binnovel Chapter 27: Educated Youth of the Era (Part 9)
Chapter 27: Educated Youth of the Era (Part 9)
This was Liu Yuxi's first time experiencing a complete snowfall in Northeast China. In the past, she had only visited the Northeast after it had turned into a snowy wonderland, and she had never experienced the process of snowfall before.
After a night of heavy snowfall, the snow outside the door had reached Liu Yuxi's calves. The first thing Liu Yuxi did after getting up was to climb onto the roof and clear the snow from it. After all, the snow was still falling, and if the roof wasn't cleared in time, it could easily collapse under the weight of the snow.
After cleaning the roof, they started cleaning the courtyard, from the front door all the way to the entrance of the educated youth compound, until it connected with the village road.
One by one, the other educated youth got up and started working. Everyone chatted while they worked, enjoying a rare moment of leisure.
The heavy snow lasted for two days, followed by several more heavy and light snowfalls. From this point onward, the snow in Northeast China will stop melting and will not begin to melt until March or April of the following year.
The four months in between are the time for hibernation. Basically, everyone spends all their time huddled on the kang (heated brick bed) in their rooms, except for cooking, fetching water, and going to the toilet.
Sometimes Liu Yuxi would visit Aunt Li's house and chat with the other women about gossip. Other times, he would go to the communal kang (heated brick bed) in the front yard and chat with the female educated youth. After all, winter was so long, and they always had to find something to do.
During casual conversations, Liu Yuxi would sometimes bring a textbook along and casually mention it. Since she was free anyway, she would casually flip through the textbook. After all, there was still plenty of time, and whether she studied it or not, she would be much better off than other educated youths when it came time for the college entrance examination.
After all, the notice to resume the college entrance examination was only issued to the educated youth settlements in October. By the time the educated youth found out, there were only two months left before the college entrance examination. They had to cram at the last minute. They had also neglected their studies for so many years. How could they pick up their knowledge again? In this way, even if they did not completely forget their knowledge, it would be easier to review systematically when the time came.
Life went on year after year. During that time, two more groups of educated youth arrived, along with a group of people sent down to labor camps. Some of the educated youth who reached a certain age couldn't wait any longer, so they married each other or married people from the village.
Liu Yuxi didn't want to see any cases of women abandoning their husbands and children when they returned to the city, so she made preparations for the educated youth in advance. She also told Aunt Li and the others that marriage certificates were still necessary to ensure legal protection.
Therefore, all the young people in their village who get married now have marriage certificates, including those who didn't have them before; as long as they are old enough, they all go to the town to get them.
Liu Yuxi has always been single. She never thought about getting married in the countryside. She had never considered marriage until she met the right person.
Aunt Liu and the others wanted to help her find a match, but she refused. Later, everyone understood her intentions, so no one tried to arrange a match for her anymore. Her family wrote to her to inquire about this issue, and after learning about her thoughts, they were quite supportive of her.
Normally, she would go to the village to work in the fields and see doctors. In her spare time, she would go to the mountains to collect herbs and replenish her space supplies, since wild game was a rare treat in later generations.
When she went down the mountain, she would also take care of the people who had been sent to labor camps. After all, she knew that these people would return to the city one day. She didn't think about investing in advance or anything. She could live well on her own. She just thought that these people should not suffer so much and wanted to make their lives a little easier.
Time flies like an arrow, and all the events that were supposed to happen in history have happened, so I won't go into details here. Until this day, October 21, 1977, the village loudspeaker broadcasted the excited voice of the brigade leader: "The college entrance examination has been reinstated!" All the educated youth working in the fields were overjoyed.
Thanks to Liu Yuxi's prior preparations and the fact that they had obtained their marriage certificates, no one in the village objected to their daughter-in-law or son-in-law taking the college entrance examination; everyone was supportive. Younger villagers who were eligible to take the exam also studied alongside the educated youth. The village head even gave the educated youth a special two-month break to focus on their studies and prepare for the exam!
The group, armed with study materials they had bought in advance from the scrap metal yard, studied together day and night. Whenever they encountered a problem that no one else could solve, they would ask Liu Yuxi. After all, after so many years of hibernation, everyone knew that Liu Yuxi's grades were excellent.
As for Liu Yuxi's family, she had subtly mentioned this matter in a letter to her family two years in advance, asking her younger brother to study hard, since her older brothers and sisters were all older and married, and it wouldn't be very meaningful for them to take the college entrance examination again. In the letters they exchanged over the next two years, Liu's younger brother would write down any questions he didn't understand, and she would provide answers and explanations.
On December 20th, the brigade leader arranged for the village's oxcarts to transport all the educated youth and young people from the village who were taking the college entrance examination to the town ahead of time. He also communicated with the commune in advance to arrange accommodation. After resting for one night, on the 21st, everyone entered the examination room with excitement and trepidation. It is estimated that Liu Yuxi was the only one with a calm mindset in the entire examination room, after all, she had a clear understanding of herself.
Because of Liu Yuxi's prior instructions, they did not compare answers with each other after each exam. It wasn't until the two-day exam ended and everyone returned to the village that they gathered together to write down their answers from memory and handed them to Liu Yuxi for an estimate of their scores.
In the first national college entrance examination in 77, students filled out their application forms first, and then received their scores. Information flows much slower now, and people's perspectives are more limited; they lack knowledge about many universities.
Based on their scores, Liu Yuxi gave them some advice on filling out their college applications as a reference, and suggested that they select "accept reassignment" in all their applications, since the first batch of college students had a relatively high value and would be assigned a job no matter which major they were assigned to.
She herself applied to the Department of Economics at Fudan University. Her family had been sending her money and things all these years, and their letters had never stopped. Since her family had a good relationship, it would be more convenient to take care of them if they lived nearby. Besides, she had already lived in Beijing her whole life in the previous life, so settling in Shanghai in this life seemed pretty good.
The admission notices came down one after another, and the educated youth were packing their luggage, preparing to go home early. After all, not everyone was admitted to a university in their hometown province or city, so they planned to go home for the Spring Festival first, and then go to school from home after the New Year.
Because Liu Yuxi had been leading everyone to collect medicinal herbs to earn money over the years, each of the educated youth was living a pretty good life. They would come home with big bags and small packages, and these past few days they had been constantly running to the post office to send home things that were inconvenient to carry.
Liu Yuxi also pretended to send some things home and told her family about the arrival time of her train ticket, saying that her family would pick her up then.
Over the years in the village, Liu Yuxi has also mentored two apprentices. One of them was admitted to Beijing Medical College to continue his studies, while the other apprentice did not want to continue his studies and stayed in the village to continue guarding the clinic.
When each educated youth went to the train station, they were taken to the commune by an oxcart from the village, and then the commune arranged for a tractor to take them to the county train station. After all, all the educated youth from their village had passed the exam, which was unprecedented in the entire county.
When Liu Yuxi left, almost every household gave him a lot of things. If the oxcart hadn't been so full, these women would have continued to load more onto it. Unable to refuse, Liu Yuxi accepted everyone's kindness, bid farewell to the villagers, and boarded the train. After another two nights and three days, Liu Yuxi finally returned to Shanghai.