Lei Kuan's scarred face darkened, his hawk-like eyes sweeping across the room, his voice devoid of any warmth.
"Those who are eliminated will immediately lose this promotion opportunity and will be sent back to where they came from."
Go back.
These three words, though not shouted out, pierced the hearts of every young person present.
The crowd, which had just been agitated by the immense allure of the "colonel rank," fell instantly silent.
There were more than two hundred people on the playground, but at this moment they were so quiet that they could hear each other's suddenly heavy breathing.
Go back?
The weight of these three words varies greatly from person to person.
For Qiao Lin and her fellow children of cadres, those two words were like a resounding slap in the face in public.
Some of them were elite soldiers selected from reconnaissance companies of various military regions, some were young police officers from the municipal public security bureau who had solved many major cases, and some were selected from newspapers, government agencies, factories, hospitals and other places because of their special talents. Each of them was an outstanding individual in their original unit.
They came carrying the earnest expectations of their families and their own irrepressible ambitions. If they were to be sent back in disgrace, it would not only be shameful, but also a failure that could never be erased from their resume.
After returning home, the disappointed looks from their elders, the insincere comfort from their peers, and the behind-the-scenes ridicule can make them feel ashamed for a long time.
But all they could do was keep their heads down.
They are still children of cadres, and their livelihoods will still be secure if they return to their original work units.
But for someone like Wang Xiaoya, who carried the hopes of her entire family and even the whole village, and was sent out from a poor mountain village to join the army with the most heartfelt drumming and the most fervent expectations from her fellow villagers, those three words were practically a death sentence.
Her face turned deathly pale in an instant.
Her mind went blank; Lei Kuan's words echoed in her ears like a spell.
Go back... How do I go back?
She can't forget the day she left.
Before dawn, her mother killed the only hen in the house that laid eggs, which she had kept to buy pencils for her younger brother.
Under the dim kerosene lamp, her mother clumsily plucked chicken feathers while wiping her eyes with her sleeve, muttering, "Girl, when you get to the army, make sure you eat your fill. Drink all this chicken soup; it will give you strength and prevent anyone from bullying you."
The earthenware pot was full of chicken soup, oily and incredibly fragrant. Her mother forced her to eat every last bit of the meat and soup, until she was so full she kept burping.
Her father, the man who had spent his whole life toiling in the loess soil and whose back was almost too bent to straighten, squatted on the doorstep, puffing on his pipe one puff after another. In the swirling smoke, his eyes were frighteningly red.
He wrapped all the cloth coupons he had at home and the few dollars he had saved up over the past six months in layers of handkerchiefs, and stuffed them into her pocket. His lips trembled for a long time before he finally managed to squeeze out a single sentence:
"Girl, you're the kind of girl that the soldiers are choosing, the kind that even outshines a dozen or so big, fat boys in the village. I have high hopes for you... to bring honor to our Wang family!"
The whole village gathered under the big locust tree at the village entrance to see her off. The village chief brought out the biggest and newest red flag from the township office, and they beat drums and gongs. The scene was even more lively than the New Year.
The older women in the village all say that the little girl has made something of herself; she's going to become a high-ranking official and will be a city dweller who lives off the government's salary in the future.
If... if I get stamped with "rejected" and sent back...
Wang Xiaoya dared not imagine that scene.
She could almost see those gossipy women under the big locust tree at the village entrance, sewing shoe soles while glancing sideways in her direction and hurling insults.
"See? I told you she wasn't cut out for it! What a waste of Old Wang's old hen!"
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