"Xiaoguang, thank you for accompanying me to Guizhou."
On the train bound for Guizhou, Zhou Rong turned her head to look at the scenery outside the window and said to Cai Xiaoguang, who was sitting in the sleeper opposite.
"I think going to Guizhou to relax will be helpful to your mood."
Cai Xiaoguang held an apple and peeled it with a Swiss Army knife while responding to Zhou Rong's words.
They heard about what happened in the optical film, and they had another quarrel at home. Zhou Rong still insisted on her opinion, saying that she had done nothing wrong. It was right to tell the truth, and it was even more right to refuse to admit her mistakes. Zhou Bingyi was reported and demolished. The people who planned the abortion and the optical film were fighting and killing people because of the greed of people like Cao Debao and Qiao Chunyan. If they had not regarded interests as so important, there would not have been the evil consequences today.
Cai Xiaoguang said that it was her aloofness and shirking responsibility when things happened that led her to the point where she is now betrayed by her relatives. Zhou Rong said that if she were aloof, she would not go to Yan Xin, and if she shirked responsibility, she would not want to I got him the script of "Children of Our Generation".
What else could he say now? Tell her that this sacrifice of disregarding personal dignity for her husband is indeed great? There are so many men in the world who live without dignity for the sake of their wives and children, and how many women work hard from dawn to dusk for their husbands and children. How come to be here with her, it feels like they have made a huge sacrifice?
He knew that Zhou Rong would definitely explode as soon as these words came out. Ignoring him for a month would be a big deal, because since she was little, her life has been to do whatever she likes, and no one around her can twist her around. , so after much thought, I decided to take her out to relax and broaden her horizons. Don't get stuck in your own extreme logic all day long and do more speechless things.
"Give."
He handed over the apple in his hand: "It's peeled."
Zhou Rong took it and took a bite, looking at the scenery outside the window in a daze: "I wonder what Jinba Village has become and whether the situation is better."
In 1990, when she and Cai Xiaoguang went to Guangzhou to look for Yue Yue, they went there once and found that the primary school she and Feng Huacheng had run in Shanwozi had been occupied by someone else, and the classroom had become a cattle shed for the other party to raise cattle. She was very worried. Sad, feeling that my role as a teacher in those years was in vain, and later getting angry with Yueyue and Xiao Lei, which was also affected by this factor. It has been fourteen years since we were separated. The big cities in China are changing with each passing day, and there are great changes. I don’t know. Has the world deep in the mountains also undergone gratifying changes?
Cai Xiaoguang straightened up and glanced at her, and said meaningfully: "Don't worry, economic construction has made such great achievements in the past 20 years of reform and opening up. Compared with fourteen years ago, Jinba Village will definitely become better."
"I hope so." She took another bite of the apple, recalling the words of Zhang Zaopo, who had persuaded her not to return to Guizhou to teach and chose to stay at Jichun Literature and Art Publishing House. He said that teaching in Guizhou would earn him 80 yuan a month. , staying in Jichun for a month was 1,200. This gap was so big that she didn’t know how to face it.
Wow~
The door opened from the outside, and a young man with oily hair and powdery face walked in, smelling of cigarette smoke. He threw his things on the upper bunk, took off his shoes, climbed into his bed, and plugged his headphones into the CD player. , humming Jay Chou's "East Wind Breaks".
Zhou Rong frowned, a little unhappy with this man's selfishness.
…
After taking a train for a day and a half, and then taking a bus to a mountain town, it took a total of two days for Zhou Rong and Cai Xiaoguang to arrive at the small basin where Jinba Village is located.
"cough……"
"cough……"
Zhou Rong looked at the pale Cai Xiaoguang and said, "What's wrong?"
"No...it's okay. It's just that the car was spinning around on the winding mountain road, and I felt a little dizzy."
He waved his hands and took several deep breaths, finally feeling a little better.
"call……"
Exhaling the turbid air in his lungs, he pointed to the green camellia fields on the left side of the road and said, "How is it? Has it changed a lot since 90 years ago?"
Zhou Rong took a look at the scattered blue-tiled houses and two-story buildings not far away, and had the illusion that she was in a tourist town. It was completely different from what it was fourteen years ago.
"This is Jinba Village? The changes have been too great."
"That's why I said, the outside world is changing with each passing day, and it's impossible for this place to still be the poor ravine where the villagers have had nothing to eat."
"..." Zhou Rong pondered for a moment and said, "Have you known its changes for a long time?"
"Indeed, wasn't it true that I made a bad movie before? Yes, the reputation was bad. But when I came here to take a look at the scene, I didn't expect the changes to be so big. It was so big that I had to go further to the Wumeng Mountain area. Framing.”
Da da da~
While the two were talking, a four-wheeled agricultural vehicle loaded with autumn pears stopped nearby. The wrinkled old farmer looked at them carefully and said in extremely non-standard Mandarin: "Is he someone from outside?"
Cai Xiaoguang nodded: "That's right."
"Where are you going? If it's a long way, I'll give you a ride."
"No need, just two steps."
At this time, Zhou Rong glanced at the baskets of pears in the carriage: "Did you grow these pears yourself?"
"That's right." The old farmer pointed to the west and said, "Didn't you see it when you came here? There is a large fruit forest over the tea field, and these pears were picked from there."
"Are you going to transport them to town and sell them?"
The old farmer waved his hand: "Let's sort it out tonight, and a special car will come to pick it up tomorrow."
Zhou Rong wanted to ask a few more questions, but then another agricultural four-wheeler drove over, pulling red dragon fruits in the carriage.
The old farmer smiled at the two of them, said goodbye, and drove the four-wheeled vehicle forward. The driver of the car behind looked like the old farmer, so he smiled politely at them and followed the car in front.
Zhou Rong said: "In the past, people in the village would still go hungry if they planted rice. Unexpectedly, now that there are tea fields and orchards, people's living standards have obviously improved. I really have to thank the times..."
"Yeah?"
Cai Xiaoguang's tone of 50% agreement and 50% reservation made her a little confused.
"What's the meaning?"
"Let's go and have a look inside." He did not return to the question and led Zhou Rong up the stone road on the left.
Zhou Rong looked at the village in front, puzzled: "Aren't you going to enter the village?"
"We'll enter the village later. I'll take you somewhere first." Cai Xiaoguang said as he walked up the steps.
The two of them walked up for a while. Zhou Rong vaguely heard the noise of people, which sounded like children playing noisily. They turned around a row of small trees and saw a white courtyard in front of them. On the right side of the gate was "Jinba Village". Elementary school” sign.
She was shocked. Fourteen years ago, there was not even a primary school in Jinba Village. Children who wanted to study had to leave the mountains or walk more than ten miles of mountain roads to study in the town. Now there is no more. The bright three-story teaching building, the straight flagpole, facing the wind Under the fluttering flag are children wearing school uniforms of the same color and style. There is also an old man sitting outside the guard room. There is a glass thermos cup on the ground on his left hand, and he is holding a cattail leaf fan in his right hand, fanning one after another. wind.
"Who are you looking for?"
"Uncle Ni, it's me, Cai Xiaoguang, the one who makes movies. We talked last year."
"Oh, I remembered, great director."
"Well, this is my lover, Zhou Rong."
The old man surnamed Ni may have thought that Zhou Rong had a kind face, so he looked at her carefully for a few times before reacting: "Wait a moment, I'll go ask the principal right away."
While talking, the old man took the cattail leaf fan and left.
Zhou Rong took a few steps forward, looked at the children running and jumping freely on the playground to the west and said, "Look at how lively they are. It's a good time. I still remember what the children in Jinba Village were like back then." , an eight or nine-year-old baby has to take care of his five-year-old brother, and in the bamboo basket on the back is a younger sister who has just been weaned for a few days. She cries loudly when she pees, poops, or is hungry. In order to persuade adults to let the child go to school, It’s really nerve-wracking. This boy is better, but the girl..."
Having said this, a steady female voice came from behind.
"Director Cai, I received the book you sent me a month ago. The children like it very much. I was just thinking about finding a time for the students to thank you, but I didn't expect..."
The woman who came with the old guard didn't say anything. She looked Zhou Rong up and down carefully and called out, "Teacher Zhou?"
"Who are you?"
Zhou Rong was stunned by her call.
"I am Minghui, Gong Minghui."
"Minghui?"
Zhou Rong thought of the little girl who was always the first to arrive at school thirty years ago. She said that she was the daughter of the village chief. Her father said that no matter what she did, she should set an example and take the lead. In fact, in 1990, she and Cai Xiao came to Jinba. When I went to the village, I asked about her situation. The villagers said that she stopped being a teacher after marrying to another village and went to Chengdu to work with her husband. Unexpectedly, she became a teacher again fourteen years later and became the principal of Jinba Village Primary School. .
"Yes, it's me, Teacher Zhou. We haven't seen each other for 30 years. Are you okay?"
"fine."
Zhou Rong counted the days. She was fifty-two years old this year, and Gong Minghui was also running towards forty. This time is really the most magical magic in the world.
"Teacher Zhou, I remember your biggest wish was for Jinba Village to have a decent primary school."
"Yes." Zhou Rong looked at the children on the playground with a look of relief: "The learning conditions of children today are much better than before. It is rainy in the mountainous areas of Guizhou. I still remember that when I got up every morning, the tables and chairs were smelling of mold. It smells rotten, and the blackboard is wet when you touch it. You arrive early and wipe the blackboard with your sleeves over and over again, so your clothes wear out quickly and you need to patch them the most."
Gong Minghui brushed her hair from her forehead and said with a smile, "Teacher Zhou, let me show you around the school building."
"good."
Zhou Rong followed Gong Minghui as she walked forward and looked at her surroundings.
"Look at how solid the materials used in this teaching building are and how well-built it is."
Cai Xiaoguang nodded slightly: "I heard that the construction team from the provincial capital came to repair it."
"That's right." Gong Minghui said: "Manager Huang said that from the foundation to the building structure to the wall materials, the construction standards are better than those of commercial residences. Unless there are geological disasters such as earthquakes and landslides, Jinba Primary School will not be able to survive for decades. You can continue to use it later.”
"Hey, by the way, Minghui, when I came to Guizhou in 1990, people in the village said that you were not a teacher. You and your husband went to Chengdu to work. How come you are now the principal of Jinba Primary School?"
She still remembered Zhang Zaopo saying that a teacher in the mountainous areas of Guizhou only earns 80 yuan a month, and even a graduate student. Gong Minghui has only graduated from high school, so the salary must be not much less. In Chengdu, even if she works as a waiter in a restaurant, , it costs seven to eight hundred yuan a month, ten times the salary of a teacher. She couldn't figure out what supported Gong Minghui to stay in the ravine.
"Teacher Zhou, the village chief asked me to come back. Being a principal here earns 1,200 yuan a month. Including the 300 yuan subsidy from the village, it is higher than the salary of our husband and wife working in Chengdu."
"One thousand and five? That's so high." Zhou Rong was surprised. Zhang Zaopo graduated from graduate school and worked as an editor at Jichun Literature and Art Publishing House and only earned 1,200 yuan for a month. Gong Minghui, the principal of a mountain village primary school, actually had One thousand and five, this... She didn't know who was lying: "Are teachers' salaries in Guizhou so high?"
"No, only teachers in more than a dozen mountain village primary schools in our county have such high salaries." Gong Minghui explained: "From the principal to the teachers, the monthly subsidy ranging from 300 yuan to 150 yuan is from the village orchard. The remaining 90% of the financial burden of Qian Er County is paid by the Sunshine Education Fund.”
"Sunshine Education Fund?" Zhou Rong was surprised.
“That’s right, Jinba Village Primary School and village-run tea gardens and orchards were built with the help of the Sunshine Education Fund. The school also has several school buses specially used to pick up children from nearby mountain villages to go to school. It’s not like you leaving Jinba after being admitted to university. After Ba Village, children in the village had to climb more than ten miles of mountain roads to go to school in the town, but now they only need to wait at the entrance of the village or on the roadside."
"This Sunshine Education Fund...is really a great thing. I didn't expect that Guizhou invests more heavily in education than our Northeastern counterparts and pays more attention to it."
"Teacher Zhou, you are mistaken. This Sunshine Education Fund is not established by the province. It is a private institution."
"Private institution?"
"Yes, it's a private institution." At this point, Gong Minghui stopped by the small flower garden between the teaching building and the library and looked at a stone tablet surrounded by flowers.
Zhou Rong followed her gaze, and after reading the contents on the merit tablet, her expression became very exciting.
At first he was confused, then shocked, and then confused. When he was done, he looked at Cai Xiaoguang several times, his face became more and more gloomy, and he turned away without saying much, leaving Gong Minghui confused.
Didn’t Director Cai say that President Zhou is Teacher Zhou’s younger brother? The elder sister is the educator and enlightener of Jinba Village, and the younger brother is the philanthropist who assisted in the construction of Jinba Village. This is such a touching story. Why does Teacher Zhou look so angry?
"Director Cai, Teacher Zhou, she..."
"Don't worry, I'll go check on her."
Cai Xiaoguang comforted Gong Minghui and hurried a few steps to catch up with Zhou Rong, who was walking away in anger.
"Zhou Rong, Zhou Rong, what are you doing?"
"..." Zhou Rong ignored it and continued to move forward.
"Can you stop being so stubborn?"
"Cai Xiaoguang!" Seeing that she was about to walk out of the school, Zhou Rong stopped and turned back to look at her husband coldly: "Did you do it on purpose?"
She finally figured out why she was brought to Guizhou to relax and see what changes had happened in Jinba Village. Cai Xiaoguang had long known that all the seemingly beautiful things here were caused by Zhou Bingkun.
"Yes, I did it on purpose. In order to show you how many good things Bingkun has done, your father has always wanted the neighbors in Guangzipian to live a good life. If it weren't for the greed of people like Cao Debao and Qiao Chunyan, they would now live in Entering a spacious and bright building. You have never let go of the education in Jinba Village. Bingkun not only assisted in the construction of more than 20 mountain village primary schools across the city, but also helped them find a way to make money by relying on the mountains and mountains. The Sunshine Education Fund Being able to stabilize and attract talents from the education industry to teach here, he has done what even the city and county-level education systems cannot do. Don’t you feel proud to have such a younger brother?”
"I don't think so." Zhou Rong said decisively: "Cai Xiaoguang, have you ever thought about what this village has to do with him? Why does he take such good care of Jinba Village? In fact, the answer is very simple. He did this just to make me sick and uncomfortable. To prove to me that ideals and enthusiasm are just a pile of cow dung, and only he and his money can change the current situation of Jinba Village."
After saying this, she walked away without looking back. Looking at her hurried steps, it seemed that staying here for one more second would be an insult.
Cai Xiaoguang frowned deeply, glanced at Jinba Village Primary School behind him, and then walked outside.
This time he didn't speak. He didn't speak from the time he left Jinba Village to the time he got on the plane back to the city.
Until I got off the plane and took a taxi back home, the first thing I said to Zhou Rong was "Zhou Rong, let's get a divorce."
He really couldn't understand that regardless of good or bad things, as long as Zhou Bingkun made achievements, it would turn into a vicious attack on Zhou Rong. He had done so many things to try to change her opinion, but unfortunately, They all failed. He was too disappointed, and he was very tired of getting along with Zhou Rong, who had a twisted mentality, was extreme in everything, and was unaware of everything. So after careful consideration, he decided to break up.
"Cai Xiaoguang, what did you say? Look me in the eyes and say it again." Zhou Rong thought she heard wrong.
Cai Xiaoguang did not avoid it and said again: "You heard me right, I said divorce."
Zhou Rong was stunned for a moment, and her whole body was gradually filled with anger: "You actually want to divorce me because of my attitude towards Zhou Bingkun? Okay, just divorce."
Cai Xiaoguang stopped talking to her and went into the room to pack her personal belongings and put them in her suitcase. Before going out, she looked at Zhou Rong and shook her head.
"See you at the door of the Civil Affairs Bureau on Monday."
Zhou Rong didn't speak until the door was closed, then she swept everything on the dining table to the floor.
At this moment, she hated Zhou Bingkun so much that she had robbed her daughter, kidnapped Li Suhua, and made her lose face with Zhou Bingyi. Now, it was because of him that Cai Xiaoguang actually wanted to divorce her.
…
2005 Spring Festival.
It has been four or five months since Zhou Rong and Cai Xiaoguang divorced.
No one cared about what was going on with her marriage. Her colleagues in the workplace and her neighbors in the same apartment building were not even interested in gossiping about her.
As the New Year approached, Zhou Bingyi didn't call her, Cai Xiaoguang didn't call her, and even Li Suhua forgot about her. The only greeting was a fake blessing from the colonel leader at the New Year's tea party.
While other families were happily making dumplings on New Year's Eve, her home was particularly deserted, and even the heating seemed to have suddenly stopped.
Not wanting to live alone at home, she went to the street and walked into Yayuan Community without knowing it.
Zhou Bingkun and Zheng Juan's home is in Unit 101, Building 1, near the door. Through the window, you can see Zhou Bingyi talking with Li Suhua. Further inside, at the dining table, Zheng Juan is having a meal, and Hao Dongmei is making love with Feng Yue. Dumplings, Xiao Lei and Zhou Bingkun are pasting Spring Festival couplets. Zhou Congcong, who returned from school this year, is holding a bowl with a lotus root box and eating with his mouth full. From time to time, he points to the Spring Festival couplets that his father and brother-in-law have just pasted and says a few words. I don’t know if it is a reminder. Are they attached diagonally or upside down?
ps: It’s the end of the month, double monthly votes, remember to vote.
