I, Yan Jiefang, will live to 2025 in this courtyard house.

Upon hearing this news, many students looked somber.

Yan Jiefang, on the other hand, didn't care at all.

He believes that with continued effort over a period of time, his grades will definitely improve significantly, and he will have no problem getting into the school he attends.

In the evening, the family sat down at the table for dinner.

In addition to the small steamed buns made from mixed grains, each person also received a wild vegetable dumpling today.

This stuff doesn't taste good either. It has a grassy and bitter taste, and after eating a few bites, your mouth will feel astringent. It's even worse than a whole grain cornbread!

But for Yan Jiekuang, who had tasted bitterness at a young age, something was better than nothing!

Yan Jiefang watched as he ate the two so-called foods one bite at a time.

Of the three brothers, Yan Jiecheng had already started working. Although he was severely oppressed by Yan Bugui, at least he still had a few yuan to eat lunch in the steel mill's canteen. The food in the canteen was real food, incomparable to the coarse grain buns and wild vegetable dumplings at home.

The two are not even on the same level.

Moreover, you can still see a little bit of oil in the large pot of food in the cafeteria.

Yan Jiefang himself goes without saying; with the help of the "golden finger" (a metaphor for a powerful, influential figure), he has achieved the freedom to eat meat buns, and can eat three buns a day until he's stuffed.

Although the variety of dishes is limited, there are very few places in the entire 49 cities that can surpass his in terms of food.

These days, even elderly people have to plan ahead if they want to eat braised pork.

Only Yan Jiekuang truly suffered.

Under Yan Bugui's scheme, he had nothing left but to avoid starvation.

Honestly, even someone as stingy as Pan Jing is at raising a child, it still saves a lot of money compared to raising a livestock!

The brothers were really unlucky to be born into the Yan family.

No wonder the Yan Bugui couple in the TV series didn't want to take care of any of their children; the reasons are obvious.

Being schemed against so ruthlessly, it's no wonder there's no family affection left.

Yan Jiefang secretly tossed his coarse grain buns and wild vegetable dumplings into his spatial storage, pretending that he had already finished eating them.

This afternoon, Yan Jiecheng kept his head down after get off work, as if he was thinking about something.

During this time, he also left home and appeared to have been to the middle courtyard or the backyard.

For some reason, I looked terrible when I got back.

During the meal, he looked up at Yan Bugui several times, as if he had something to say.

After a while, he couldn't hold back any longer and looked at Yan Bugui before speaking:

"Dad, I heard that someone in the factory's warehouse is transferring a permanent position, and I want to switch to working in the warehouse."

Upon hearing this, Yan Bugui continued to slowly chew on the mixture of coarse grain buns and wild vegetable dumplings, as if he were savoring some unparalleled delicacy.

She didn't react to what her eldest son said, as if she hadn't heard him.

Yan Jiecheng looked at his father with eager eyes.

He is currently an apprentice worker in the steel rolling mill workshop, where he has to move a large number of workpieces every day. He is not only exhausted, but also earns a low wage.

When I got home, the food was so bad and so little that I couldn't stand it anymore.

Apprentices in the workshop must work for three years before they can become full-time employees.

How could he possibly stand that?

Even if he worked for another year, let alone three years, he felt he would be exhausted to death.

If I were to transfer to the warehouse, I would still be a full-time employee. Not only would my salary increase to 32.5 yuan, but it would also be more respectable. Most importantly, it wouldn't be tiring at all. All I would have to do every day is keep a record of the goods entering and leaving the warehouse. It would be so much better than working myself to death like I am now!

But the key issue is that getting that position requires money, and he was almost penniless.

Originally, he wanted to borrow some money from Sha Zhu and Xu Damao.

As a result, they refused to lend him a single penny and even mocked him in his face!

It's really embarrassing.

As a high school graduate, he also had some sense of pride.

If the people in the courtyard knew what he was thinking, wouldn't they think to themselves: "Don't you have any self-awareness? Don't you know anything about your own family's reputation?"

Unable to borrow money from outside, he had no choice but to come back and borrow from the abacus expert.

He wasn't one of his two foolish younger brothers. He was old enough to remember things before the liberation, so he naturally knew what the situation was like at home.

While the Yan family might not be the richest in Compound 95, they are close enough.

The valuables and money stored at home are definitely worth no less than five thousand!

Yan Bugui chewed the little thing in his mouth hundreds of times, until it was completely chewed into a paste, before slowly swallowing it with the cornmeal porridge.

Time was almost up. He looked at his eldest son, who was full of disappointment and about to go back to his room, and nodded to himself: This is the effect I wanted!

He looked around before slowly speaking:

"You all know our family's situation. My monthly salary is only 27 yuan, and I have to support a whole family. You can imagine how difficult it is for us."

He turned his gaze to his eldest son.

"Let me think about this first. Tomorrow morning, after the rooster crows three times, you get up and come to the living room, and we'll discuss it further."

Sigh, our family is so poor. We've worried ourselves sick over you all. We hope you'll remember all the sacrifices your parents have made for you. When we're older, we'll try our best to help you out.

At this point, he shook his head and sighed, then slowly began to chew the cornbread in his hand again.

The three brothers shook their heads inwardly: "You old codger, are you still putting on an act? Do you really think I don't know our family's situation? You're just holding onto this small property ownership status for nothing, aren't you?"

The interior of the old courtyard house was somewhat dim, with poor lighting. After finishing his meal, Yan Jiefang took a book and went to the courtyard to study.

Normally, it's almost impossible to light lamps at the Yan family's house.

The children can only read more or do their homework in the yard.

After a while, Yan Jiekuang also took out a stool and his schoolbag, and squatted down not far away to do his homework.

The three Yan brothers were all diligent in their studies and achieved good grades.

If there were no issues with one's family background, the chances of attending a vocational school would be very high.

Such was the era; the eldest and second eldest could only attend high school, while the youngest, unable to escape the political movements, didn't even have the opportunity to attend high school and had to go to the countryside.

As anyone who has watched the TV series knows, the third brother, Yan Jiekuang, also suffered a lot in the countryside. When he returned, his face was full of bitterness, and he was a completely different person from when he was a child.

Yan Jiefang actually sympathized with the third brother, but he could only barely protect himself and couldn't help him at all, nor did he have that kind of saintly heart.

As for giving steamed buns to the third son?

You're completely overthinking it!

Don't they know what era we live in? Doing something like this is just mindless!

Your saintly heart will bring you a lot of trouble!

He would never do that.

Let's wait until the wind picks up and arrange a job for him.

By then, he must have already made a name for himself, so arranging a job for him would have been a trivial matter.

Although he had things on his mind, Yan Jiefang did not stop learning Russian.

In terms of academics, his biggest weakness right now is Russian.

After all, in his time, everyone learned English, and Russian was a minor language with few learners.

Fortunately, I chose the personal panel at the start to assist with learning, which was very simple.

Unlike attending classes, self-study can consistently improve proficiency by 1 point every hour.

Now that he has reached the maximum level in junior high school math, he spends most of his free time at home studying subjects like Chinese, politics, history, and Russian, which require gradual accumulation.

"Second brother, how do you do this problem?"

Yan Jiekuang came over with his homework to ask for help.

Yan Jiefang put down the textbook, took a look at it, and then began to explain.

Yan Jiekuang listened and nodded repeatedly, feeling that it was even clearer than what the teacher had explained.

Just as the two were studying, a fragrant aroma of oil wafted over. It turned out that He Yuzhu had returned with a lunchbox.