She Only Cares About Cultivation

An Yi rolled up the bedding and put it in the cabinet nailed to the wall to prevent rats from climbing on it.

Seeing Zhang Li and the child playing on the kang, she couldn’t help but ask a question.

But she heard her sigh, with a hint of complaint in her tone.

"Why go back? Endless work, endless nagging. I’m just enjoying some peace here. You go back first!"

Zhang Li’s husband’s family has many siblings and hasn’t split up the household; there’s favoritism, so life isn’t comfortable.

Usually, she shows envy towards her, not just for the freedom of life, but even in terms of food, she sees the gap between herself and An Yi.

So she always intentionally or unintentionally says things that make An Yi awkward. Fortunately, the curtain was pulled at that time, otherwise, who knows how much jealousy there would be?

But Zhang Li’s life is indeed very miserable; her face is yellow, her steps are weak as if she’s floating, and she usually eats dried sweet potatoes and rough grain skins. One morning, she even saw her bring a small fist-sized dumpling made of wild vegetables and grain, black and crumbling at a touch. It was evident that there was no grain inside, only husks and vegetables. She had eaten this kind of food and found it extremely unpleasant and hard to swallow, yet she watched Zhang Li gulp it down with sips of water and bites of vegetables.

"How can you have milk if you live like this? Doesn’t your in-law care? Look at how thin the child is."

"The child can at least eat his fill here. The teacher feeds him rice paste. At home, he can’t get enough to eat at all. I almost have no milk now. Morning and evening, I get a bowl of rice water which reflects my image, and that’s specially saved for me. If it weren’t for me having no natal family, would they bully me like this?"

Looking at Zhang Li like this, how could An Yi not feel heartbroken? Sharing the same dormitory, she enjoys good food while others eat chaff and vegetables. Although she is not responsible for this, she feels somewhat embarrassed. However, she doesn’t dare to share luxurious items, but things like pickles, black steamed buns, and dried sweet potatoes she shares.

The black steamed buns she makes are coarse grains. Even though they are coarse grains, they are better than the so-called fine grains of Zhang Li’s family, because her coarse grains are varied and don’t contain other odd things. They are ground from hulled grains together, and she ground them herself on Qiuxia’s house millstone. She used an ox for help when she couldn’t move it, and for this, she even stored the millstone in the space and took it out when needed repeatedly.

The good taste might be because these grains come from the space, so even if they are a bit coarse, the taste is a rare treat.

The dried sweet potatoes she makes are not raw dried sweet potatoes. The so-called raw dried sweet potato is when the sweet potato is just pulled from the ground and left to dry in the fields with dirt, turning the surface starch black, tasting with a distinct earthy smell and musty flavor when eaten. But hers are steamed and then dried, tasting soft and glutinous; this is the best dried sweet potato Zhang Li has eaten in her life.

One can be moved to tears by eating it; you can imagine how heartbreaking that scene is.

After two or three days together, Zhang Li gave her the feeling of a resentful woman lamenting the unfairness of fate from time to time. If it weren’t for the job, she suspected she might have fallen into depression, with no one caring from her in-law’s house or her own natal home, unending work, and constant insults. Zhang Li had muttered to herself more than once.

"Why do women need to marry? Can’t they live alone? Why does everyone say you must marry at a certain age?"

"I see that you are doing fine living alone. Why did they instill such ideas in me? I regret it, I really regret it..."

Every time at this moment, An Yi chose silence. Given the situation today, she had no solution. After thinking for a long time, she left behind some fried soybeans.

Fried soybeans are considered precious in this era. No matter what, she is a nursing mother, and she couldn’t just sit by and do nothing.

The fact that she could get this job had her family’s support. Earning a wage was a no-brainer, but they didn’t plan to let her bring the child, because a semester costs four yuan. How much does her salary even cover? Just to pay four yuan? Yet Zhang Li, for her child, forced them to yield by threatening not to work without her child.

Speaking of salary, though they are elementary school teachers and considered public employees, they have to start from the lowest salary, i.e., Level 11. Calculating by one set of coins, ten thousand yuan equals two sets of one-yuan coins. Her monthly salary is about twenty-five thousand yuan, and Zhang Li doesn’t even qualify as a temporary worker because she still needs to undergo a series of evaluations to become a private teacher, with a salary of roughly twelve thousand. But she has to pay four thousand yuan to the school every month, even though what the child doesn’t finish eating can supplement her, but the money is indeed not much.

Fortunately, the school also provides grain subsidies, but in rural areas, it is recorded as half a work point (five cents) as grain subsidies.

Finding a public school teacher in a rural school is not easy, but this public position is not directly assigned from above; An Yi needs to take an exam. As long as the results are not too bad, she will be given this spot. The exam this year is during summer vacation. Before she gets the position, her salary should be similar to Zhang Li’s, or everyone’s the same.

Because the other two male teachers didn’t take the exam for the position either, this position is divided into Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced levels, each with academic requirements. But fortunately, these chaotic times mean many students only finished half their schooling and don’t even have a graduation certificate, so everything is better defined by talent.

She never thought of becoming famous in one stroke, starting from the lowest level was fine. Otherwise, jumping directly to the advanced level would attract attention, wouldn’t it?

And staying in elementary school is safe.

That’s the most important.

The salary of an elementary school teacher is not comparable to a middle school, a middle school is not comparable to a secondary specialized, and a secondary specialized is not as good as an advanced teacher, but better than vocational school and educational support staff.

The division of these salaries is detailed. An Yi’s current salary standard is barely above the bottom.

The highest can reach over two hundred a month, the lowest is around twenty-six, and hers? Not even a shadow yet!

But given the current situation, it’s better to be low-key. Ten tumultuous years, isn’t it excessive to be just an elementary teacher?

Not excessive, cautious, safe!

When leaving the school, An Yi also gave Old Zheng a handful of fried soybeans, and under his grateful gaze, she carried her daughter home with a light step.

In May in the Northeast, spring is in full bloom everywhere, and the air is filled with the fragrance of budding green plants, exceptionally pleasing.

These past two days, she has cleaned up the traces of burning in the yard, and the plant ashes left are soaking in water, waiting to make some soap later.

At home, she didn’t stay idle, carrying a hoe, she went to weed and water the front and back yard of Qiuxia’s house.

After the weather warms up, these hopes planted are growing robustly day by day, weeding, loosening soil, and watering, spreading manure from the space on the ground, working hard till dusk to set Qiuxia’s household in order.

Perhaps because she takes good care, all the plants are dark green, looking robust. It seems like it will be a good harvest year.

Unexpectedly, she had just brought up a bucket of water to clean herself up when Qiuxia and Caihua, the two sisters, pushed the door open and came in. Seeing her, both were very happy, enthusiastically shouting: "Sister An, great, you’re here, save us from looking for you!"

"Hey, why have you two come back?"

"It’s been two weeks, the school gave us two days off, but we studied for half a day and headed home in the afternoon, otherwise, we wouldn’t have made it by now."

This time they came back with a change of clothes. Although An Yi thought they had nothing at home, not even food, they were kept at her place, so she straightforwardly said,

"Come on, come to my place, I’ll make delicious food for you, and we can chat about your achievements over the past two weeks."

Qiuxia’s school is a key middle school, a semi-closed one, giving two days off every two weeks. Classes are normal otherwise, so they don’t know that she has already joined an elementary school.