Homecoming

The next day, Yang Rui was invited to the principal's office.

The teachers of several subjects were all there, and Principal Zhao Dannian personally asked Yang Rui about his studies. Everyone wanted to know how an ordinary student had suddenly become a perfect scorer.

In fact, teachers who had witnessed the 1977 and 1978 college entrance exams were fairly well prepared for dramatic improvements in students' scores.

But the change in Yang Rui was so great that it was hard to believe, enough to draw Principal Zhao Dannian's attention.

Throughout the villages around Xibao Town, Zhao Dannian was a legendary figure. He had joined the Young Pioneers while still in primary school, carried a red-tasseled spear, and delivered urgent dispatches marked with chicken feathers. By the time the entire country was liberated, he had not only joined the Party but also struggled his way through the county secondary school, making him a highly educated intellectual by the standards of the day. From its founding to its expansion from a primary school into a high school, Xibao Middle School had practically been built up single-handedly by old Zhao.

Thanks to his credentials, although Xibao Middle School had weathered the upheaval of classes being suspended and resumed, it had suffered setbacks without damage to its foundations, and had even grown. Little White Tooth attended school here because her father had sought his protection.

Zhao Dannian enjoyed tremendous prestige locally, and his stubbornness was equally well known.

Facing him, Yang Rui could not simply explain it away by saying that things had "clicked." He considered carefully before saying slowly, "Actually, I used to memorize questions and textbooks all the time, but I could never get the hang of it. This college entrance exam really woke me up. I feel like things have started coming together in the sciences. Besides, the question types on this test were similar to the last college entrance exam, and I'd seen most of them before. Getting full marks was a little unexpected, but it didn't come out of nowhere."

With his hands behind his back, Zhao Dannian paced around his dark red desk, seemingly weighing whether his words were true.

The other teachers took the opportunity to ask questions.

Yang Rui answered intermittently, keeping his attention on Zhao Dannian.

He knew perfectly well that one word from this old man carried more weight than a hundred from anyone else.

After several minutes of unproductive conversation, Zhao Dannian finally stopped pacing and asked, "Can you maintain these scores?"

Yang Rui nodded without hesitation. "Yes."

Zhao Dannian then nodded. "Then do your best on the exam. Aim to get into the University of Science and Technology of China or Peking University and bring honor to our Xibao Middle School. Hmm, what's your idea behind that study group you organized?"

"I just want to pass on my experience to everyone. But studying varies from person to person. You can't just swallow everything whole. I think helping one another within the group is the best way to improve our scores."

Zhao Dannian pondered briefly before saying, "An atmosphere where classmates learn from one another is very good, too. You shouldn't just tell them about your experience..."

He spoke at a leisurely pace for two minutes, while Yang Rui continued nodding and saying, "All right."

Only then did Zhao Dannian look satisfied. He asked, "Do the rest of you have anything to say?"

The teachers in the room exchanged glances.

Seeing this, Zhao Dannian waved them off twice with the back of his hand. "All right, then. Yang Rui, you can go back."

Yang Rui smiled and said, "Yes," then nodded to the other teachers and left.

As soon as the door closed, Teacher Lu coughed. "Principal, what can you find out by asking him like that?"

Zhao Dannian turned and countered, "What do you want to find out?"

Teacher Lu was instantly dumbfounded.

"Go back, all of you. Good or bad, the college entrance exam will put it to the test. The results will tell us everything." Stubborn old Zhao Dannian was an absolute results-first man. Without caring what the teachers thought, he sent them all away with a few words.

And so Xibao Middle School's final discussion of Yang Rui's grades came to nothing.

Back at the dormitory, Yang Rui gathered all eighteen prospective study group members who had written applications and began drawing up study plans.

Get up and run at six in the morning, breakfast at six thirty, start memorizing English at seven...

One item after another filled the schedule from six in the morning until midnight, dividing up and claiming every last bit of the day. This was something Yang Rui had often done at the cram school, and he handled it with practiced ease, without a single hitch.

Looking at a schedule planned down to the minute, Wang Guohua and the others looked so miserable their faces nearly crumpled.

"Do we really have to follow what it says?" The lean Huang Ren looked equally unhappy. He was also from Yang Rui's hometown and in his class.

"If you want to go to university, you have to follow this." Yang Rui said quietly, "It's fine if you can't stick with it, but you'll have to leave the study group."

"Don't!" Cao Baoming immediately cried out. "It's just a study plan. Even if you didn't make one, we'd have to make our own. But you haven't said exactly what we're going to study yet."

"Start by memorizing things. Memorize everything you can, and do a small number of practice questions. I've already prepared the papers, too. Every afternoon, I'll explain some questions and help fill in your fundamentals. The college entrance exam really tests the fundamentals. There's no need for anything too difficult..."

"But you can't get high scores with just the fundamentals." Xu Jing did not quite understand.

Counting on his fingers, Yang Rui said, "Suppose you pass every subject: seventy-two in Chinese, seventy-two in math, sixty each in English, physics, chemistry, and politics, and thirty in biology. That gives you a total of 414, more than enough to get into university. Am I right?"

The eighteen heads before him bobbed involuntarily.

Secondary schools still rarely had systematic review plans for the college entrance exam. Everyone knew that high scores could get them into university, but few people had worked out how to do so more efficiently.

Yang Rui had effortlessly pushed open a window and shown them.

Students at Township Middle School all had weak foundations, unlike many students in big cities, whose parents had taught them even during the political campaigns. Raising everyone's performance in every subject within a single short year was therefore unrealistic. While having them rebuild their fundamentals, Yang Rui also tailored improvements in different subjects to each individual.

For instance, it would be extremely difficult to bring Wang Guohua's math score above eighty. Rather than spend that much time on it, he would be better off memorizing some practice problems to score around the passing mark, saving time for chemistry and English, two subjects where points were easier to pick up.

Yang Rui spent three days supervising and revising their plans. By the weekend, the eighteen members of the study group had already begun getting somewhat used to this way of studying.

Only then did Yang Rui ask Teacher Lu for leave, planning to go home.

The repeaters' class was managed most strictly.

Because very few students could get into university on their first attempt, the school poured its pitifully limited teaching resources into the repeaters' class. Without asking for leave, they had only half a day off on weekends.

As for the teachers, they truly worked overtime without pay or hesitation.

"Passion surging" was not quite an apt description of the solemn classroom atmosphere, but saying that everyone had a fire burning inside them was quite accurate.

This was an era when people wanted to accomplish great things, but none of them knew what great things they could accomplish, so they could only channel their excess energy into endless work.

Only someone like Yang Rui could easily obtain two days of leave to visit his family.

Saturday.

Yang Rui caught an open-bed freight truck from Xibao Town back to Xizhaizi Township.

Compared with Xibao Town, which had two intersecting streets, Xibao Township looked even more backward.

Along a street just over a hundred meters long, government offices such as the township government, the supply and marketing cooperative, the post office, and the seed station stood in a row. This was practically the busiest part of the entire township.

At the other end of the main street was the vegetable market, filled with streams of filthy water and disorderly crowds.

The only concrete road in the township was outside the government offices; all the others were surfaced with coal cinders. Leaving aside how much PM2.5 the flying coal dust produced, its grimy color alone was unappealing.

Yang Rui greeted countless people along the way, familiar and unfamiliar alike, feeling as though he were back in the biology research building-you had to communicate with every animal except the lab mice. Of course, this was a little healthier than being a doctoral student with only lab mice to talk to.

It was dinnertime when he arrived home. Yang Rui naturally pushed open the courtyard gate and saw his family's three connected single-story rooms and a pear tree with spreading branches.

Beneath the pear tree stood a familiar round table and chairs.

Looking at the scene before him, Yang Rui felt an inexplicable sense of closeness.

"Rui, you're back!" Rui's Mom happened to be carrying a dish out of the kitchen. Pleasantly surprised, she asked, "No classes this weekend?"

"I asked for leave." Yang Rui then asked, "Do we have company?"

In his memories, the Yang family usually ate indoors, but when there were more people, everyone sat in the courtyard to drink tea and eat. This was more like the family's main room for receiving guests.

Rui's Mom pulled him over and looked him over carefully before saying, "Perfect timing. Your eldest uncle is here, and he brought some canned food. I'll give you a couple of cans to take back to school."

"What's Uncle here for?" In Yang Rui's recollection, his eldest maternal uncle was over forty and a serious workaholic. Although he often helped relatives, he was not a man who enjoyed social visits.

"He came to discuss something with your father."

Rui's Mom hurriedly set out the dishes, then fetched two cans from the kitchen and pressed them into Yang Rui's hands. "Your uncle brought these. Pack them up and take them to school to eat."

The canned pork ribs came in tinplate cans, smooth on top and bottom, with only simple paper labels. The weight printed at the lower right read 485 grams.

Yang Rui had heard of canned pork ribs while studying applied microbiology, but had never seen them.

But for a young man who had not caught even a whiff of meat for a week, he could easily imagine how delicious the ribs inside those cans would be.

"Uncle's factory makes these?" Yang Rui could not help licking his lips, thinking, Once my manuscript payment arrives, I have to buy more canned food and stock up.

"Yes. The cannery under the meatpacking plant. They're very generous. Look, these two cans were bought at half price. The bottoms are just a little uneven, but the contents are perfectly fine." Rui's Mom lifted a can to show Yang Rui. Part of the bottom protruded, as though a bone were about to poke through.

Yang Rui nodded. "Peaking."

"What?"

"When the bottom is uneven like this, it's called peaking." Canning was a common application of microbiology. Out of two microbiology exam papers, at least one question would have to concern it.

Rui's Mom paused, then nodded unconcernedly. "Your uncle seems to have mentioned it once. He said the food company wouldn't take cans that didn't look right, so they were all sold off cheaply to employees and their families. Your uncle's been worrying about this lately, so don't bring it up in a minute."

"Maybe I can help him solve it?" Yang Rui looked thoughtfully at the cans in his hands. Food and biology were closely connected. Although he had never researched this before, he had at least glanced through relevant papers. He had not remembered them back then, but now they were all stored in his brain.

Naturally, Rui's Mom did not believe him. She smiled and said, "Your uncle's even invited people from the city cannery over to take a look. All right, wash your hands and get ready for dinner."