I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

"Rural teachers..."

Chen Jianjia softly repeated those four words.

Just hearing this name, it's really hard to imagine much.

Not long ago, she smiled and said to Yu Yin, "Your brother is indeed a very good storyteller."

Unexpectedly, when she finally voiced her long-standing career confusion, Yu Wen's answer to her was still a story.

In the past, she might have just listened politely.

But she had read "To Live," knew about "The Little Prince," and had watched Yu Wen's live broadcast discussing death, loss, and living on.

She knew very well that the young man in front of her was not only a writer, but also a person with amazing insight and eloquence.

Since he chose to answer with a story, that story is by no means simple.

Chen Jianjia put the teacup back on the table and sat up straight.

"Mr. Yu, please speak."

She nodded slightly.

"I'm all ears."

Yu Yin, who was standing next to him, immediately perked up, put the royalty settlement document aside, and looked at her brother with bright, sparkling eyes.

She loved listening to her brother tell stories.

I just don't know what kind of story it will be this time.

Yu Wen leaned back in his wheelchair and spoke slowly.

"The story takes place long ago in a remote and impoverished mountainous area in Northwest China."

"The people there live off the land, but what's more terrifying than poverty is their apathy."

"The idle people in the village spend their days drinking or gambling, but they are unwilling to work in the fields. There is only one tractor in the village, and no one is willing to pay for the fuel. In the end, they would rather dismantle the tractor."

"People from outside came to help alleviate poverty and gave us a water pump, hoping we could bring water to the fields. But as soon as they left, the villagers sold the water pump."

Yu Yin frowned.

"With water pumps, can we grow more food?"

"Yes."

Yu Wen said:

"But they only want the money in front of them and don't care about what will happen in the future."

In that village, there was a dilapidated primary school.

There is only one teacher in the school, whose surname is Li.

Twenty years ago, Teacher Li graduated from junior high school.

He could have left the village and sought a different life elsewhere, but he ended up returning to the primary school where he had studied in his childhood.

He felt that while the adults in the village might be difficult to change, there was still hope for the children.

This teaching lasted for twenty years.

The children in the village often cannot come to school.

Some children had to work in the fields with their parents, some had to help with the family business, and some parents thought that studying was useless and simply didn't let their children come to school.

Teacher Li then went door to door to search.

Today we'll bring this child back to the classroom, and tomorrow we'll try to persuade the parents of the other child.

Those who couldn't afford the tuition paid for it themselves.

He, who was struggling to get enough to eat, would take a portion of his meager salary to improve the children's meals.

Upon hearing this, Yu Yin asked softly:

Will those people thank him?

Yu Wen paused for a moment.

"Some children will."

"But the adults in the village might not be so."

The school buildings are getting more and more dilapidated, and the roof could collapse at any moment.

Every morning, Teacher Li would run to the county town and go to the education department again and again, finally securing funding for school repairs.

But as soon as the money was allocated, the villagers wanted to use it to hire an opera troupe to perform.

The stage has been set up.

When Teacher Li found out, she insisted on getting the money back.

The play was never performed.

The villagers felt that he had spoiled the whole village's fun.

After that, the school's electricity was cut off, and no one was willing to give him straw for cooking and heating in the winter.

Later, some people even wanted to tear down the school's roof and take the wood home.

Teacher Li picked up a carrying pole and blocked the school gate.

He said that whoever wants to demolish the school should first get past him.

Finally, he actually got into a fight with those people.

He was all alone.

When the kind people lifted him off the ground, he had already broken two ribs.

Yu Yin's little hand slowly clenched.

Why did they hit the teacher?

"Because in their eyes, a few dilapidated classrooms are not important at all."

Yu Wen said:

"They don't understand why Teacher Li is so desperate for those houses."

Kind-hearted people carried Teacher Li for more than 30 miles along mountain roads and took him to the town hospital.

When the doctor examined his injuries, he was surprised to discover that he had esophageal cancer.

At that time, the cancer had not yet spread, and there was a great chance of a cure if surgery was performed in time.

The surgery will cost 20,000 yuan.

But Teacher Li has been teaching for twenty years, and all his savings are less than one-tenth of this amount.

"Where did all his money go?"

Yu Yin couldn't help but ask.

"It has been turned into children's tuition fees, meals, and textbooks."

Yu Wen said:

"It also became the windows and blackboards that the school repaired."

The doctor told Mr. Li that without surgery, he would only have six months to live at most.

Upon hearing the news, he was not afraid; instead, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Why?

"Because there are still six months left, he can finish teaching this graduating class."

The living room fell silent for a moment.

Yu Yin clearly couldn't understand why, when someone knew they only had six months to live, the first person they thought of was still their student.

Chen Jianjia slowly tightened her grip on the teacup.

She understood.

Teacher Li has lived for those children for twenty years.

So even at the end of his life, what he was most worried about was still them.

But his condition deteriorated faster than the doctors had predicted.

That day, Teacher Li knew that she didn't have much time left.

He had the children sit around his hospital bed so he could give them one last lesson beforehand.

He first talked about an article called "Diary of a Madman".

He hopes that when the children grow up, they will be able to think critically and see through the ignorance and apathy that everyone has long taken for granted.

He didn't want these children to grow up to be adults in the village.

I don't want them to continue living aimlessly and then pass on the same life to the next generation.

After finishing her explanation, Teacher Li began teaching physics to the children.

That's knowledge you'd only encounter in junior high.

But he knew that most of the children by his bedside might never have the chance to attend junior high school.

Therefore, he wanted to pass on this knowledge to them while he still had a little strength left.

He explained the three laws of mechanics.

1. An object will remain at rest or move in a straight line at a constant speed when it is not acted upon by an external force.

Second, changes in the state of motion of an object are related to the forces acting on it.

3. When two objects interact, the forces they exert on each other are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

These patterns were discovered hundreds of years ago by a great mind that has long since turned to dust.

Centuries later, these words were spoken by a dying village teacher in a thick Northwestern accent to a group of children who might never be able to continue their education.

The children couldn't understand.

Teacher Li then had them recite it.

Memorize it over and over again.

He said it doesn't matter if you don't understand now, as long as you remember it, you might understand it later.

There was no electricity in that dilapidated classroom; only a candle beside the hospital bed flickered in the cold night.

The children cried as they recited those cold, hard physical laws.

They urged the teacher to take a break.

But Teacher Li still let them continue.

Because he knew he didn't have time left.

The three laws of motion were the last things he could leave to these children.

The children's voices echoed continuously in the deep mountains.

As Teacher Li listened to their voices, she felt the last bit of strength in her body rapidly disappearing.

The flame of science and civilization he ignited in the hearts of children throughout his life was far too weak compared to the poverty, ignorance, and apathy that enveloped the entire mountain village.

Like the candle beside the hospital bed.

It cannot illuminate the entire mountain.

It couldn't even light up the entire classroom.

But it was still burning.

As long as it remains lit, darkness is not the only thing present here.

The children are still crying as they recite.

Amidst the child's voice, thick with local accent, the candlelight beside the hospital bed flickered slightly.

It's gone out.

Yu Wen stopped speaking.

Yu Yin lowered her head, her eyes already a little red.

She hoped that Teacher Li could survive, and that those children could leave the mountains.

But in the story, Teacher Li still died.

The mountain village remains unchanged.

The children's future remains bleak.

Upon hearing this, Chen Jianjia also assumed it was just a heavy and realistic story.

A teacher spent twenty years fighting poverty and ignorance, yet he died without truly changing that land.

But when Yu Wen spoke again, his voice suddenly became deep and expansive.

"And in the center of the Milky Way, 50,000 light-years from Earth, an interstellar war that has lasted for 20,000 years is also nearing its end."

Chen Jianjia slightly raised her head.

Yu Yin was also taken aback for a moment.

We were just telling the story of a dilapidated classroom in the northwestern mountains, how did we suddenly end up in the center of the Milky Way, 50,000 light-years away?