Rebirth: Starting from a Trainee Teacher

Chapter 179 It's hard to keep the water even

Zhou Jing felt more at peace after returning to the countryside.

If your cell phone has no signal, don’t bother with necessary or unnecessary social interactions.

The house of the aunt next door was the front door of Zhou Jing's grandfather's generation. Zhou Jing's grandfather was the third child and was considered a family. They were playing mahjong there in the evening and were short of one person. Zhou Wei, Zhou Jing's brother who was of the same generation but ten years older than him, came over to call for help. Zhou Guozhong was chatting with others, so Zhou Jing went over first to make up the number.

Zhou Wei is also in Yulin City, and he is doing well. He currently drives a Hyundai, and will change to a Prado in two years.

"Zhou Jing is getting more and more handsome, is he dating someone?"

Zhou Wei's wife He Juan, the young woman whom Zhou Jing called sister-in-law at noon, said with a smile.

"No, sister-in-law, can you introduce me to one?"

Zhou Jing asked back with a smile.

"I'm afraid you won't like what I introduced."

He Juan wanted to introduce her sister to this brother-in-law, but her sister would be 25 years old this year and had a low level of education, so she didn't know whether he would be interested in her.

"How come? The child is going to kindergarten soon, right?"

Zhou Jing said this, but his eyes turned to the little girl playing on the kang to change the subject.

"He will be five after the Chinese New Year and will be sent to preschool next fall."

Seeing that the boy changed the subject, He Juan no longer mentioned introducing him to someone.

There are a lot of people at my aunt's house right now, because her third daughter married into the village, which is not too far away and has a car, so the couple came to visit in the evening.

"Your uncle is a high school math teacher. You can ask him if you have any questions about your homework."

The husband of my aunt's third daughter Zhou Yan, who is also Zhou Jing's third brother-in-law, said to his daughter who is in the third grade of junior high school.

"Teacher Zhou."

These nephews of similar age never call Zhou Jing uncle.

"Minorities get extra points in the college entrance exam. Are my third sister and her husband registered as minorities there?"

Zhou Jing's third sister and her husband settled in Gansu Province and did business, and they are doing well.

“No, it’s hard to get a minority household registration.”

Zhou Yan thought of a solution but failed.

After a while of greeting, they started playing mahjong, Zhou Jing, Zhou Wei and his wife, and the third brother-in-law.

After gambling ten yuan for more than two hours, Zhou Jing won less than two hundred yuan. He gave two hundred yuan bills to the two children, one hundred yuan each. In other words, Zhou Jing lost more than ten yuan, but he handled the social etiquette perfectly.

"You can introduce him to your sister."

After Zhou Jing left, the aunt said to He Juan.

"I guess he has a partner. I just mentioned him to change the subject."

He Juan shook her head and said.

After returning to his grandfather's house, Zhou Jing wrote a novel alone in a nearby room.

The next day was New Year's Eve, and the family was busy. At noon, Zhou Jing and the brother next door went to the grave to burn paper. Then they found a sheltered place on the mountain while there was signal to call Gu Jia.

Gu Jia: [Isn’t there no signal in my hometown? Where can I make a call?]

Zhou Jing: [On the mountain. I went up the mountain just to call my master.]

Gu Jia was very happy to hear this: [Thank you for your hard work. Your teacher is very important to you.]

Zhou Jing: [Isn’t it? Is Master busy today?]

Gu Jia: [I’m not busy now, how can you publish novels in your hometown?]

Zhou Jing: [Use landline broadband]

After talking to Gu Jia on the phone for half an hour, Zhou Jing hung up the phone and stopped calling the others. It was hard to treat one bowl of water equally, let alone two or three bowls. Zhou Jing was sincere to each of them, and they should understand that there was no signal in Zhou Jing's hometown.

After calling Gu Jia, Zhou Jing sent the landline number of his grandmother's home to Yang Wenwen and Gu Jia so that they could contact each other if anything happened. Gu Jia smiled from ear to ear when she saw the text message.

After returning home, Zhou Jing and his father put up couplets. In the past, Zhou Jing wrote the couplets for the New Year. This year, Zhou Jing came back late and had no time to write the couplets, so his family bought them.

"Just put up two pictures as a token of your appreciation, and don't put up window decorations anymore."

When Zhou Jing was a child, he seldom saw the practice of posting spring festival couplets during the Spring Festival, but now he thinks it is very troublesome.

"Your grandma has already bought it, just put it on!"

Zhou Guozhong handed a pair of window decorations to his son, since he didn't need to climb the ladder anyway.

"Jing, step steady."

Wu Suqin, who came out of the house to pour water, said to her son on the ladder.

After pasting the couplets, Zhou Jing went to the dam mouth to move the remaining fireworks onto the car. He was going to use up all the goods worth more than a thousand yuan tonight. In the countryside, one can tell whether a person is doing well or not by the fireworks he sets off on New Year's Eve.

Zhou Jing doesn't care about these false faces, but it can make the old man and the old lady proud. If the family members are doing well, the people left behind in their hometown will not only have face, but also find it easier to deal with any problems. The people in the village have no skills but are very snobbish. Basically, people with better conditions in the village are given priority for subsistence allowances and subsidies.

Zhou Jing didn't want to cook New Year's Eve dinner at first, but seeing that his mother was still using the wrong methods to make cold dishes and braised fish, he couldn't help but show off his skills.

"I didn't believe Yuanyuan when she said you were a good cook. I didn't expect you to be so good at cooking. When did you learn it?"

Wu Suqin was stunned by her son's skillful technique in making the braised fish.

"After work."

Zhou Jing had rarely shown his cooking skills to his cousin. He had only made cola chicken wings and fish-flavored shredded pork for her once, and braised pork and spicy and sour shredded potatoes once. In his cousin's opinion, being able to make braised pork was a sign of being a great chef.

"After you learn it, go home and do more."

Wu Suqin looked at her son with a smile and was impressed by him. He could learn everything after leaving home.

"Don't count on me. I only use my hands when necessary."

Zhou Jing knew his mother would say that.

"Did you teach yourself or was it taught by someone else?"

Wu Suqin was very curious and thought that someone must be teaching her son, and maybe he had a partner.

Zhou Jing paused for a moment and said, "I learned this from my high school class teacher who invited me to his home for dinner a few times."

"Your high school class teacher is quite nice."

Wu Suqin had an impression of Yang Wenwen. She had met her at a parent-teacher meeting for her son in high school. She was young, beautiful, and serious and responsible.

Zhou Jing nodded and stopped talking about Yang Wenwen.

After busying himself all afternoon preparing the New Year’s Eve dinner, Zhou Jing and his father drank some white wine.

In the countryside, people eat New Year's Eve dinner early, and it's not even seven o'clock when they finish eating. I liked celebrating the New Year when I was a child, but I found it boring when I grew up. After drinking, Zhou Jing was too lazy to move, so he lay on the warm kang and watched TV. The 09 Spring Festival Gala was pretty good, but it was boring for Zhou Jing to watch it again. He watched the Gala with his family for a while, and then used up all the fireworks to write a novel.

"Don't you have time to rest during the New Year?"

Wu Suqin went to her son's room and took a look and said.

"Do not have time."

Zhou Jing looked back and said.

The old man and the old lady went to bed at around nine o'clock. Zhou Guozhong and Wu Suqin did not finish watching the Spring Festival Gala before going to bed. It was late at night and there was a custom in their hometown not to turn off the lights on New Year's Eve. At home in the city, Zhou Jing would turn off the lights because they were too glaring, but he would not do that at his hometown.

Unable to fall asleep with the light on, Zhou Jing wrote his novel until almost dawn before going to bed. When he woke up, dumplings were already made at home.

The first day of the Lunar New Year is also boring for those who have developed a habit of not liking to visit their friends and relatives. However, people in the country like to visit their friends and relatives. Zhou Jing is annoyed by the constant coming and going of people at home, and the most tiring thing is to socialize with people he is not familiar with.

The young neighbors were playing mahjong and were short of people, so they asked Zhou Jing to play with them, so they got together a table with two men and two women.

One of the girls was one of Zhou Jing’s childhood companions who came to his grandfather’s house. She was one year older than Zhou Jing. She always had a smile on her face, and her hands always touched Zhou Jing’s hands when she was shuffling the cards. It was not known whether she did it intentionally or not. Zhou Jing guessed that she did it on purpose. This girl later had a rich marriage. She got married, had children, divorced, and got married again and had children.

After enduring the first day of the Lunar New Year, the second day became much quieter. It was time to visit relatives and friends on the third day. Zhou Jing drove to his grandmother's house with his parents. Liu Hanyu's family also came to his grandmother's village. Zhou Jing felt a little embarrassed when he met Liu Hanyu's parents.

(End of this chapter)