Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 481 Graduation Certificate

Friday, September 1st.

Today is the belated correspondence exam. If Chen Fan passes this hurdle, he will also be a college student in this era.

Go back and apply for graduate school. By the time you get your diploma, the degree system will probably be reinstated. With the double halo of this degree and membership in the Writers' Association, it's no joke that you'll feel "a cut above the rest" when you go out.

Despite driving all day yesterday, Chen Fan still got up very early today. After finishing his morning exercise, he didn't cook, but washed up and prepared to go out.

As it turned out, Jiang Lili and the other two were not late either. He had just finished dressing when the two sisters came in. Jiang Lili was carrying a basket covered with a thick cotton cloth on her arm.

Jiang Lili placed the basket on the table and casually lifted the cotton cloth, revealing several lunch boxes inside.

She turned to him and smiled, "I brought you breakfast, it's not too late, is it?"

She arrived right on time. After all, they had lived under the same roof for almost a year, and she knew Chen Fan's schedule best. He got up at 6 a.m. every morning and did half an hour of morning exercise, so this was the perfect time for her to arrive.

Chen Fan rolled up his sleeves and sat down at the table. "I was just about to go out for something to eat when you guys arrived."

He glanced at his watch, which was the same one the Jiang family had given him. "It's not even 7 o'clock yet. It's so cold. Why don't you sleep a little longer?"

Jiang Tiantian took chopsticks from the kitchen, opened several lunch boxes, which contained breakfast items such as steamed buns, eggs, and sweet potato pancakes, as well as a bag containing fried dough sticks.

She handed him a pair of chopsticks and said with a smile, "We're used to getting up early, and since you have an exam today, we came early to bring you breakfast. Eat a fried dough stick and two eggs, and you'll definitely get 100 points in every subject."

Chen Fan's lips twitched slightly. "You think I'm some kind of child to be coaxed?"

Jiang Lili found a rag, grabbed a tall, oval-shaped lunchbox, carefully opened the lid, and handed it to Chen Fan. "I bought a bowl of rice noodles. Eat quickly, or it will get soggy and won't taste good."

(A special lunchbox for soup dishes is less common than a square flat box; there are also lunch buckets that imitate the "Little Daily" pork kidney lunchbox.)
Chen Fan glanced at it, then picked up the fried dough stick with his left hand and used chopsticks in his right to slurp up the rice noodles. He took a bite of the fried dough stick first, then a bite of the rice noodles. "Mmm, delicious."

The two sisters didn't just stand by and watch. They opened another box of rice noodles, moved the contents of the other lunchboxes around, and made room for one. Jiang Tiantian picked up the lunchbox and poured out half a bowl.

After sitting down, he picked up a bowl of rice noodles with his chopsticks and laughed, "I remember when I was a kid, a bowl of rice noodles only cost 8 cents. Now it's gone up to 20 cents, plus 200 taels of grain coupons. Adding a spoonful of beef costs another 20 cents."

Jiang Lili turned to look at her sister and smiled sweetly, "Back then, our bellies were small, so Mom would only buy one bowl each time, and we would share it."

Instead of eating the rice noodles, she picked up an egg, peeled it, and placed it in Chen Fan's bowl.

Chen Fan glanced up, wondering how much a bowl of rice noodles cost when he was a child.

It seems like vegetarian noodles are 50 cents, shredded pork and seafood are 1 yuan? Beef is 1.5 yuan?

These days, beef is cheaper than pork, so you can eat more of it.

The best one is still the Three Delicacies Rice Noodles, with its fresh and delicious soup that you can never get tired of.

The three delicacies are not fixed. The clear soup is made up of fish cake, fish balls, shredded meat, daylily, shiitake mushrooms, ham, and cloud ear fungus. It is also called fish cake three delicacies.

There are also two other rich soups: pork three delicacies and beef three delicacies, as well as a vegetarian three delicacies soup that is lighter than fish cake three delicacies soup, but Chen Fan still prefers fish cake three delicacies soup the most.

Hmm, could we set up a breakfast stall inside the Luwan deli?
Seeing that he was lost in thought, Jiang Tiantian thought he was thinking about his mother, so she quickly kicked her younger sister lightly.

Jiang Lili instinctively turned to look at her sister, and saw her winking at her. Then she looked at Chen Fan and suddenly realized that she had said the wrong thing. She couldn't help but feel a little flustered, but since Chen Fan hadn't mentioned it, she couldn't say it directly. She could only stand there stunned for a moment.

Seeing that her younger sister was silent, Jiang Tiantian quickly changed the subject, "Xiao Fan, are you confident about the exam today?"

Chen Fan snapped out of his daze, swallowed hard, and decided to make the Three Delicacies Hot Pot as soon as he got back to Lujiawan. As for whether or not to sell it at the Luwan Delicatessen, he would decide later.

He then looked at Jiang Tiantian and laughed, "Don't worry, if you can't even handle this little problem, how will you take the postgraduate entrance exam?!"

Jiang Tiantian nodded repeatedly, "Yes, I knew you could do it."

Jiang Lili calmed down, took a slow breath, and peeled an egg for Chen Fan, saying, "I wish you all the best in your exams."

Chen Fan, “…”

After breakfast, the two sisters stayed home to read, while Chen Fan drove alone to the Education Bureau.

As usual, I first took the bags and strolled around for a bit.

Fortunately, he didn't know many people in the Education Department. There was only one deputy director, Zuo, and a few colleagues he had known from the Jiang sisters.

After handing out the gifts, I turned around and went to the Jiangnan University correspondence education center in the Yunhu area on the first floor.

Teacher Guo and Teacher He are no longer here. Now, several other teachers are stationed here. Since there is a correspondence exam today, even the three mobile staff members are here. The five of them are jointly responsible for this exam.

Although he wasn't familiar with them, Chen Fan still brought gifts and gave each of them a small souvenir. The gifts weren't valuable, but the teachers didn't refuse them.

The teachers were very polite to Chen Fan. This year, Lujiawan had contributed several outstanding students to Jiangnan University in the college entrance examination, which even caught the attention of the principal. He praised Lao Guo and Lao He, who had done the preliminary work, as well as the students they had helped.

With this achievement as a foundation, it's a certainty that they will be transferred back to the main campus next year.

There has been a talent shortage in recent years, and many people are quite old. For example, Professor Su is almost 60 years old. He can no longer keep up with the pace of life outside. Even without this incident, he would apply to be transferred back to the school next year.

But applying for a transfer back and being transferred back for meritorious service are two different things. Now that I've performed meritorious service, I should be able to get a promotion when I go back, right? At the very least, my salary should be raised!
As a result, their attitude towards Chen Fan was naturally different.

Teacher Su took a thick file bag out of the metal cabinet, walked over and said with a smile, "Student Chen, the exam was originally scheduled to be held in the large conference room on the third floor, with more than forty students taking the exam."

However, you're different. You registered for all the subjects at once, so we applied to the school leadership to have you take the exams separately.

A teacher next to him pushed open the door of the small conference room next door and smiled at Chen Fan, "Student Chen, your test center is here. Teacher Su and I will be proctoring the exam. After each exam, Teacher Zhuo and Teacher Ye will grade the papers on the spot in the office. If you pass all the exams, you can receive your graduation certificate on the spot."

Chen Fan was somewhat surprised. Could certificates really be issued on the spot?

Teacher Su pushed up his glasses and smiled, "Compared to regular full-time study, correspondence education places more emphasis on the quality of learning, that is, exam results. As long as the results are satisfactory and the school leaders approve, there is no problem in issuing the certificate in advance."

Chen Fan instantly understood. The key was the school leadership's approval. Since the leaders had agreed, a minor procedural flaw was perfectly acceptable.

In any case, it still comes down to the exam results.

Having figured it out, Chen Fan didn't hesitate any longer and went straight into the small office inside. The exam then began. The two proctors were indeed very dedicated; they didn't relax at all because of the small gift earlier and kept a close eye on Chen Fan.

Another teacher took a camera that he had borrowed from somewhere and snapped two photos of the scene. One photo was of Chen Fan, and the other was of the two teachers. Both photos showed the three of them together, and Chen Fan's figure, who was sketching at his desk, was clearly visible.

He himself was completely unaffected, continuing to write with his pen.

While doing the questions, he found that these correspondence course exam questions seemed to be very easy. Many of them were basic subject-based and not as difficult as the college entrance examination questions that had just ended.

Are these university exam questions?
The other three teachers, though not proctoring, were also watching the spectacle from the sidelines.

Seeing Chen Fan writing rapidly while looking at someone with a strange expression, the teachers all guessed what he was thinking.

During the break while the exam questions were being changed, Teacher Su said with a wry smile, "You've got lucky. Starting this year, all university textbooks and exam questions will be revised, and correspondence courses will follow suit. If you take the exam again after the New Year, it won't be so easy."

As Chen Fan wrote, he looked up, his expression showing considerable surprise. "Was university knowledge really this simple?"

Teacher Su shook her head with a wry smile, but didn't say anything more.

After a while, someone outside called out that the "formal" exam upstairs was about to begin, and one of the teachers took the exam papers upstairs to proctor it.

Despite the large number of people, there is only one set of exam papers. When the exam starts, each candidate will be given one paper, and after they finish the exam, the papers will be collected. That completes the task.

In comparison, Chen Fan has to take more than a dozen exams by himself, making the invigilation process significantly more difficult.

The questions were simple and there weren't many, so Chen Fan kept writing and writing without counting how many subjects he took.

I didn't look up until I finished writing a paper and before I received a new exam paper.

The first thing I noticed was the stunned expressions on the faces of the two proctors.

Chen Fan looked around, then at them, and asked, "Where are the test papers at the back?"

Teacher Su let out a long breath and spread her hands in front of him, "That's all."

Chen Fan blinked, then realized, "All the exams are over?"

Another teacher exclaimed in amazement, "Seventeen subjects! Although we knew you had a solid foundation of knowledge, we were prepared to give you two days to take the exams. But we didn't expect you to finish them in just one morning!"

Chen Fan then noticed that it was already noon. He had been writing non-stop for four hours, from 8 a.m. until now.

He then chuckled and said, "The main problem is that there aren't many questions. If there were more, we wouldn't be able to finish the test."

Professor Su shook his head and did not continue the topic. Instead, he picked up the paper he had just finished writing and said, "Your paper on literary creation in the new era is good enough to be used as a graduate thesis, let alone a correspondence exam."

She looked up at him and smiled, "I won't do your thesis defense here. You can discuss it with the professors when you take the postgraduate entrance exam and have a face-to-face meeting with them."

To put it bluntly, he felt he wasn't qualified to evaluate Chen Fan's paper. When reading this relatively short paper, he was filled with thoughts like "It can be done like this" and "So that's how it is." He didn't even understand it himself, so how could he defend his thesis with Chen Fan?
At that moment, the meeting room door was pushed open, and Teacher Zhuo placed a stack of report cards in front of Teacher Su, her face beaming. "Teacher Su, look, all A's!"

Chen Fan craned his neck to look, but due to the angle, he couldn't see what was on the card. He only saw that Teacher Su was holding a stack of long, thin cards.

(Correspondence course single-subject completion certificate, 81)
Teacher Su carefully examined each one, then handed over the exam papers with the essays written on them, and said with a smile, "Issue the certificates."

He paused for a moment, then asked, "Do you have any photos?"

Teacher Zhuo nodded. "It's in the file."

Then he smiled at Chen Fan and said, "Your graduation certificate is ready. I'll bring it to you now."

That's right, none of them thought Chen Fan would fail these exams.

A teacher who can teach 23 students to get into top universities, and who is also a writer with a certain degree of national fame, can't even answer these simple correspondence course questions on Chinese language and literature? That's really unbelievable!
Chen Fan sat in the chair, let out a long breath, and watched Teacher Zhuo leave. Only then did he pick up the cup of tea that Teacher Zhuo had brewed that morning, and without caring that the tea was already cold, he took a big gulp.

Just as Chen Fan had caught his breath, Teacher Zhuo came in with a small notebook covered in red plastic. She handed it to him and said with a smile, "Congratulations, Chen! From now on, you are a proud undergraduate graduate of Jiangnan University."

He deliberately omitted the word "correspondence course".

Even though the value of correspondence university degrees is not low these days, firstly, due to the times, the subjects are not very difficult, and secondly, Chen Fan is about to apply for postgraduate studies, so his undergraduate degree is not worth mentioning in the face of a postgraduate degree.

(Correspondence course diploma obtained from 79 to 82)
Chen Fan immediately stood up, took the graduation certificate with both hands, and smiled broadly.

Taking the exam and getting the certificate on the same day is pretty much a one-stop solution.

He laughed for a while before raising his head and thanking the teachers one after another.

Helping others is helping yourself. Without the cooperation of several teachers, even with Mr. Guo and Mr. He helping to put in a good word for us at school, things wouldn't have gone so smoothly today.

At his insistence, he treated several teachers to lunch at a state-run restaurant not far away.

That means there are other students taking exams in the afternoon, otherwise everyone would have to go to the Gongnong Restaurant for a meal.

Let's skip it today, and Chen Fan has other things to do, so we'll talk about it next time.

After leaving the education office and driving home, Jiang Tiantian and Jiang Lili were dozing off on the sofa in the study.

Upon seeing him return, the two sisters stood up at the same time. Jiang Tiantian quickly went to pour tea, while Jiang Lili, seeing that her sister was already busy, stepped forward to greet her, "Have you eaten yet? If not, I'll make some now."

"Ate."

Chen Fan took the teacup from his sister, turned around and sat down on the sofa. Instead of drinking water, he smiled at Jiang Lili and said, "Shouldn't you be asking how the exam went?"

Jiang Lili smiled broadly, "I know without you even asking, you must have done very well on the exam."

Jiang Tiantian sat down to the side and asked with a smile, "When are we going this afternoon? Do you want to rest for a bit?"

Chen Fan shook his head. "I'm not going."

Meeting the two sisters' surprised gazes, he pulled out his graduation certificate from his pocket and waved it, "Look, what's this!"

(End of this chapter)