"Aimin, Aimin, wake up!"
"Teacher Han! Teacher Han!"
"Stop shouting and hurry up, get Teacher Han to the hospital!"
"Who knows if he broke any bones? We can't move him carelessly. We should call the hospital!"
Han Aimin was jolted awake by the overlapping shouts. Opening his eyes, he saw familiar yet unfamiliar faces gathered around him, each looking more anxious than the last. Then a searing pain shot through his elbows and knees.
"Aimin's awake. Make some room." A man in his forties breathed a sigh of relief and asked anxiously, "Aimin, are you all right?"
Unless he was dreaming, the man before him should be Zhong Jianyu, his former colleague and big brother. He was a military cadre who had transferred to 985 Factory after leaving the army. Since he knew nothing about technology and the factory had no shortage of political cadres, he had been assigned to the Children's Middle School as a political teacher.
Behind Zhong Jianyu stood a young woman in a Floral Plaid Spring and Autumn Shirt. Her surname was Liu, Liu Pingping. She was both a 985 Factory Descendant and third sister's classmate from kindergarten through middle school. After graduating high school, she had failed to get into college, so the factory assigned her to the Children's Middle School as an English teacher. But she had neither cadre status nor formal employee status. She was a "Collective Worker," whose salary and benefits were one grade below those of formal employees...
"Aimin, look at my hand!" Not knowing what Han Aimin was thinking, Zhong Jianyu raised his fingers and waved them before his eyes.
The sharp pain in his elbows and knees, the familiar faces before him, and the familiar melody of the Sixth Set of Radio Exercises outside made Han Aimin realize this