The sun was scorching, and a group of middle-aged women were gathered under a locust tree in the military compound, fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans.
Aunt Wang was eating melon seeds, spitting the broken shells onto the bluestone slabs: "I said that Lin Zhiyue looked unreliable, holding books and pretending to be serious every day, but in the end, he didn't even get the admission letter."
Aunt Li moved the bamboo chair to the shade of the tree and lowered her voice to say, "She is from the countryside after all. What real skills can she have? I heard that she even applied to Beijing University. Isn't this a toad wanting to eat swan meat?"
There was a sudden burst of sneers all around, startling the sparrows on the locust tree so much that they fluttered around.
Aunt Zhang shook her head as she was sewing the soles of the shoes: "Now it's exposed, right?"
Aunt Zhao said sarcastically, "If you ask me, you should have known your duty earlier. Now you are totally embarrassed!"
Amid the constant discussion, someone suddenly shouted, "Look! The postman is here!"
Everyone stretched their necks to look. Aunt Wang's hand was hanging in the air and she forgot to shake it. The stitches on Aunt Li's shoe soles were crooked.
Aunt Zhang stood on tiptoe and pushed her reading glasses down, muttering, "I wonder whose child's notice this is. The package is so bulging and looks quite impressive."
"Alas, my son is just slacking off every day."
Aunt Zhao sighed, and the bamboo chair made a harsh sound on the ground. "I still don't dare to ask about my grades, and I don't know if I can go to college."
"Who says it's not?"
Someone in the crowd echoed, with a bit of bitterness in his voice, "Who in our compound doesn't want to have a college student? We hope that our children can go out and not be like us, who have to stay around the kitchen all our lives..."
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