She Only Cares About Cultivation

"You really think way ahead. We’re even planning to have her teach the upper grades. With the level she’s at, keeping her here in our countryside to teach is already kind of wasting her talent. But she agreed, and that shows she likes our village. So the things she told us to do, you, you big mouth, don’t go twitching and blurting it out. If the word leaks out from you, hmph, just wait to get straightened out!"

"Okay, okay, you’re still going on and on. I already said I’ll remember."

The village chief’s wife glared impatiently at her own old man, turned around, took off her apron, and went into the kitchen to finish up.

On the other side, the two sisters figured that with the village chief’s wife’s mouth, she definitely wouldn’t be able to keep her trap shut.

"Her mouth just rattles on. Back then she talked plenty behind our backs. I’ve caught her at it several times. I really don’t have any good impression of her."

An Yi neither agreed nor disagreed: "Whether she can keep quiet or not doesn’t matter. What, someone can actually hold up the two of you’s future? Don’t worry. With this certificate, once you get to school you just study properly, don’t bother with anything else. Even if those old gals find out, so what? It’s got nothing to do with them, they can’t get a bit of benefit off you. If you can skip grades over the next three or four years, that’d be best. I’ll do my best to help you. The junior high here is four years, right?"

"Yeah, primary school is five years, junior high four years, high school three years."

"Xiao Xue, if you can finish in four months, then the goal I’m setting for you is: finish all of junior high in two years. I’ll tutor you in the winter and summer breaks, and you don’t have to go to work in the fields. I’ll cover all the costs. You just focus on your studies. As long as you can finish the four years’ curriculum in two years, won’t getting into high school be easy? Because once your determination is set, success or failure is decided. Once you’re in high school, you’re not far from the college entrance exams."

In An Yi’s view, if you can get ahead, you have to get ahead; otherwise things will just get messier later on.

"So that’s why, when you were at school, you bought all the junior high textbooks?"

An Yi nodded. Caihua was stunned: "I thought you were planning to take the exam for a regular post, that’s why you bought all these books."

"I’ll self-study everything first, then summarize the key points for you two. Your job is: in this half year, finish the whole first year of junior high; next term start on the second year, then join the second-year exams. As long as you pass, we’ll apply for skipping a grade, going up Level 1 by Level 1. That’s the plan I’ve made for you. But don’t force yourselves. If you feel it’s too hard, then just follow the normal pace, don’t put pressure on yourselves. Honestly, just graduating from junior high is already very good."

That’s what she said, but the sisters, every time they thought about how their food, clothing, housing, and all depended on An Yi, felt bad about it. After all, studying is much easier than grubbing around in the ground for food, so there was absolutely no reason to say they couldn’t do it. Even if they couldn’t, they had to; they’d just fight for it!

Two days later, the village chief personally drove the village ox cart to take the sisters to the town. From the town there was one bus a day going to the county, so they set off before dawn. An Yi held the child in her arms and waved goodbye to them. Before they met again, it’d probably be about a month.

That month was just the time for sowing bit by bit. How to plant, how to divide the shares, how to organize, the village held one meeting after another to talk it through.

An Yi didn’t bother with any of that; she didn’t go to those meetings either. As far as she was concerned, just the mess in her own family was enough to keep her busy.

So however the higher‑ups arranged things, it had nothing to do with her. Every day she just took her hoe and turned over the soil in the front and back yards of the two families.

Once the ground was more or less leveled and the temperature was right for planting, she put in sweet potato, corn, soybeans and those kinds of crops that don’t need much tending over at Qiuxia’s place.

In her own yard she planted all kinds of vegetables; in the back yard she first planted corn, and once the corn grew a bit, she interplanted some peanut into it.

In late April, the village started implementing the new farming reforms. In the end her land was still taken and divided out, and the village chief helped her win a regular public teacher’s slot.

"This is a reward for the hard work you put into the literacy class, and also compensation for your two mu of land. Of course, after investigation, I know you’re the only state‑assigned teacher in our Baijiawan Commune besides the principal and the director. From now on you’ll be paid by the state. As for the specific salary, once school starts the principal and director will talk to you."

She hadn’t even taken the exam yet for a regular teacher post at the county middle school, and the higher‑ups had already given her a public primary school teacher slot.

Looks like all that liquor she gave out wasn’t for nothing. See, she didn’t ask for a thing, and they quietly handled it all for her. It really was an unexpected piece of great news!