Arriving at His Alma Mater

Because of the cold weather, the entrance to the dormitory building had a double-layered structure.

Outside the main entrance was another doorway made of glass.

On the very outside hung a thick green canvas curtain, which effectively kept out the cold air.

Lifting the curtain and passing through the glass doorway, they arrived at the dormitory building's main entrance.

It was a typical Soviet-style door, with a solid wood frame and thick handles, inset with double layers of heavy rectangular glass.

The handles and frame gleamed slightly with grease, polished smooth from years of use...

The moment they entered the lobby, heat rushed against their faces.

The lenses of some students wearing glasses immediately fogged over white, leaving them unable to see a thing.

Also because of the climate, Moscow saw snow for seven or eight months of the year.

Normally, it began snowing in October and continued until April of the following year.

And that was not even the end of it. Sometimes, snowflakes would still drift down in May or June, or even occasionally in July!

The climate was cold, with lows reaching around minus thirty degrees Celsius, so heating was extremely important.

Here, indoors and outdoors were completely different worlds.

When Wang Ye and the others had just gotten off the bus, even wrapped in thick down jackets and wearing thermal underwear and heavy wool pants, they had still been instantly frozen through, the cold seeming to seep into their bones.

Standing outside, they could not help but shiver...

But once they entered the dormitory lobby, it was practically like stepping into summer!

They could even see students passing through the lobby in short-sleeved shirts and baggy shorts...

The heating was powerful, and the indoor temperature was above twenty-five degrees Celsius. Wearing T-shirts and shorts was perfectly normal.

Wang Ye also knew that the rooms would be even warmer, sometimes reaching around thirty degrees Celsius. At night, they could not even sleep under a blanket...

"Wow, why is it so hot? I'm about to sweat." Liu Xiaojie unzipped his down jacket, removed his nearsighted glasses, lifted the hem of his thermal shirt to wipe the lenses, then put his glasses back on.

Wang Ye smiled without saying anything, but he also unzipped his down jacket.

In just this short while, he had started to sweat lightly.

Teacher Wu, who was leading the group, had gone to the dormitory administration office to handle the paperwork, leaving the few of them waiting in the lobby.

He looked around. Though so many years had passed, he still vaguely remembered the place. After all, he had lived here for more than half a year.

This Building Six housed only preparatory students.

University students back home might not understand the concept of a "preparatory program," but foreign students studying here had to complete one year of preparatory courses and pass the examinations before they could officially enroll in university.

Wang Ye and his group had come to attend university right after graduating from high school, so naturally, they had to take preparatory courses as well.

They had all come to study abroad through the same agency. They had begun processing the paperwork in June or July of the previous year, but the agency had been rather unreliable and handled everything far too slowly.

They should have arrived to begin their preparatory courses in September last year, but they had been delayed until now, wasting nearly half a year.

However, the agency had discussed it with the school and arranged for them to enter an "accelerated class." They would only need to study preparatory courses for half a year before entering university.

Of course, that was on the condition that they passed the preparatory graduation examination.

Before arriving, Wang Ye and the others had not been idle either. The agency had set up a Russian training class for them, so they could begin learning in advance.

Preparatory courses mainly focused on Russian, because after entering university, they would attend classes alongside Russian students. Without sufficient language skills, they would not even understand the lectures.

As for whether one year was really enough to reach that level, everyone knew the answer.

During their first and second years, they could only barely follow the specialized courses. Their main focus was still learning the language.

Only international students who genuinely studied hard could say their language skills had basically reached the standard by their third or fourth year.

As for most students who did not study seriously, they might muddle through until graduation without even being able to communicate with Russians in daily life.

The group of students who went abroad after graduating from high school was a mixed bag, with all sorts of people.

Some truly went abroad to study, while others merely went to coast along. It depended on their own choices.

By comparison, those studying in Russia were a little better off, because the people who came here generally had families with some money, but not enough to be truly wealthy.

At most, they did not study seriously and spent their days playing on computers. As for extravagance and wastefulness, their families did not have that kind of money...

There was a common understanding among international students: when it came to the "bottom tier" of studying abroad, New Zealand ranked first and Australia second...

Students who went to those two places generally were not there to study at all, but to immigrate and obtain visas.

Moreover, studying abroad in those places was expensive. Families without sufficient means would not dare send their children there.

The true elite among international students were those who went to America, whether to attend university after high school or pursue a doctorate after graduating from university.

Because to study in America, either your family had to be extremely wealthy, or your academic performance had to be outstanding...

The dormitory lobby was fairly spacious. In a corner farther inside was a small shop that mainly sold food, drinks, and daily necessities. The rest of the space was empty.

The floor was covered in wood, though not the high-end "oak flooring" or "mahogany flooring" popular back home. Timber was abundant here, so many buildings had wooden floors.

But the flooring here was rather distinctive, made entirely of palm-length rectangular wooden strips laid densely across the ground.

It was quite old, and the floorboards had loosened. They creaked beneath their feet as they walked.

"Brother Ye, this place is pretty nice. I wonder which dorm they'll assign me to later. It'd be great if they put us together," Liu Xiaojie said beside him.

The two were from the same hometown, and they had also trained in Russian together before coming here.

Liu Xiaojie was the same age as Wang Ye, both eighteen, but he was half a head shorter.

He was simple and honest by nature, and he and Wang Ye were fairly close.

"Probably no chance. Didn't the teacher say on the bus that they'd try to separate us so we could adapt to the environment faster?" Wang Ye said with a smile.

Indeed, if they wanted to adapt to a new environment as quickly as possible, it was best not to stick together with people they already knew.

If Chinese international students came here and continued living and studying with other Chinese international students, their language skills would definitely improve more slowly, since they would use Mandarin for all their usual conversations and have fewer chances to practice the language.

But if they lived with foreigners, even if they were not Russians, everyone would try to use Russian when communicating.

Invisibly, that would force them to improve their language skills as quickly as possible.

From that perspective, the agency was fairly responsible. Its intentions were for the students' benefit.