The potato chips slled delicious, like cucumber flavor. When you opened the bag you could sll the cucumber fragrance.
But before Xiao Qi got on the train, her parents had warned her not to talk to strangers or eat anything given by strangers.
Su Youfu and Sheng Juanhua were farrs who had never traveled far. They were still very fearful of the outside world, and the survival rules they taught their child were focused on being safe and avoiding risks.
The little girl sitting next to her and the middle-aged man looked like a civil servant. The little girl was very lively and outgoing, not afraid of strangers at all.
"Thank you, but I've also brought my own food," Xiao Qi declined even though she didn't think they would poison the food or anything crazy like that. After all, she didn't know them.
A few hours didn't seem very long to Xiao Qi. She figured she could just read a book and the ti would pass quickly.
Actually, she was a little tired now. She had gotten up early and walked around shopping with her parents, which had been very exciting. Now that she had said goodbye to her parents and was sitting alone on the high-speed train, she suddenly felt relaxed and sluggish.
But her parents had also told her not to sleep on the train. Just look at the scenery and the ti will go by fast.
Xiao Qi rummaged through her backpack for food. Hmm, her parents had prepared mainly staple foods - 4 boiled eggs, 2 slices of cured pork pancakes with cured pork inside, sausages that could be eaten directly, also made from ho-raised pork using their family's thod with lots of flour and glutinous rice added. The only fruits were cucumbers and tomatoes that her parents had grown at ho. In her parents' eyes, their hogrown produce tasted better than store bought. Over the years, whenever they ate store-bought cucumbers and tomatoes, they always found them tasteless and watery, with no sweetness, sourness or flavor.
This was probably due to the chemical fertilizers used. Villagers who grew vegetables to sell all used a lot of chemical fertilizers. Their produce looked good and grew big, but didn't taste good. What they grew for their own consumption used farm manure compost, which made the flavor sweeter, but the appearance wasn't as nice and couldn't be sold for a good price. At most they would give so to relatives and friends.
Xiao Qi was actually quite hungry now. She had a big appetite.
She took out two eggs, a cured pork pancake, a cucumber, and hmm, a thermal flask.
It was a very simple combination of food.
It startled the little girl and her father sitting next to her.
The little girl had a bunch of potato chips, chicken feet, grapes, dates, cherries and strawberries on her tray, looking quite fancy.
What Xiao Qi took out was hard to describe in one word.
In the past, Xiao Qi would also have felt embarrassed, but now she was very calm, almost indifferent to what others thought, especially strangers.
The little girl and her father had noticed Xiao Qi as soon as they got on the train. At first glance they felt this girl was very pretty and her family was probably quite well-off. She looked very capable and confident.
The middle-aged man used to be the director of the Family Planning Commission in Lvshan City, a deputy section chief position. After the rger of the Family Planning Commission, his job beca more leisurely but he kept his rank. At ho he raised birds and flowers, practiced Tai Chi, wrote calligraphy, and painted. Because he was so free he practiced his calligraphy skills and gained so reputation, even holding the title of deputy chairman of the calligraphy association. He lived a very comfortable life.
His only daughter was going to university, so he ca along to see her off in person.
When Xiao Qi took out her food, she calmly and unhurriedly peeled the egg shells and started eating the eggs. Then she drank a mouthful of warm tea, ate the cured pork pancake, and then a cucumber. Her mother's food didn't look very nice, but it slled so good, especially the cured pork, smoked in their kitchen at ho. It was farm-raised pork, rich in fat, with just the right amount of saltiness. Sandwiched in the pancake and taking a bite, it left a lingering fragrance in the mouth, satisfying but not greasy.
After finishing the pork pancake, Xiao Qi peeled and ate another egg along with the cucumber.
The cucumber was washed clean and very crunchy, with the true fragrance of cucumber, also sweet.
It was a little similar to the cucumber flavored potato chips, but more direct and fresher.
After eating the cucumber, Xiao Qi felt sowhat full and didn't crave more food.
But the little girl and her father sitting next to Xiao Qi were dumbfounded by her hearty appetite. She could really eat! Very substantial!
At first the little girl had felt the food Xiao Qi took out looked terrible - packaged in plastic bags, seeming unclean and weird. But watching her eat with such relish, it looked even tastier than her own potato chips.
When she saw Xiao Qi eat the cucumber, while she herself was eating cherries, she didn't know why, but she actually felt that her 100 RMB per jin imported cherries were not as delicious as the other girl's cucumber. That was the feeling.
After eating quickly and neatly, Xiao Qi used a napkin to wipe her hands, preparing to continue reading her book. She didn't have any interest in chatting with strangers.
But the little girl next to her really wanted to talk, and nudged Xiao Qi's arm, "Classmate, you haven't eaten lunch yet right? Which school are you going to? Maybe we're going to the sa one. I'm going to Jii University in ng City."
"Enhua University," Xiao Qi said. She had checked before coming - there were quite a lot of universities in ng City.
The best was Qingng University, followed by Jii, and then a bunch of liberal arts colleges, teachers' colleges and the like. Enhua University also had a good reputation for being a private school with high tuition, though its ranking was probably quite low.
Hearing that Xiao Qi was going to Enhua University, the little girl's expression dimd slightly.
After all, they were still students. It seed the quality of the schools could show the difference in grades.
But when the little girl's father heard Xiao Qi say she was going to Enhua University, his expression didn't change much, but he was quite surprised inside. Enhua was a private university right? When he had helped his daughter apply, he had also checked - the tuition was extrely expensive. This little girl looked like she ca from a good family, but the food she took out seed odd. Also, when she got on the train, she had made a phone call in dialect, seeming like a country girl. Quite contradictory.
The little girl was excited the whole trip. Hearing that Xiao Qi was going to Enhua University, she also didn't continue the conversation, but turned to chat with the passenger across from her instead.
Xiao Qi put on her headphones to listen to music, and continued reading her book.
She hadn't finished reading the three books Teacher Zhou gave her. This book "One Day in the Life of an Edo Townsman" was quite interesting. She had read it bit by bit and now just had a small part left at the end, which introduced Edo dialects.
Xiao Qi was learning Japanese, but what Teacher Zhou taught was very scattered, talking about whatever ca to mind. This way of learning also had an advantage - it was more interesting than always summarizing grammar, pronunciation and sentence patterns every day.
So when she saw the section on Edo dialects, Xiao Qi was also very interested and read it carefully for a long ti. She discovered the Edo dialects in Japan were similar to so regional dialects in China, with so variations in pronunciation and anings of words.
For example, in her hotown Gumula Village, when they wanted to say soone was good-looking and attractive, they didn't say the person was born that way, but that the person had "grown" good-looking and attractive. The Edo dialect had so subtle changes that were similar. However, Xiao Qi could only rember the examples given in the book. To explore and learn more, she still found it difficult for now. It would be more suitable to learn standard Japanese first.
Xiao Qi's mory technique was to first read, rember, then copy by writing.
The little girl had gone off to chat with soone else, leaving so space on the table. So Xiao Qi took out her notebook and pen and carefully copied down the two pages on dialects.
As she was copying, suddenly the chanical voice in her mind sounded: "Congratulations host for completing 100 hours of calligraphy, advancing from beginner to expert level. Continue your hard work, complete 1000 hours of calligraphy to reach master level."
Xiao Qi was startled for a mont, then calculated the ti. 1000 hours, 10 hours a day without rest would take 100 days. With heavy responsibilities ahead, even squeezing out as much ti as possible to write every day, she could only manage 2-3 hours at most, and it had to be persistent daily effort. It would still take more than a year at least.
But having a clear ti and goal as a task, Xiao Qi felt it was quite good, giving her motivation to learn.
She continued copying.
anwhile, the little girl's father had switched seats with his daughter. The lively daughter leaned over to chat with her neighbor. He happened to see this girl writing, and out of habit he casually glanced over, but was stunned instantly.
People called him Director Cheng, Cheng the Great Calligrapher, and he liked those titles. But this random little girl's writing, the feeling it gave, was actually better than his???
What's more, she had written a large part that he couldn't even recognize at all!
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