Northeastern Wild Fairy Tales Record

  The Lao Cui family began to mourn the next day, stopping the coffin for three days, lowering it into the grave, and sending it to the ancestral tomb. Old Mrs. Cui was so grief-stricken that she fainted several times from crying, while Old Mr. Cui had a mouthful of stagnant air that he couldn't spit out, which eventually led to him falling ill in bed after several days.

  My second uncle was busy helping out, and finally managed to settle everything. As for the curse of the ash immortal, Cui Xiaobo and Old Cui asked my second uncle about it, but at that time there was no good solution, they could only wait and see if there would be any opportunity in the future.

  My grandmother was also standing at the door and took a few glances on the day of Cui Xiaobo's daughter-in-law's funeral, shaking her head and sighing, saying in her mouth that it was a pity to lose a good daughter-in-law.

  After this incident, my family's supervision of me became stricter and I was not allowed to go out and play easily. And with the white fox by my side, I didn't feel like going out anyway.

  It was like this, peaceful and uneventful, all the way to elementary school fifth grade. This summer I can enter junior high school and become a big kid. My height also started to increase rapidly, but my appearance became a bit like a "small white face", pale and refined. Now I'm only thirteen years old, but I've already reached 1.5 meters tall, which is quite tall among my classmates.

  My classmates also joked that I was a utility pole and said that even a gentle breeze could blow me away.

  I'm slender and tall, from a distance I really look like an electric pole.

  That day, we students of the same grade, facing the morning sun, walked quickly to school. Our class teacher, a woman in her thirties, led us to the playground and lined us up by height, with me being the last one, preparing to take the bus to the rural middle school.

  In the village where I lived, there were over 30 of us in the fifth grade. We quickly got settled and the vehicle started moving. I remember that at that time I was on a four-wheeled carriage from Northeast China, it was my first time taking this kind of transportation.

  Because it was going to a rural middle school, the excitement in my heart wasn't too much of a concern, and all my attention was focused on the green trees and grass by the side of the road, as well as the vehicles coming and going on the highway.

  So I didn't notice the bumps of the four-wheeler at first, but when I sat on it again later, I felt how powerful its bumps were, almost to the point of shaking my intestines apart.

  We usually ride a four-wheeled vehicle to the rural middle school, on which is written in large characters "Huaguang Middle School". There is a road about 500 meters long running north-south, and another one about 500 meters long running east-west.

  As soon as I went in, there was a very large playground. After that, there were two rows of tile-roofed houses. The northernmost and innermost part was a three-story small building, which I had never seen before and felt particularly strange. Everyone was discussing it eagerly.

  "Middle school is great, you see that building, it's really tall..."

  "That's right, don't you see where this is? This is the countryside, can it be compared to our village? You silly fool!"

  ……

  Everyone is particularly curious about rural middle school, and it's also feeling fresh. Mainly because it's the first time they've seen it, so they feel especially fresh.

  After a while, being here every day won't be so curious anymore. The more you see it, the more familiar it becomes. People are like this, easily changed by their surroundings or changing themselves because of their surroundings, making themselves adapt to all this as soon as possible.

  On the playground, there were already more than a dozen four-wheeled vehicles, all from different villages bringing students to the rural middle school. In front of the mud-brick house, students from various villages were standing together in a disorderly manner, looking at each other curiously. They were all children, and it was a time when their curiosity was strongest, feeling fresh about everything.

  After we got off the bus, we also stood together in a special area.

  After waiting for more than ten minutes, the principal of the rural middle school finally came out and stood on the platform in the playground, holding a loudspeaker and shouting at us.

  Nothing more than welcoming everyone to our school, introducing myself, and hoping that all of you, the country's future pillars, will study hard and strive for excellence every day.

  Then it was time to start dividing into classes, the entire first year of junior high school was divided into fifteen classes, each class had more than 40 people, and when added together there were also over 600 people. At that time, there were still many children, and the whole rural middle school had more than a thousand people.

  The number of students in the first year is the most, and then from the second to the fourth grade, there are not as many people. Because at that time, tuition fees were required when going to school, unlike now's nine-year free education. So some families just because the tuition fee was too high, took their children out of school and didn't let them go to school anymore, they all went home to work or learn some craftsmanship.

  This way, they can still support their families and don't have to pay tuition fees, so many people drop out of school after finishing the first year of junior high school. As a result, the number of students in grades 2-4 drops rapidly.

  I am in Class 4 of Grade 1. Our class teacher is the one who teaches us math, not very tall, only about 1.6 meters, and some students are already taller than the teacher now.

  And there were also a few students in our class from our village, but they were all girls. At school, we basically didn't talk to each other at all, and now was no exception.

  At that time, male and female students were embarrassed to talk to each other. Being with girls all the time would make other kids say they are sissies, and in their hearts, they also had a vague awareness of the relationship between boys and girls. However, because no one taught them these things, they didn't know what to do, so they just knew that boys couldn't play with girls, and girls kept their distance from boys and didn't interact with us.

  More than thirty unfamiliar faces, also not familiar with each other, still not familiar after meeting for the first time, everyone was silent and just sat casually. I was sitting in the back because of my height. The teacher didn't arrange seats but waited until all students arrived before taking out the attendance sheet to start calling names one by one, which was also a way to greet me for the first time.

  Then it was the usual class learning, and there wasn't anything like a welcome party for teachers and students to get familiar with each other like in university. It went straight into class learning. The textbooks were distributed after the head teacher took attendance, where a few boys would go fetch them and then hand them out to everyone.

  The first day passed in a daze, and I still took the four-wheeler back at night. After that, I went to school on my own. At that time, we all rode bicycles, a group of us riding ten miles to the rural middle school every day, and then riding our bicycles back home at night. Every day, I would arrive home drenched in sweat. My grandmother saw me like this and felt extremely worried, saying to my mother: "San Er is too tired today, can you find him a place to live so he doesn't have to rush on the road? The child's body is being exhausted."

  "Isn't everyone like that, looking for a place to stay and spending so much money, tuition is expensive too. Just think of it as exercise, let's just get through one semester first, if it still doesn't work out, I'll find another solution." My mom was heartbroken about the money, so she didn't agree to find me a place to stay, instead letting me continue riding my bike 10 miles to school.

  The school doesn't allow me to bring the white fox, so I can only leave it at home. However, every time I get back from school, as soon as I shout "White Fox" at the door, White Fox would run out of the house and greet me. This is also one of my greatest comforts during my first year in junior high, because before this, White Fox was never so close to me, even if it was close, it wouldn't run out to greet me.

  One time my grandmother looked at the joke and said: "I see, this white fox has also become a spirit. In the future if it is cultivated into a human, big grandson, let her be your wife."

  I also said carelessly: "Okay, at that time Xiaobai must be very beautiful, just in time to save me from finding a wife. From now on, Xiaobai will be my wife."

  He turned his head again, picked up the white fox and kissed her mouth, laughing and shouting: "Wife, what do you think!"

  My grandmother slapped me on the head and said I was talking nonsense, not to call the white fox a wife again. After that, I didn't joke around anymore.

  The days passed by one after another in such a dull way until I encountered an important turning point of my fate during the second year of junior high school.