Originally, I didn't like reading novels. In elementary school, I only read comics. My hometown was a poor place, surrounded by mountains, so trends never reached there. The bookstore only sold "Dragon Ball" and "Doraemon". Even now, I still believe that merchants are cunning, and the bookstore owner is no exception. The "Dragon Ball" books on the shelf always featured Goku as a child. The owner knew we liked "Dragon Ball", so he kept us waiting for more than twenty years. He only sold those few books, as if selling others would be revealing secrets and shorten his life. But fortunately, the wisdom of the masses is great.
One day, someone outside brought in a complete set of "Dragon Ball". Back then, anyone who had the whole set of "Dragon Ball" was considered cool, like a rich second generation. So, I tried my best to befriend this person. I bought him ice cream, helped him during exams, and did everything I could think of. They say that effort pays off, which is true, but the reward is often small, almost negligible. After cultivating our friendship for over two weeks and spending countless ice creams and ham, I finally got my reward. Looking back, what I spent could have bought the entire set of books. When he finally lent me the book, I looked down and couldn't help but feel emotional. Damn, how diligent you were! This book was already in tatters. Often, when it got exciting, it suddenly jumped to Goku's wedding, missing half a book. At that time, I thought this person wouldn't have chosen to read it in the bathroom, tearing out a few pages to use as toilet paper. I asked him about this issue, and he said it might have been handled by too many people, some of whom sabotaged the book. Hearing this explanation, I couldn't help but envy him. There must have been so many people who cared about him, enough to be friends. Finally, through imagination, I managed to finish reading "Dragon Ball". Later, I continued to care for this person, and in return, I finished reading "Doraemon", "Ghost Child", and "Digital Monster". Until junior high school, we lost contact.
I originally wanted to continue this spirit in junior high school, but due to certain reasons, I went to a relatively good school in my area. Why was it considered good? Because adults said it was good, with a good learning atmosphere. It wasn't until after junior high school that I realized the learning atmosphere was indeed good, but even better were the girls there, who were really pretty. I'm telling the truth, no lie. After entering junior high school, reading was a boring thing. Since elementary school, I didn't like studying, which caused my English foundation to be weak, affecting my performance in important exams later on. This was embarrassing, something I wouldn't talk about. After a six or seven-year journey, trends finally slowly reached my hometown, but only a small part. Then I heard from friends that there was a rental bookstore near the school. Borrowing a book cost 20 cents per day. This news excited me as much as hearing my mom say that my New Year's money would be mine from now on. So, every day after class, I went to borrow books and read them at night. If I couldn't finish, I would read them during class. The rental bookstore had many comics, such as "Hikaru no Go", "Naruto", "Golden Boy", "Detective Conan", and "Suiyu'er'an". But they weren't complete, though better than nothing. Reading these books tested one's reaction ability. At home, you didn't know when your father would walk into the room to style his hair; at your desk, you also didn't know when your head teacher would silently watch you from the window with deep affection. Fortunately, except for once when I broke my hand, I safely passed three years of junior high school.
In the second year of junior high school, I hadn't thought about what to do if I couldn't get into high school, let alone university. Back then, I was very lazy, too lazy to even think about the future. It wasn't until the third year of junior high school when I saw many people start working hard that I wondered if I was too relaxed. But this wasn't the main reason I started studying hard. The main reason was that I always felt I had an unconscious desire to follow in my brother's footsteps. Thinking about how my brother became diligent in the third year of junior high school, I also began to focus on studying. Now looking back, the third year of junior high school seemed to be the hardest working period. Every time I walked on the road, I silently recited ancient poems, and when I got home, I did math problems. I've said before that I unconsciously wanted to follow my brother's example. My brother was very good at math. He told me he never listened to math classes and studied on his own, so I followed suit. Until college, I never listened to math classes again. I've always been reading books and doing math problems by myself, unless there were things I really didn't understand, then I would ask the teacher. At the time, I thought I was particularly awesome, seeing others listen carefully in class yet not being as good as me made me feel very accomplished, but now looking back, math can't really be used as a specialty. Imagine a scenario, one day someone asks you, Brother Zhou, what are your specialties? Would I answer him, uh... my math is pretty good. Just thinking about it makes me laugh. Finally, after a year of hard work, I barely got into high school.
On the first day of high school, I came to school and found that the quality of the girls has really declined. In junior high school, there were quite a few beauties, but now in high school, ugly girls dominate and even block the way. I couldn't figure it out until a sophomore reunion when I returned home one day. I realized that many of the beautiful classmates from before had already become wives, and their children could come out to curse and boast. Those beauties were already busy with life. I always thought that beauties should be different, not just in appearance but also in lifestyle. In my mind, being busy seems like an insult to them. They should live a life where they travel everywhere, bosses don't scold them, and they don't worry about making a living every day. But reality is that everyone's lives are similar. Except for a few people, most people's lives are like stagnant water, without a ripple, dead calm. Life is what? Firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, tea, wife, children, and a warm bed. After entering high school, I found that many classmates were from other towns, few were local, just a few. So, apart from us locals, the rest lived on campus. This resulted in me having almost no high school friends. I don't know why, but one day I was kicked out of the QQ group of our class. The reason might be that I stayed silent for too long, and they thought I was dead, so naturally, they kicked me out. I deeply regret this. I really wanted to see how they develop in the future, but so far, we are like people from two different worlds. Even if someone dies or goes to a prostitute and gets caught, I wouldn't know. They were the shortest-staying guests in my life journey, so short that I still think I attended a one-on-one teaching high school, with only one person in a class. High school really doesn't have many good memories. The only thing I can think of is that I started reading novels then, and also began paying attention to Han Han. Back then, every day after class, there would be someone pushing a cart to sell books and rent them out at the school gate. Some people would also have a few books, like "Jade Emperor", "Kunlun", "Twin Dragons of the Tang Dynasty", "Search God Records", "Barbaric Records", and even Si Niang's "How Many Flowers Have Fallen in Dreams" that I've read. I miss the days when I held books to read, although the quality of those books was poor, the paper quality worse than the cheapest grass paper. Reading a few pages easily made me dizzy, and these books greatly contributed to my vision improvement. Nowadays, there are almost no books to read, and technological development has led me to reading on my phone, which further improved my vision. High school seems like a projection of junior high school life. At the beginning, I still didn't study, and only at the end did I start to work hard, and then I barely got into college.
College is like many people's childhood, the most worth remembering and reminiscing about. Many details of my childhood have faded away, but I still remember when Dad bought a motorcycle and picked me up from school every day. As soon as I got home, Mom would cook congee with yesterday's leftover porridge and eggs for me, adding soy sauce, it tasted especially good. I also remember every Children's Day, I would go to the bookstore to buy "Doraemon" because there was a discount for children. A comic book that usually cost four yuan and fifty fen was reduced to four yuan and three fen, a drop of two fen. Back then, since my older sister didn't eat celery, whenever Mom cooked something delicious, she would give her a separate serving. So I also said I didn't eat green onions, just to have a separate bowl. Every New Year, Mom would buy me a toy, often a BB gun. Once, the family bought a VCD player, and I begged for animation discs. Finally, Dad spent 42 yuan to buy me a set of "The Legend of the Magic Puppets" video discs. When I was young, my older sister was often called by my parents to guard the shop, even when she was about to take the college entrance exam. Tragic older sister. Back then, my second sister seemed to be the fiercest, always throwing the remote control during arguments. Ha ha, my third sister loved watching cartoons the most, often lying in bed with a bottle of water watching TV until the signal disappeared. She secretly took the Xiaowangbao game console to play games with my brother. We borrowed dozens of game discs from others but never returned any of them. I was always the best to our family's cat. Every time I ate, I would secretly keep the meat in my mouth and spit it out on the ground for the cat to eat when Mom wasn't paying attention. So the cat was also the best to me. When it got cold, it would run into my clothes to sleep. At night, I would secretly let it in from outside and let it sleep in my bed. Many times when I woke up, I opened my eyes to see the big butt of our cat facing my face. We raised many cats, but each one didn't last long, either dying from eating rat poison from someone else's house or being stolen. The longest-lived one was probably the first one. That's why I like cats so much, far more than dogs. I miss those days. Before, I didn't understand and always thought being an only child was happy, getting to eat the most and receive the most. Now thinking about it, the happiest time was when all seven of us ate together. But those beautiful times have passed, and I can only feel that beauty through memory. Can this be called lost beauty? Haha.
Recommended novel website: Xia Hua Literature Network
Related theme articles: From Comics to Novels