Chapter 30: Confronting Xu Linlin

Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Confronting Xu Linlin

"Then what should I do?" Fu Xiaoxiao looked at the aunts, blinking innocently.

One of the aunts looked at Fu Xiaoxiao and smiled as she gave advice. "Isn’t that easy? Go find Xiao the educated youth! Once you talk to him, they’ll definitely back off."

"Xiao the educated youth?" Fu Xiaoxiao blinked. She didn’t know this person.

"He’s that tall, ridiculously handsome young man. All the marriageable girls in our village have their eye on him, but he doesn’t fancy any of them." The aunt winked at Fu Xiaoxiao.

"No kidding, that lad is good-looking! If I were twenty years younger, I’d be willing to stick to him too!"

"Oh, give me a break. Back when you were young, you were dark and fat. You really think he’d look at you?"

"Tsk, like you were any better than me!"

"Hey, you old hag, who are you talking about?"

"What? I’m not allowed to tell the truth now? You think I’m scared of you? Come on then! You dare grab me, I’ll scratch you!"

Seeing the two aunts suddenly about to fight, Fu Xiaoxiao quickly took two steps back, stood with the other two aunts to watch the show, and casually pulled out a handful of sunflower seeds to crack.

She’d never seen the aunts fight before! This was the kind of rare scene you don’t get to see on TV.

The two aunts kept saying they were going to fight, but neither took a step forward. They just pointed and jabbed at the air, making fighting motions.

It looked very funny.

"Aunts, how should I address you?" Fu Xiaoxiao watched the two aunts "fighting" the air while asking the two onlookers.

"Just call me Aunt Zhang. She’s my neighbor, call her Wang Po." Aunt Zhang said, smiling.

"What do you mean Wang Po? Call me Aunt Wang." Aunt Wang rolled her eyes at Aunt Zhang, complaining.

"You’ve got some nerve, asking the girl to call you ’aunt’. What’s your generation in our village? Even Seventh-Granduncle has to call you ’auntie’." Aunt Zhang said speechlessly, poking fun at her.

"She’s not from our village anyway. Don’t I look younger than those people?" Aunt Wang couldn’t care less. In the village her seniority was high; Fu Xiaoxiao wasn’t from here.

Seeing Aunt Wang’s stubborn gaze, Fu Xiaoxiao chuckled. "Aunt, you don’t look old at all."

Seeing Fu Xiaoxiao taking her side, Aunt Wang laughed. "Those two have always been a bickering pair. Don’t mind them. They’ll never really fight, just put on a show."

"Just call me Second Aunt Zhang." Second Aunt Zhang still found time to answer Fu Xiaoxiao.

"Call me Third Aunt Zhang." Third Aunt Zhang, who was "fighting", let out a light snort.

"So you’re sisters-in-law?" Fu Xiaoxiao finally understood.

"Mm." Aunt Zhang nodded with a smile. "I married the eldest, they’re married to the second and the third."

"Your relationship is really good!" It was the first time Fu Xiaoxiao had seen sisters-in-law get along so well, and they were married to three brothers on top of that.

"That’s because our mother-in-law is good. She treats us all the same, doesn’t favor anyone, so we don’t need to fight." Second Aunt Zhang explained with a smile. Their only daily entertainment was teasing each other.

"Fu, come on! We’ll take you to find that Xiao the educated youth. I’m telling you, as long as you tell him what happened, you won’t even have to say much—Xu Zhiqing will be in trouble." Aunt Wang said to Fu Xiaoxiao with a smile.

Fu Xiaoxiao was half skeptical, but still followed Aunt Wang to the educated youth station.

The educated youth station was basically a row of single-story houses, with roofs covered in dark gray tiles. The walls were stacked from adobe bricks, and you could see traces of repairs in several places.

Fu Xiaoxiao swept her gaze over the interior. In the center of the room stood a battered wooden table, surrounded by benches of varying lengths. A few simple wooden cabinets were standing around, and on the walls were several sheets of quotations from Chairman Mao and propaganda posters from that era. The space was cramped and dim.

Each room must house several people, all sleeping on big communal kang beds lined up along the walls. On top of them lay quilts of different colors, casually stacked. Some quilts were patched all over, but still folded nice and square.

"Aunts, what brings you here? Who are you looking for?" The educated youths were eating around a long table pieced together from smaller ones. Seeing the aunts, they quickly stood up.

Fu Xiaoxiao stood behind the aunts, so the educated youths hadn’t seen her yet.

"We’re not looking for anyone. It’s this Mr. Fu here—she’s got something to discuss with your Xiao." Aunt Wang and the others stepped aside, revealing Fu Xiaoxiao behind them.

Zhao Qing, who was eating, looked up when he heard that and, seeing it was Fu Xiaoxiao, stood up in surprise.

"Xiao, someone’s looking for you." Hearing that it was Xiao Heng they wanted, the educated youths were not surprised; they thought it was yet another of Xiao Heng’s admirers.

"Hello, I’m Xiao Heng. You were looking for me?" Xiao Heng frowned as he stood up and came to stand in front of Fu Xiaoxiao. Seeing her pretty face, he froze for a moment—he hadn’t expected such a beautiful female comrade in this village.

"Here’s the thing. I brought my son to enroll in school today. At noon, when I brought him food, I overheard some kids saying that Teacher Xu Linlin had labeled my son a ’moron’ and forbidden them from being friends with him. I’d like to ask—does reading a few years of books give you the right to look down on a child who’s just started school like that?" Fu Xiaoxiao spoke out loudly, not giving Xu Linlin any face at all.

"You’re talking nonsense! I never said that!" Xu Linlin was eating when she suddenly heard Fu Xiaoxiao. She shot to her feet, furious and embarrassed, and retorted.

"Then may I ask, what exactly did you say?" Fu Xiaoxiao’s cool gaze shifted to Xu Linlin. "Today is only my son’s first day in your class. He couldn’t answer a question and that makes him a moron? What, on your first day of school you were already a prodigy without learning anything?"

Fu Xiaoxiao’s questioning was like a slap across Xu Linlin’s face, especially with so many educated youths watching.

"As a teacher, is this how you conduct yourself? I don’t think you should be teaching at all—you’ll only ruin the children." Fu Xiaoxiao swept a cold glance at Xu Linlin, whose face was flushing red as she tried to argue, then drew her gaze back to meet Xiao Heng’s.

Xiao Heng looked at Fu Xiaoxiao, who had come in swinging and left Xu Linlin speechless, then turned to look at Xu Linlin.

"You begged us to let you have this teaching post, and this is how you teach?" Xiao Heng’s words made all the educated youths’ faces darken. Back then, Xu Linlin had stirred up plenty of trouble to snag this opportunity.

When things blew up, she’d knelt and begged everyone to give her this chance, and in the end it was Xiao Heng who decided to let her have it.

"I didn’t, she’s slandering me! Clearly it’s her son who’s stupid. I only asked him to do some simple addition and he couldn’t answer! I was against Zhao Qing taking in new students from the start. He came and can’t keep up with our pace—that’s just dragging down our teaching progress, isn’t it?" Xu Linlin ground out, belittling Lu Lin.

"First of all, it’s my son’s very first day of school. You haven’t taught him anything yet, so how can you demand that he answer right away?" Fu Xiaoxiao actually laughed from anger, her sharp eyes locked on Xu Linlin.

"Second, whether or not to admit new students is the school’s authority. And I’ve never heard of a school refusing children who want to study. So in what capacity are you forbidding my son from attending school here? As an educated youth? Or do you think that just because there are two of you teaching, you get to make decisions for the school? In that case I’d better go ask the brigade whether a ’people’s teacher’ is really supposed to have that kind of power!" Fu Xiaoxiao shot back without the slightest politeness.