After being reborn, I have seven older sisters.

After Chunsheng finished his training and tidied everything up,

To his surprise, he found that not only Song Hongqin, but also Song Guangliang, were waiting for him on the dirt road opposite the threshing ground.

Upon seeing Chunsheng arrive, Song Guangliang asked eagerly, "I just saw Zhang Junwu teaching you martial arts. How long have you been learning from him?"

"It won't last long, just two or three days!"

Song Guangliang nodded. "Does he teach you here every day?"

Chunsheng shook his head. "Except for Sunday mornings, he should come every day."

Song Guangliang looked at Chunsheng with envy. "I'd heard that our village's militia captain knew martial arts. It's true! What did he teach you?"

"Just some basic punches and kicks!"

"What time do you usually get up in the morning to train here?"

"Six o'clock, I get up at six o'clock every morning!"

Chunsheng immediately blurted out his daily schedule starting tomorrow.

Upon hearing this wake-up time, both Song Guangliang and Song Hongqin couldn't help but click their tongues in amazement.

Song Guangliang had originally thought that he should ask his father to talk to Zhang Junwu and ask him to learn martial arts with him as well.

But when he heard about the wake-up time, he backed out.

Even getting up at 7 a.m. to go to school every morning was unbearable, let alone getting up at 6 a.m. to practice martial arts on the threshing ground.

Thinking about it, I felt that it could cost him his life.

During the morning "Daily Reading" session, Chinese teacher Wang Tianhe came to the classroom, called Chunsheng and Song Hongqin to his office, smiled at them, and asked them questions.

"How's your essay preparation for the competition coming along?"

After thinking for a moment, Hongqin replied, "I've already started writing, but I'm not even halfway done yet!"

Chunsheng immediately chimed in, "I'm about halfway through writing it, just like Hongqin."

In fact, Chunsheng had already finished the first draft last night. The reason he said he hadn't finished was because he didn't want to embarrass Hongqin.

After hearing their answers, Wang Tianhe nodded first, then hesitated before saying, "You all need to speed things up!"

"I just received news that the school leaders have moved up the deadline for submitting essays; they need to collect them all by the end of school on Thursday!"

Upon hearing the news, Chunsheng remained largely unfazed, but Hongqin immediately panicked. "What! It's due tomorrow?"

Wang Tianhe sighed and said, "There's nothing we can do! Apparently, it's an order issued by the district education commission, requiring schools in every county in the entire Weibei region to select essays for the competition in advance."

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Chunsheng asked, somewhat puzzled.

Wang Tianhe shook his head. "Actually, it's not that we're in a hurry. We just want to give the teachers and education bureau leaders in the area more time to carefully evaluate the essays submitted for this competition."

When Hongqin learned that the deadline had been moved up for this reason, she immediately expressed her different opinion: "But if it's moved up, the students will have less time to create, which could potentially affect the overall quality of the essays in this competition!"

Wang Tianhe immediately laughed and said, "It's not that serious!"

"As the saying goes, 'When there are policies from above, there are countermeasures from below'! You don't need to worry about not finishing your writing."

"I'll go see your homeroom teacher in a bit and ask her to think of a way to free up all the time from this morning until the end of school tomorrow specifically for you to prepare for this essay competition!"

Hongqin smiled instantly when she heard Wang Tianhe's idea.

Seeing that the two of them didn't offer any further opinions, Wang Tianhe breathed a slight sigh of relief, as if he had just completed an important task, and said, "Alright, it's settled then. You two go back to the classroom first, and I'll go find your homeroom teacher in a bit."

Soon, before the 30-minute "Daily Reading" session was over, Li Yufeng arrived.

As soon as she appeared, she immediately gestured to Hongqin and Chunsheng, calling them out of the classroom.

"Ms. Wang just spoke to me and said that the deadline for your essay competition has been moved up. You need to submit your completed essays to school by the end of tomorrow at the latest. Can you finish writing them in such a short time?"

The two men looked concerned when they saw Li Yufeng speaking.

They all nodded immediately.

Li Yufeng smiled. "Okay, as long as you finish it! This is the first time the province has held such an essay competition. I bet all the top high schools in the provincial capital already knew about it and started preparing in advance!"

"So what I mean is, don't put too much pressure on yourselves, just perform at your usual level!"

Chunsheng understood that what their homeroom teacher, Li Yufeng, meant was not only to tell them not to put too much pressure on themselves, but also to imply that friendship comes first and competition second.

Chunsheng was well aware of how fierce this essay competition was. To stand out among hundreds of thousands of students in thousands of middle schools across the province was much harder than getting into university.

The college admission rate isn't that low. Once the college entrance examination is reinstated at the end of the year, the number of people admitted to universities in the province each year will be at least several thousand, if not tens of thousands.

But in this essay competition, the total number of people who won awards was only a dozen or so!

"Okay, I just discussed it with Teacher Wang. You two can skip all your classes today and tomorrow morning. Stay home and prepare your competition essays. Come to school tomorrow afternoon!"

After hearing Li Yufeng's arrangements, Hongqin first glanced at Chunsheng, then immediately asked, "Since we're not teaching the other teachers' classes, shouldn't we inform the substitute teachers?"

"You all just stay home and prepare for your essays; I'll have Hu Aimin handle everything else!"

As soon as the two entered the classroom, Hu Aimin, who was standing on the podium reading the newspaper, was immediately called out by Li Yufeng...

After leaving the school gate with his backpack, Chunsheng suddenly remembered something: he hadn't finished reading Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" yet!

If he waited until he had finished reading the whole thing before telling Hongqin about it, there would obviously not be enough time. Fortunately, he already knew the entire narrative structure and selling points of the novel.

So he immediately told Hongqin about it.

Hongqin immediately laughed and said, "It's alright, it's alright, just tell me what you've read!"

When Hongqin listened to Chunsheng tell her the story of "Journey to the Center of the Earth," she was instantly stunned by the author's bold imagination.

Although she had read a few foreign novels before, they were almost all about revolution. This was the first time she had ever read a novel with such a vivid imagination.

However, after Chunsheng finished explaining everything to her, Hongqin couldn't help but frown. "It's quite interesting, but it feels very distant from our lives. I doubt anyone would write an essay like this in this writing competition!"

Chunsheng nodded and smiled, "Actually, I think Teacher Li's original intention in having us read this novel was just to broaden our horizons, not to imitate other people's novels."

"Furthermore, our living environments and educational backgrounds are completely different from the author's. If someone were to write such an imaginative work, the judges might not necessarily like it!"