The Fiery Era: Starting from Longxugou

"Big brother, big brother, I found some more toon leaves! There are so many leaves on them, and nobody's picked them! Let's go pick some!"

After Zhao Shi'an finished harvesting a few toon seedlings, he had only walked a few steps when he heard his younger siblings calling out to him.

Upon hearing his younger siblings' voices, he seriously suspected that the little ones had mistaken the ailanthus tree for the Chinese toon tree.

The tender toon shoots from earlier, except for those that were too out of reach, were all picked clean. Even if some slipped through the net, it's impossible that no one picked them.

There are many saline-alkali lands in the old course of the Yongding River, where most of the plants that grow there are salt-tolerant. The ailanthus tree is one of the best among them, and it is easy to mistake it for something else if you are not careful.

"Where is it? Let me see!"

Zhao Shi'an strode over to his younger siblings. Looking at the vast expanse of trees before him, a pungent odor assaulted his nostrils even before he got close. He instinctively held his breath and shouted to the group:

"Come out quickly, that's ailanthus, not toon. You can't eat it, it'll give you a stomachache."

"Brother, they all look pretty much the same to me? They all smell bad!"

Zhao Xiaoyue frowned, puzzled. Just now she was pleased to have found such a large patch of toon trees. If she picked them all, she could definitely make a lot of money and have an endless supply of candy. But then her older brother said that it was ailanthus, and she thought they looked almost the same!

"Big brother, it smells just like Sister Xiaoyue!"

Zhao Xiaole pinched his nose and shouted.

"Brother, isn't this Chinese toon?"

Zhao Shijie and Zhao Shixiong were very unwilling. If it were toon leaves, they could sell them and keep some for themselves.

"You guys come out first!"

As Zhao Shi'an spoke, he pulled the four people away and explained to them:

"The tender shoots of Chinese toon are reddish, while those of the ailanthus tree are green. Just remember that! Got it?"

He didn't mention that Chinese toon smells good and stinky toon smells bad. For people with a keen sense of smell, Chinese toon and cilantro also smell bad. Many people can't accept Chinese toon and cilantro at first, but they can eat them later. It's a process of their sense of smell gradually deteriorating.

Children have a very keen sense of smell and cannot distinguish the smell of Chinese toon and ailanthus. As for looking at the leaves and counting odd and even numbers, that is after the leaves have grown. Now is the time to eat the tender shoots of Chinese toon, and the leaves have not yet grown, so it is impossible to count them. All that is left is to look at the color.

"knew!"

Hearing their eldest brother's words, the four little ones looked at the green shoots of the ailanthus tree with great disappointment! They had thought they had found a large patch of Chinese toon trees, and they had already planned what to buy with the money they had earned. But it turned out to be ailanthus trees, and the disappointment was too great, which made them very sullen!

"Alright, alright, don't be sad. Remember the mnemonic and you won't make a mistake. It's getting late, let's go home!"

As he spoke, Zhao Shi'an patted each of his younger siblings on the head to comfort them.

The four little ones followed behind their eldest brother, moving slowly, which showed how much the incident had affected them.

When they got home, Liu Guiying looked at the sullen children, their lips pouting so much they could tie a donkey to them, and asked curiously:

"What's going on here? Does everyone act like they owe you two million?"

"Haha! We really do owe them two million!"

Zhao Shian responded with a smile.

"Boss, what's going on?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Guiying immediately asked.

"Just now we..."

Zhao Shi'an then recounted how the group had discovered the ailanthus tree.

"Ha ha!"

The people in the courtyard burst into laughter upon hearing this.

"Alright, alright, you've learned your lesson this time. You'll know better next time. Go wash your hands and eat!"

As Liu Guiying spoke, she took her youngest daughter's hand in one hand and her youngest son's hand in the other to wash their hands.

Sun Cuilan took her two children home.

After dinner, the family went to bed early.

The next day, before dawn, the whole family continued to harvest chives. When they arrived at the morning market, they followed Zhao Shi'an's idea and bundled the chives into different portions. This time, they did not wholesale them to restaurants, but sold most of them to individual vendors.

As dawn approached, Liu Guiying and Sun Cuilan couldn't stop smiling as they looked at the sold-out chives, and they felt extra energetic when they got home to cook.

"We sold over 20,000 more yuan worth of chives than yesterday, even though we were short two jin (1 kg) of chives! Shi'an, you're really amazing!"

Zhao Youliang was very happy. Selling vegetables with his nephew was a bit of a hassle, but he made a lot more money. It was much easier than when he was hauling goods for others.

"Boss, your method is really good! Today we harvested over eight pounds of chives and sold them for more than 160,000 yuan, which is more than we made yesterday. If only we had done the same yesterday, there wouldn't be many chives left in the field!"

After selling his vegetables, Zhao Youtian's smile never faded. He had thought they wouldn't sell well, but surprisingly, quite a few people bought them. Unfortunately, the first batch of chives was too small, and there weren't many left, so he couldn't make a profit even if he wanted to.

"Uncle, if the first batch of chives produces too much, the price definitely won't go up. But if we take good care of the remaining chives, we can make more money. Let's sell them this way next year!"

Seeing his family members' anxiety and uncertainty, Zhao Shi'an offered words of comfort.

"Yes, yes! Things become worthless when there are too many of them."

Zhao Youtian and Zhao Youliang strongly agreed.

After counting the money, Liu Guiying and Sun Cuilan also prepared breakfast.

After lunch, Zhao Shi'an went straight to school.

Today is Monday, which is also Qingming Festival.

Today, Qingming Festival is not a statutory holiday. It was not until after the millennium that it became a statutory holiday. At that time, it was because the Koreans' rush to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival exacerbated the sense of crisis among the people.

After arriving at school, Zhao Shi'an diligently memorized Russian words and various phrases.

Of all the subjects in the college entrance exam, only Russian could make him take it so seriously. Although his foreign language skills were only average, he had to pass the exam! It would be too embarrassing if his grades were too bad.

After morning reading, the morning classes officially began. After class started, the teachers of each subject went over the exam questions.

In class, the students listened to the teacher explain the questions and carefully compared their answers. When they got a question right, they were excited and cheered. When they got a question wrong, they wailed.

Zhao Shi'an took in the students' reactions. Whether in this era or in modern times, the students' reactions were similar; the only difference was the difficulty of the exam questions.

Starting in the afternoon, the test papers were distributed one after another.

By Tuesday morning, all the results for each subject had been released.

In the classroom, the students were busy calculating their total scores and comparing their scores with each other.

After receiving the test papers for each subject and calculating his total score, Zhang Haitao compared his score with that of his classmates.

Zhao Shi'an sat calmly in his seat. There were nine subjects in total for this monthly exam, with history and geography being tested separately. The total score was 900 points.

In Russian, he only scored 46 points despite his best efforts. In other subjects, except for biology and political knowledge, he maintained a score of around 70. He scored 82 in politics and 88 in biology. His total score was 636, with an average score of 70.67. If nothing unexpected happens, he should be able to get a mediocre ranking.

"Zhao Shi'an, how many points did you get? Did you get 550? Let me tell you, this exam may seem easy, but it's actually quite difficult to get a high score. I only got 596 points, almost 600. There are only a few people in our class who scored higher than me!"

Don't be sad if you didn't do well on the test. After all, you just skipped a grade. Study with us for a while and you'll definitely catch up!

If you ever encounter any problems in the future, feel free to ask me!

Seeing Zhao Shi'an sitting quietly in his seat, Zhang Haitao assumed he hadn't done well on the exam. He put his hand on Zhao's shoulder, showing off his own performance while also comforting him, generously telling him to come and ask him anytime if he didn't understand something.

"Zhang Haitao, what's your ranking in the class?"

Hearing this, Zhao Shi'an's expression became somewhat strange. Did Zhang Haitao mean that 596 was not bad? If that's the case, his score might not be low.

"Not high, maybe in the top fifteen!"

Zhang Haitao waved his hand nonchalantly, preparing to receive praise from his deskmate.

"That's 15, not bad!"

Zhao Shi'an suddenly realized that, generally speaking, when students say they are among the top students in the class, they are basically referring to their ranking.