Chapter 83: Graduations and Hard Seats

The aftershocks of the bus ride still lingered in his calf muscles. By the time Lin Chen pushed open the back door of the classroom, the morning reading bell had already been ringing for two minutes. The homeroom teacher stood at the podium with a stack of comprehensive-science mock papers in hand. Chalk dust hung in the morning light like unsettled grit. He walked to the seventh seat by the window, pulled out the chair, and sat down. The canvas bag went at his feet. When his left foot touched the floor, a familiar dull pain pulsed along the edge of the wound. The gauze had been changed, but the long ride had slowed the local circulation, and a thin scab of seepage had dried along the edge of the dressing. He adjusted his posture and shifted his weight to the right foot. He opened the mistake notebook to a fresh page. Date: March 28. Days until the first mock exam: 9. Days until submission of the preliminary materials for the provincial-city first-round review: 9. The two timelines crossed on the page. He crossed out "crossed" and replaced it with "parallel."

Morning reading was Chinese. He took out the Guide to University Application Preferences and the checklist for independent-admissions materials. The personal statement had to be eight hundred words. No empty phrases. No sentimentality. It had to be as exact as a lab report. He drafted the outline: family background (state the facts, no selling misery) → competition experience (highlight engineering thinking and resilience under pressure) → intended major (computer science / electronic information, emphasizing foundational logic and long-term commitment) → future plans (practical, no grandstanding). The pen moved over the scratch paper. Three rounds of cuts and revisions. Final version. The handwriting was neat, with no erasures. He needed the Academic Affairs Office to stamp it, and he needed photocopies of his competition certificates. Teacher Wang from Academic Affairs was out. He waited until the exercise break between classes, stood in line, and got the documents stamped. The steel seal came down with a dull click. An indentation pressed into the edges of the paper. He checked every photocopy carefully: clarity, page numbers, order. He fastened them with a paper clip, slipped them into a clear plastic folder, zipped it shut, and put it into the inner layer of his canvas bag. The movements were practiced, without an extra pause.

The ledger lay open in the upper-right corner of his desk. Ticket already bought. Hard seat. Qinghe County to the provincial capital. Fare: 24 yuan. Cash remaining: 33.8 yuan. Minus printing costs for the materials (2.5 yuan). Minus the three-day budget for food and lodging in the provincial capital, calculated at the absolute minimum: guesthouse 15 yuan a day × 2 = 30 yuan; food 10 yuan a day × 3 = 30 yuan. Shortfall: 28.7 yuan. He stared at the number. No anxiety. Only arithmetic. Countermeasure: during the interview period in the provincial capital, bring his own dry food—steamed buns, preserved mustard greens, thermos. For lodging, choose the cheapest guesthouse near the school, or try contacting the teacher who had led the competition team and ask to borrow a place to stay for one night. Risk: consume social capital, low probability of success, backup option. He crossed out "backup option" and changed it to: Execute A: dry rations + hard-seat round trip. Execute B: if the interview runs long, activate reserve funds (younger brother's medicine remittance slip; do not touch unless absolutely necessary). The pen paused. Reality had no fault tolerance, only priorities. He closed the ledger, sorted the loose cash by denomination, and tucked it into the pocket against his body.

The afternoon was timed comprehensive-science practice. The papers were handed out. He started with physics. An integrated electromagnetism problem. The prompt was long, with nested conditions. Out of habit, he began by drawing a force diagram and setting up a differential equation. The pen touched down, then stopped. The college entrance exam did not test differential equations. He crossed it out and switched to the work-energy theorem and the Lorentz-force formula. Break the solution into steps. Mark the scoring points. Time allocation: physics 45 minutes, chemistry 40 minutes, biology 35 minutes. If he got stuck, skip it. Do not get hung up. Competition thinking aimed for the optimal solution; Gaokao thinking aimed for stable points. He forced himself to switch channels, like a relay switching a circuit. Click. Connected. The pen began moving again with a soft rustle. Outside the window, the shadow of the camphor tree crawled slowly across the desktop. He did not look up. He looked only at the paper. On the final major problem, he checked the answer with two different methods. Same result. He marked it in red and capped the pen.

Evening study ended at 9:40. He packed his schoolbag and returned to the dorm. Three of the sound-activated corridor lights were broken. He climbed the stairs in darkness. Key into the lock. Turn. Push the door. His roommates were already asleep, breathing evenly. He sat at the desk and turned on the lamp. The light was dim and yellow. He took out the letter from the canvas bag and read it again. "Xiaoman drew a new picture and said she'll paste it on the wall when you come back." He pulled open the drawer. Inside was an old newspaper. Taped to it was a crayon drawing. Crooked lines. A stick figure. Several five-pointed stars over its head. Beside it was written: Brother. His fingertips brushed lightly over the raised wax marks. There was no warmth in them, but the lines had been pressed down hard. He slid the drawing into the mistake notebook, closed it, switched off the lamp, and lay down. The water stain on the ceiling was still there, like an unfinished circuit diagram. He closed his eyes and ran through the next day's plan in his head: morning reading, English listening, review of comprehensive-science mistakes, final check of materials, change the dressing. The steps were clear. Nothing redundant.

On the fourth day, the homeroom teacher wrote the countdown to the first mock exam on the blackboard: 6. Chalk dust trickled down. Lin Chen sat at his desk checking the itinerary for the provincial-capital interview. Train timetable: departs April 18 at 7:15 a.m., arrives at 11:40. Interview location: Main Building, Provincial University of Technology. Check-in time: 13:00-14:00. He calculated the transfer time. Train station to university: bus, then subway. Allow forty minutes. Enough. He had just folded the schedule when his deskmate Chen Hao handed him a printed page. "A reconstructed version of the independent-admissions written exam. Circulating internally. Take a look."

Lin Chen accepted it. The paper was thin. The ink smelled sharp. He skimmed it quickly. Question types: logical reasoning, fundamentals of mathematical modeling, current-affairs analysis. Final question: Briefly explain your understanding of "information asymmetry and class mobility." Limit: 300 words. His gaze stopped on the last line. The tip of his pen hovered above the scratch paper, but he did not write at once. Wind passed through the corridor and stirred the curtain. Dust settled through the column of light. He opened the mistake notebook and wrote on a fresh page: Chapter 83 goals. Seal the materials. Sprint for the mock exam. Break down the past paper. The pen came down. Ink seeped into the fibers. He looked up once at the blackboard. Countdown: 6. The number was powdered white with chalk dust. He lowered his head again and kept calculating. The next step was always the next step.