The quality of teaching in the town's junior high school was not very good. I just happened to barely make it into this high school.

When I was in junior high, I was often in the top five of my class. However, in the first exam in high school, I ranked fifth from the bottom.

I started to study twice as hard, paying full attention in class, and often finishing the homework assigned by the teacher promptly.

I didn't have money to buy extra exercise books, so I borrowed them from other classmates to study. I would write down the answers on scratch paper, and if I didn't understand a question, I would copy it down to ask the teacher.

I was the least popular person in the class, with hardly any friends. They didn't like to play with me because they found me boring.

I couldn't understand the celebrities they talked about, nor did I understand the significance of collecting postcards of the same person. They all said I was a country bumpkin living in a village without internet access.

I never argued back because I did indeed live in a village where most people used old-fashioned phones, and smartphones were rare.

I have never watched the TV at home because it belongs to my younger brother.

Before every holiday, everyone would make plans to go out together, decide when and where to meet, but no one would invite me.

I didn't care if they wanted to play with me or not. I only knew that if my grades didn't improve, I would have no future.

During each holiday, it was the best time for me to borrow extra exercise books because apart from the homework assigned by the teachers, hardly anyone would do those extra exercises.

Relying on these, I went from being fifth from the bottom to being in the top twenty, top ten, top five of the class, and top twenty of the grade.

Every time I returned home for the holidays, my mom would ask about my grades. The answer was always that I had made progress or maintained my position in the top twenty of the grade without falling back. My mom would always leave my room feeling disappointed.

In fact, in the second semester of my junior year, my dad had considered asking me to drop out of school.

Because at that time, my younger brother wanted a computer, but we couldn't afford it.

Perhaps because they themselves felt it wasn't right, my mom approached me with a tone of negotiation at that time.

I pointed to the table full of books and said to her, "You said back then that as long as my grades were good, you would never mention me dropping out of school. Are you now going back on your word?"

"If you don't let me go to school now, then the tuition fees paid for the past year will be wasted, and all the books I've read for over a year will be for nothing. In the end, I will still be a junior high school graduate. You will lose money and gain nothing."

My mom silently closed the door at that time and never brought up the matter again.