Chapter 278
Brother Chen and the others were already waiting there early.
Brother Chen had his hands in his pockets. Although only fourteen or fifteen, his clothes were scruffy and his face was tanned dark, but he was very strong and had a fierce intensity when fighting.
His two brothers were called Fatty and Xiangzi.
They were a year younger than him, just thirteen.
Neither was very tall; one had a long face, the other a round face. The round-faced one was Fatty.
Apart from Brother Chen, who seemed a bit more composed, the other two were somewhat nervous.
It felt weird to be taking orders from a kid several years younger than them.
But Brother Chen, for some reason, was different.
Just yesterday, he had been the most opposed and wary of this person.
Yet today, he suddenly decided they should follow his lead.
Having no better ideas themselves, the two just went along.
"Hey, we're helping you out. Was what you said yesterday about doing business true or not?"
Brother Chen asked Zhou Zedong, a half-smoked, crumpled cigarette dangling from his mouth in a deliberately casual manner, trying to act mature.
Zhou Zedong didn't seem particularly surprised by his change in attitude and replied calmly as before, "Of course it's true."
Ever since that day when Teacher Xu asked him in front of the whole class, "Do you know how much this copybook costs?" Zhou Zedong had started thinking about making his own money.
This wasn't the countryside. After observing for a while, he realized opportunities were everywhere.
But he still had to go to school and couldn't find time to run a business.
He said, "There are lots of snack vendors outside our school gate, and their business is really good."
That was the first thing he noticed.
It started because his younger brother kept pestering him to buy those snacks.
Only then did Zhou Zedong realize that the primary schools here were different from theirs back home. Here, outside the school gates, they sold all kinds of snacks.
Mostly older people were selling them.
And the students here all had pocket money. Every time class ended, the stalls would be swarmed.
When business was good, they could make a yuan in just ten minutes.
Meanwhile, Brother Chen and his friends here were breaking their backs collecting scrap all day and couldn't even earn a yuan.
"You don't expect us to go sell snacks, do you?" Brother Chen was stunned. "We don't know how to make anything."
Zhou Zedong said, "I do."
He had been learning to cook from his mom lately and could make quite a few things now.
Especially egg pancakes; his younger brother could eat three for breakfast.
And the method was really simple too.
Zhou Zedong used to think his mom's good cooking skills were something she learned in the city.
But after coming to the city himself, he realized that wasn't the case.
It wasn't that there were no people selling egg pancakes here, but theirs just weren't as tasty as his mom's.
And they were sold expensive too.
Fifteen fen for one.
If they sold them cheaper outside the school gate, say ten fen each, they could still make a yuan from selling ten.
"I'll teach you how to make them, but my family can't know about this," Zhou Zedong said. "I've saved a bit of money. It's a small business, so it should be enough."
Even though he made it sound simple, the others were still a bit bewildered.
They had never done any business before.
But having already agreed, they were now in a bind.
Since it wasn't their money on the line anyway, they didn't think too much about it.
Zhou Zedong didn't explain further. Some things you only know if you try doing them.
He didn't want to say anything extra.
Returning home, Si Nian was cooking in the kitchen.
Her afternoon classes were few, so she came home early.
Every time she returned, it was just in time for dinner.
His little sister was sitting cross-legged on the sofa drawing. She was getting more and more into drawing lately, doodling with her crayons whenever she had free time.
Mom said this could nurture her talent for art.
He walked over, fished a piece of White Rabbit milk candy from his schoolbag, and popped it into her mouth.
"Brother~" Yaoyao smacked her few little teeth on the candy in her mouth, then held up her drawing for him to see.
Zhou Zedong looked for a moment. It was a little person with a missing tooth.
Hmm, that was definitely his gap-toothed younger brother.
"Second brother~ leaky wind~"
Yaoyao pointed at the gap in Zhou Zehan's grinning, missing tooth.
Then she bent her head and drew a tooth for him. "Second brother, no leaky wind~"
Zhou Zedong couldn't help but smile, patting her head.
If his younger brother saw this, he'd probably be furious.
He put his schoolbag on the sofa and was about to take out his homework when he noticed several brand-new copybooks on the table.
Zhou Zedong froze for a second.
Si Nian came out of the kitchen carrying a dish. Seeing he was back, she smiled. "Xiao Dong, you're back."
"Mm, Mom, what's this?" Zhou Zedong pointed at the copybooks, his eyes full of confusion.
Si Nian glanced at the new copybooks and paused.
Then she smiled and said, "Didn't your Teacher Xu mock our family for not being able to afford copybooks? So Mom went and bought ten of them for you at once. Take them to school tomorrow, put them on your desk, and let Teacher Xu see properly whether we can afford them or not."
Actually, it was Wu Ren'ai who told her about this.
After she asked Wu Ren'ai about Teacher Xu last time, Wu Ren'ai probably sensed something was off, so she went to the class and asked the students what happened.
Some kids told her about the incident.
That's how Si Nian found out there was more to the story about the dirty copybook.
Although Teacher Xu had been punished now, and the school even gave them compensation—because Xiao Lao Er got hit, even though it was just a minor scrape, the school was worried the matter might escalate and chose to settle it with money—they couldn't actually fire Teacher Xu.
Because incidents of teachers hitting students happened way too often.
They couldn't possibly fire her over something like this.
Not to mention, the parents of the fourth-grade students were keeping a particularly close watch.
Their kids would be moving up to middle school in just a year; it was a critical time.
Changing teachers would definitely disrupt the students' learning.
For the sake of the students' normal graduation and the school's promotion rates, the school couldn't replace Teacher Xu.
It couldn't be helped; who asked her math teaching results to consistently rank in the top three at the school?
That was also why Teacher Xu dared to be so arrogant.
If it weren't for the first-grade student's parent filing a complaint this time, plus Teacher Xu suddenly getting beaten up which alerted the police, she probably wouldn't have apologized so quickly.
"Mom..." Zhou Zedong's eyes slowly widened. "Mom, you knew?"
Si Nian nodded. "Of course. You're my son. If I didn't know you were being bullied, what kind of mom would I be?"
In the future, there would be too many children suffering from school bullying or teacher targeting who wouldn't dare tell their parents.
Parents might sense something was wrong but wouldn't take it seriously.
They might even think the child was being unreasonable.
But for the child, it's a truly helpless situation.
They don't dare speak up, afraid of offending the teacher.
Also afraid of causing trouble for the family.
Yet in the parents' eyes, it just seems like acting up.
In this era, there probably wasn't even a concept of depression yet.
They would just think the child was strange.
They wouldn't realize it could be a psychological illness.
Si Nian thought the reason Xiao Lao Da didn't want to tell her might be because the incident with Yuanyuan wasn't long ago, and now something else happened. He was probably afraid she would get angry and didn't dare to trouble her again.
So he kept it bottled up inside.
But she wanted to use her actions to show him he didn't need to be afraid.
No matter what happened, she would stand behind him and back him up.
Zhou Zedong's eyes grew hot.
He lowered his head and blinked hard.
During dinner, Zhou Zedong came downstairs.
He hadn't changed out of his school uniform yet.
The medal and the big red paper flower pinned to his chest were particularly eye-catching.
Little Second Brother came out carrying a large bowl of rice and spotted them immediately.
His eyes went wide: "Brother? How come you have an extra little red flower?"
Zhou Zedong coughed, glanced sneakily at Si Nian, and then said, "Our homeroom teacher gave it to me today, said I was sensible."
Si Nian indeed tilted her head to look over.
Zhou Zedong straightened his chest.
The medal and the little red flower stood out brightly and beautifully against his white shirt.
"Is that the medal the police gave you? That's really amazing, Little Big Brother."
Si Nian praised him, "I'll write to Dad tonight and tell him you did a good deed by acting bravely. Dad will definitely be happy too."
Little Second Brother, hugging his bowl of rice, looked at his big brother and then at his own empty chest, feeling a pang of something unpleasant.
"Mom, I... if I hadn't come to the city, I'd have a little red flower too."
That's right, his teacher back in the countryside had promised him one.
It was a pity he had moved to the city before getting it.
He never thought that before he could even get his countryside little red flower, his brother would already have a city one.
Can't catch up, simply can't catch up.
Hearing this, Si Nian found it somewhat amusing.
But seeing Little Second Brother's expression—full of envy for his brother, his eyes darting glances, looking like he desperately wanted to pluck the flower and pin it on his own chest—she also felt a bit sorry for him.
She stroked the little one's round head. Had Xiao Han grown too fast? His face seemed a whole rounder.
"How about this: from now on, if you score ten points higher on a test than last time, Mom will reward you with a little red flower. If you do a good deed, Mom will also reward you with a little red flower. When you collect ten little red flowers, you can make a wish. How does that sound?"
Si Nian thought reward-based teaching was most suitable for these two children.
With rewards comes motivation.
If Little Second Brother went a long time without getting a single flower, he might become disheartened and start doubting himself.
Plus, Little Big Brother was just too outstanding. The comparison would inevitably be discouraging.
Right now, the child was still young and might not overthink it.
But in the novel, the rebellious grown-up Little Second Brother didn't have a good relationship with his big brother.
Perhaps it was because, coming from the same environment, the older brother became a research scientist, while he became a notorious gangster, leading to feelings of inferiority.
That's probably why the two brothers grew apart.
Sure enough, upon hearing this, Little Second Brother's eyes lit up instantly.
"Mom, Mom, if I score ten points higher, I can get a little red flower?"
That sounded much easier. Before, the teacher would only give little red flowers to the top three scorers.
For Little Second Brother, that was simply an impossible dream.
But improving a little bit each time might not be so difficult.
Even if the progress each time was small, accumulating over time would lead to a surprisingly large improvement.
Little Second Brother was happy now; his earlier sadness vanished in an instant. He hugged his bowl, which was bigger than his face, and started eating heartily.
He ate two full bowls of rice before he was satisfied.
Little Second Brother, thinking about doing good deeds, could hardly wait for tomorrow to come.
Early the next morning, he started looking for targets.
Seeing who needed help.
However, by the time he walked to school, he hadn't found anyone who needed assistance.
Little Second Brother was very disappointed. Even though Mom said scoring ten points higher would also get him a little red flower, who knew when the next test would be?
That way, when would he ever get ten little red flowers?
Big brother already had one now. No, he couldn't lose to him.
Little Second Brother immediately thought of another idea: actively currying favor with the teacher.
He realized that teachers loved proactive students. The students who raised their hands to answer questions every day, even if they got it wrong, still got praised.
It was as if a light bulb went off in Little Second Brother's head. When the Chinese language teacher asked in the morning if anyone could recite "Quiet Night Thoughts," he, who had never raised his hand before, raised it immediately regardless of whether he knew it or not.
Sure enough, the teacher immediately looked at him. "This is the first time Xiao Han has raised his hand. Everyone, let's give Xiao Han a round of applause."
The classmates all liked Zhou Zehan, finding him fun and interesting, different from other kids.
He said his family was amazing too, that they had a hundred thousand pigs.
He even said he used to ride a pig to school when he was little.
Everyone was so envious and made plans to go to his house during summer vacation to ride pigs.
Plus, his brother was really awesome too, a hero who did good deeds and had been on stage.
The police officer and the principal told everyone to learn from him.
In their eyes, Little Second Brother was shining brightly.
Little Second Brother stood up, put his hands behind his back, swayed his head, and began reciting: "Before the bed, the moonlight is bright, on the floor, two pairs of shoes lie."
"Looking up, I see the moon, looking down... looking down at my crotch!"
After he finished, his classmates didn't yet realize anything was wrong, especially Jiang Jiu, who clapped the loudest.
"So that's how it goes! My grandma said there was frost on the ground, but I said it was two pairs of shoes. How could there be frost? It's already spring."
"But why two pairs of shoes, not three?"
"Because we're grown up now, we don't sleep with mom and dad anymore, so mom and dad only have two pairs of shoes," Little Second Brother explained.
The Chinese language teacher: "..."
She was wrong. She shouldn't have assumed that just because Xiao Han had repeated a grade, he would know how to recite the poem.
"Teacher, see, I recited a poem. Can I get a little red flower?"
Little Second Brother looked at her expectantly.
Sometimes, the Chinese language teacher truly suffered from her own inability to easily refuse a child's request.
"What does Xiao Han want the little red flower for?"
"Mom said, if I have ten little red flowers, I can have a wish come true," Little Second Brother said, cupping his face, full of anticipation.
The classmates all looked at him enviously, then turned their hopeful gazes to the Chinese language teacher. "Teacher, I can recite poems too, I want a little red flower."
The Chinese language teacher suddenly felt a headache coming on.
But then she remembered there would be a sports competition soon. Recalling the PE teacher mentioning that Xiao Han had great athletic reflexes and could run ten laps without getting winded, she immediately had an idea.
Although their school was known as a foreign language school, it wasn't limited to that path. Besides its reputation for English, it placed great importance on math competitions and sports as well.
Discovering a child's talent, providing training, and guiding them onto the most suitable path was the principal's ultimate goal.
"Xiao Han, you want little red flowers, right? In a while, our school has a competition. If you participate and win a prize, the teacher will give you a little red flower. How about that..."
...
In contrast to the harmonious atmosphere in first grade, the mood in fourth grade was rather tense.
When Zhou Zedong placed his ten copybooks on the desk, his classmates' eyes nearly popped out.
Didn't Teacher Xu say his family was poor and couldn't afford copybooks?
How did he buy so many?
Another thought crossed their minds: with so many copybooks, how many years would it take to practice them all?
However, before they could ponder further, Teacher Xu arrived with a grim expression.