Chapter 72
◎A Novel Experience◎
The several universities in the capital happened to start their school year these few days, and a lot of people had gathered at the school gates.
Capital University stood in the golden sunlight. The gray stone gate pillars were majestic and heavy. Two stone lion statues were coiled in front of the gate. Although they had gone through the years, they were still majestic. The blue plaque with the gilt words “Capital University” shone in the sunlight. The carved iron railings extending from both sides of the gate stretched into the distance, exuding solemnity and grandeur.
Stepping into the campus, the first thing that came into view was a straight and wide sycamore avenue. The campus lake was sparkling, and a stone bridge spanned the green water. The weeping willows gently brushed the surface of the lake. The red-walled, gray-tiled teaching buildings and the green climbing ivy complemented each other, exuding a steady and vigorous academic atmosphere everywhere.
Just thinking that she would be studying at such a century-old institution with a profound foundation for the next four years, Tangtang’s originally calm heart couldn’t help but stir again.
After getting off the school bus, under the guidance of the teachers in charge of receiving new students, Tangtang went to queue up for the admission procedures. After registering all kinds of information, she received her dormitory key.
Their dormitory was on the third floor. This dormitory building looked quite old. The white outer walls were painted with lime, and some parts had already peeled off, revealing the mottled wall. A lush climbing ivy was climbing on it. A green shade of camphor trees was cast in front of the iron gate of the dormitory.
When she arrived at the dormitory, a roommate had already arrived and was packing her things. Tangtang greeted her new roommate. The dormitory was a six-person room, with three bunk beds. In the middle were six single desks pushed together. One of the desks already had things on it. Tangtang looked at the remaining five beds and finally chose a lower bunk by the window.
Su Juesheng helped his sister unpack her luggage. After wiping the bed board with a rag, he shook out the rolled-up straw mat and spread it on the wooden plank bed. He then pulled out the cotton mattress from the sack and spread a light blue floral bedsheet on it. The quilt was folded into a square and placed against the corner of the wall.
After doing all this, he helped Tangtang wipe the desk clean. The enamel mugs, washbasins, and thermoses were all placed in a fixed corner of the dormitory.
Watching Su Juesheng do all this, Tangtang felt a warm current flowing in her heart. Although her brother was usually a chatterbox, he was now acting very much like an older brother. Tangtang remembered the year they had just started primary school. Her mother had sent them to the door and had told him to take good care of his sister in the future.
For so many years, her brother had always taken good care of her. If anyone bullied her, he would always be the first to stand up for her.
For all her strange and eccentric ideas, although he would say that he disliked and rejected them, he would always follow her and complete them with her.
After a while, the other people in the dormitory also arrived. Everyone got to know each other. There were six people in total. The oldest was Liang Cuixia, who was thirty-two this year. Her husband and two children had come with her. She had dark skin and was wearing a set of blue cloth clothes that were not evenly dyed. There were traces of labor all over her body. According to her, she was a high school graduate of the class of ’68. After graduation, she had gone to the Heilongjiang farm to work as an educated youth. Her husband was also an educated youth who had gone with her.
The second was Pan Yanmei. She was twenty-eight this year and was a female worker at a state-run spinning mill in Suzhou. She already had a stable boyfriend but was not yet married.
The third was Li Ping. She was twenty-two this year, but she was not in the same department as Tangtang and the others. She was in the management department.
The fourth was Chen Xiaohui. She was twenty years old and from the provincial capital of S province. It was said that her parents were both cadres. From her clothing, she should be the one with the best conditions among them. She was wearing a set of fashionable ready-made clothes bought from a state-run store and was even wearing a pair of small leather shoes. In her suitcase were shampoo, face cream, lipstick, and even some well-known cosmetics. Perhaps because her family’s conditions were good and she was also ambitious, she exuded an air of arrogance and looked down on Tangtang and the others who came from small, rural places.
Tangtang was ranked fifth among them. In terms of appearance, Tangtang was undoubtedly the most outstanding among these few people, but her clothes were really rustic.
Although she had tried her best to be presentable when she went out, this set of clothes was still made by her mother a month in advance. But the bulky and thick apricot-pink cotton coat, paired with dark blue cotton trousers, handmade cloth shoes, and the temperament that was out of place with this big city, all indicated that she was from the countryside.
It was only after Tangtang arrived in the capital that she realized that it was no longer fashionable to buy cloth and make your own clothes. Instead, people would directly buy the fashionable ready-made clothes from the state-run stores.
There was another younger girl named Dong Shuqing, from Qian province. She was the seventh child after six older brothers. She had a very quiet personality and was a month younger than Tangtang.
They were mainly divided into three types. Tangtang, Liang Cuixia, and Dong Shuqing looked like they were from the countryside, with a reserved, rustic air. There were also people like Chen Xiaohui and Pan Yanmei who clearly looked like city people, dressed fashionably and with an air of superiority. And there were also people like Li Ping who were from the urban-rural fringe, not rustic but not fashionable either.
Because they were the first batch of candidates after the restoration of the college entrance examination, the age gap was also very large. They came from all over the country and all spoke with their own provincial accents. After talking for a while, Tangtang still had to accompany her brother to the University of Transportation to register, so she left first.
Just as she came out of the girls’ dormitory, Tangtang saw a familiar figure. The two sisters couldn’t help but hug each other as soon as they met.
Capital Medical University had started a week earlier than them, so Wani had set off a week ago.
“I figured you would be arriving in the next day or two. I didn’t see anyone at the station, so I thought you might have already arrived at the school, so I came directly to find you,” Wani said excitedly.
“Have you both finished the admission procedures?”
“I’ve already finished. Brother Juesheng helped me pack my luggage. I’m going to accompany my brother to Capital University of Transportation to register now.”
“Then let’s go together. After we’ve finished the procedures, I’ll treat you two to a meal.” Wani estimated that they hadn’t had a hot meal yet.
“Alright, alright.” Tangtang and the others had indeed not had a hot meal yet. They had left home at six in the morning yesterday. By the time they reached the county town, it was almost seven. After another bumpy ride of three or four hours on the bus, they arrived in Xiangyang City. It was already noon when they got on the train. They had been on the train for a whole day and a night before they arrived in the capital.
They were afraid of delaying, so they didn’t dare to stop to eat. They just made do with the dry rations they had brought from home.
Wani helped to share some of the luggage. The three of them, cousin and siblings, walked towards Capital University of Transportation. The public buses in the capital were different from the public buses in their countryside. In the countryside, there were basically only two buses a day, one in the morning and one at noon, and they were all fixed stops connecting the county town and the main communes. After getting off, they still had to walk a distance to get back to the village. The public buses in the capital came every ten minutes or so, and they would arrive at a stop in a few minutes. It was very flexible and convenient.
The public buses in their countryside were mainly wooden benches, and the inner walls of the carriage were bare iron sheets. It was very simple, and there were no handrails. The passengers were all farmers and people going to the market. It was common to see people carrying hoes and bamboo baskets on the bus. The bus was always filled with a lingering smell of earth and poultry.
The public buses in the capital had rows of plastic seats, blue curtains on the windows, and vertical handrails and pull rings. There would be a broadcast to announce the station at each stop, unlike the public buses in their countryside where the driver had to shout. Most of the people on the bus were workers, students, or cadres, wearing blue cloth work clothes and polyester shirts. They carried canvas bags or vegetable baskets and queued up to get on the bus.
Capital University of Transportation was not far from Capital University. It was only a few stops away. Tangtang accompanied her brother to finish the admission procedures and also helped him to pack his bed and some simple daily necessities. By the time they came out of the school, it was already six in the afternoon. The streetlights were already on, and Tangtang and her brother were already so hungry their chests were sticking to their backs.
Wani took her younger brother and sister to a state-run noodle shop.
It was dinnertime, and the noodle shop was crowded. Beef noodles were thirty cents, noodles with soybean paste were twenty-five cents, vegetable soup noodles were fifteen cents, and plain soup noodles were ten cents.
Wani said she would treat them. Tangtang knew that although her sister had gotten into university, her living expenses were probably not very generous, so she only ordered a portion of vegetable soup noodles. Su Juesheng ordered noodles with soybean paste, and Wani also ordered a portion of vegetable soup noodles for herself.
The noodles were ready soon. It was a large, full bowl. The hand-pulled thin noodles were topped with green spinach, which was very fresh to eat. There were also fried tofu puffs and pork lard cracklings inside, which were very fragrant to eat. Especially since Tangtang and her brother had not had a hot meal for a full thirty-six hours. At this moment, after taking a sip of the hot and fragrant noodle soup, they were so happy they were about to cry.
Tangtang and the others’ position was right at the door. The streetlights illuminated the whole street. The evening breeze was gentle, and a pleasant melody came from some direction.
“This is so nice.” Tangtang slurped a mouthful of noodles, feeling her internal organs all settled. “If we were in Yuhuai Village, it would definitely be dark everywhere at this time. Every family would have their doors closed, and you could only occasionally hear a dog or two barking.”
“Yes.” Wani also couldn’t help but sigh.
Just over four months ago, she was still in the Yuhuai Village production team, carrying a hoe and wearing a straw hat, facing the loess and with her back to the sky, living a life of cultivating land, weeding, and carrying manure. And just over half a year ago, she had almost married a rural youth. How could she have imagined that now, she could be in a clean and bright classroom at Capital Medical University, no longer having to worry about heavy rain delaying her farm work, and no longer having to force herself to stay awake to read a book under a dim kerosene lamp after a day’s work. She could read whenever she wanted and do whatever she wanted.
The lead characters in the textbook were neat and clear, no longer blurry and crooked. When the bell rang for the end of class, the corridor was full of discussions about medical cases and experiments. The students, with a passion for knowledge, rushed to the library and the laboratory. It was rigorous yet free, dull yet romantic.
Wani had already thought about it. She would absolutely not go back to the countryside in this life. She would study hard and strive to stay in the city in the future, to be like the city people, wearing fashionable polyester floral clothes, strolling in the park on a sunny day, and watching movies.
Su Juesheng couldn’t help but click his tongue. “The capital is so big. When Tangtang and I arrived today, our eyes were almost dazzled.”
Wani deeply agreed with this. “You two at least have each other to look out for. When I got off the train, I was like a fool. I turned around three times in front of the platform sign and struggled for a long time before I got to the medical school. For the first few days, my head was in a daze. It took me a few days to recover.”
“Sister Wani, have you already started classes?”
“Yes.”
Tangtang’s eyes sparkled. They had just started school today and hadn’t started classes yet.
Wani smiled. “Believe me, you will definitely like the feeling of being in class at university.”