Chapter 38

At dawn, Tong Yufei got up, went to the kitchen to fry golden and crispy omelets, and cooked a pot of fragrant multi-grain porridge. He quietly finished his breakfast and put Mo Daoyan's portion into the rice cooker to keep it warm. Looking at his closed bedroom door, his breathing became lighter. After working overtime for so many days, it was time for him to have a good sleep.

She took out the pencil case with the Snow White pattern printed on it and carefully counted the exam supplies. She filled her fountain pen with ink, prepared refills for her water-based pen, sharpened her pencils, wiped her erasers clean, and wiped her compasses and triangle rulers as clean as new. After confirming that her "weapons" were complete, she put the pencil case into her shoulder bag and gently carried it home.

This journalist recruitment exam will have four subjects in a row, including basic mathematics, politics, professional theory and article writing, which will be conducted over two days. Since the number of applicants exceeded 600, the examination venue was set up in the nearby No. 4 Middle School. The examination time was specially arranged in the morning and afternoon of today, Sunday, and tomorrow, the Dragon Boat Festival. Students who originally did not have a holiday for the Dragon Boat Festival unexpectedly have an extra day off because of this exam. The first mathematics test is scheduled to start at 9 am today and the examination time is two hours.

To ensure a smooth exam, she planned to arrive at school before eight o'clock and familiarize herself with the exam environment in advance.

When Tong Yufei walked out of the unit door, a warm breeze blew against her face. The sun had risen completely, and the light was so strong that she could only squint her eyes to adapt. Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of the familiar figure in front of her, and her steps could not help but pause. Mo Daoyan was wiping the windshield of a black Santana with a blue towel. He wiped it very carefully, not even leaving out the rain marks on the corners. His movements were as meticulous as drawing a blueprint in a laboratory. His blue-gray sportswear made his figure stand tall and straight like a pine tree.

She recognized the car; it belonged to Qiao Zhuocheng.

After wiping the car, Mo Daoyan walked to the community garden faucet to rinse the towel, wrung it dry, folded it in half, folded it in half again, and finally placed it neatly on the edge of the sink. After doing all this, he turned to look at her: "I just got my driver's license, I want to practice my driving skills, do you want to sit down?"

"You're not going to work?"

"I didn't sell myself to the company, so I have vacation time."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"I borrowed a can of food from Qiao Zhuocheng."

Tong Yufei sat in the passenger seat, the seat had been adjusted to the most suitable angle for her. Mo Daoyan adjusted the rearview mirror without looking around, and after confirming the field of vision, she drove out of the community smoothly. She took out a stack of review materials from her bag. The edges of the papers were a little curled due to repeated flipping. Mathematics was a stumbling block to her grades in high school. The formulas and theorems that she had not encountered for many years were exposed on the pages. She had to make every effort to deal with them.

Mo Daoyan lowered the sun visor on the passenger side to block the glaring sunlight for her, then took out a small violet paper box from the storage compartment and handed it to her: "Don't eat if you're full of energy. You're thirsty."

She saw through the transparent film on the packaging that it was a box of chocolates. Perhaps they were worried that she would have hypoglycemia. In fact, since taking the medicine prescribed by Chen Ruchao, all her indicators in the follow-up examination have returned to normal, and the symptoms of dizziness have never appeared again.

After all, he meant well, so she gently put the chocolate into her bag and said, "Thank you."

When they arrived at No. 4 Middle School, the school gate was already crowded with people. The candidates were of all kinds, including college students in ivory towers, elderly sanitation workers, unemployed young people who had nothing to do and came to try their luck... Most of them were factory and mine workers with some cultural background like her. Accompanying them in the exam were students' parents, their partners or lovers, friends, sisters and brothers, and some were half-grown children who came to accompany their parents to take the exam.

It was just past 7:30, and it was still early. Groups of people were enjoying the cool air in the shade of the plane trees outside the school gate. Street vendors, sensing a business opportunity, gathered around. Those selling candied haws, ice cream, popsicles, watermelons and oranges lined up on both sides of the street. The incessant shouting added a touch of downtown atmosphere to the examination room.

A girl with a high ponytail wanted to buy a traffic light popsicle, but her mother grabbed her. The mother counted on her fingers and listed the good things about being a reporter: exhibitions at the cultural center, competitions at the stadium, you can just walk in, you can get a free ticket on the bus by showing your ID, you can use the green channel at the train station, you don't have to go into the crowded waiting room and can go directly to the platform, you can also go into the sleeper car where the conductor rests and eat special meals. In a word, being a reporter is a golden signboard in a stable job.

The mother's eyes sparkled as she pulled out a thermos and handed it to her daughter. "Don't get too cold before the exam. If you get an upset stomach, all your four years of hard work will be wasted. After the exam, I'll take over the popsicle stand and make sure you have as much to eat as you want. My dear daughter, do well in your exams and make a name for yourself as a journalist."

Just last month, the first collection of poems by poet Wang Guozhen, "Young Tide", was published and was in great demand. A young man read "Young Tide" while shaking his head to encourage his girlfriend who had to take an exam to move forward bravely. When he read the part "We are heading towards the lush May, youth is no longer a mystery, the upward road is always bumpy and rugged, we must always maintain the original romance...", the girl smiled like a flower, and when he read the part "If you want to leave, just leave freely, life has spring and autumn, don't look back, you don't need to look back, even if I lose you, I am not left with nothing...", the girl's face suddenly changed.

"What a rubbish poem!" the young man hurriedly put the book back into his bag. "It's full of aphorisms, not poetic at all. I don't know how it got so popular!"

Mo Daoyan parked the car by the roadside and got out with Tong Yufei, instantly attracting a lot of attention. More than a dozen colleagues from different departments of the newspaper office participated in this recruitment exam. Several colleagues who were familiar with Tong Yufei waved to her from across the crowd. From the meaningful looks of some of her colleagues, she suddenly understood why Mo Daoyan insisted on seeing her off. Since he had already put on a show in front of her colleagues last time, he might as well send her off to the west. Since she "valued" the Mo family's status, he would give her the pomp and circumstance that a family of this size should have. However, he could only stop there. If he really wanted him to go to the newspaper reception room to formally get to know his colleagues, he would definitely not agree. That would take too much time and deal with too many worldly affairs.

Thinking of this, she couldn't help but laugh. This person's plan was quite "careful".

Qin Hong also came to take the exam. Although she hadn't reviewed thoroughly, she wanted to at least get a feel for the situation so that she could prepare in case she had another chance in the future. He Yanjun came with her. They saw the two of them at the same time. Qin Hong smiled and greeted Tong Yufei: "Good morning, there's a bench here, would you like to sit down?"

Her voice was clear, attracting the attention of several candidates around her. Tong Yufei just smiled faintly, stood there and nodded slightly, with no intention of moving. Mo Daoyan didn't recognize the other party at all, and didn't even know that Qin Hong was talking to him. He was looking down at the message on his pager.

He Yanjun tugged at Qin Hong's sleeve and lowered his voice, "You're just trying to curry favor with someone you don't like. Can't you see they don't even bother to associate with us? They came here in a four-wheeled car, and they're afraid we two-wheelers will take advantage of them."

Qin Hong's round face still had a smile on it: "At home, I rely on my parents, and when I go out, I rely on my friends. I have an acquaintance in the machinery factory, so it will be more convenient to do things in the future."

"They're still acquaintances. Do you think they'll pay any attention to you?"

"Her lover is right next to her. If you were separated from your lover for so many years, you might be even more fed up with them than they are."

"Do you really think they're a perfect couple? Only you, a simple-minded fool, are still in the dark. They..." He Yanjun was halfway through her words when she suddenly glanced at Tong Yufei, who was staring at her gloomily in the distance. His eyes were so cold that they were chilling. Remembering what she said last time about her stupid brother betraying her husband, she immediately fell silent. She turned her back to Tong Yufei and whispered to Qin Hong, "Anyway, she's not that harmless."

After more than ten minutes, the candidates entered the school one after another. Two teachers, one male and one female, stood on each side of the door, checking the candidates' identity documents and test notification sheets. Entry was stopped half an hour before the test. Most of those who were still lingering outside the venue were saying goodbye to their relatives and friends who accompanied them to the test. Some were encouraging them earnestly, some were comforting them with gentle words, and occasionally there were a few light-hearted laughs. She and Mo Daoyan didn't have so many personal things to talk about, and since he had other things to do, the two of them simply said goodbye at the school gate.

Because there were too many candidates, the cafeteria of No. 4 Middle School was open as usual, and the candidates would have lunch in the school cafeteria. Before leaving, Mo Daoyan said that he would pick her up after the political exam in the afternoon, and asked her if there was anything she wanted in particular, either food or drink, and he would bring it for her. Her eyes swept across the watermelon stall with a parasol opposite, and she suddenly remembered the big green-skinned watermelon her adoptive parents bought her when they secretly came to send her to the exam that year.

That day she said she wanted to eat watermelon, and her adoptive father immediately brought back a whole five-pound watermelon with joy. Her adoptive mother then asked him to demonstrate splitting the watermelon with his bare hands to make her laugh and forget about her pre-exam nervousness. As the three of them were joking, their father, Tong Jianzhong, came over with a stern face to intervene: "Watermelon is a diuretic. How can you do well on exams if you're always running to the bathroom? You're supposed to be educated people, but you're just messing around."

The adoptive father rubbed his hands and smiled apologetically: "Just let the child have a taste, don't eat too much."

After that, her adoptive father borrowed a fruit knife, carefully carved out a triangular piece, and as he handed her the bright red flesh stained with black seeds, he suddenly lowered his voice and told her a secret. Her adoptive parents had cleared the vegetable garden in the old house left behind by her grandfather and planted it entirely with watermelons, promising her a full summer of watermelons. But she never lived to see that day. A week later, her adoptive father drowned. He was unable to accompany her to fill out her college application, and he didn't see the acceptance letter she received. Her adoptive mother followed him the following March. Now, the shouts at the school gate remain, and the watermelon vendor wields his knife to cut through the green melon rind, but things have changed.

Mo Daoyan saw that her eyes were red, and of course he didn't believe that she was crying because of the watermelon. He just thought it was the anxiety before the exam. If he was a gentle person, he should have said something like "Just do your best, leave no regrets, it's enough. Even if you can't be a reporter, you can still be an expert in ancient characters, the proofreader who knows the most about oracle bone inscriptions in the whole newspaper", or "All roads lead to Rome" to comfort her. Unfortunately, he didn't say these. If people go through fire and water for their ideals, they should be heartbroken when they fail. This is the value of the word "ideal".

"Tong Yufei, play a game before you go in." He pulled a one-yuan coin from his pocket. It was a commemorative coin issued last year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The "40" on the front was particularly eye-catching in the sunlight. He rubbed the coin back and forth in his palm for a few times, and finally, he held it in his fist and handed it to her. "Is it the word or the national emblem?"

"Where's the national emblem?"

"Congratulations, you will definitely come out on top."

"How do you say the word?"

"Congratulations, your classmate has been admitted to Tongshan."

Tong Yufei quickly pushed his fist back, glancing at the crowd around her. So many ears were perked up, she was really afraid that his arrogant words would bring trouble. In fact, she didn't care too much about whether he was the top spot or not. There were only five spots available, and it was enough to be able to squeeze into the top five. Unlike him, he had to strive to be the first in everything he did.

She pried open his palm and put the coin, which was warm from his palm, into her pocket: "I will pass the exam."