After Wen Ruan and Song Yan finished their meal with their two mothers, Wen Ruan saw them off onto the bus before returning to her dormitory at Tsinghua University.
Wen Ruan slept on the top bunk by the window. Except for the person in the bunk opposite her, almost everyone in the dormitory had arrived.
One of them surprised Wen Ruan greatly—it was Dong Ya!
Dong Ya was also surprised when she saw Wen Ruan: "Ruan Ruan? What a coincidence?"
Wen Ruan was also a little surprised. She nodded and then pointed to the bed card on the top bunk of hers. Dong Ya had just arrived and put down her things. She hadn't had time to get to know anyone else yet, so she naturally hadn't noticed who was on the top bunk.
When she looked closely, she was pleasantly surprised to find that it was Wen Ruan's name written on it. The two were bunk beds and classmates in the same class, International Relations Class 1!
After getting to know each other, everyone helped Dong Ya make her bed and agreed to go to the water room to get water so they could take a shower together.
After Wen Ruan finished showering in the bathroom, she went to bed to rest. This was her first time living in a dormitory. In her previous life, her family had bought her a small apartment near the school. She had lived outside the school and had never experienced this kind of communal living before. It felt very novel.
A group of young people from all over the country gathered together under the arrangement of fate called the college entrance examination, and began a brand new life.
The five people in the dormitory ranked themselves according to age. Zhou Wen came from Dong Province and was sent to the countryside in Northwest China as an educated youth. She stayed there for a full ten years and is exactly twenty-eight years old this year. She is an educated youth from the "Old Three Classes" and is ranked first. She is a freshman in the Foreign Languages Department and majors in English.
Dong Ya ranked second, in the same class as Wen Ruan.
Wu Wenqian is from Hebei Province. She used to work as a staff member in the publicity department of a textile factory. She is a multi-talented and cheerful girl. She is twenty-four years old this year, the third in her family, and also majored in foreign languages.
Then there's Zhao Xiaohong, who is the same age as Wen Ruan, but started school a year later and is a graduating high school student this year. However, her birthday is two months older than Wen Ruan's, so she's ranked fourth.
Wen Ruan is the youngest, ranking fifth.
This dormitory is a mixed dormitory for students from the Department of International Relations and the Department of Foreign Languages. Wen Ruan, Dong Ya, and Zhao Xiaohong are freshmen majoring in International Relations in the Department of International Relations.
Zhou Wen and Wu Wenqian are also classmates, both students in the English Class 1 of the Foreign Languages Department.
The group of people were having trouble sleeping in their dorm room that night. They talked about their past lives and their hopes for the future, their words filled with excitement, curiosity, anticipation, and longing.
......
The next morning, the last person in the dormitory finally arrived. She was dressed very fashionably, with a petite figure, and her family was obviously well-off. Her parents were following behind her, running around taking care of her.
He was very enthusiastic when he saw the five people in the dormitory and greeted them.
After getting to know her, we learned that her new roommate is from Shanghai and her name is Song Ge. She is eighteen years old this year, one year younger than Wen Ruan. She is a recent graduate and this is the first time she has come to university so far from home. Her family is very worried about her and has taken leave to send her off.
Since there was only one upper bunk left in the dormitory, she seemed a little disgusted, with a worried look on her face, but she didn't say anything.
Since Zhou Wen was short of something and said she was going to the school store to buy some things, she wasn't in the dormitory, leaving only Zhao Xiaoyan and Dong Ya in the lower bunk.
Song Ge's mother looked at Zhao Xiaoyan and Dong Ya, who were sitting on the lower bunk, and wondered if they could discuss changing Song Ge's lower bunk.
Song Ge felt a little embarrassed and reached out to tug at her mother's sleeve, not wanting her to say anything more.
But looking at the upper bunk of the bed, Song's mother was very worried and still felt embarrassed to ask, "These two students, may I ask if Song Ge can switch beds with you?"
Zhao Xiaoyan was about to speak when Dong Ya stopped her, saying, "Auntie, let me switch with Song Ge. My home is right next to Tsinghua University, and I might go home often in the future, so I won't be in the dormitory often."
"Oh, thank you, young lady. My Song Ge has been spoiled since she was a child and has never suffered any hardship. She has never slept on a bed like this before. I'm afraid she will fall off at night. See if you are used to sleeping on the top bunk. If not, we can think of other solutions."
“It’s alright, Auntie. I slept in bunk beds when I was working in the countryside before…” Dong Ya replied.
In the end, the two exchanged beds amidst the thanks from Song Ge and his family of three.
Song Ge's mother also took out a lot of Shanghai specialties from her luggage and distributed them to everyone. The others thanked her and accepted them one by one, and then returned the favor with gifts.
Although Wen Ruan had never lived in a dormitory before, she had read many posts about the various "palace intrigues" in the dormitory by her roommates in her previous life, and she had some concerns.
When Song Ge first came in, Wen Ruan thought she was the arrogant and haughty type of little princess, and was a little worried that they wouldn't get along well in the future.
Fortunately, although she came from a well-off family and was pampered by her family, she seemed to have a good personality after getting to know her. The six people in the dormitory got along well and their personalities were relatively compatible, so Wen Ruan finally felt at ease.
In the spring of 1978, 273,000 people broke through the siege of more than 5.7 million people taking the college entrance examination and finally entered the university classroom they had dreamed of.
This group of college students, who come from vastly different age groups and most of whom have experienced the hardships of being sent to the countryside, are very grateful for the opportunities that history has given them.
Just like what Song's father said: "You have been born in a good era, you should cherish it!"
As beneficiaries and lucky ones of the resumption of the college entrance examination, they grew up and honed their skills in an era with an exceptionally good learning environment. After graduation, they filled the huge demand gaps when everything was in ruins and gained unprecedented development opportunities. Later, they became the driving force of reform and opening up and the backbone of various industries.
Since then, through repeated college entrance examinations, millions of qualified students have been selected, and after training and development, many of them have become backbones in various industries and sectors of society.
The economic boom that followed in the decades is inextricably linked to the restoration and continuous reform of the college entrance examination system.
History may not remember the individual achievements and accomplishments of the Class of '77, but it will certainly remember the fate and actions of the entire "New Three-Level Scholars" group...
None of the six people in Wen Ruan's dormitory knew what their future held, but at this moment, they all firmly believed that the future would get better and better, and that it had a bright future...
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