Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 408 There's no time to lose.

In less than an hour, Chen Fan returned with a full load of goods.

A few pheasants, a badger (which was the one Runtu had caught), and the little raccoon cat were his haul for the day.

As soon as he returned, several girls rushed over and took the wild animal to process it. Jiang Lili was the last to arrive and happened to see Chen Fan take a cat out of the bag.

Her eyes widened suddenly. "A cat?"

The implication is that this thing is edible?
Anquan had already bought pork from the commune and was now playing with the pandas outside the panda enclosure with his hands behind his back. Hearing the noise, he came over and shook his head repeatedly, saying, "No matter how good your cooking is, I won't eat cat meat."

Chen Fan replied, "I won't do it; Liu Dan and the others will cook today."

He then pinched the raccoon twice, and the raccoon, which was still pretending to be dead, could no longer keep up the act and looked at him pitifully, "Meow."

It was a miracle that it had come out looking for something to eat, but before it could even fill its stomach, it was knocked unconscious by a rock. When it woke up, the person in front of it declared it to be his pet.

Pets are pets, but what's the point of putting them in a bag and squeezing them together with a bunch of dead animals?

Is it a show of force?

Then look to the side, and there's a vicious bird on the roof, staring at you without blinking, and two dogs with their tongues hanging out, even drooling.

Looking further into the woods not far away, a very long snake was flicking its tongue before swallowing a mouse whole…

The little tabby cat decisively turned its head to look at its owner, and obediently meowed again. Just as it was about to roll over, it realized that it was still being held by its owner, so it could only pitifully meow again.

Chen Fan didn't even glance at it, but said to Jiang Lili, "Bring a basin of water, I'll give it a bath."

Jiang Lili was stunned again, "Take a shower?"

Chen Fan picked up the little raccoon cat, his eyes full of disgust. "I didn't kill it with a rock just now. You can't eat this thing, and it's not easy to put it away. Keep it to catch mice. It's not as useful as Big Flower."

Big Flower is that cauliflower snake.

At this point, Chen Fan pursed his lips at Jiang Lili, "The only thing we can do is clean it up and keep it at home as a pet, to keep it company and relieve its boredom."

pet?

Jiang Lili's eyes twitched slightly, and she pointed to the kitchen, "I'll go get some water."

After saying that, he turned around and left.

Anquan walked up to Chen Fan and whispered, "She's definitely thinking you're crazy."

Chen Fan glanced at him. "You think everyone is as rude as you? She was worldly-wise back in the day, you know."

An Quan then remembered that Jiang Lili also came from Yunhu, and her father had been a leader in a large factory. In terms of experience, she was not much less knowledgeable than him.

Keeping dogs to guard the house and cats to catch mice is common sense. If someone keeps an animal for companionship, they'd probably be arrested as a feudal remnant.

However, 20 years ago, many people kept pets, with cats and dogs being the most common, and all sorts of other strange and unusual things were also common.

Everyone knows Feng Zikai, right? He kept many pets, including fierce geese, silkworms, chicks, ducks, pigeons, and he especially liked to write captions for his adorable pet portraits.

(Feng Zikai's painting of his own cat)
So Anquan and Jiang Lili both know the concept of pets. If it were Yang Ju and the others, they would probably be completely confused. What pet?
However, Chen Fan only dared to say it here. Once he left the house, he would tell anyone who asked him that he kept the animals to catch rats.

Well, most people wouldn't ask why they keep a cat, what else can it do besides catching mice?
Jiang Lili quickly returned with the water, and Chen Fan put the little tabby cat in the water. Although the cat was scared, it didn't dare to move.

After washing it with soap and changing the water three times, the little tabby cat looked brand new.

What? You have a head injury?

It's alright, soapy water is just right for disinfection.

They moved a chair over so it could bask in the sun. The food wasn't ready yet, so Chen Fan and An Quan sat down next to it, each smoking a cigarette.

With his legs crossed, Anquan said with a sigh, "I've been feeling really anxious these past few days, but today everything is finally settled."

He turned to look at Chen Fan, "Sanhu told me you're planning to take the postgraduate entrance exam directly?"

Chen Fan nodded. “Going to university is boring. You have to stay in school for four years and you can’t go anywhere. Graduate school is more flexible. You can talk to your teacher and if you pass the exam, you don’t have to go to class. You can use the excuse of doing creative work to go back to Lujiawan and then go wherever you want without any restrictions.”

He didn't know if others could do it, but Teacher Guo and Teacher He both assured him that it was negotiable; otherwise, he would have gone to another school.

Since you're going to jail anyway, why not go somewhere with a better future?

Anquan shook his head upon hearing his words, "Then why are you even going to school? You've already been rejected by the health department officials, and you don't seem to have any ambitions, so why bother with this diploma?"

Chen Fan smiled and said, "That's different."

He didn't say what was different.

Anquan then said, “Okay, it’s definitely different. Without this diploma, you’re just an ordinary farmer, or at best a farmer-writer. With this diploma, you’re a full-time writer who’s rooted in the countryside and doing fieldwork. Your status is completely different, and everyone will look at you with more respect.”

He paused, then let out a long breath and looked around. "The announcement of the resumption of the college entrance examination has put my mind at ease, but another worry has arisen. Even you received the news more than a week in advance. How many people do you think received the news beforehand? Did they already start reviewing?"

Chen Fan shrugged. "So what?"

He turned to look at Anquan, "You have to think of it this way: regardless of whether an exam is required, they will definitely have a place in the admissions. Even if they have five thousand, ten thousand, or even twenty thousand or thirty thousand students, will it affect you?"

Anquan paused, frowned, and fell into deep thought.

Chen Fan continued, "Their biggest advantages are nothing more than two things: one is receiving the news in advance, and the other is reviewing in advance. You must understand one thing: two months ago, unless they had a private tutor, what they learned was no different from that of the students at Nanhu High School."

How many families have the vision and ability? Even if all the conditions are prepared for them, how many children will be able to learn on their own initiative?
Moreover, the document clearly states that fresh graduates only account for about 30% of the total enrollment this year. Children from capable families have already gone to university, so how many of them can just happen to be taking the college entrance examination this year?
Even if they do, they can only take up spots meant for recent graduates. Spots recruited from the general public are what you really need to fight for!

Upon hearing this, An Quan suddenly understood. "Those with connections have a limited number of students they can recruit, while those without connections are the majority. And our competitors are actually just ordinary people?!"

"That's right, the tracks are different, what are you worried about?"

Chen Fan nodded, leaned back in his chair, and said seriously, "And don't forget, this is the first year. We don't know what will happen in the future, but the first two times will definitely be relatively fair and comprehensive, and we will try our best to eliminate all fraud. Otherwise, where will the superiors put their faces?"

Anquan nodded and smiled, "You see things very clearly."

Chen Fan smiled and said, "I should say that bystanders see things more clearly. Since I'm not involved, I'm not one of the players, so I can see things much more clearly."

After transmigrating, he almost never acted as a charlatan, at most offering his own analytical opinions on minor matters.

Even this college entrance exam information was revealed to him by Teacher Guo; what does it have to do with him?!
That's why he felt so confident in spreading the news and arranging for Huang Ying, Yang Ju, Liu Dan, and Zhang Cuie to apply to Tsinghua and Peking Universities.

If Tsinghua and Peking University weren't primarily recruiting locally, with very few places allocated to each province, he would have dared to encourage everyone to apply to Tsinghua and Peking University.

First of all, the difficulty of this year's college entrance examination papers was limited. Although there were three levels of difficulty, namely elementary, intermediate and high school, the overall difficulty was still relatively low. But how many points did this year's candidates score?

Taking Anhui as an example, excluding the additional subjects, out of a total of 500 points, the top score in the province is only around 450 points. In Fuyang, out of more than 4000 candidates, only 4 people scored over 400 points, 3 of whom were former educated youth from Shanghai.

Guo Fang, the top scorer in the college entrance examination in the capital, is indeed impressive, but he was a sent-down youth in Inner Mongolia and only returned to the capital 25 days before the exam.

He worked as a private teacher in Inner Mongolia. Due to the lack of textbooks, he tried his best to recall the knowledge he had learned in school, wrote it down, and then taught it to his students. He taught all subjects by himself.

Naturally, the content taught is the knowledge points before the textbook was revised; to put it more directly, it's the same old set of subjects as politics, language, mathematics, English, physics, chemistry, history, and geography.

So besides himself, three other students in his class were admitted to Peking University, and there are no statistics on those who were admitted to other universities.

Four students from one class in Inner Mongolia got into Peking University, and they were using incomplete, secondhand textbooks, which shows how low the students' knowledge base is this year. Chen Fan, on the other hand, at least supervised the students in Lujiawan to study hard for more than half a year, using self-study books for math, physics, and chemistry, and always radiating a teaching aura during his lectures. If they can't even compare to Guo Fang's students, then they might as well all go back to school for remedial education!
This is why Teacher Guo and Teacher He were surprised by Yang Zhijun's and his team's knowledge base after their assessment.

It's not that they're so great, it's just that students these days really have a poor foundation in knowledge.

Compared to other students, they didn't seem like people of this era at all.

Just like that joke, when two people encounter a tiger, they don't need to run faster than the tiger, they just need to run faster than the other person.

From the day Chen Fan invited Anquan to stay, he had already received his university admission letter, but he was unaware of it at the time.

Even the dozen or so educated youths from other places who moved into the Lujiawan Library ahead of time were far ahead of 99% of the population.

Because after the media announced it, many people didn't really confirm the news for a week or even half a month.

For example, Ge Zhaoguang, who was 27 years old at the time, moved to Guizhou with his parents in his early years and later became a worker in a supply and marketing cooperative. He often went to the countryside to purchase goods. Although he heard the broadcast on the 21st, he was not able to confirm it until early November.

Even with less than a month to prepare, he picked up his books again and focused on mathematics, eventually gaining admission to the Classical Literature major in the Chinese Department of Peking University. That year, this was the only major offered by Peking University's Chinese Department to students from Guizhou, and he had no choice but to apply for it.

In this situation, there is no other reason than that this year's test takers have a serious lack of knowledge.

After a few words to dispel any safety concerns, everyone went back to their rooms for a good nap after a big lunch, and simply wasted the afternoon and evening as well.

The next morning, I was back in "hellish study mode."

I get up at 6 a.m., finish washing up in 5 minutes, and then prepare breakfast.

After the steamed buns were steamed and the hot porridge was cooked, I started my morning exercise at 6:15 a.m.

He practiced Baguazhang, taught by Chen Fan.

It is not any particular Bagua style, but rather a simplified boxing style he created by combining Tai Chi and Baguazhang. It consists of only eight movements and can exercise the muscles and bones of the whole body.

In terms of combat skills, they are relatively ordinary. Even if they practice until they are very proficient, they can only defeat two or three ordinary people at most. However, they have one characteristic: they are extremely fast at running away. Their bodies sway and twist, making them difficult to catch unless one is a master of grappling.

Chen Fan didn't expect them to do anything great after learning kung fu, so he created this small Baguazhang (Eight Trigrams Palm) for them to practice as calisthenics. At most, it would also help them launch a surprise attack when they encountered bad guys and then run away immediately.

Yeah, that's roughly the idea.

The moves are simple, but they are not easy to master. You have to practice each of the eight moves eight times, and you have to do a total of 64 moves. It takes more than 20 minutes to finish.

By this time, the steamed buns were cooked and the porridge was ready, so it was time to have breakfast.

After finishing breakfast and washing the dishes and pots, it was already 6:50, and that's when we officially started studying.

Chen Fan wasn't idle either; he transformed into a "special teacher" and answered their questions one by one. However, Huang Ying and the others didn't have many questions to answer anymore, and most of the time they didn't need to.

As for the safety couple, since they needed to learn from scratch, we specially set aside half an hour to teach them the new lessons.

After finishing his lecture, he would go upstairs to write his novel, and Jiang Lili would also put aside her academic studies to go upstairs for an hour to learn painting before coming downstairs to continue her studies.

This continued until noon. Then the girls were in charge of cooking, Chen Fan was in charge of spacing out, and Anquan chatted with Gun Gun to pass the time.

After lunch, everyone went back to their rooms to rest and take a nap.

At 2 PM, everyone got up and began their second workout of the day.

Studying started at 2:30, while Chen Fan went to the brigade headquarters to check on Zhang Cuie and the others' study progress. He would address any problems he had, and if there were no problems, he would immediately return to continue writing his novel.

Dinner is prepared at 6 p.m., evening self-study begins at 8 p.m., and the day's study ends at 10:30 p.m.

However, we couldn't rest yet because we had to do our third workout of the day. After the workout, we washed up and went to bed around 11 p.m.

Then, at 6 a.m. the next day, the process was repeated.

On the morning of the 22nd, Chen Fan heard the news on the radio that the postgraduate entrance examination would be reinstated, only one day later than the announcement of the reinstatement of the college entrance examination.

He didn't care too much. Compared to the intense atmosphere of the college entrance examination, the postgraduate entrance examination received far less attention, and even the detailed examination rules hadn't been released yet. He decided to just wait and see.

On the 23rd, however, he was going to the prefectural committee with his men.

At 10 a.m., at Lujiawan Wharf, more than a dozen educated youths, 12 veterinarians, 7 female students from the study class, plus Jiang Lili, Huang Ying, Yang Ju, Liu Dan, Zhang Cuie, An Quan, and Yu Keying, all more than forty people who were preparing to register for the college entrance examination, gathered here to go to the prefectural committee to take a photo.

Chen Fan squatted by the dock, a translucent stone cigarette holder between his teeth, looking languid, and said, "Actually, that small, assembled boat can be used too, why wait for the big ship to come back?"

This stone cigarette holder isn't made of jade; it's a translucent stone he specifically found among the pebbles by the river, which he then carved himself with exquisite craftsmanship, so he wouldn't have to chew on bits of tobacco every time he smoked.

Secretary Yang sat on a wooden stake and said irritably, "Those small boats are for temporary emergencies. It's fine to use them to load goods normally, but who are these people at the dock today? They're all scholars going to take the college entrance exam. Once they pass, every single one of them will be a cadre. In olden times, they'd be called the God of Literature. You want them to ride in small boats? How could you even think of that!"

He paused for a moment, then said, "Registration hasn't even started yet, why are you in such a hurry? If we wait a few more days, the 10-meter-long ship that Team 4 is building will be launched. We can just take that ship out then, why would we need to wait for the big ship to come back?"

Chen Fan's lips moved, and the cigarette holder shifted from left to right. "We can't afford to be slow, Uncle Yang. Do you know how many people are going to register for the college entrance exam? If there are several thousand people, if we don't rush to take photos now, will we still have time when everyone rushes to take pictures after the official exam dates are announced?"

Secretary Yang clicked his tongue and remained silent.

Captain Zhang chuckled and said, "When have you ever won an argument with him?"

Zhang Wenliang shrank to one side and remained silent.

But he remained silent, and trouble came knocking on his door.

Frustrated and with nowhere to vent his anger, Secretary Yang targeted him, "You didn't sign up, so what are you doing here?"

Zhang Wenliang said innocently, "I didn't want to come. Xiao Chen asked me to come."

Secretary Yang frowned deeply. "You don't even want to come for such an important matter? What are you thinking?"

Zhang Wenliang was stunned.

Should I come, or shouldn't I come?

Chen Fan, suppressing a laugh, said, "With so many people going to the prefectural committee today, it won't do if no one is in charge. We'll have Brother Sanhu lead the team later; everyone in our team respects him. As for the educated youth, they'll also be under security supervision. This way, we can ensure everyone's safety as much as possible."

Secretary Yang nodded, "Yes, you've thought of everything."

As they were talking, a large ship came speeding up from upstream, with a flag on top that read "Luwan No. 2".

As for Luwan No. 1, it is naturally the same small, assembled boat from before.

Chen Fan's private yacht is Luwan No. 3. He really wanted to refuse this vulgar name, but the boat was paid for by the team, and the owner on the boat certificate was also from Lujiawan Brigade, so he was too embarrassed to say anything.

The 10-meter wooden boat that will be launched a few days later is naturally the Luwan No. 4.

I just don't know when that boat will be available.

Once the boat docked, Zhang Wenliang immediately called for people to board.

Chen Fan then jumped onto his private yacht.

Those who boarded the ship with him included Jiang Lili, Huang Ying, Yang Ju, Liu Dan, and the couple An Quan.

With Anquan sitting safely in the passenger seat and several girls in the back, Chen Fan started the yacht and slowly sped off ahead of the large wooden boat.

(End of this chapter)