Chapter 14 Two Children
"Dear teacher, I have a lot to tell you:"
"When I first arrived here, I was still naive and sometimes had a bad temper."
"Today, I am still standing here, my face is no longer covered in mud, and I wash my own handkerchiefs and socks."
"I can sing, dance, draw, tell stories, and understand a lot of things."
"Dear teacher, thank you from the bottom of my heart!"
At the kindergarten graduation ceremony, Xu Cheng held Li Qiuyang's chubby hand, and under the guidance of Lin Wanzhou, they recited the "Graduation Poem" together.
Like other children, Xu Cheng's face was rubbed white with a red dot between his eyebrows. If you look closely at his cheeks, you can see a few broken diamonds sparkling in the sun.
The atmosphere of farewell infected many people. Even the most mischievous Li Qiuyang burst into tears. "My father insisted on making me come today and beat me with a belt all morning! Woo woo~"
Except for the more special experimental primary schools, the admission lists of other primary schools have been announced. Many children asked each other which primary school others would go to, and those children who could not go to the same school would make pinky promises with red eyes to comfort each other and promise to be good friends in the future.
Lin Wanzhou emerged from her "circle of friends", searched around, found Xu Cheng squatting in the shade eating a banana, and ran over anxiously.
"Xu Cheng, did your mother take you to take the entrance exam for Experimental Primary School?"
“Yes.”
"So how did you do on the test?"
"The results haven't come out yet, so I don't really understand."
The primary school entrance examination was Xu Cheng’s first experience. Sitting in front of the interviewer, he felt like he was sitting in front of the HR when looking for a job.
The difficulty of the test questions varied, from simple ones like introducing yourself to difficult ones that made even an adult like Xu Cheng stunned for a long time...
Draw dozens of objects on a picture and ask you to recall what they are; draw a pattern and then erase it, asking you to draw it again; use cubes to make a shape and ask you to calculate how many cubes there are in total...
Xu Cheng deeply realized that the gap widened at this moment. For those children from dependent families to make up for a matter of just a word, ordinary families would have to make twice the effort.
You even need to think divergently!
For example, there is a question where the interviewer suddenly asks: "If a ball falls into the river, how would you solve it?"
Xu Cheng thought for a long time, and finally replied weakly, "Aren't children not allowed to play by the river?"
God knows what the correct answer is!
Anyway, after answering this question, the teacher's face turned dark. Xu Cheng had no choice but to work harder in the final poetry recitation session to give himself a chance.
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
"Old age should burn and roar at the close of day"
"Rage, rage against the dying of the light..."
Xu Cheng memorized this poem by Dylan Thomas after watching "Interstellar". He never expected that it would come in handy here.
"How did you do in the exam?" Xu Cheng deliberately asked Lin Wanzhou a question. In fact, he knew the result. Lin Wanzhou would definitely be admitted to the Experimental Primary School.
"It feels pretty good." Lin Wanzhou thought for a moment, "I have prepared for all the questions the teacher asked."
Then she thought of something, and fluttered her eyelashes like butterfly wings as she stared at Xu Cheng nervously, "Xu Cheng...did you miss the information my mother gave you?"
Xu Cheng never imagined that he would have to look at practice questions and prepare for a primary school entrance exam.
He originally thought that it was a sure thing, but now he was not so confident that it would succeed. Just in case, he gave Lin Wanzhou a shot of prevention first.
"Will you be mad if I don't get in?"
“Yes!” Lin Wanzhou pouted and tapped Xu Cheng’s forehead angrily, “I asked you to prepare well. If you don’t pass the exam, Xu Cheng will be a big stupid pig!”
Xu Cheng finished eating the last piece of banana and asked, "Then are you still going to give birth to piglets for me?"
"Xu Cheng!"
Lin Wanzhou gave a shy sound and pretended to pinch Xu Cheng's arm, but Xu Cheng dodged nimbly, and the two began to chase each other around the campus, like many childhood sweethearts bickering with each other.
Whenever the summer sun shines brightly, summer dreams slowly unfold.
That IBM laptop had been kept at home since it was bought. Since He Ying didn't need it anyway, Xu Cheng simply moved it to his bedroom and it became his personal property.
In the future, perhaps many computer enthusiasts can easily do such a simple task as designing a web page.
Unfortunately, Xu Cheng was a mechanical dog who only knew CAD in his previous life. He had never worked in the computer field and had not learned many computer languages. The only one he had learned was VB, but because the VB language had been eliminated, he returned it to the school after graduation.
Fortunately, he has other advantages. Now he has plenty of time to improve himself. He can just learn whatever he doesn't know. No matter whether it will be useful in the future, it is always a good idea to improve himself.
Xu Cheng searched the Internet for some of the things he probably needed to learn, and made a list on paper. At around three or four in the afternoon, when the heat was not so strong, he packed his huge sum of 50 yuan, made an excuse to go play downstairs, and then sneaked out of the community alone.
The destination was the Xinhua Bookstore in the city. Unlike the toy wholesale market last time, the bookstore was in the city center and quite far away, so Xu Cheng chose to take the bus.
A six-year-old has his own conveniences, and children under 1.2 meters tall do not need to buy a ticket.
"I need you, I am a fish"
"Air in the Water"
"You are petty and bad-tempered..."
The city center seemed much more lively. The newly built Xinhua Bookstore building was very grand and modern. A song "I am a Fish" was playing on a loop at the entrance. Xu Cheng couldn't help but sigh at Ren Xianqi's current popularity.
Why is it a fish? Shouldn't it be a fish?
With all these questions in mind, he took the elevator to the adult area and took out books such as "Java Language Tutorial" and "HTML Language and Web Site Development Technology" under the surprised eyes of many adults...
"This boy will become a great man!"
"My son is still playing with toys in the children's area. Look at other children."
Xu Cheng, who became one of the children of other people's families, was not in a hurry to take the books to pay. He first found a secluded place on the first floor, squatted in front of the floor-to-ceiling window to ponder the contents of the books, and picked out more detailed ones from the books with repetitive content, so as to avoid finding out that he had spent a lot of money in vain when he got home.
After doing all this, Xu Cheng left time for entertainment. After all, it was not easy to come to the library, and he also wanted to feel the cultural atmosphere of this era.
Among the densely packed books, a comic magazine caught his attention - "Cartoon King".
It was simply that the dead memories began to attack me.
Xu Cheng clearly remembers that he was obsessed with it when he was in elementary school. He and a few friends secretly bought it with pocket money and took turns reading it. Later, when he grew up and thought about it again, he found that it had been discontinued for many years.
Dragon country's comics also experienced such a golden age, which was roughly the five years from 1995 to 2000. Its representatives were "Western Boys' Comics" and "Cartoon King", which corresponded exactly to the saying "Western boys in the north, cartoons in the south", and their status was no less than that of later "Zhiyin Manke" and "Manga Party".
In order to reminisce about his childhood, he took down a book and leaned in front of the French window to read it. Although it was just black and white lines, the subject matter was very fresh and in no way inferior to the online literature content at some point in later generations. It soon attracted Xu Cheng's interest.
He was immersed in it for who knows how long, and when he looked up by chance, he happened to meet the eyes of the little girl outside the window.
It should be the little girl from the grandma's family who was pushing . She looked about the same age as me, wearing loose old clothes, with black hair, and a pair of watery eyes like peach petals, just like pear blossoms in spring with rain, and her eyes seemed drunk and pitiful.
"What beautiful eyes."
Xu Cheng sighed, lowered his head and turned to the next page. He finished reading it quickly, and while turning the pages, he raised his head and looked at the girl outside the window curiously, only to find that she was looking at him anxiously.
"Uh, haven't you finished watching it ..."
As the girl was looking forward to it, he turned the page back. Seeing that the girl was having difficulty reading, he simply turned the whole book sideways so that both of them could read it while leaning sideways.
The girl's mother-in-law seemed to have poor eyesight. When someone came to buy sweet potatoes, the girl had to go back to the stall to help her mother-in-law look after her. Xu Cheng waited for her and continued to look through the pages when she was free.
So, throughout the colorful summer afternoon, the two children shared the contents of a comic book through a piece of glass.
The singing outside the window continues.
"Without you I'm like a fish out of water"
“I ca n’t survive ”
“We can’t swim around together”
