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Chapter 44
The letter sent from Shanggou Village arrived in Su Ye’s hands several days later.
Monday
Thanks to the pork Su Ye had given He Meimei over the weekend, early in the morning, He Meimei led her to the third-year high school classroom.
He Meimei said to her class, “The college entrance exams are coming up, and I know many of you have some areas you’re still unclear about. I’ve invited Teacher Su to come and help you fill in the gaps. From now on, every day during the last study period, Teacher Su will come around to check on the class. Make sure to take advantage of this opportunity.”
The students in the class who were working hard to get into college or graduate school looked up at Su Ye with excitement. Meanwhile, the few students whom Su Ye had pulled out of the dance halls to attend class looked as if they were facing a great enemy, downcast and unmotivated. They hadn’t expected that Teacher Su would actually come to their class.
Most of the students were indifferent. It wasn’t easy to get into college in the 1960s, and simply graduating high school was already considered a high level of education.
Su Ye read out a list of names, smiling as she said, “These students, stay after class to wait for me.”
When Lu Siyuan, Xu Le, and a few others heard their names called, their bodies froze for a moment, as if they had been struck by an acupoint. The other students found it strange that Su Ye called on them. They had expected her to keep the good students behind, not… to punish the ones who skipped classes or were truant?
Su Ye didn’t particularly want to keep these troublemakers behind, but sometimes, you had to do what you had to do. It was so hard to make a living these days. Every day, she had the fine grains and fatty pork to eat—nothing came without hard work. Su Ye didn’t want to let go of this opportunity to save up some food.
At the same time, these troublemaker students also piqued her interest. She wanted to explore why they were receiving such generous rewards.
After school, Lu Siyuan casually walked out of the classroom.
He had promised Su Ye that he would come to school and apologize to the class teacher, but that was all he had agreed to. If the teacher asked him to stay, he would. But after being the big boss for so many years, Lu Siyuan didn’t want to lose face.
The few troublemaker students who were eager for Su Ye’s guidance on dancing didn’t act like Lu Siyuan, and they all stayed behind.
Xu Le had planned to follow the older brother’s lead, but the girls with him tugged at his sleeve, and after a moment’s hesitation, he stayed.
A boy explained to Su Ye, “B-Big Brother, I mean Lu Siyuan… Teacher Su, he’s usually like this.”
Su Ye nodded, waved them over, and smiled, “It’s fine, don’t worry about him. You all come sit in the first row.”
Su Ye didn’t take Lu Siyuan seriously, to deal with troublemakers, you needed troublemaker methods.
She glanced at the students and her eyes brightened. Not to mention, these kids looked energetic, each standing tall and looking sharp. Among the girls, there was one named Qin Lan, who wore a shirt that had turned pale from washing and black work pants that couldn’t hide her beauty.
She had long legs, black braids that reached her waist, and a pair of bright, large eyes that seemed to speak. She reminded Su Ye of the Hong Kong movie stars on posters.
Qin Lan noticed that Su Ye had been staring at her for a while, and after a moment of hesitation, she looked up nervously and asked, “Is there something you need, Teacher Su?”
Su Ye nodded. “Your family situations, Teacher He has already told me about them.”
Among these troublemakers, only Lu Siyuan and Yang Chenxing came from wealthier families. The rest of the students came from ordinary backgrounds, not rich but not at risk of starving either.
Su Ye then went on to calculate for them how much effort their parents had put into raising them from elementary school.
“From elementary school, your tuition was 10 yuan, and your textbook fee was 1.5 yuan. For five years of elementary school and three years of middle school, the total tuition was 103.5 yuan.
Each person needs 20 jin (about 10 kg) of food a month. Rice costs 0.14 yuan per jin, but let’s calculate using the cheapest sweet potatoes and corn. You need 1.6 yuan worth of food a month. You can’t just eat the staple food, you also need vegetables. Eggs cost 0.6 yuan per jin, pork costs 0.72 yuan per jin, and fish costs 0.63 yuan per jin. You’ll eat about two to three jin of vegetables a month, which should be about 1.5 yuan. Annually, that’s 37.2 yuan, and over 17 years, it comes to 632.4 yuan.
When you came to school, you had to wear clothes, right? To respect you, each of you needs at least four sets of clothes to get through the seasons. One foot of cloth costs 0.08 yuan, and a shirt needs seven feet of cloth, so four sets of clothes cost 10 yuan. To be frugal, a set of clothes can last five years, so over 17 years, that’s 40 yuan.
In order to meet basic living needs, apart from food and clothing, you need toothpaste for brushing your teeth, shoes to wear, and bus fare to take the bus. And the school organizes movie outings…”
Su Ye rattled off one number after another, and in the end, with everyone staring in shock, she wrote down the number 1587.
Finally, she flipped the page of her notebook and continued, “But your parents only earn 30 yuan a month. The money they spend on you, you’ll need to work hard after graduation, not eat or drink, and save for 4 or 5 years just to repay them. This means that for the past 17 or 18 years, your parents have had to tighten their belts, living frugally for you.”
“After calculating the cost of your education, I was shocked. The price of going to school is so high, yet they still stuck with it and made sure you completed high school. So… could you tell Teacher Su why you skip classes?”
After the heavy accounts just mentioned, the students’ breath caught in their throats. They averted their gazes and lowered their heads. The classroom was dead silent.
Other emotions like shame, awkwardness, and defiance mixed together. Since Su Ye was close in age to them, there was less of a distance, but what was irritating was that she appeared to be smiling, not mocking them, but genuinely confused.
Some students felt embarrassed, but they would never admit their mistakes. After being called out by Su Ye, Xu Le reluctantly said, “This is boring. I don’t want to listen.”
Qin Lan was also called out, and with a red face, she honestly said, “My exam results aren’t good, I know what you want to say, Teacher Su. You don’t need to say all this to me…”
They all spoke up, “Yeah! I just don’t understand! It’s a waste of time to attend class. With that time, I could be collecting some protection fees instead.”
Su Ye felt her temples throb in frustration.
Others chimed in one by one: “Teacher Su, I don’t want to collect protection fees. Why don’t you teach me how to join the arts troupe or the dance troupe? I could earn money to support my family!”
“Leave university entrance exams to the smart people. I’m too dumb for that, I don’t have the brain for it!”
She knocked on each of their heads, her tone full of exasperation, “Is it something to be proud of that you don’t understand? If you don’t take the lessons seriously, how can you understand anything?”
Su Ye then calculated another set of numbers for them, saying, “Everyone, gather around and take a look. According to the employment data from the street office, the starting salary for university graduates is 50 yuan, for skilled workers it’s 60 yuan, and for engineers, it’s 70 yuan. For vocational high school or high school graduates, it’s 35 yuan, and for those with only a junior high school or elementary school education, it’s 30 yuan. That means if you don’t get your diploma, after graduation, you might not even make 30 yuan a month, and you won’t have the chance to save up for four or five years to pay back your debts, so how can you talk about earning money to support a family?”
The employment data was something Su Ye had obtained from the head of the Women’s Federation. When the director heard it was for motivating high school students, thinking it wasn’t a secret, they generously handed it over.
After Su Ye finished speaking, she opened up the statistical table and showed them what real hardship and societal reality looked like.
They looked at the table in disbelief. The wages for high school and vocational school graduates were quite high, and university graduates were even more outstanding, nearly blinding their eyes. But if they only had a junior high school diploma, the wages were uniformly low, only 20 or 30 yuan, and they would likely be sent to rural areas or small towns to work.
Usually, when they went out with their big brothers, they’d casually spend 10 or 20 yuan without thinking twice about it. But now they realized how expensive everyday life was—things like food and utilities weren’t as easy as they had thought. Earning money through work was much harder than they had imagined.
At the right moment, Su Ye took out a document from her bag and handed it to each of them, saying earnestly, “If you’re willing to listen to your teacher, I guarantee you can get your high school diploma, and for diligent students, getting into university won’t be that hard.”
She was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and pure black pants, looking neat and fresh. As she handed out the papers, there was a sense of certainty on her face, and the subtle smile at the corner of her lips seemed to bring peace of mind.
It seemed as though getting a diploma was as simple as eating and drinking to her.
“Spend half an hour today on this, and see if you can write it.”
Xu Le thought it was going to be a difficult test, but upon closer inspection, the questions were simple, from the elementary and middle school level.
They were so easy that he almost wanted to throw the paper away, thinking there wouldn’t even be an excuse for not being able to write them. How could anyone be embarrassed to say they couldn’t do such easy questions?
Su Ye listened to the sounds of scribbling in the room, and she pulled at the corners of her lips.
She glanced at the senior year notebooks on the podium, faintly hearing the sound of rice spilling, and it seemed like she also heard the sound of two jin (about 1 kg) of premium rice being rewarded.
She opened the backend and took a quick glance. In the warehouse lay piles of white rice, exuding a faint fragrance, with the grains plump and shiny.
Su Ye frowned slightly. Her suspicions were correct—this food, so easily acquired, was truly moving!
Half an hour later, Su Ye collected the test papers from the students and had a general idea of their academic levels. Fortunately, the cultural exams from the 1960s were not in “hell mode”, otherwise, even if she were a gold-medal teacher, she wouldn’t have been able to save them in just two months.
Smiling, Su Ye said, “Students who want to graduate, meet me in the classroom tomorrow afternoon after school.”
“Study hard, you should be doing meaningful things at the most beautiful age.” She patted Xu Le on the shoulder, packed her things, and left the classroom.
—
Military District Compound.
After receiving the tea from Su Ye, Fang Xiulian distributed some to her family, keeping half for herself. The remaining tea was divided into several small portions. What would these small portions be for?
Of course, to host an artsy afternoon tea, inviting a few young ladies to drink tea and chat. The leadership discouraged pursuing a bourgeois lifestyle, forbidding British black tea or coffee, but local tea leaves were probably allowed, right? Moreover, in these times, food was precious, and offering it to guests would be considered too extravagant, but tea was certainly not an extravagance.
Fang Xiulian brewed two pots of Jinxiangyu tea and served it to her friends.
The sisters who played with Fang Xiulian were all from urban families, well-off, and many came from families of cadres.
Originally, Li Hongli was supposed to be there, but before inviting people, Fang Xiulian thought about the fact that if Su Ye knew the tea she had given was going to Li Hongli, she would surely be upset. So, after hesitating, she decided not to invite Li Hongli.
Since Gao Anna was transferred to the township middle school, Li Hongli had no one to confide in, and her frequency of bad-mouthing Su Ye had increased. The more Fang Xiulian thought about it, the more she felt something was wrong. Although she didn’t particularly like Su Ye, wasn’t it worse to talk badly about someone behind their back?
Later, Li Hongli invited Fang Xiulian to visit, but she politely declined, citing being busy with work.
One of the sisters took a sip of tea, savored the flavor, and complimented, “This tea is really fragrant. Where did you buy it? Has the department store started selling new tea?”
Fang Xiulian’s eyes gleamed with praise, and she enthusiastically replied, “Of course not!”
“The best part of this tea grows only in the cracks of rocks, where it drinks from mountain springs that are clear and sweet. Try it, can you taste the refreshing sweetness? They say this tea needs an experienced tea master to blend it, otherwise it won’t be done well. In the past, when senior leaders came to the high-end guesthouse, they specifically asked for this tea. Even in Hong Kong, you can’t get this tea.”
Hong Kong, the most fashionable and trendy city!
If Su Ye had heard this, she probably couldn’t have resisted giving a thumbs-up in admiration, thinking how smoothly this kid had memorized the lines, even adding some personal flair. She was truly a potential sales talent, someone who could be developed further.
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JustMeow18[Translator]
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