"Aimin, Aimin, wake up!"
"Teacher Han! Teacher Han!"
"Stop shouting! Hurry and take Teacher Han to the hospital!"
"Who knows whether he broke any bones? Don't move him around. We should call the hospital!"
Han Aimin was jolted awake by the overlapping cries. Opening his eyes, he saw familiar yet unfamiliar faces surrounding him, each 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, once his colleague and big brother. He was a military cadre 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 politics 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 without getting into college, she had been assigned by the factory to teach English at the Children's Middle School. But she was neither a cadre nor a formal employee—she was a "collective worker," whose salary and benefits were a grade below those of formal employees...
"Aimin, look at my hand!" Zhong Jianyu had no idea what Han Aimin was thinking. He raised a finger and moved it in front of Han Aimin's 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 was no dream. He