Rebirth: Those Years When I Was a Bad Student

Zhang Yumian walked over, picked up the jasmine tea her father had bought, took a sip, and found it very sweet.

Zhang Guohua ate a mouthful of noodles and then drank a sip of mung bean soup. He felt so refreshed.

Seeing that his daughter seemed to be in a bad mood, he looked in the direction where she had just walked and asked, "Do you know that boy?"

Zhang Yumian found a place to sit down and replied, "Yes, we are in the same class."

After taking his last bite of noodles, Zhang Guohua sighed, "Oh, I don't know what the parents are thinking. They let such a young child go out to work. The older one does nothing and lets the younger one go out to earn money on his own."

Zhang Yumian looked up and asked, "Dad, do you know his family?"

Zhang Guohua packed his lunch box and said, "I know him. I worked with his father in the early years. Actually, we are from the same place, but they came here a few years earlier than us."

Zhang Yumian thought for a while and felt that he should talk to his father: "Dad, when I bring you food tomorrow, can I also bring him a portion?"

Zhang Guohua smiled and said, "Of course you can. Who doesn't need a bite to eat now? It's just a question of good or bad." He paused and said, "This kid works very hard. At first, the boss didn't want him. A few people knew his situation. They pleaded with the boss, and he said that thirty-five a day would be enough. The boss let him do some odd jobs."

Thirty-five yuan a day may sound like a small amount, but it was not a small amount for a small county like Beishui in 08. Zhang Guohua only made a hundred yuan a day working on a construction site, and Lin Cai'e only made seventy to eighty yuan a day working in a restaurant.

Many people who dropped out of junior high school work as waiters in restaurants, earning about twelve to fifteen thousand yuan a month, and have at most three days off a month.

Cheng Yao is too old to do heavy work now, so odd jobs should be fine for him. It seems that everyone is taking good care of him.

After returning home, Zhang Yumian found his younger brother playing games.

At first she was a little angry, but now she thought about it, wasn’t she the same back then?

She decided to take him to the construction site tomorrow to let him understand the difficulties his parents go through and know the difference between studying and not studying.

She didn't dare to stop for the whole afternoon and kept doing the exercises.

Every time she stopped or slacked off, she felt guilty.

In the evening, she wrote an article about her thoughts of the day and titled it "Dad's Hands".

His hands are not very good-looking, even ugly, but they support the whole family. They clear all the obstacles for them, escort them, and carry the burden forward.

The next day she cooked rice, scrambled eggs with tomatoes and stir-fried meat with green peppers, and added a white radish and tofu soup.

Zhang Yumian doesn't know how to cook many dishes, and usually cooks them while searching on Baidu. Now that she doesn't have a mobile phone, she can only read the memories of her past life and learn a few recipes in an Internet cafe when she has time.

I packed three lunch boxes today and asked Zhang Qingfeng to go with me.

After Zhang Qingfeng changed his clothes and saw the lunch boxes on the dining table, he asked in confusion, "Why did you bring so much? Dad can't finish it."

Zhang Yumian said as she changed her shoes: "There is another person."

Zhang Qingfeng: “Who is it?”

Zhang Yumian: "Why are you talking so much? Hurry up and leave. You are almost forty."

Zhang Qingfeng sat in the back seat with his lunch box, muttering all the way that it was too heavy and too hot.

Zhang Yumian ignored him.

Just like yesterday, Zhang Guohua was waiting at the door with a bottle of jasmine tea in his hand. The only difference was that Cheng Yao was also standing next to him. Seeing this scene, Zhang Yumian was a little dazed.

When Zhang Guohua saw Zhang Qingfeng, he asked curiously, "Why are you here?"

Zhang Qingfeng replied angrily: "My sister asked me to come."

Zhang Yumian: "Let him experience what life is like. Writing two questions is like asking for his life."

Zhang Yumian took the water from Zhang Guohua's hand, handed it to Zhang Qingfeng behind him, and told his father not to buy it next time and waste money.

After they went in, they were still at the place where they had dinner yesterday. Zhang Yumian was worried that Cheng Yao would feel embarrassed to pick up the food, so she packed it directly. Each person had a lunch box and could eat directly.

After Zhang Yumian handed Cheng Yao the lunch box and chopsticks, she said, "I don't know if it's enough. If not, drink more soup."

Zhang Guohua glanced at it and thought that this was not enough, maybe he was a glutton. The amount was almost the same as his, and he looked up at his daughter again.

Cheng Yao took the lunch box and said, "That's enough. It's a lot."

Zhang Qingfeng lowered his voice and asked in Zhang Yumian's ear, "Sister, who is this?"

Zhang Yumian: "Classmate," he said, turning around, "Go walk around here, I'll call you later. I'll give you a task by the way, after you finish reading, go back and write an essay."

Then he said, "It doesn't have to be too long, about three hundred words will be enough."

Zhang Qingfeng yelled, "Are you a devil? You're out and you won't let me go."

Zhang Yumian squatted on the ground and said leisurely, "Is that so? I was planning to go to the Internet cafe the day after tomorrow afternoon to check some information, and I wanted to take you with me. In that case, forget it."

Zhang Qingfeng quickly changed his words and said, "I'll go now and write it for you in the evening."

Having said that, he ran away.

Zhang Guohua: "Mianmian, go to the Internet cafe and make sure your brother doesn't play for too long."

Zhang Yumian smiled and said, "Dad, aren't you afraid that I'm taking Qingfeng to the Internet cafe to play games?"

Zhang Guohua took a sip of soup and said, "Dad believes in you. You must have your reasons for going to the Internet cafe."

It seemed that no matter in the past life or now, no matter what she did, her father would always support her and believe in her. This time, she would not disappoint her father or make him sad.

Zhang Guohua suddenly said to Cheng Yao: "Xiao Cheng, how is the meal my daughter cooked? Is it delicious?"

Cheng Yao looked towards Zhang Yumian, and she happened to look over there as well. In fact, she was a little curious about what Cheng Yao would say.

Just like that, the two eyes collided unexpectedly. Zhang Yumian slowly shifted her gaze. She looked calm on the surface, but in fact, her heart seemed to have skipped a beat. This was the first time she looked into his eyes, and it seemed that his gaze could penetrate her chest and directly into her heart.

Cheng Yao's ears also turned red. He didn't expect Zhang Yumian to look at him.

After swallowing the food in his mouth, he replied: "It's delicious."

It was really delicious, the best meal he had ever eaten. In fact, when she said she was sending the meal yesterday, he originally thought it was made by her mother, until today her father said that it was made by her.

He had been looking forward to the arrival of noon. The moment he opened the lunch box, it was really delicious.

When he was a child, he mostly ate leftovers, but his brother wouldn't eat them. He always thought that he was not good enough, so he worked hard to study.

The better his grades were, the angrier they were, so from then on, he deliberately did poorly on the exams. He found that as long as he did worse than his brother, they would be very happy.

So every time he took an exam, he basically didn't do the big questions.

It was not until recently that he accidentally found out that he was not his biological son.

From then on, they cared less about his feelings. Only his grandfather cared about him. He asked his grandfather where his parents were.

Grandpa always asks him to study hard.

In fact, he had resented and hated them, but he didn't even know what they looked like.

Zhang Yumian was already used to his thriftiness with words, but when she heard that it was delicious, the corners of her mouth still curled up slightly.

When Zhang Qingfeng came back, they had all finished eating. Looking at the three empty lunch boxes, she wanted to give a thumbs up to her own cooking skills.