Chapter 48 Going to School

While the family of three was sitting around eating hot pot, the hooligans who had knocked on their door the day before were stuffed into sacks in a dark alley.

That guy beat up all three of them by himself without saying a word the whole time. After beating them up, he even broke their legs.

The person who hit the man was Lu Zhiheng, who had just left the He family yesterday. Although he only saw those people for a moment yesterday, he quickly remembered their appearance.

After returning home at noon and completing my task, I greeted my comrades before rushing out to look for them, fearing they might harass the He family mother and daughter again during this time.

His comrade-in-arms had already told him about the general family situation of these people. These thugs all came from Pengcheng. The leader's family owned a shop, and the business was quite good. They made some money. He was the only son in his family, so he was spoiled by his family.

Because his family is wealthy, even if he gets into trouble, his family will use money to smooth things over for him, which makes him increasingly reckless.

This time it seems like they've kicked a hornet's nest. Not only did they not see clearly who was hitting them, they almost got themselves into trouble.

The thug's family called the police, but because he was directly covered by a sack, they couldn't see who was on the other side, or even whether it was a man or a woman.

So even if his family members go to the police station and make a scene, there's nothing they can do.

If you don't know what the person looks like, or who they offended, why would you report it to the police? What's the point?

It takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone, meaning these hooligans will be unable to go out for at least three months.

When He Yuping heard the news, the feeling of surprise and joy that overwhelmed her was so real, so wonderful, she could finally relax for the time being.

The shop reopened after the Lantern Festival. The busy days were fulfilling and warm. He Caiwei would be six years old after the New Year and would go to school.

Now, junior high schools are the only girls' schools here. Children who need early education all learn from elderly teachers in the district's schools.

Of course, after a few months here, He Caiwei has become very familiar with the local children, especially the younger siblings of the two men who work as helpers in her family.

Nowadays, most families have many children. The two people who come to help at their home are Xu Fugui, a shop assistant at a seafood and dried goods store. He has seven siblings and is the third oldest. His two older sisters work in a textile factory and a battery factory, respectively.

The remaining three are still in school, and one is still young and wanders around the streets all day. Sometimes he comes to the shop with Xu Fugui to help out.

The girl who runs the cosmetics shop is named Liu Yinghong. Her parents are both workers in a cotton mill. She has five younger siblings. She is the eldest and only sixteen years old. Three of her younger siblings are studying at school, and the other two often come to the shop to help out, but most of the time they are playing with He Caiwei.

He Caiwei lived here for a few months and found that the parents here actually valued education quite a lot. Regardless of whether it was a boy or a girl, they would be sent to a school for early education as soon as they were 6 years old.

However, very few people can attend junior high school. Families usually have many members, and when they reach the age where they can work in factories, many will leave school to work in factories to supplement their family income.

But if you randomly pick a teenage boy or girl here, they can all read. Although He Caiwei didn't really want to go to school with a bunch of little kids, her mother said she couldn't go too far.

Resigned to her fate, He Caiwei could only follow her friends to the school, carrying a shoulder bag. This was Fu'an District, and the school was called Fu'an District Enlightenment School.

There are six teachers in the school. Apart from the old headmaster, all the others are young, around thirty years old, three men and two women.

The school provides lunch, and the tuition is six silver dollars for a semester of three and a half months. There are a total of seven classes in the school, with two classes for children who are just beginning their education, each class having about thirty students.

The lower elementary class, which is roughly equivalent to the second grade, also has two classes, with a similar number of students as the first grade.

There are two classes in the junior and middle grades, so the number of students is relatively small, with only about forty students in total. By the time students reach the upper elementary grades, there is only one class left.

Here, you can't advance to the next grade every year; you only advance by passing an exam. If you fail, you continue studying; if you pass, you can advance. The current system isn't perfect yet. As long as you complete the teacher's requirements and the exams, even if you only study for one semester in primary school and pass the exams, you can still go to middle or high school.

Some students are already fourteen or fifteen years old by the time they finish primary and secondary school, and they can go to work in factories to earn money, so they don't continue their studies. That's why there are so few students in higher primary school.

They were still teaching traditional Chinese characters here. After a whole morning, He Caiwei was dizzy and confused. When she went to the cafeteria at noon, she found that the cafeteria was no longer a place where you could choose what you wanted to eat. Instead, each person was given a bowl of very watery corn porridge and a slightly hard steamed bun made from mixed flour.

There is no lunch break here. After lunch, the teachers in the school will arrange for the students to practice calligraphy for an hour in a quiet courtyard, and then they will go to the vegetable garden to help pull weeds and water the plants.

After a two-hour class in the afternoon, no one would pick me up; instead, the school teacher would take me home.

The teachers at the school are all from Fu'an District, so they take the children home after school every day.

He Yuping knew that her daughter didn't like going to school, so she didn't ask her how things were going at school when she came back.

To protect themselves, the mother and daughter practiced martial arts in their space every night. They looked normal on the outside, but given He Yuping's current strength, it would be easy for her to take care of those thugs by herself.

He Caiwei is certainly not bad either, but she is small and has short legs. Due to her height, her fighting ability is not very high; she is just at the level where she won't be bullied.

Time flew by and it was 1953. After four years, He Caiwei had completed all the courses at the enlightenment school. Today was her first day of junior high school for girls.

During those four years, because the country had only recently been established and things were still quite chaotic, the mother and daughter didn't dare to wander around. They settled down and focused on their business and studies.

Lu Zhiheng, who left, never came back. Although she encountered some scoundrels, He Yuping could take on four or five thugs by herself. After one or two times, no one dared to cause her any trouble.

"Sweetie, do you need me to take you to school?" He Yuping asked as she packed her daughter's schoolbag. She thought about how the girls' school was quite a distance away and how many bus stops it would take to get there, and wondered if she should take her daughter there.

"No need. I've lived here for so many years, I know every corner of the city well, I don't need Mom to see me off. Okay, okay, I have to go now, or I'll be late." He Caiwei quickly shook her head, her mother had become more and more attached to her these past two years.