"...Hm?"
Iver was slightly surprised when he heard that. "Teach you to read?"
"Yes." Hai Na looked nostalgic and delighted. "In our village, very few people were educated.
"The entire Mubay County had only a little over three hundred thousand people. Most of them were herders. There was only one proper city; the rest were towns and villages. Eagle Cape Village had fewer than a thousand people, and there were slightly more cattle herders than sheep herders. Farmers usually grew potatoes and turnips, though some occasionally grew ginger to make money.
"There were no factories or tall buildings in our village. The tallest building was only three stories high, and we did not even have a middle school. I attended middle school in another town in Mubay County. The most famous educated person in our area was Grandpa Jacob.
"He had been a reporter in Bagpipe Town. Later, he left the newspaper and became a freelance writer. Bagpipe Town was very close to our village. Although it had a population of only a little over five thousand, it received a great many tourists. There were excellent trout and salmon to fish for there, and the scenery was beautiful. When people from Glass Island said they were 'going on vacation in the countryside,' they usually meant one of the few notable towns in Mubay County, including Bagpipe Town.
"I attended middle school in Bagpipe Town. On weekends, I could even easily run back to the village. But later, Mother said that wasted too many pairs of shoes, so I stopped going back.
"My favorite thing to do back then was visit the Train Station and watch people board and disembark from the trains. I thought it was amazing. Once you boarded a train, it was as if you had entered another