackadaisical. Anything he could score, he counted as such. Even for questions he knew how to do, he couldn’t be bothered to answer them. He just thought about giving the opportunity to his younger sister.
But now it was different, the family’s financial situation had improved. Selling mung bean jelly had earned them quite a bit, and now they had started a chili sauce factory. There was surely no need to worry about tuition fees in the future, and the family didn’t need them to worry either. Xu Nian’an naturally changed his mind and wanted to study hard, get into university, make more money, and honor his parents.
"Good, if both of you really get into a university, then I’d set up more than a dozen tables." Ji Ying, thinking of them going to university next year, felt extraordinarily hopeful.
The eldest son had married, and the second and youngest were also promising. As parents, they too felt reassured.
"That would be wasting too much money," Xu Nian’an said subconsciously.
Though people would also give them gifts of money, more than a dozen tables!
Previously, when his elder brother got married, they only set up six tables, which was considered a grand feast, inviting only both families’ relatives and good neighbors.
"What do you mean ’wasting’? This is called being happy. If your dad knew, he would definitely agree," Ji Ying thought gleefully. Qinghe’s greatest wish was simply to hope their two children could get into university and be successful.
Xu Nianhua tugged secretly at Xu Nian’an’s sleeve and said, "Second brother, if you really get into university, we should definitely celebrate appropriately."
"That’s true, after all, how many university students have come out of our village?" Xu Nian’an thought that, although setting up more than a dozen tables seemed wasteful, it would make everyone happy.
Xu Nianhua and her siblings helped out in the factory for two days before returning to school for their classes.
The results of their first monthly exam came out.
With a score of eighty-nine in foreign language, Xu Nianhua achieved the highest mark for that subject.
Chinese, eighty—not bad, barely acceptable.
Mathematics, physics, and chemistry, just passing, but politics... it was a sight too pitiful to endure.
It directly dragged down her average score.
Xu Nian’an, on the other hand, had made a lot of progress. He scored seventy-one in foreign language, a significant jump from the scores around sixty he used to get.
"Little sister, you..." Xu Nian’an looked at her scores, thinking that later on, he not only needed to drill her hard on text recitations but also had to help her catch up in politics. She had never scored so low before.
For Chinese, her reading comprehension was done quite well, and the composition she wrote was extremely good. But for the fill-in-the-blank questions or those about reciting ancient poems and articles, she knew them if she had memorized them, but for the ones she hadn’t memorized...
"Nianhua, when did you start to struggle so much with certain subjects?" Mrs. Lin looked at Xu Nianhua; her Chinese scores were always high.
And with politics, even if she only just managed to pass, it shouldn’t have been this bad.
Mrs. Lin was a very responsible teacher, familiar with every student’s situation. Seeing how politics had pulled down Xu Nianhua’s grades, and that she didn’t score well in areas of Chinese she should have, Mrs. Lin worried there may be something going on in her family.
Xu Nianhua hung her head and said, "Teacher, I will do better in the future."
"Keep it up, your Chinese is still very good. It’s just these memorized classical poems and texts..." When Mrs. Lin brought this up, Xu Nianhua bowed her head even lower.
"I..." Xu Nianhua stammered, at a loss for words.