It is a very backward town. It has jurisdiction over more than 50 natural villages and seven administrative villages. It covers an area of more than 70 square kilometers and is home to nearly 60,000 people.
People in the town depend on crops for their livelihood.
There is a market in the center of the town, and everything the villagers need can be bought at the market.
In the market, there is the only junior high school and high school in the town.
In September, the first semester of school, the students of Lushui Town High School returned to school one after another, with the unique and simple smiles of country children on their faces, especially the children in the first grade of high school. The youthful and lively atmosphere is what many older students
People envy.
The children in their second year of high school are already quite familiar with the school. They invite their classmates to come back in small groups and say hello to the teacher when they see them.
But in the school, there are some staff who are not teachers, but are equally welcomed and respected by the students, such as the woman who walked from a distance.
"Sister Xiao Ning!" A student waved to the woman from a distance.
The woman named Xiao Ning looked over, smiled at the students, and said nothing.
The junior sister who followed her sister to report to school poked her arm: "Sister, who is she? She smiles so beautifully! Do we have such a beautiful female teacher here?"
"She is not a teacher." My elder sister told my younger sister, "She is the chef in our high school cafeteria! We really like the food she cooks! If it were not for her, the cafeteria would have closed down long ago! We all go to the cafeteria to eat because of her."
"Such a young chef? How strange." My sister obviously couldn't understand.
The elder sister flicked the younger sister's head: "Actually, she only came to our town last year, and she was still a sensation in the town for a while. Now...she is probably going to pay off the money to the Li Family."
The Li family owns the largest fishing boat in the town. They take the town's crew out to sea every year and get a lot of harvest, so they become the richest family in the town.
And Xiao Ning owes money to the Li family.
Her salary in the cafeteria is not high, only 1,800, but she returns a fixed amount to the Li family every month.
Today is the day for her to pay back the money.
With 800 yuan in her pocket, she slowly walked out of the school with her head lowered. Eight minutes later, she arrived at the largest small building in the town with light yellow tiles on the outer wall. This was the Li family.
People in the town didn't have the concept of installing doorbells yet. After Xiaoning knocked on the door, he took a few steps back and waited for Li Daquan to come out.
After a while, a man came out and opened the door. When he saw Xiao Ning, he said "Yo?" and looked at the woman in front of him with her head slightly lowered with interest.
Xiao Ning handed over the money and said after a moment: "Receipt."
"Tsk!" The fat on Li Daquan's face was moving, "Didn't you say your brain was burned out? Why don't you forget to ask me for a receipt every month?"
Xiao Ning didn't speak. Although her reaction was slow, she was not a fool.
She also knew that Li Daquan was not a good person, and he would not admit that he had received money from her unless she got the voucher from him.
Li Daquan handed the receipt to Xiao Ning, and counted the money with saliva: "Exactly, eight hundred."
Xiao Ning also collected Li Daquan's receipt and turned to leave, but was stopped by Li Daquan: "Stop! Hey, do you want to come into my house and sit down?"
Xiao Ning's intuition told her that nothing good would happen if she entered Li Da's family, so she backed away just now to avoid being forced in by him.
She shook her head.
"It seems that you are really stupid." Li Daquan sneered, "I asked you to marry me and you refused. If you marry me, not only will you not have to work in that shabby kitchen, but you will also be able to enjoy hot drinks and wear beautiful clothes every day.
of!"
Xiao Ningquan didn't hear anything, turned around and walked towards Uncle He's traditional Chinese medicine clinic.
There are several health clinics and small medical stations in the town, but there is only one Chinese medicine clinic called Uncle He.
Her survival was all thanks to Uncle He. To this day, she is still taking the medicine prescribed by Uncle He.
Those medicines were very bitter, but Uncle He said drinking them would be good for her. She didn't understand, but she knew Uncle He wouldn't harm her, so she drank them anyway.
The business of the uncle's hospital was not very good. When Xiao Ning entered, Uncle He was checking the pulse of a patient. She did not disturb him and sat quietly on an old wooden chair aside, hanging her head and waiting.
On the other side, after Uncle He checked the patient's pulse, he wrote a prescription and asked her to go next door to get the medicine.
"Uncle He." Xiao Ning stood up, walked to Uncle He's desk, and handed her five red bills, "This month's medicine money."
Uncle He sighed and took the money.
In fact, Xiao Ning's monthly medication expenses were not that much. She insisted on giving him so much just to repay him for saving her from Li Daquan.
Uncle He had no children, so he treated Xiao Ning as his own daughter and tried his best to take good care of her body.
And now, her body has almost recovered, but her brain... there is nothing he can do.
"The medicine has been cooked," Uncle He said, "You go and drink it, and we will have dinner together after it is finished."
Xiao Ning nodded slowly and walked slowly to the back of the house.
Uncle He looked at her back and sighed again, his thoughts slowly drifting back to last year.
At the end of last year, Li Daquan's fishing boat was returning home. On the way, it was said that it was hooked by something. The crew reached out to fish it out, and finally fished out a woman.
At that time, the people in the boat were frightened to death. Only when they were at a loss did they realize that the woman was not dead, she was still alive.
She was more beautiful than any woman Li Daquan had ever seen, with exquisite facial features, skin like cream, and black hair like ink. Li Daquan swallowed his saliva and brought her back and sent her to a hospital in the city for treatment.
She was in a coma in the hospital for a whole month and never opened her eyes. She only occasionally called out things like "Same" and "Tianning".
After examining her, the doctors at the hospital said that this woman had a strange disease that was not contagious, but they were helpless. Even if the woman could wake up, she would not be a normal person.
A month later, she woke up, as dazed as if she had just come into this world. Her reaction was very slow, and she didn't even know her own name.
She just said four words repeatedly: Tianning, strange or the same, no one could hear the specifics.
But even so, it did not affect her beauty. Li Daquan asked the hospital to cure her.
The small hospital didn't know what kind of disease she had. They said her blood tests were abnormal and discharged her. The doctors at the small clinic couldn't do anything for her. Finally, Li Daquan sent her to Uncle He's Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic.
.
Uncle He checked her pulse but was unable to treat her.
During this period of time, she remained silent and spent most of the time looking outside with empty eyes.
Li Daquan gritted his teeth, simply died, and announced to the public that he would marry this woman.
It was at this time that she reacted - making a hysterical fuss. As soon as Li Daquan came near, she would put the knife to her neck without saying a word, just staring at Li Daquan, as if if Li Daquan took another step, she would
She would rub the knife on her neck.
Uncle He knew that she was unwilling to marry Li Daquan. However, it was Li Daquan who saved her life.
Later, she developed a high fever and no hospital could do anything. Uncle He used earth cubes to cool her down and finally saved her life.
But she was unwilling to marry Li Daquan even if she died, so Uncle He helped her and let her stay in the hospital.
Of course, Li Daquan would not give up like this and asked Uncle He to repay the expenses during her hospitalization, otherwise he would take her away.
The business of Uncle He's Medical Clinic is not good, so he can only make ends meet for himself. How can he have so much money for Li Daquan?
But it was at this time that she spoke her first complete sentence: "I will work part-time to pay you back."
But where can a woman who is unresponsive and unwilling to speak find a job?
Fortunately, Uncle He finally discovered that she was good at cooking and the high school cafeteria was short of a chef, so he let her go.
Uncle He asked her what her name was, but she couldn't find anything out of her blank mind. She could only shake her head and repeat the four words: Tianning, the same...
Later, when Uncle He called her Xiao Ning, she had no objection.
After working in the cafeteria, she took a salary of 1,800 yuan and paid a little to Li Daquan and a little to Uncle He every month. The remaining money was used to buy some daily necessities for herself, which was just enough.
The elder sisters and aunts working in the cafeteria were all curious about why she had such good cooking skills. When they asked her, she couldn't tell her anything.
Her mind is blank.
The doctor said that she did not have amnesia, she just became too slow and could no longer remember anything or tell what happened in the past.
In fact, she had nothing to say. She just looked at the ingredients and a voice in her subconscious told her what to do and how to handle them.
Because of her, the school's nearly closed cafeteria has people again, so other people are kind to her. The students also know that those delicious meals are made by this taciturn woman, and they will fight with her when they meet her.
A hello.
And she couldn't remember the names of these students at all, so she could only nod and smile every time.
Just like today.
After leaving Uncle He's hospital, Xiao Ning walked slowly back to school.
On the first day of school, the school was bustling with activity. She lowered her head and walked through the bustle, feeling nothing - she seemed to be living in another world.
After returning to the cafeteria, she tied up her hair and started preparing the afternoon meal.
After a while, the eldest sister in charge of the cafeteria came in and announced loudly: "It's military training for the first-year high school students. The troops will arrive at noon tomorrow. Eighteen people! Xiaoning, you will prepare their meals alone tomorrow. The principal said that we will come this time
There are important people among us, so we can’t neglect them!”
Xiao Ning thought blankly, are the people who came to give the new students military training... soldiers?
The vague shadow flashed through her mind again, and a surge of sourness surged from the bottom of her heart, and her tears fell into the basin.
In fact, she was not so stupid that she forgot everything. There was an outline of a person, but she remembered it a little vaguely.
She felt that as long as she could see that man again, that tall and imposing man in military uniform, she would be able to recognize him.
Perhaps, she should ask the soldier who is coming tomorrow if he recognizes the vague him in her mind...