When the soldiers left

  After that, we never wore a new set of clothes. They were all hand-me-downs from other families' kids, and you could often see holes in them. It wasn't until my sister grew up a bit that she helped me mend them. You could say my sister was the kindest person to me.

  As for my brother, he was also very good to me. Let's just say I grew up following him around, playing with him, and it was my sister who took care of me, including washing my clothes - everything was done by her. This went on until my brother left home to work and my sister got married.

  At that time, our family was really struggling to make ends meet. The poverty was unimaginable. We had run out of food at home and no one was willing to lend us money or grain because my father had already borrowed a huge amount of debt.

  Finally, my father scraped together some money and got married again, so I had a stepmother. So whenever I hear someone say "who was born to their real mother" or "who was raised by their stepmother", I just sneer at it and laugh it off. I'm both - born to my real mother and raised by my stepmother - what's the big deal? I'm still alive, aren't I? I've grown up just fine, haven't I?

  My stepmother is neither good nor bad to us, after all, she raised me for over ten years. She brought with her a younger sister, one year younger than me, from another single-parent family whose father had died, and I don't know the reason why. At first, our home was full of conflicts, every day was like World War III, and the neighbors would come to mediate. At that time, we didn't understand things, now thinking about it, it's quite childish. But childhood is just like that, who isn't? Who wants to call a woman who isn't their own mother "mom"?

  Finally, my siblings all left, and I was more tolerant, or you could say more cowardly. I didn't want our home to always be a world war, so I would sleep alone, and whenever I felt wronged, I would secretly cry by myself. I don't remember how many times I cried, but I do know that I liked using the edge of my blanket to wipe away tears. The edges of all my blankets are black now, perhaps because I've gotten used to crying. In the end, even when I want to cry, I'll hold it in.

  When it comes to going to school, my family only had my sister's education as the highest, all the way up to high school, and finally dropped out of marriage. My brother didn't get in at first, and there was talk that someone else took his place, and the score was wrong. In the end, my brother went to a vocational school for construction, and later just went out to mix. He has been working in factories all along. As for me, I just didn't want to suffer at the time. From a young age, I was not willing to eat bitter. At that time, I was about to take the middle school entrance exam, and a man came to introduce vocational middle school. It was also my first time knowing what a vocational school was. I told my family several times that I didn't want to go to high school, I wanted to go to vocational middle school.

  Finally, my sister told me that whether or not you want to go to high school is one thing, and whether or not you can do well on the exams is another. No matter if you attend high school or not,

  You first get through the middle school entrance examination, and then take a good score to talk. So I took part in the middle school entrance examination, was admitted to high school, and finally went to vocational school, my brother came back specially to help me choose a school.

  Later, I chose a forestry school because the recruitment brochure said zero tuition fees, just one year of internship, earning my own tuition fees, and only paying living expenses was enough. Compared to those high high school tuition fees, it was a very low-cost thing. I earned it, I suffered enough, I escaped from that family with many troubles, that family that would start a world war at any time, and came to a completely strange place, a little kid who didn't understand anything.

  Finally, I almost got lost in school, it's really stupid. But it was this fool who passed the high school entrance exam and didn't go, it's really stupid.

  For my vocational school life, it seems like there's nothing exciting or memorable. I'm also someone who doesn't care about big things and only pays attention to small matters, so I just passed the three years peacefully. These three years completely transformed me from a well-behaved kid into someone who argues with teachers, is uneducated, and wastes time. To be honest, it's really "birds of a feather flock together". The people who attend vocational school are those who couldn't get into high school, they don't have any concept of learning, and their motto is just a few words: "play", "mix around", "love", "hate", "show off". Originally, we were all a group of people who didn't study, and being far away from home made us even more reckless. We didn't have things like parent-teacher conferences either. So I followed the crowd, and we all became a bunch of waste together. And me? I'm still a heartless and ruthless person, I've never known what it means to have integrity.

  I know my home and their homes can't be compared. Apart from "love" and "hate", everything else is more brutal than them because I don't have money, they spend 100 yuan a week on living expenses, while I only spend 200 yuan a month. So, I didn't date or get into fights, not that I didn't want to, but I was afraid of increasing the burden on my family and causing trouble. Therefore, I'm particularly good at enduring things, so I quietly passed three years.

  After graduating from vocational school, I made a decision, I want to join the army.

  Because at that time I liked a girl, but because I was too weak and didn't dare to cause trouble, so I felt very depressed. At that time, I thought to myself, "I want to join the army, I want to go and beat up all those people who bullied my crush, make them kneel on the ground and kowtow, I want to look down at them kneeling at my feet." As the saying goes, "A gentleman takes revenge, ten years is not too late."

  Now thinking about it, that's just nonsense. Let bygones be bygones, a gentleman doesn't hold grudges for so long. If it were me now, I would definitely rush over and cut off their little brother and stuff it into their stinky mouth.

  All the mistakes of men originate from not being able to control their little brother, not being able to control their hormone secretion, and not being able to control that stinky mouth. The problem must be solved from its roots. That girl's name is Chen Xue.

  The most memorable thing for me is in the northern fields, where the north wind blows fiercely, and snowflakes fall between heaven and earth. Wearing a white down jacket and wrapped in a bright red scarf, she seemed like a resplendent plum blossom blooming in the severe winter, so enchanting, so pure, so untainted by the world, as if she were a fairy fallen from the ninth sky, untouched by worldly dust, with that hint of a smile still unforgettable to this day.

  And I, was indeed a poor kid, a poor kid with no skills, so poor that he couldn't even afford to treat someone to a meal, too poor to dare confess his feelings, and felt unqualified to express even a greeting or concern. Of course, at that time the term "diaosi" didn't exist yet, it was something that came out many years later.

  So I decided, I would join the army, I would become a soldier, I would change everything, I would get that girl, I would be with her forever, I would guard her, protect her, cherish her. So I joined the army with full confidence.

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