Chapter 5 — Ten Children?

I bit my lip and bowed my head without answering. Tears soaked his collar. Chu Tranh stuffed the paper back into my hand and grabbed my shoulder forcefully.

“We are nine grown men, now all have earned money, have arms and legs.”

His voice is a bit hoarse.

"If so many of us work and die and still can't raise the only preschooler in the house, then aren't we spending all these years struggling in society in vain? Why do you still need these brothers for?"

She was still sitting in a rattan chair in the house, then slowly walked out. She looked at Elder Chu Tranh, who was full of stubbornness, then looked at me who was crying, and shook her head to correct him:

"Eldest, you're wrong. You guys are not raising her."

She walked in front of me and used her dry, thin but warm hand to wipe my tears.

“You are accompanying her.”

"Tuition money is the help you lend him. His life must be left to him to go on his own. How far he can go depends on his bravery."

“You can push it once at the beginning, that is the destiny of family members.”

08 In twelfth grade, the atmosphere in the house became more serious than ever. The family's life rhythm is adjusted according to my test schedule. Tran Thuc was afraid that the pressure of studying for the final year was too great and would cause me to not have enough nutrition, so every day he changed the food to nourish himself specifically. He copied all kinds of recipes from medicine books. Today, stew chicken soup with black cohosh, tomorrow cook pork brain porridge with walnuts. As a result, during a month of intense studying, not only was I not skinny, but I also gained more than three pounds due to overnutrition, and I could barely zip up my uniform. Mr. Ba refused all inter-provincial long-distance orders at night. He would rather earn less money and spend all his time taking the tram to school to pick me up every night after self-study. One time, I put an AP Physics exam on the table. Everyone gathered together, looking at the complex force analysis images and all kinds of formulas as if reading a sky book. Looking at each other, no one could understand what was written. Chu Tranh carefully pointed to the number "125" written in red pen in the right corner of the exam, and hesitantly asked:

"An An, the maximum score is 150, right? With this score can you go to university?"

I laughed and nodded:

"Maybe. This is an advanced test, this score is very high."

Hearing the affirmative answer, several men standing around simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief, their tense shoulders relaxing.

“If you can learn, you can learn.”

They never asked me to pass the Thanh Hoa exam, nor did they even ask me to definitely enter any prestigious university. In their eyes, just having books to study and a school to go to is extremely gratifying. In the last month before the exam, because I kept staying up late and my nerves were always tense, I started losing sleep. She detected my anxiety. That evening, she brought a cup of hot milk into the room. She did not say things like "you must pass" or "the whole family depends on you". She just held my hand and calmly told me in advance:

"An An, don't be afraid. Whatever school we can take, we'll study there. Even if we really don't do well, the sky won't fall."

"Remember, if you don't do well on the exam, you can still go home to eat. There's always an extra pair of chopsticks in the house for you."

Because there is no one Who placed the hope of changing my life on my shoulders like a mountain, because they gave me the widest path of retreat, so facing the harshest exam, I was able to let go of all burdens, calmly and leisurely prepare. ## 09 One day before the university entrance exam, the whole family had an unprecedented anxiety attack. But it's not me who's worried, it's my nine brothers. They are a hundred times more stressed than the person who is about to enter the exam room, which is me. Chu Tranh took the exam card out of the plastic bag and checked it ten times, afraid that the name and photo above would suddenly disappear. In the end I had to forcefully lock it in a drawer. Mr. Ba borrowed a car and drove three times in the hottest afternoon on the route from home to the test site, carefully taking note of where there were red lights, where there might be traffic jams, and where there was shade to park. Mr. Chin bought a handful of the most expensive specialized pencils, carefully sharpened each one and put it in a transparent pencil bag. After putting it in, he took it out and looked at it again under the light, worried that the tip of the pen was not sharp enough and would affect the speed of writing, but was afraid that it was too sharp and would tear the answer sheet. All evening, I was surrounded by them. Just taking a sip of water, three people handed me the cup, making me suffocated and unable to breathe. Finally, I couldn't hold on any longer and kicked everyone out of the room. On the morning of the exam, the guard fence outside the school was extended very long. Many other contestants' parents wore red cheongsams, implying a "victorious start", or held up exaggerated banners and shouted slogans. My brothers don't do those ostentatious things. But today, it all came. They don't wear the same outfit. Some people didn't even have time to change their clothes. On Chu Tranh's hand there were still black oil stains that could not be washed off after repairing the car. Tran Thuc's white shirt carried the faint smell of kitchen smoke. Mr. Tam, who had just finished his night shift, rushed over, his eyes filled with red blood from fatigue. They stood at different heights under a large tree outside the exam venue, not talking, nor pushing in front, just quietly watching my back as I lined up to enter the school. I held a transparent document bag. Before stepping through the guard fence, I stopped and turned my head to look. In the middle of the crowd, nine men simultaneously raised their hands to wave at me as if they had reached a consensus before. At that moment, the summer wind blew. My heart felt strangely peaceful, without any fear. ## 10 The afternoon score announcement was similar to the opening session. A few days later, with the help of my teachers and the admissions team, I seriously compared schools and majors, finally placing Tsinghua University as my first choice. In July, I logged into the system to look up my admission results again. This time, four words actually appeared on the screen: 【Tsinghua University.】 Elder Zhou Zheng looked at the results for a long time before finally daring to say to the neighbor in the alley:

“Determined.”

“My An An actually became a Thanh Hoa student.”

In the old main house, the scene of nine men hugging each other and sobbing recurred.