Chapter 164 Do I really have to take the exam? Every time he climbed the stairs, he was...

In June 2013, just as the summer heat began.

Jiang Yueming couldn't understand why life was always like this, with so many costs and losses, tormenting people as if they had died several times over. He thought about the joy and elation he had felt not long ago, which had now dragged him down to the bottom.

What should he do? Staying in the south would mean being far away from Li Leshan, which would be four years, a full four years, thousands of kilometers away. In those four years, he could count the number of times they would meet on two hands. Going to Beijing would mean being demoted a grade. Jiang Yueming didn't care, but he couldn't be the only one who didn't care, because everyone was telling him that it mattered.

That……

What about reading it again...?

The idea of ​​rereading the book popped into Jiang Yueming's head at two in the morning. Lying on the wooden bed in his rented room, staring at the ceiling, he was startled by his own thought.

He thought about it all night, pondering it all night long. As dawn approached, he got up, rummaged through the trash can for the crumpled college application guide, and carefully unfolded the page about Nanjing University of Technology. The major was excellent, the school was good, everyone was saying "it's worth it." He brought the paper close to his eyes, reading it word by word until his eyes ached, but he still couldn't see where the "worth it" lay.

Everyone was trying to persuade him to leave. Lei Zi said he must have gone crazy working on the assembly line, and now that he'd finally escaped, he wanted to jump back in. Even his aunt, who always supported everything he did, told him to think it over. Jiang Yueming knew she wasn't worried about what would happen next year; she just felt sorry for him having to take the exam again.

Old Zhou called him to his office for the nth time. "Yueming," he took off his glasses and earnestly advised, "I'm not trying to stop you. But you need to think this through. Repeating a year isn't just about taking the exam again; it's about turning back the path you've already reached and walking it all over again. No teacher can guarantee that repeating a year will result in a higher score than last year, especially since you've already performed exceptionally well this year. Have you thought it all through?"

"I've made up my mind," Jiang Yueming said, her voice slightly hoarse.

He hadn't really thought it through. He just didn't know what else he could do besides repeating a year of high school. He and Li Leshan had already been separated for three years in high school; would they have to be separated for four years now? He didn't know. Call him crazy or stupid, Jiang Yueming wanted to take another gamble. He felt that risking a year for three years of being together was worth it.

The days of repeating a lesson are like an endless marathon, and he has already run one, his strength completely exhausted. The same knowledge points need to be chewed over again, until they taste like cardboard; the same question types need to be done eight or nine times, until muscle memory develops in his fingers.

Keeping it from Li Leshan was a delicate matter. The timing had to be precise—not too early, or it would seem like he was idle; not too late, or it would seem like he was indifferent. He had to strike a balance, and the details had to be specific, but not so specific that it would give him away. Although he hadn't gone to university, he had sketched out what a normal university should look like based on the few words he'd heard from his factory colleagues who had gone to university.

He talked about things like which clubs he joined, which lectures he attended, and which dishes in the cafeteria were the best. While he was talking about these things, he was actually lying on the table in his rented room, struggling with math problems from the past five years of college entrance exams.

He continued working at the same electronics factory, continuing to earn money. Even though his hands trembled so much after work that he couldn't hold a pen, and he was so sleepy that he wanted to fall asleep at any moment, he still had to rush to the re-examination class before six o'clock in the morning for early self-study.

I would close my eyes and silently recite classical Chinese texts. When I got to "There is a fish in the Northern Sea," I would think about just how far north Beijing really was; when I got to "The wild geese are startled by the cold," I would think about how cold the heavy snow in Beijing was, as Li Leshan had told me. When I couldn't recite any more, I would open my eyes and tell myself over and over that everything would be fine after the mock exam at the end of December.

He didn't do well on the mock exam. He left the last two math problems blank after only completing half of them, and his mind went blank when he handed in the paper. When the results came out, he scored fifteen points lower than last year's mock exam. Old Zhou talked to him, but he didn't listen to a word. He came out of the office, squatted on the corner of the stairs, and buried his face in his knees. A chill crept up his tailbone. Jiang Yueming didn't cry, of course; he just squatted against the wall for a while.

Then he stood up and dusted off his trousers. "It's alright," Jiang Yueming told himself. "There's still the second mock exam; things will be fine once it's over."

Falling down the stairs was an accident, but not entirely. He had been pulling three all-nighters in a row—attending classes during the day, working at night, and doing homework until the early hours. To be honest, when he missed his step, he even felt a sense of relief: finally, he could stop.

When Jiang Yueming woke up, she was in the hospital with her left leg in a thick cast. The doctor, a stern-looking middle-aged man, looked at her with a deep frown. "Tibial fracture, fibular contusion. At least six weeks in a cast. How could you be so careless?"

Jiang Yueming was still a little dazed. Of course, he didn't understand how serious it was; he didn't understand such technical terms.

The first question was, "Am I lame?"

The second question is, "When can I go back to school?"

Despite injuring her leg, finding work wasn't a problem; she didn't need her leg and could still work, and her rented room was close to the factory. But things were much more difficult at school. The repeat class was on the fifth floor, originally intended to avoid disturbance from the classes downstairs and provide peace and quiet. But now, every climb up and down was an ordeal for Jiang Yueming, akin to life or death.

The first time he wore crutches, he stood at the bottom of the building, looking up. Five floors, sixty steps. He hopped onto the first step on one foot, the crutches echoing hollowly on the concrete. By the time he reached the third floor, his injured leg began to throb faintly.

I didn't dare tell Li Leshan, nor did I ever think of telling him.

If he confessed now, what would Li Leshan say? Would he be angry, disappointed, or heartbroken? He didn't know. He only knew that he had kept it a secret for too long, and there was no turning back. He had no choice.

Four trips a day, sixty steps each time, a total of two hundred and forty steps. Jiang Yueming didn't know how many days or how long he climbed. Every day, every time he climbed the stairs, he asked himself, "Do I really have to take this exam? Do I absolutely have to take it?"

Then, counting the steps, he answered himself: for Li Leshan, he had to take the exam; for those few points, he had to take the exam; to prove that the year's hard work hadn't been in vain, he had to take the exam; so that one day he could stand tall under the Beijing sky, standing alongside Li Leshan, he had to take the exam.

The answer was repeated 240 times a day, like chanting a mantra. Eventually, he almost believed it himself.

So he thought, "I'll be fine once the cast is removed. Once it's off, I can walk normally, it won't hurt so much, and I can catch up on my studies. I'll be fine once the cast is removed."

The day the cast was removed was the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the eve of the Lunar New Year. Jiang Yueming tried to walk a few steps, limping, each step feeling like stepping on a knife's edge. The doctor instructed him to do rehabilitation exercises, not to move around, and especially not to run. He nodded and turned to go to the cram school—it was already winter vacation, but the classroom was still open for students who wanted to stay and study.

There were only a few people in the classroom. A boy was eating a steamed bun, a girl was wiping away tears, and there were some... and some more, but he didn't have time to look.

Jiang Yueming sat down at his desk and opened his math test. He hadn't understood conic sections and derivatives last year, and he still couldn't grasp them this year. Staring at the winding lines, he suddenly felt they resembled the lines of fate on his palm, which he simply couldn't decipher.

He opened his English book, that Victor Dictionary he'd practically worn out from use; he'd never studied so diligently. Abandon, abandon, abandon—the first word he opened was "give up." But he didn't give up; he just mechanically kept memorizing. He told himself, "It'll be better after the New Year. After the New Year, there will only be four months left; I'll grit my teeth and get through it."

Second mock exam, third mock exam, fourth mock exam. His grades fluctuated, never giving him any peace of mind. His math and science error notebooks grew thicker and thicker, with mistakes copied over and over again, some questions he got wrong seventy or eighty times. Staring at those red marks, he would sometimes laugh, feeling incredibly stupid, but then his eyes would inexplicably well up with tears.

At the end of May, with only a month left until the college entrance examination, Jiang Yueming began to have trouble sleeping, suffering from insomnia all night. He would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, completely unable to fall asleep. At this point, he would get up, turn on the desk lamp, and continue doing practice problems. When he couldn't continue, he would copy classical Chinese texts, copying "Ode to the Red Cliff" and "Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng," and then tell himself that things would be better after the college entrance examination. After the exam, he could sleep through the night, he wouldn't have to hide it from Li Leshan anymore, he wouldn't have to do practice problems anymore, he would... he would be able to do what? He didn't dare to think about it.

It was very hot during the two days of the college entrance examination. There was no air conditioning in the examination room, only ceiling fans turning slowly, and the air they blew out was hot.

Jiang Yueming sat by the window, sunlight streaming onto his left cheek. Sweat dripped from his chin onto the exam paper, staining a small dark patch. His hand trembled as he wrote, his handwriting crooked and uneven. Reaching the last paragraph, he suddenly forgot what he was going to write; his mind went completely blank. He stared at the paper for ten seconds, those ten seconds feeling like an eternity. Then Jiang Yueming closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and hastily wrote a conclusion.

After finishing the last exam, as he walked out of the exam hall, the sky darkened, threatening rain. The other students around him were cheering, hugging, and throwing books. He slowly walked out with his backpack, went home, and without a second thought, collapsed into bed and slept for a full day and night. When he woke up, it was already three in the morning, and the room was pitch black. He sat up, staring blankly for a long time, thinking: "I'll be fine once the results come out."

On the day the results were released, Jiang Yueming didn't go to an internet cafe; he checked them on his phone in his rented room. The internet was very slow, and he had to refresh the page seven or eight times before he could get in. When the score appeared, he looked at it the first time but didn't understand it. He looked at it a second and a third time.

Jiang Yueming stared at the numbers on his phone, lost in thought for a long time. He remembered many things: his clumsy self when he first learned sign language; the dry, cold air of Shengping in winter; Li Leshan's bright eyes; the sixty steps at school; and the repeated phrases like "It will be alright when...it's over."

We've arrived.

Then what?

Is it good?

A map of China hung on the wall of the rented room, probably hung there by the landlord to cover up the stains on the wall; it was the only decorative item on the wall. The map was exceptionally large, filled with many things, much larger than the one he used to measure with a tape measure on his small school desk.

There are rivers, mountains, and the north he can never go to.

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Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait, my darlings! I thought I had set the time correctly (but it didn't happen TT, I accidentally set it to evening). I've been busy since morning and finally checked online to find it hadn't been posted...

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Did any of you guess that Yueming actually went to repeat the reading? [droopy-eared rabbit head] Actually, I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I feel that nothing is more suitable than this, because "repeating the reading" fits Jiang Yueming's personality perfectly, haha. He dares to think and act, and is even a bit extreme. If he has to consider everyone (including himself), then this is his best choice.

Now, if we look back at the previous chapters, it makes sense why Jiang Yueming never wanted Li Leshan to go to the south; why Jiang Yueming was so tired; why Jiang Yueming always asked Li Leshan to wait for him—what was he waiting for? And what did he mean by saying, "Actually, I'm not as timid as you think"?

There are also some other little details, haha ​​[covering face and peeking] I hope you guys will look back later~