Over the Mountain

Title: The silent girl asked me: Teacher, will you leave? --- When I was 22 years old, I rejected the offer of an annual salary of 250,000 yuan in Shenzhen and went to teach in a mountain village in Guizhou. My mother said on the phone: If you dare to go, I will not recognize you as my daughter. I went anyway. --- There was a girl there who never spoke, named Lu Xiaomi. She is nine years old, has never been out of the mountains, has never been to school, and has not spoken a word in three years. In the first class, she walked to the blackboard and drew a bird flying over one mountain and another. Two words were written next to it: Not leaving. She asked me: Teacher, if you leave, don't let us like you. --- There was a boy named Lu Yuan who made a knife on his wrist. He thought the last teacher left because of him. He put a note in the book: Can you see what I want to say? I replied to him: I can see it. Because you don't speak with your eyes, you speak with your heart. --- There was a group of women there who knew how to make batik but no one wanted them, named Ayun, Xiaomao's mother, and Xiaomi's grandma. They asked: What are you planning? I said: I hope you can make money, and I hope you won't be afraid if your men leave. --- Three years later. There is a well. The whole village pooled their money to dig a well, and it was called "Teacher Zhang's Well". There is a store. Batik went from being undemanding to selling thousands of pieces a month. Children can write poems. That wall was covered with crooked poems: "The bird flew over the mountain, but the mountain did not keep it." "I don't want to fly away, and I don't want to stay. I want to become a mountain." "The wind in the mountains is sweet. Because my mother is here." On the day when my teaching period expired, there was a piece of paper taped to the classroom door: "Teacher Zhang, stay. - All students" Thirty-seven names. Thirty-seven children. I didn't leave. Not because I'm needed there. It's because I became home there. --- "Over the Mountain", a story about waiting and flying. Waiting for you to open it, waiting for you to finish reading, waiting for you to ask yourself: What's on the other side of the mountain? --- The full text is 68,700 words, and is exclusively published in Jinjiang Literature City. Updated every night at 8pm. Purpose: Through volunteer teaching stories, show the growth and dreams of rural children and convey the power of love and hope.