Chapter 52: A lesson in moral character

My father didn’t know how to read, but he knew numbers. He glanced at the test paper, his face softened a little, and he said, “When will you be able to do better? When your older sisters were your age, they got at least 95 points, if not a double hundred. It’s good that you know you got an 80, or I’d beat you to death.”

After that, my father handed me the exam paper. I breathed a sigh of relief. I had finally passed the exam.

But just then, someone came out of the house. Who could it be but the old man Jiang?

“Sanwa’s exam paper? Let me take a look. How many points did he get?” How come my cheap master has such good hearing?

I had no choice. He said he wanted to see it, so how could I not give it to him? With a feeling of being on the guillotine again, I sighed inwardly and handed the test paper over.

Old Jiang took my exam paper, leisurely unfolded it, and his brows furrowed slightly.

At this point, I was so nervous that I subconsciously decided to interrupt him.

“Master, why are you back?”

“I’m done.” The old man’s expression softened a little.

“Master, the grave has been moved?”

“Well…” With a long trailing tone, the old man had a smile on his face.

“Master, are you going to have dinner at my house tonight?”

“Yes…” the old man smiled.

“Master…” I was about to ask again.

My father interrupted me impatiently: “You little brat, why are you talking so much?”

My father was probably annoyed by me, so he shouted at me. My father hates it when children ask him questions. He probably thought it was rude that I kept pestering Jiang Laoren.

“Haha, it’s fine.” Old man Jiang cheerfully collected the exam papers, pinched them in his hand and didn’t give them back to me. He directly spoke out to stop my father.

Then he called my father and I to sit down at the stone table in the courtyard. My heart was pounding, and I was desperate to get the test back. My father, on the other hand, was confused. Wasn’t he supposed to be making dinner? My mother was taking a rest these two days, so he should be busy with dinner. Why was the old man who loved to eat so much still dragging him here? Was he going to have a chat?

“Sanwa…” the old man trailed off, calling my name.

“Eh…” I replied, a little shakily.

“Everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes we like to play around and neglect our work. But it’s good to be able to face up to your mistakes, and even better to be able to correct them. Sanwa, what kind of person is the most hateful after making a mistake?” Old man Jiang smiled.

“Needless to say? People who are stubborn and don’t admit their mistakes.” My father’s neck stiffened and this sentence came out. He hates people who are wrong and still argue back.

“That… ah… is…” I stammered, my palms sweating, and I had a bad feeling.

“I don’t think so. The most despicable thing is to make a mistake, think about evading it, not dare to face it, and choose to deceive. Especially for boys, honesty and integrity are the most valuable virtues. Those who deceive are worse than villains.” Old Jiang said slowly.

“Yes, yes, I hate liars the most.” My father agreed.

I was sweating profusely… and I was already planning to run away.

But my cheap master seemed to have read my mind, grabbed my shoulder and asked, “Sanwa, do you think your master is right?”

“Yes, yes, it’s even more true than what the teacher of moral education said.” The master’s hand was like iron tongs, I couldn’t move at all, let alone escape. I might as well flatter him a little at this time, maybe it would be better later. I am a very conscious person.

“Heh heh…” The old man smiled, and instead of letting go of me, he opened my exam papers.

First, the math paper.

“13 + 6 = 16, well, not bad.”

“5 + 7 = 13, smart.”

I was sweating profusely as I listened to him read out the answers. I didn’t know if I was right or wrong, but if I did, I wouldn’t have gotten such a low score. The problem was that I saw that the old man was reading out the answers to the questions I got wrong, with both eyes on me.

I was so clever all my life, but I couldn’t change the scores, and I couldn’t change the many crosses on the paper.

After putting the math paper aside, the old man took the Chinese paper.

“It’s noon on a day of plowing, sweat flows down the river. Hehehe…” Old Jiang laughed, and I shuddered. I cursed in my heart, “Teacher X is so hateful. What’s wrong with sweat flowing down the river?

I remember there was a river in the word.

“Please fill in the blanks according to the example. (Green and lush), hehe, good, you’re quite obedient. There are six of the same (green and lush) in the back!” At this point, the old man put the test paper down, slapped the table, grabbed me, and slammed me down on the table.

“Old Chen, bring me the bamboo strips.” Old Jiang was huffing and puffing.

My father didn’t even react. Nonsense, my father didn’t understand what the language paper was about. He could do elementary arithmetic, but he didn’t listen carefully either, and he didn’t understand whether the old man was praising me.

However, since he dared not disobey the old man, and since the old man’s tone was so stern, my father didn’t even think twice before handing the bamboo strip to the old man.

The old man pulled down my pants and with a ‘pop’ the bamboo stick hit my butt firmly: “You really have some skills, and you dare to lie!”

The bamboo strips fell continuously, and the force was really “even and moderate,” each blow was equally painful. I immediately started to cry, and the burning pain was even more uncomfortable than my father’s iron fist.

My father didn’t react at first, but when he heard that I had lied, he immediately became angry. He absolutely believed the old man.

Once the fire came up, my father immediately reacted, rolled up his sleeves, and the fist was about to come up.

I almost fainted when I saw this. Damn it, there’s no such thing as a ‘double blow’!

But the old man stopped my father with one hand, but the bamboo splints kept falling on my butt: “Don’t worry, this kid is evil. I’ll teach him a lesson, and you can teach him a lesson later. The master and the old man each counted their own lessons, and he couldn’t escape the fifty “bamboo splints.”

My father looked like he couldn’t vent his anger, and he was “indignant” next to him, but he accepted it.

The tragedy was that I had learned two pieces of unfortunate news. The first was that I was going to be spanked 50 times. The second was that after this spanking, there was another spanking waiting. As the saying goes, a short pain is better than a long one. You can’t do this…

The more I cried, the more miserable I felt, and I kept repeating to myself, “Red Army soldiers are not afraid of hardship, not afraid of hardship, just not afraid…”

My father knew that this was my habit. When I was being beaten and couldn’t escape, I would yell out “Red Army soldiers are not afraid of hardship and danger, not afraid of hardship and danger, just not afraid…” My father would often laugh at me.

But the old man didn’t budge an inch. He just said, “With your attitude, you’re not worthy to call yourself a Red Army soldier.” Then he beat me with the bamboo stick even more rhythmically.

My mother and two sisters had already been alerted and had come to the courtyard. They were shocked to see the old man beating me, and my enthusiastic father immediately showed them the exam paper.

“Master Jiang just read this and beat him up, saying he was a liar.” My father still hasn’t figured out what happened, but it doesn’t stop him from showing off and complaining.

My mother couldn’t see what was going on, but my two sisters were not vegetarians. After looking at it for a while, they saw the problem. When they saw what I had written on the exam paper, my straightforward eldest sister laughed out loud, while my second sister smiled with two dimples.

“Mom, Sanwa deserves to be beaten. He changed the score on the test paper. The mistakes on this test paper don’t match the score the teacher gave.” After my eldest sister finished laughing, she immediately pointed out the problem.

My second sister just smiled in silence, probably feeling both angry and amused at my behavior.

“What, you son of a bitch, you changed the score?” My father was angry again when he heard this, and rushed up to beat me, but he thought of what the old man Jiang had said and held back.

Finally, after the old man had finished spanking me, he calmly threw the bamboo strips aside. At this point, my buttocks were already swollen and red, and I was lying on the stone table, sobbing and not wanting to move at all.