Back to Eighteen

"Brother Ye! Brother Ye! Wake up, wake up! We're almost there!"

Still half-asleep, Wang Ye suddenly felt someone shaking his shoulder.

He opened his bleary eyes and froze.

Where was this?!

Hadn't he been asleep in bed?

Why was he now on a minibus?!

The young man beside him, shaking his shoulder, looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't recall who he was at the moment.

Wang Ye blankly turned to look through the window beside him and found the glass covered in white mist.

He had just raised his hand to wipe the window and see what was outside when he was startled to discover that he was wearing a thick down jacket!

After all, he was already in his thirties. Having spent so long navigating society, he was still able to keep his composure.

Without changing expression, Wang Ye reached out and wiped the glass with his sleeve. At last, he could see outside clearly.

He took one look and was stunned again.

Beyond the window lay an endless expanse of white...

It was nighttime. The minibus sped down a wide, empty road. Under the dim yellow streetlights, goose-feather snow drifted through the air, slowly settling on the ground.

The snow piled up along the roadside had already reached a height of nearly one meter!

How many years had it been since he had last seen snow like this...

That thought suddenly surfaced in Wang Ye's mind.

He had attended university in Moscow. In that godforsaken place, it snowed for at least half the year.

This kind of heavy snowfall was extremely common—nothing remarkable at all.

But ever since graduating and returning home, he had never seen snow like this again.

Just as he thought that, the minibus happened to pass in front of a gate.

The gate was simple, even shabby. It was merely an open iron-bar gate, and one could see straight through it from the road.

Directly opposite the gate stood a large gray-white building. It was not tall, but it covered an enormous area.

The square main building resembled a gigantic block of stone, with several rows of striking black Russian letters on it: "Российскийуниверситетдружбынародов".

Wang Ye recognized it at once. This was the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia!

His alma mater...

In an instant, memories surged over him like a tide.

Wang Ye remembered. This scene should have been January 1st, 2001—the day he had just arrived in Moscow to begin his life as an international student.

He was currently riding a minibus from the airport to the university.

But the problem was, all of this had happened twenty years ago!

He had clearly returned to China long ago and had lived in Shenzhen for many years!

Could he be dreaming...

When he turned to look around the minibus again, seven or eight youthful faces came into view.

They were all seventeen or eighteen, boys and girls alike. Every face wore a smile, filled with anticipation.

Some of them still looked familiar to Wang Ye, while others had already faded from his memory.

At that moment, the boy sitting beside him—the one who had shaken him awake—said with a smile, "Brother Ye, we've arrived at the university. I heard the school's on break right now, so we'll have to wait a few days before classes start."

Wang Ye's heart stirred, and he blurted out, "Liu Xiaojie?"

The boy froze for a moment before replying in confusion, "Huh? What is it, Brother Ye?"

Emotions churned within Wang Ye. It really was Liu Xiaojie!

But...

This was Liu Xiaojie from more than ten years ago!

He had also been one of Wang Ye's closest classmates during university.

However, after graduation, Wang Ye had returned to China while Liu Xiaojie had stayed in Russia to build his career.

More than a decade had passed since they parted, and gradually, they lost touch.

It was not strange that Wang Ye could not remember his other classmates. At a Chinese university, classmates were generally fairly familiar with one another. Even more than ten years after graduation, one might still remember many classmates' names.

But studying abroad was completely different.

Relationships between classmates were relatively distant. After all, they had merely come abroad in the same batch and had only been classmates during the preparatory program.

Once they entered their respective majors, they might no longer be in the same class.

Besides, everyone was busy with their own lives. Some studied seriously, while others stayed cooped up in their dorms all day playing computer games.

Quite a few also studied while working part-time, and people rarely even saw them.

Under those circumstances, how could everyone possibly have been close?

So after several years of studying there, one only had a few classmates one was truly close to. With most people, they were merely familiar faces whose names they could call out—there was no real relationship to speak of.

Not to mention that they had barely been in contact for over a decade. Forgetting names was perfectly normal.

He reached out and opened the window a crack. A bone-piercing gust of wind hit him head-on, making Wang Ye shudder violently as his mind cleared.

"Don't open the window, Brother Ye. It's freezing to death! I heard it can reach twenty or thirty degrees below zero at night here," Liu Xiaojie said hurriedly, shivering from the cold beside him.

A smile appeared on Wang Ye's face as he shut the window with a snap.

He did not know what exactly had happened. Whether it was a dream or rebirth, he had returned to the age of eighteen...

Everyone, after becoming an adult, had imagined what they would do if they could live their lives over again.

And now, the opportunity had arrived!

Wang Ye was already eager to get started on his "second" life!

How many times had he looked back on his years studying abroad, only to realize how many opportunities he had missed!

It was no exaggeration to say that if he had seized even one of those opportunities, his life would not have become as pale and powerless as it had later on...

But that was life. When opportunities lay before them, most people never realized just how precious they were.

Only a very small number seized those opportunities and became what people called successful.

The old minibus rattled into the campus on the left side of the road and stopped in front of a long, old-style building that was not very tall.

Wang Ye was very familiar with this place. It was the preparatory program dormitory building of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, usually called "Building Six."

The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia's dormitory area had thirteen dorm buildings in total. Aside from Building Thirteen, which was a high-rise, the rest were all old six-story buildings.

It was said that these buildings were already forty years old and had been built when the university was first established.

The street outside the dormitory area was called Miklukho-Maklaya Street. The university's grounds lined both sides of the road—the academic area on one side and the dormitory area on the other.

The teacher leading the group, seated at the very front of the minibus, stood up and called out, "Everyone, bring your luggage and follow me off the bus. Be careful not to leave anything behind. Your dorm assignments have already been arranged. I'll handle the check-in procedures in a moment, then take each of you to your rooms. Just wait and rest in the dorm lobby."

The students on the bus pulled their suitcases off one by one. Wang Ye deliberately waited until the very end before going to the rear of the bus to retrieve his luggage.

He had already forgotten what his own suitcase looked like, so to avoid taking the wrong one, he might as well wait until the end...

By the time he finally got around to it, Wang Ye discovered that aside from a huge hard-plastic wheeled suitcase, there was also a bulging red mesh bag. Through the holes in the mesh, he could see a blue plastic washbasin inside, stuffed with two large white plastic bags.

After staring blankly for a moment, Wang Ye reached out to pull the suitcase. But even after tugging hard, it did not move. The thing was simply far too heavy!

With great effort, he dragged the suitcase down, then hung the red mesh bag from its handle before following the group toward the dormitory building...