The week after she met the old man, her mother received a call from Director Qi's wife at work. She went to the city library to retrieve her special reading pass. In addition, the old man had instructed Jiang Zhihan that his heart and lung functions needed to be strengthened. Other than breathing exercises, swimming was the best way to exercise. The old man managed to get a monthly ticket to the city's gymnasium and swimming pool. There was the only standard swimming lane in the city, and it was not completely open to the public for three days.
All of a sudden, Jiang Zhihan's days became busy. He went to the library to read books, went to the gym to swim, and exercised. When he had free time, he would experience the basic breathing exercises and practice the basic skills of the squat.
Other than three meals, sleep, and time on the road, Jiang Zhihan basically used the rest of his time to the extreme. Whatever 8 PM TV series, novels, or boring magazines had long disappeared from his daily life. Counting on his fingers, he spent fifteen to sixteen hours doing these things a day.
Thinking back to the past summer holidays, Jiang Zhihan remembered how boring life was. Every day passed very slowly, and he often had to watch television, sleep, and read boring magazines to fill it up. At that time, a day's worth of meaningful activities should be less than an hour. 16 hours against one hour, wouldn't that be equivalent to piling up all the things from the previous 16 summers into one summer? Thinking of this, Jiang Zhihan couldn't help but feel a sense of accomplishment.
Jiang Zhihan's parents were indeed surprised that Jiang Zhihan had become so busy during the holidays, but they thought that reading and exercising was not a bad thing. It should be better than being a shut-in at home all day, so they did not interfere.
Jiang Zhihan's EQ for social interaction had indeed increased quite a bit. On the first day of his visit to the library, he first found his mother's office number and called Division Chief Qi's home to invite his son to go with him. As expected, Xiao Qi said that he had to attend extra lessons and couldn't go. Jiang Zhihan doubted that he was really interested in taking a half-hour bus ride from his home in the suburbs to the library. However, since Director Qi had mentioned it, he had to do it.
When they arrived at the library, they could enter directly with the proper documents. Jiang Zhihan still asked around for Director Qi's wife's office and went up to thank her. That day at home, Auntie Feng had been polite and cold, but Jiang Zhihan didn't mind. After all, his mother and Director Qi had gone through thick and thin together to a certain extent, but his wife did not know his family at all. In a place like China where the sense of official position was very strong, it was already quite rare to show the most basic etiquette to an old friend of her husband who had a worker background.
Jiang Zhihan didn't expect a warm reception, but he wanted to be polite. After all, he was looking forward to this special reading room.
Jiang Zhihan's middle school had a small library, but the books were few and mostly old. His mother's factory was considered a medium-sized state-owned enterprise. The library collection was much larger than the school's, but it was basically all entertainment books that catered to the workers.
The general library card of the city library could only access a part of the open collection, which was filled with Soviet books from the 1950s and 1960s and domestic revolutionary books from the 1970s. In this era, it was not a luxury that ordinary people could have to come into contact with the freshest things and understand the international trends and classic books.
The disparity in information largely determined that those who had the information had an unparalleled advantage. Jiang Zhihan, who was not yet 17 years old, naturally could not think so far ahead. He only instinctively knew that if he wanted to see further than others, to be the fish that jumped out of the water, then he first had to come into contact with more new things than most people.
Jiang Zhihan was a little surprised by Auntie Feng's warm reception. After all, she was a college student who majored in library studies. Auntie Feng roughly explained to Jiang Zhihan about the classification of the library and how to search for the information she wanted as soon as possible. She also asked Jiang Zhihan about his interest in reading.
Jiang Zhihan replied that he did not have a specific goal for the time being, but he hoped that he could lock onto some special areas through some preliminary reading.
Therefore, Auntie Feng briefly introduced the difference between extensive reading and intensive reading, and how to quickly scan and expand the scope of reading by reading the index, introduction, foreword, and even the title of the chapter.
Auntie Feng told Jiang Zhihan that there was a common misconception in school education, which was that one should not read any book in one gulp. One had to read it carefully, page by page, line by line, word by word, to understand it. In fact, efficient reading must be a combination of extensive reading and intensive reading. Auntie Feng rambled on and on with Jiang Zhihan for half an hour until someone told her that she had something to do. Before she left, she told Jiang Zhihan to come and find her if he needed anything.
Jiang Zhihan did not know that the treatment that surprised him today came from a conversation between husband and wife after he left that day.
Director Qi told his wife that if Jiang Zhihan went to the library to look for her, she had to be as warm and considerate as possible.
Although the director's wife agreed, it was obvious that she did not think much of a child who was studying in middle school and had no background being valued by her husband.
Hence, Division Chief Quinn said,"I don't dare to say for sure whether Jiang Zhihan will be successful in the future. However, at his age, he already knew about human affairs. He was rigorous and logical in his speech, and he had a wide range of knowledge. More importantly, he had a calm temperament and a mature personality. This was considered an anomaly. People say that children from poor families are the ones who take care of their families early, but I know a thing or two about Li Rongrong's family. Her family, including her father's wife, had been workers for generations and had been rooted in the city for a long time. There was only one child at home, so he naturally took care of him in every possible way. Although his financial situation was limited, he did not have to worry about food and clothing. He should not have suffered any major grievances since he was young. It would be good enough for such a child to be sensible enough to study hard and strive to get into a key university. However, this child seemed to have already planned his long-term life. I think that whether a person succeeds or not, what is more important than hard work and talent is the ability to judge the situation and be able to see through the world. Our generation has gone through hardships and is far more mature than our son's generation. However, even you and I were still muddle-headed when we were sixteen or seventeen years old. We only began to plan our lives at 20, and we only slowly understood the world at 30. In this aspect, Jiang Zhihan was terrifyingly mature and had great potential. However, this was not the main thing. After all, the future depended on his luck. "Xiao Xiao will be attending high school next year. No matter how his grades are, I plan to transfer him to a key high school in the city. Seventh High School is the best choice. It's relatively easier to get into than top-notch high schools like No.1 High School and No.5 High School. It's also the closest to our municipal office building. When the time came, he would take a sum of money to rent a house in the city. The family could live in the city during the week and come back here during the weekends. When we talked about my trip to Japan, Italy, and the United States today, Jiang Zhihan talked non-stop about things that Xiao Xiao was interested in, such as military and football. I think Xiao Xiao was very convinced. My plan is to let them have more opportunities to influence Jiang Zhihan. Xiao is becoming more and more disobedient to our words. It's not enough to rely on strict discipline. Children of this age are very rebellious during puberty. Coupled with the generation gap, some of our jobs are difficult to do. If he had a peer that could convince him and set an example, the effect might be much better.”
Auntie Feng replied,"I heard that Jiang Zhihan's results are above average. He's not the best role model."”
"It's not that I want to criticize you, but as mothers, you see top students every day. I was never the best student back then, so why am I doing better than the others now? Perhaps Jiang Zhihan said this today to make me happy, but this is the truth. You have a huge misunderstanding. You will benefit the most if you are with the children with the best grades. Wrong! Some of the top students are bookworms, and some are smart but arrogant and ignorant. What can our son learn from them? Would he suddenly become 120% hardworking? Most likely not, and he might even be resistant. With Xiao Xiao's foundation and talent, it was unrealistic to expect him to become one of the top five or ten students in high school. We don't need that either. As long as he can rely on his own hard work to get into the basic score line of Zhongzhou University, I'm confident that I can get him into the best major. Before I retire, I still have time to help him contact a good unit. How far he can go in the future depends on his hard work, but as long as he can do this, he can basically be guaranteed to have no worries for his life. As parents, we can rest assured. Therefore, it's easy for you to give Jiang Zhihan a small favor today. Tomorrow, he might be able to repay your kindness and let your precious son no longer muddle through his days.”
Aunt Feng had always trusted her husband, so she agreed readily.
Jiang Zhihan had been in the special reading room of the library for two weeks. He only took a look at the recording room. It was relatively crowded because there were the latest foreign movies, television shows, and music videos. However, that was not what he was interested in. He spent a few hours in the foreign language reading room every day. Because his English foundation was not good enough, Jiang Zhihan seemed to be having a hard time reading and his reading speed was very slow. In Jiang Zhihan's plan, the first stage was to read extensively. He wanted to find something that interested him and was worth investing a lot of time in.
After two weeks of reading, Jiang Zhihan had a rough idea. Arts and philosophy didn't match his personality. It was fine if he knew a little about it and had something to talk about, but he didn't seem to be cut out for it. He slowly focused his reading interest on two areas: One was science knowledge and their engineering applications, and the other was economics and financial management.
Of course, he couldn't understand the mathematics, physics, and chemistry books that were too in-depth in a short period of time. If he was determined to take that path, university was the real stage of learning and training. Jiang Zhihan mainly wanted to understand the application of the latest technology and what was the current hot topic and focus.
In the past few days, he had quickly read a lot of things, including a set of popular science works that talked about the historical materials of classical physics and chemistry from the heyday of the 17th to the 19th century, biographies of several masters, and the latest industrial hot topics in the electronic magazine. Whether it was the pinnacle of physics in the 19th century or the rise of personal computers and semiconductor products, Jiang Zhihan's blood boiled.
China's reform and opening up had a history of about ten years, but for the inland city of Zhongzhou, the transformation of state-owned enterprises was still in the initial stage, and the circulation of small businesses was not developed, let alone the formation and take-off of high-tech enterprises.
Although everything was still far away from his own world, Jiang Zhihan felt that he was like a frog at the bottom of a well who had finally broken free from his shackles and could finally see the magnificent starry sky. Although the starry sky was far away, sometimes just looking at it was also a kind of pleasure and a kind of privilege. From the scientific revolution of the 17th century to the new industrial revolution of the 20th century, when Jiang Zhihan raised his head to look out of the window on many days when the sun was setting in the west, he would have the illusion that one day here was a hundred years in the world.
The reading room opened at 10 pm and closed at 6 pm. According to Jiang Zhihan's schedule, he would train and practice from 5 to 10 in the morning, then stay in the library until closing time. The time at night was divided equally between reading and practicing.
With Auntie Feng's care, he could register to take a book home every day, but he had to return it the next morning. Jiang Zhihan felt that his breathing practice had improved quite a bit, and he was secretly proud of his talent. With the practice of breathing, he felt refreshed even after resting for five hours a day. With the results, he was especially interested in practicing. Not only did he practice the martial-art squat, but he also practiced diligently before he went to bed and when he was reading. Some things, the more you tasted the sweetness, the more motivated you would be. This was the true reflection of Jiang Zhihan now.
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]