Chapter Two
Taiyin is an inland fourth-tier city, and Taiyin University of Science and Technology is the only undergraduate institution in the city. In order to exercise the autonomy of higher education institutions, more than ten years ago, Taiyin University of Science and Technology joined forces with a listed company to establish an independent secondary college with a public-private partnership. The admission score is more than 100 points lower than that of the main campus, but the tuition is several times more expensive.
The secondary college is located far from the main campus, and its teaching environment is much worse. Two years ago, the Ministry of Education required all independent colleges of higher education institutions to transform into private undergraduate institutions, so this secondary college was completely transformed into a private undergraduate institution. It absorbed a group of professional course teachers from a nearly bankrupt junior college, but the teaching staff is still severely lacking, so it has been recruiting extensively. The minimum educational requirement for teaching positions is a master's degree, so Zuo Xutong could only apply for a laboratory technician position in materials science. However, as long as there is a laboratory, she can continue to conduct experiments.
The school is located on a vacant lot on a hillside. It consists of only two teaching buildings connected by a long corridor in the middle. The playground is dilapidated and small, and the road in front of the school gate is dusty, with food stalls lining both sides.
If it weren't for the brand-new stone tablet with the school's name engraved on it at the school gate, Zuo Xutong would hardly believe that this was a university. After starting her job, she had been looking for the school's library. It took her half a month to finally find the so-called "library" on the top floor of the teaching building. It was a small space, at most a large reading room, with very few people inside. The study room next to it was completely empty, without a single person in sight.
Students wandered aimlessly around the campus, almost none of them studying. The vast majority of students here had no plans for the future and were filled with uncertainty. On her way to campus, Zuo Xutong often saw couples kissing and cuddling in the grove of trees. The small hotels near the school were always packed; even the worst hotels had no shortage of customers. On the day of her interview, she stayed at a hotel off-campus. The room had terrible soundproofing, and the night before the interview, she lay on the hotel's simple bed, listening to indescribable sounds for half the night.
Ironically, just down the mountain is Taiyin City's best high school, with its spacious playground, towering poplar trees, and European-style teaching buildings made of red ceramic tiles. The air there seems to be even fresher and sweeter than that on the mountain.
Looking out the lab window, one can see the prestigious local high school, which often gives Zuo Xutong a sense of temporal displacement. Eight years ago, she sat in that same classroom, a top student in the experimental class of a provincial key high school, with a bright future ahead. Now, she's graduated from a third-rate university and works as a contract lab technician at this desolate hillside college. When did her life's path begin to narrow?
Several years after graduation, she lost contact with all her classmates except for her class monitor, Wu Li, and didn't dare to return to her alma mater to visit her teachers. Wu Li knew that she was afraid of hearing that name from anyone, so he never mentioned it either.
As time went by, Zuo Xutong gradually adapted to life here, but found it difficult to truly integrate. Her colleagues' conversations revolved around housing prices, financial management, and children. Some older female colleagues tirelessly urged her to get married. Under the guise of caring for her, they brazenly pried into her private life and constantly instilled in her the idea that men and women should marry when they reach a certain age, as if a woman who hadn't married by a certain age had committed some heinous crime.
On Friday afternoon, after a long departmental meeting, everyone was walking out listlessly when Professor Li, who was nearing retirement, suddenly called out to her: "Xutong, do you have a boyfriend?"
"No."
“I know that you young people don’t use matchmakers anymore, and you play games like ‘killing’ to find a partner, but I see you stay at school all day and don’t go out to play?” Teacher Li asked tentatively.
Zuo Xutong smiled noncommittally. She had heard that Jiang Xiaoli's marriage was arranged by Teacher Li. Later, Jiang Xiaoli often told people that the thing she regretted most in her life was that she was too easily swayed and liked to listen to other people's arrangements. When she went on a blind date, the matchmaker said that the man was honest and upright, and she believed it.
Jiang Xiaoli's first 35 years of life were a joke. She was good at literature, history and philosophy but fell into the pit of mathematics, physics and chemistry. She was a staunch advocate of not getting married but got married in a daze. She wanted to be childless but inexplicably had two children. She finally raised her two children with great difficulty. When her second child was just starting kindergarten, her husband cheated on her.
How many people in this world, under the "well-intentioned" encouragement of others, have made a mess of their lives?
Later, Jiang Xiaoli's words reached Teacher Li's ears. She felt deeply wronged that her good intentions had resulted in her being blamed. Over time, this injustice turned into resentment, and whenever Jiang Xiaoli was mentioned, she would make sarcastic remarks: "Don't be fooled by her seemingly respectable appearance. Her house is a mess, like a pigsty. What man could stand that?"
It turns out that in her eyes, women who were abandoned were all women who were incompetent.
"Do you have any siblings?" Teacher Li continued to ask.
“I have a half-sister.” After Zuo Xutong finished speaking, seeing that Teacher Li was looking at her in surprise, she added, “My parents divorced when I was seven years old, and my mother remarried and had another sister.”
"Oh," Teacher Li paused for a moment, then continued to inquire as if checking a household registration, "What does your father do for a living?"
He is no longer here.
"Oh dear," Teacher Li slapped her thigh and said regretfully, "your conditions aren't very good. Your education level isn't high, and you don't have a permanent job yet. I should introduce you to this young man..."
Zuo Xutong quickly said, "I'm sorry, Teacher Li, I don't want to find a partner right now."
"Why wouldn't you want to? You're almost thirty, aren't you?" Teacher Li said with a look of disappointment.
"Uh... I have a fear of marriage." Zuo Xutong made up a story on the spot. She didn't want to become the second Jiang Xiaoli, who said that she was deceived by a scumbag for four years, and instead of going to a 985 university, she went to a third-rate university. Now, Jiang Xiaoli has graduated with a master's degree from a prestigious foreign university and has achieved success in both love and career.
Later, whenever someone tried to introduce her to a potential partner, she would use the same excuse to brush them off. One day, some colleagues were talking about it, and they all chimed in, saying, "What marriage phobia? It's just an excuse. Who knows, she might have some kind of physical problem."
Thus, the story gradually evolved into one where she had a hidden illness that she was ashamed to talk about, and was afraid to find a partner.
Zuo Xutong once asked Jiang Xiaoli, "If you didn't want to get married, why didn't you refuse blind dates in the first place?" Jiang Xiaoli shook her head and said to her, "You don't understand. The more closed and backward a place is, the less tolerant it is of different people. If you don't get married, these people's spittle will drown you."
Zuo Xutong knew she had become an oddity in everyone's eyes, but as long as she could conduct experiments here and complete her membrane electrode project, she didn't care about enduring any more cold looks and discrimination. She also advised Jiang Xiaoli to think more positively, saying that many people's lives stagnated the moment they stepped into this place, and if they couldn't find some excitement in other people's misfortunes, how could they get through this predictable life?
But Jiang Xiaoli couldn't stand living with people gossiping behind her back, so she resigned immediately after the divorce. After she left, Zuo Xutong became even more taciturn.
Fortunately, the lab technician's workload was not heavy, and could even be described as very easy, so she had plenty of opportunities to use the lab's downtime to research MEA topics.
At first, she was glad that she had come here as a lab technician and could do experiments as she pleased, but soon someone reported that she was misusing the laboratory.
During a meeting, the department head directly criticized her: "The responsibility of a lab technician is to maintain experimental equipment and keep the laboratory clean. As for scientific research and teaching, that's for professional teachers to do. We just need to do our job well."
Zuo Xutong argued forcefully, painstakingly explaining the importance of his research: "The world is currently facing a crisis of energy shortages and environmental degradation. my country is the world's largest energy consumer, with an oil import dependency of 70%. Energy structure transformation is an inevitable trend, and the country is also strongly supporting the new energy vehicle industry… Membrane electrode assembly (MEA) is a core component of hydrogen fuel cell stacks. There are only a handful of domestic manufacturers, and their products have high platinum loading but low power density, making them uncompetitive compared to foreign products. Currently, many hydrogen fuel cell companies import MEAs from abroad at high prices. If we can develop high-performance, low-platinum-loading MEAs, we can significantly reduce the cost of the stack, thereby controlling the overall vehicle cost and breaking the price monopoly of international giants. Without overcoming core technologies, China's hydrogen energy vehicle industry will continue to be held back by developed countries."
After Zuo Xutong finished speaking, the entire conference room fell silent. Several colleagues looked at her incredulously, as if they were looking at a pheasant that had mistaken itself for a wild goose, their eyes filled with pity and mockery.
They never imagined their profession could be related to the country's energy transition. Compared to things that had nothing to do with them, they were more concerned with tangible benefits, such as professional title evaluation, housing price fluctuations, their children's schooling, and which new supermarket was having a sale...
Zuo Xutong has once again proven herself to be an anomaly. A nearly 30-year-old single woman, instead of thinking about finding a partner, getting married and having children, she spends all her time in the laboratory doing nothing "real work" and worrying about environmental pollution and energy crisis. She is simply being a busybody and worrying about nothing!
Her explanation did not receive the support of the department head, because he did not believe that an undergraduate from a third-rate university could create a miracle and develop world-leading membrane electrode technology in such a rudimentary experimental environment at the school. In his view, her idea was nothing short of a pipe dream.
From then on, Zuo Xutong's scientific research work had to go underground. Every day after dinner, after all the teachers in the department had left, she would quietly come to the school, open the laboratory door, and work inside until the early hours of the next day.
For the past two years, she has been shuttling between her dormitory and the laboratory, often working sixteen or seventeen hours a day without weekends or holidays. The snow on the distant mountains has accumulated and melted, and the migratory birds by the lake have come and gone. One day, when she walked out into the street wearing a thick cotton coat, she realized that the willow branches had already sprouted and the tender green grass had long since broken through the soil. Spring had arrived, but she was completely unaware.
One afternoon, before class started, a boy yawned, carrying a bag of lunchboxes, and listlessly walked into the lab. He found a corner to sit down, picked up his chopsticks, and opened the lunchbox. A strong aroma of curry quickly filled the entire lab.
Zuo Xutong walked up to him and reminded him, "Student, eating is not allowed in the lab."
"Teacher, I didn't have time to eat lunch today because I was in a competition," the boy said with a grin.
"What competition?"
"Peace Elite." After the boy finished speaking, a burst of laughter rang out around him. The students probably also felt that a game competition was not a suitable excuse.
Zuo Xutong knew in her heart that they were only here to get a diploma. Apart from class time, they spent all night playing games in their dorm rooms, and they wanted to eat, drink, relieve themselves, and sleep in bed.
"No matter the reason, you are not allowed to eat in the lab," she said sternly, her face hardening.
The boy pleaded and begged for a while, but when he found the teacher unmoved, he angrily slammed his lunchbox shut, muttering under his breath, "Our major is fucking going to fail, why are you meddling in this?"
The program is going to fail? Zuo Xutong was stunned. She was not surprised that the program was going to fail, but that she was unaware of the fact that the students all knew about it.
She didn't want to believe the news was true, because her research was at a crucial stage. However, not long after, the college announced that the Materials Science and Engineering major had been discontinued due to failing the teaching evaluation. Some of the faculty members were transferred to other positions, while most of them left, including Zuo Xutong.
After she lost her job, Wu Li strongly urged her to return to Longjin City to develop her career, saying that there was a hydrogen energy industry base there, and countless new energy vehicle companies had been established there in recent years.
Contrary to her initial expectations of returning home in glory, Zuo Xutong returned to her hometown dejectedly with the school's severance pay.
Her lack of formal education prevented her from applying to large companies, so she could only target newly established small companies. However, after sending out more than a dozen resumes, they all disappeared without a trace. Later, she realized that startups were more likely to hire experienced people.
With a "let's try our luck" attitude, she sent her resume to every company that had a suitable position. After waiting for a week, only this company invited her for an interview.
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