Colorful years

Spring seemed to arrive earlier than usual in 1973. While the sounds of firecrackers from the Spring Festival were still echoing in people's ears, the breath of spring had already quietly spread. The earth gradually awoke from its slumber, and all things burst forth with vitality.

The osmanthus tree, which has withstood a century of wind and rain, also welcomes the budding of new life in this early spring. Having survived the long and harsh winter, it begins to slowly sprout tender green buds, as if showing the world its tenacious vitality. These buds, like little green elves, adorn the ancient branches, filling the entire osmanthus tree with life and vitality.

In the early morning, sunlight filters through the dappled leaves, casting patches of golden light on the ground.

After finishing breakfast, Congcong, as usual, slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and walked briskly to the osmanthus tree.

He reached out his little hand and gently stroked the wrinkled tree trunk, which looked as if it had been sculpted by time, his eyes revealing affection and fondness.

Then, he happily said to the osmanthus tree, "I'm going to junior high school!" A bright smile bloomed on his tender face, a smile that not only showed his anticipation for the new semester, but also contained his boundless longing and hope for the future.

There were only two classes in the first year of junior high school, and Congcong was assigned to Class 19. Each class had fifty students from various villages and families.

When Congcong stepped into the classroom, the first thing he noticed was the change in the people in the room. Some familiar faces were gone, replaced by many unfamiliar classmates.

After questioning his younger sister, San San, he learned that the missing classmates were all older girls who had chosen to return home to work in agriculture, thus bidding farewell to school life. The new, unfamiliar faces were students from other primary schools in different brigades. Everyone joined this new group with curiosity and excitement.

The learning experience in junior high school is drastically different from that in elementary school. The addition of several new courses, such as physics, chemistry, history, geography, English, and politics, has significantly increased the already heavy academic burden.

For most students, if they have not laid a solid foundation in elementary school and their intellectual level is relatively low, then they will undoubtedly face many difficulties and huge challenges in adapting to and successfully completing new learning tasks when faced with such a sudden influx of subjects.

However, all of this was not a problem for Congcong at all. You see, although his brilliant brain had suffered two terrifying, life-threatening traumas at the ages of five and nine, his intelligence and memory still far surpassed those of his peers.

Even more surprisingly, Congcong is actually a mysterious time traveler, and everything he is experiencing now is simply a replay of his past life.

This is why Congcong finds learning exceptionally easy and effortless. In any subject, he only needs to concentrate on listening to the teacher's explanation for a short period of ten to twenty minutes.

Taking Chinese as an example, he only needs to memorize the accurate pronunciation of new characters and the correct stroke order; as for other subjects, he only needs to focus on memorizing the relevant important concepts and various formulas and theorems.

Once he steps out of the school gates, he doesn't even need to look through those heavy textbooks again.

In this way, Congcong naturally has plenty of free time to do whatever he wants, and he can do whatever he wants with things that he personally considers to be of great value and significance.

The memories from his previous life matched perfectly. Among the many teachers, there were indeed several who were elementary school teachers that Congcong had known before. As students progressed to higher grades, these teachers were transferred to middle schools to continue teaching. This situation was a true reflection of the teacher resources allocation in rural areas at that time.

At this very moment, Mr. Li, the second important mentor in Congcong's life, arrived as if by destiny, and his appearance perfectly matched the memories of his past life. He then officially appeared, taking on the important responsibilities of being Congcong's homeroom teacher and Chinese language teacher.