These people who only care about giving birth but not raising their piglets treat it like giving birth to piglets. Even a sow knows to teach her piglets to forage for food first. But these people just throw the piglets into the old people's hands after they are born and go out to work and have fun. Do you think they would be willing to take their piglets away?
Sure enough, when Jiang Baichuan called each parent to solicit their opinions, apart from a few who asked when the new school would be completed, they all agreed to let their children continue to attend school in the village.
Jiang Youzhi's whole family is in the city helping to take care of the children. Both of his daughters are married to city families with good financial conditions. Now that it's popular to have a second child, the in-laws can't handle it all, so they ask them to come and help. Jiang Youzhi and his wife locked the door and went to the city to help their daughters take care of the children.
Hearing that the school wanted to use his house, Jiang Youzhi discussed it with his wife and decided to waive the rent.
“Our daughter also went to school. If the principal hadn’t forced them both to go to school back then, how could they have married into the city and come here to enjoy a life of luxury?”
“In this way, the school can just pay the electricity bill itself, and we can fix whatever needs fixing at home. Anyway, we won’t be going back to live here for the next few years. If the school uses it for two years, we won’t have to go back to fix the house.”
Jiang Youzhi's house had been uninhabited for two years. The grass in the yard was taller than a person. Jiang Baichuan didn't dare let the students come to clean it. He spent money to hire people in the village to go in and cut the grass, pull out the grass growing on the roof, replace the broken tiles with new ones, and tear down all the old electrical wires and replace them with new ones.
After the electrical wiring was fixed and the house was thoroughly cleaned, the whole room looked even better than the school.
Moreover, the kitchen is bigger than the school's, and it doesn't leak!
Jiang Baichuan was extremely satisfied and personally hung the Langshan Elementary School sign on the front door of Jiang Youzhi's house. After the start of the next semester, they will temporarily move here to attend classes.
But it doesn't matter. When we move next time, the children will be able to have classes in a spacious and bright new classroom, as well as regular music, art, and physical education classes, and a cafeteria where they can sit and eat... Thinking about all this, Jiang Baichuan's smile has never faded these past few days.
It wasn't until two student teachers came to him to stamp his internship report that he suddenly realized: This summer vacation went by way too fast!
Chapter 86
When Fang Xingchen and Chu Mengluan arrived, each of them only brought a large travel bag.
When they left, they were carrying large and small bags, so Jiang Baichuan had to hire a van to take them to the station.
The students really liked the two student teachers from the city and gave them a lot of local specialties as gifts when they left.
They have locally harvested honey, dried potatoes made from their own red-fleshed potatoes, as well as dried sweet potatoes, roasted peanuts, pickled bamboo shoots, dried bamboo shoots and green beans, and so on...
They had lots of bags and packages, which almost filled the open space behind the classroom.
Jiang Baichuan took a few clean woven bags and helped them pack up. At first glance, they didn't look like college students returning to the city, but rather like mountain people who had come to the city to work.
"Brother Baichuan, can we come back to teach next summer?"
Chu Mengluan's eyes were already red. Although her time teaching in the rural area was only a month and a half, she had already fallen in love with Langshan Village, a beautiful little mountain village with clear waters and lush mountains, and with its lovely and hardworking children.
"Sure! Even though we'll have teachers for other subjects in the future, those teachers also need to take summer vacation to go home and spend time with their families."
“As you’ve seen, the children in the mountains don’t have any supervision at home during winter and summer vacations. They rely entirely on their own initiative to do their homework. If you have time, please come back and help tutor the children with their homework and take some videos with them. I think they like you quite a bit.” Jiang Baichuan was also very grateful to the two intern teachers.
“Count me in! I even promised to form a football team for them next year.” Fang Xingchen flashed a bright white smile. He had been feeding pigs, raising chickens, and digging konjac at school for a while, and he was even darker than when he was at school, but he was in a great mood every day.
"Why are you running so fast? Didn't we agree to wait for me to come down the mountain before you left?" Jiang Xiaoman came down the mountain panting, carrying a large basket on her back.
"Here you go! I made these dry rations and vegetables for you myself. Take them with you on the road!" Jiang Xiaoman stuffed two large bags into the van.
"At the bottom of the bag are potato cakes. I made both sweet and spicy ones. You can also eat them cold."
"The blue plastic bag contains stir-fried cured pork with pickled bamboo shoots, the green bag contains steamed dried fish, and the red bag contains braised pork with preserved mustard greens. These can all be eaten cold, but they taste even better after being heated up at home."
“Didn’t you say last time that the dried vegetables we have here are delicious? I packed some dried bamboo shoots, dried plum vegetables, dried eggplant, and dried chili peppers that my dad dried himself. They’re nothing valuable, but take them back for your families to try. It’ll make the trip worthwhile.”
"Brother Xiaoman, thank you!" Fang Xingchen and Chu Mengluan jumped out of the car and gave him a big hug. When they let go, all three of them had tears in their eyes.
"No need to thank me. I have something I need your help with," Jiang Xiaoman said shyly. "Our village is about to start e-commerce, and I'm going to have someone design an advertisement with a QR code. Could you help promote it at the school? I remember the school bulletin boards are free..."
"Hey! What's the big deal? Bro, don't waste money printing it! I'll ask my buddies in the university town to help me post it in all the groups and on the school forums. That's much faster than a bulletin board, isn't it?" Fang Xingchen chuckled.
“Yes! I’ll ask more classmates for help and try to cover the intranets of every school. That’s easy!” Chu Mengluan quickly added.
They're only freshmen, and their relationship with their high school classmates is still very close. Everyone is scattered across different universities, so it's not difficult for an old classmate to ask someone to help post something on the school's intranet.
Besides, this is a public service post to help farmers! Let's see who dares to delete it.
After seeing off their juniors, Jiang Xiaoman and her classmates were almost ready to sell the salted eggs they had pickled.
I can't not sell them, the school is going to start construction in a few days, and if the salted eggs on the third floor aren't sold soon, I'll have to take them back to my own home.
Just as the students hadn't gone home yet, Jiang Xiaoman waved her hand and decided to cook something delicious for everyone before school ended today.
"How about we make steamed buns? It's been a long time since we've had them. Let's ask them to come and help."
After the corrupt official who embezzled student nutrition subsidies was arrested, it was said that his family members voluntarily returned some of the embezzled funds that they hadn't had time to spend in order to reduce their sentences. As a result, the county government made up for the nutrition subsidy that Langshan Elementary School had embezzled in previous years, amounting to a huge sum of nearly 150,000 yuan!
Jiang Baichuan no longer worries about the students eating the cafeteria out of business.
Eat as much as you want, you little rascals!
Jiang Xiaoman chuckled, "Then I won't be polite, Uncle~"
As soon as he said that, not only Jiang Baichuan, but even the netizens who witnessed the scene couldn't help but hold their breath—
"I don't know why, but I'm suddenly a little worried about the pigs that Principal Baichuan raises."
"Don't worry, the pigs haven't grown up yet. It's more realistic to worry about the roosters."
Why worry about the rooster but not the hen?
"Are you stupid? Hens lay eggs, but what can roosters do besides crowing?"
"The guy in front clearly wasn't paying attention! The principal said we're making steamed buns! Can chicken be used to make steamed buns? I bet Xiaoman is going to ruin the principal's last few pieces of cured pork."
"I wonder where the principal hid the rest of the cured meat. I'm so curious!"
As expected, netizens know Jiang Xiaoman best. While Jiang Baichuan was packing for the move, Jiang Xiaoman finally found the cured meat that her uncle had secretly hidden, and there was actually quite a lot of it.
Thinking that she would be able to cure new bacon in a few months, Jiang Xiaoman quickly and secretly took the two largest pieces from the woven bag containing the bacon.
By the time Jiang Baichuan discovered it, the cured meat had already been turned into minced meat, mixed with dried bamboo shoots, dried green beans, dried eggplant, dried chili peppers, and so on, making three different kinds of bun fillings...
"Make some more sugar triangles for the girls, that'll do! Uncle, Uncle? Ouch, why did you hit me?" Jiang Xiaoman covered her head, running around the yard after being beaten by her uncle.
"You little brat! Spendthrift! Who else should I hit if not you? I told you to make steamed buns, so you just cracked a few eggs and made a filling of chives and eggs! And now you're stealing my cured meat again, even though it's not a holiday! If you eat it all, what are we going to eat next semester?" Jiang Baichuan gripped the broom tightly in anger.
"Isn't there still over ten thousand in the account?"
"Those belong to the students! I'll return them to their parents when they come to pick them up!"
Jiang Baichuan knew how difficult it was for those families who applied for the nutrition meal subsidy for impoverished students. Many families really couldn't afford to feed their children anything nutritious, let alone milk and eggs. When they got home, they would just boil potatoes, and they rarely ate meat more than a few times a year.
After the county distributed the nutritional meal subsidies that had been embezzled in previous years, Jiang Baichuan stayed up all night to recalculate the accounts. Those still in school were to be refunded according to their actual years of study, and those who had already graduated were to have their nutritional meal subsidies returned to them according to the actual years they should have received them. As a result, the remaining 150,000 yuan was actually not much.
In other words, after all that effort, our Principal Baichuan is still a penniless man who can't even afford to eat cured meat.
"What about the money from selling konjac?" Jiang Xiaoman asked, unconvinced.
"Shouldn't we order milk for the kids when school starts?"
"Don't you have to pay for the rice, oil, and salt in the cafeteria?"
“Schools in the city provide fruit after meals, why don’t we buy some bananas and apples to give the kids some vitamins?”
Jiang Baichuan started calculating the figures in a rambling manner, realizing that the annual subsidies from above were really not enough.
What the uncle and nephew didn't know was that after Jiang Xiaoman edited this segment into a video as part of her daily laughs, fans who saw it couldn't help but tear up.
So, after the money was returned, Jiang Baichuan didn't keep it in the school's accounts for future cafeteria expenses, but instead planned to return it all to those impoverished students?
In this case, the school needs to continue to maintain the normal operation of the cafeteria and ensure that students are well-fed. The monthly subsidy alone is indeed not enough.
And to be honest, Jiang Baichuan is right. Those subsidies are not actually for everyone in the school, but for the nutritional meals of some students from poor families. They shouldn't be deducted by the school and then divided equally among all students. That would be unfair to the truly poor students.
Therefore, the best and fairest approach is still what Jiang Baichuan planned: first distribute the nutrition meal subsidies to impoverished students, and then let them pay for their meals at school, or bring their own rice and vegetables as payment, as before.
However, this meant that the financial burden of running the school cafeteria fell back on Jiang Baichuan's shoulders.
The fans immediately became anxious upon hearing this.
How could you do this?
Isn't this bullying honest people?
Immediately, many fans left comments in the comment section, hoping that Jiang Baichuan or Jiang Xiaoman could announce the school's donation account so they could donate to the school cafeteria!
It's just the monthly food expenses for over thirty children, right? How much can a child eat? Even if you provide milk, eggs, and apples, it's enough if everyone just drinks one less cup of milk tea.
Because Jiang Xiaoman has not yet announced the fundraising account, some fans have even gone to another video platform where they can tip to directly tip the school's account. However, according to the platform's rules, half of the tipped money will be deducted by the platform.
This angered netizens. "What's wrong with your platform? We can accept deducting fees from regular video bloggers, but this is donations from netizens for meals for children in impoverished mountain schools! How can you have the nerve to take half of it? Isn't this just leeching off poor students?"
The platform was completely bewildered by the backlash, and after understanding the actual situation, it immediately issued an emergency statement.
In order to maintain the fairness of the platform, the established rules cannot be broken at will. However, as a company, they should also have a sense of social responsibility. Therefore, the platform has decided to donate 30,000 yuan annually to Langshan Primary School as a subsidy for the nutritional meals of all teachers and students.
This promotional campaign is absolutely brilliant, it has garnered maximum goodwill from netizens!
Many fans who initially watched Jiang Xiaoman's videos on the other video platform switched to this platform because they couldn't give rewards on those platforms, just so they could easily give rewards to Jiang Xiaoman and Langshan Primary School anytime.
Jiang Baichuan was overjoyed to have unintentionally made a small contribution to attracting new users to the platform, only to receive a stable annual donation of 30,000 yuan. With this 30,000 yuan, he could finally afford milk, apples, and eggs!
The only regret is that it has become inconvenient to grow vegetables in the years since the new school building was built. They are renting other people's houses, and they can't very well dig up other people's yards to grow vegetables, can they?
Chapter 87
This is the last day of the summer extracurricular program at Langshan Primary School.
The children looked dejected and were especially reluctant to leave the school.
Unlike city children who look forward to holidays, most children in the mountains prefer going to school.
Going to school means I won't have to do chores or take care of my younger siblings. I can also eat delicious food in the school cafeteria and play with my classmates. Isn't that great?
Unfortunately, the principal said that the school is preparing to move, so this year's summer program will have to end early.
"Line up! Five steamed buns and two salted eggs for everyone! You can take any leftovers home."
Jiang Xiaoman, wearing an apron made from old clothes, held a plastic bag in her left hand and a pair of chopsticks in her right, and handed out snacks to her classmates one by one.
The buns were made extra large, and the filling inside was puffy. Each person could get two pork and bamboo shoot buns, two vegetarian buns, one sugar triangle, and two salted eggs.
In addition, there was a bottle of Coca-Cola sponsored by Jiang Xiaoman.
Although this stuff is junk food, the children in the mountains only get to drink it a few times a year, so everyone cherishes it and puts it in their schoolbags, planning to take it back and drink it slowly.
"I can't take it anymore. I'm supposed to be happy on vacation, so why do I feel like crying?"