Restart life

Chapter 79 0077 [Even the old men and women in the card and mahjong parlor know Chen Guiliang]

After applying to Peking University's independent admission program, Chen Guiliang studied even harder during his review.

What if I mess up the college entrance exam and don't reach the first-tier university admission score, and therefore can't be specially admitted by Peking University? That would be incredibly embarrassing, and the whole country would probably know about it!

evening.

Xie Yang strolled back to the dormitory after taking a shower and saw Chen Guiliang wearing headphones and holding a tape recorder: "What song are you listening to?"

The tape recorder was borrowed from Xu Haibo; he plans to buy a new one this weekend, and also a mobile phone.

"English listening comprehension," Chen Guiliang said.

Xie Yang was speechless for a moment, and complained, "Damn, do you have to work this hard!"

Chen Guiliang countered, "If you can get into Peking University just by passing the first-tier university entrance exam, would you work that hard?"

"That makes sense," Xie Yang said, scratching his head.

Li Yulin laughed and said, "If it were me, I'd talk in English even in my sleep."

Chen Guiliang's English has always been terrible.

Kids from the countryside only get to know this stuff in the first year of junior high.

His junior high school English teacher was a kind-hearted older woman who often gave Chen Guiliang old clothes to wear.

But how outrageous is the teacher's spoken English?
The word "duck" was pronounced as "duck" with a strong Sichuan accent!

This led to Chen Guiliang thinking of playing cards whenever he saw a duck for a long time.

Although the junior high school English teacher wasn't a great teacher, she had relatives and friends teaching in the city who could often get her hands on practice papers from good schools. She would print them out and throw them at the students, not caring whether they finished or not, and she was too lazy to even explain the papers; she would just hand out the answer key.

Chen Guiliang didn't do those practice papers either, because there were just too many of them, coming from the three best junior high schools in the city.

However, Chen Guiliang would always check the answers to the questions.

During the middle school entrance exam, 90% of the questions on the English paper were questions Chen Guiliang had seen before, either identical or similar. The listening comprehension section was entirely composed of identical questions; Chen Guiliang had already finished writing the answers before the audio was even halfway through…

He has an amazing memory!
After entering high school and university, Chen Guiliang had absolutely no interest in English. He basically never memorized vocabulary seriously, and his listening and speaking skills were terrible. He took the CET-4 exam several times before finally passing.

I haven't used English much in twenty years, so I need to catch up now.

Xu Haibo said, "Xie Saobang, you should also try harder."

"I'm trying my best."

Xie Yang was getting a little impatient, so he picked up a small mirror and started combing his hair.

Liu Zhihong ruthlessly exposed him: "What are you trying to do? You're sleepwalking through morning, noon, and evening self-study sessions."

Xie Yang fell silent.

He really couldn't concentrate on studying; the closer the college entrance exam got, the more distracting thoughts he had.

But with strict supervision this semester, Xie Yang can no longer go to internet cafes and can only pass the time by reading novels. Seeing that his roommates are all working hard, he occasionally studies seriously for a day or two as well.

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "Why don't we have a competition? Let's see whose mock exam score improves more than their final exam score."

"I bet the whole dorm gets a stir-fry!" Xie Yang immediately accepted the challenge, confident of victory.

Because Chen Guiliang's final exam score was already 6 points above the first-tier university admission line, it would be very difficult for him to improve his score significantly.

And what about Xie Yang?

He did terribly on the last semester's final exam, failing to even reach the second-tier university admission line. With just a little serious study, he could have improved by 20 or 30 points.

Having agreed to the bet, Xie Yang pretended to start reading a book.

……

September 3, evening.

Tao Xue and her chubby roommate were aimlessly wandering around the campus.

She felt very bored.

The senior year of high school is so intense right now that she doesn't have a chance to play with Chen Guiliang. Even when they meet, they can only chat for a few minutes.

After leaving the school gate, I arrived at the book rental shop.

The chubby girl went straight to the romance novel shelf and rented a book called "Whose Love Isn't Locked Up".

Tao Xue casually picked up the "Sprout" magazine and exclaimed with delight, "Wow, Chen Guiliang is on the cover!"

The bookstore owner chuckled smugly, “Chen Guiliang is a student at this school and often rents books from me. Guo Xiaosi also frequently rents books from me. You should hurry and buy this issue of ‘Mengya’ (Sprout), it was just delivered this afternoon, and there are only three copies left.”

"Selling so well?" Tao Xue was even more pleased than the boss.

The bookstore owner said, "We definitely have to support our own students. Usually, it takes about ten days to sell out, but this time it almost sold out in just one afternoon."

Our school has produced a celebrity, and dozens of media outlets have been invited, making such a big fuss that the students of No. 2 Middle School naturally pay special attention.

There are always some literature enthusiasts, especially high school freshmen girls, who are willing to spend money to buy magazines to support their cause.

Tao Xue also bought a copy and happily took it back to the classroom.

While the chubby girl was reading a romance novel, Tao Xue glanced around, then turned to the boy in the back row who was doing his homework and asked, "Peng Yifan, have you read Chen Guiliang's articles?"

"No." The boy continued doing his homework.

Tao Xue enthusiastically promoted the poem: "Look at this! How well it's written! It even won first prize in the New Concept Writing Competition. It guarantees admission to Peking University!"

The independent enrollment and lower admission scores have become a rumor in No. 2 High School that students can be guaranteed admission to Peking University.

Upon hearing the words "guaranteed admission to Peking University," the boy finally put down his homework to look at the magazine, and even pondered it repeatedly: "That Chen... Senior Chen, he's really awesome!"

"How about that? Pretty impressive, right?" Tao Xue said happily.

The boy was both amused and exasperated: "Wow, you're my nephew, you've said that so many times."

After the boy finished reading, Tao Xue went to the next table and said, "Xue Shiyao, don't you like reading novels? Take a look at these two articles by Chen Guiliang."

The girl glanced at it and said, "There are even annotations, just like the classical Chinese texts in the Chinese textbook."

"Impressive, isn't it?" Tao Xue said with a smile.

"That's impressive, no wonder he was recommended to Peking University," the girl chimed in.

At that time, many high school students really enjoyed reading all kinds of essays, and the "Selected Winning Works of the New Concept Writing Competition" could sell millions of copies every year.

And that's just the sales figures for the official copies!
By the end of evening self-study, thanks to Tao Xue's enthusiastic promotion, more than twenty people had read this book, "Sprout".

……

After evening self-study.

Zheng Feng and Bian Guanyue were still on the same bus, but he didn't get off early, and he wouldn't escort Bian Guanyue into the alley again.

The next stop for Bian Guanyue's family is Zheng Feng's family.

He took out his keys, opened the door, and went inside. His mother was preparing ingredients for tomorrow's meal—to sell cold noodles, cold rice noodles, and spicy potato chips at her stall. His father, exhausted from a long day, was lying on the sofa watching TV.

"I'm home."

"came back."

"There's cold noodles and a boiled egg on the table. You can have it as a late-night snack."

Zheng Feng put down his schoolbag and went over to eat cold noodles and eggs.

The father casually asked, "Is Chen Guiliang in your class?"

Zheng Feng said, "Why are you bringing him up?"

"You'll get into Peking University through your essay," the father said.

Zheng Feng was extremely surprised: "You knew all along?"

The father said, "This afternoon, while the restaurant was preparing the food, a few kitchen workers were talking. They were saying that a student from No. 2 Middle School was recommended to Peking University, and that he wrote an article that was incredibly scathing."

"And who told them that?" Zheng Feng asked curiously.

"Last night's 'Longdu News Broadcast'."

Chen Guiliang's reputation in Longdu City has evolved to the point of being spread by word of mouth.

It started because it was featured on local television news.

This program mainly reports on trivial matters between neighbors, and often includes scenes of verbal abuse and physical altercations. Occasionally, it also raises some long-standing problems, urging relevant departments to send people to resolve them as soon as possible.

The ratings are shockingly high!
People like to watch that kind of content.

……

The Moonlit Border Home.

My grandfather even wore his reading glasses while reading "Sprout".

The elderly couple would play mahjong every few days, betting a mere penny, just for fun.

In the afternoon, while at the card room, some card players were discussing this matter. The elderly men and women talked about it as if they had witnessed it firsthand, as if Chen Guiliang were their grandson.

Chen Guiliang?
My maternal grandparents felt the name was familiar; wasn't it the one who took their granddaughter to get her computer repaired?

On his way home, he passed a newsstand on the highway and asked if they had any newspapers about Chen Guiliang.

The stall owner simply tossed him a copy of "Sprout".

"Haven't you finished reading yet?" Grandma asked.

Grandpa said, "I've read it, and it's really well written. When I was young, I also submitted articles to the factory newspaper, and two of my modern poems were published."

"They're bringing up things from decades ago again. I'm sick of hearing it," Grandma complained.

My grandfather pointed to the magazine "Sprout" and said, "I could never write this kind of poetry. He is definitely a genius."

"Who told you all this?" Grandma started to focus on the key point. "Is Guan Guan dating him too early? It's going to interfere with her studies! The more talented a man is, the better he is at charming girls. Guan Guan is probably completely smitten with him."

Grandpa laughed and said, "You have a lot of firsthand experience."

"You don't seem to be in a hurry at all," Grandma said helplessly.

Grandpa said, "As long as they're not bad students, it's fine. If they're dating early, so be it."

The sound of a key unlocking the door rang out.

Grandpa casually tucked the copy of "Sprout" under the sofa cushion.

Grandma went to the kitchen to bring Bian Guanyue a late-night snack and casually asked, "Does your school have any students who are recommended for admission to Peking University?"

"There is one."

Bian Guanyue's expression was somewhat unnatural, afraid that her grandparents would notice something, so she quickly sat down and lowered her head to eat the glutinous rice balls.

The elderly couple exchanged a glance, and they completely understood what was going on.

"Meow meow~~"

The kitten crawled under the table, circling around Bian Guanyue's feet, trying to climb up her trouser leg.

So, Bian Guanyue pretended to tease the cat.

After finishing a bowl of glutinous rice balls, Bian Guanyue hurriedly fled back to her bedroom, lay on the bed, opened her pencil case, and took out the broken stone from Qin Shi Huang.

"He's going to Peking University, so I need to work hard and try to get into a good university in Beijing!"

Bian Guanyue carefully placed the broken stone away, turned on the desk lamp, and began working on her test paper.

……

The publication of two articles by Chen Guiliang in the journal "Mengya" has generated a huge response among middle school students across the country.

Those who didn't experience that era can hardly imagine the influence of "Mengya" magazine among teenagers. Even some students who didn't like literature would occasionally pick up a copy of "Mengya" bought by a classmate out of boredom and flip through it.

If an article is particularly excellent, there will be enthusiastic supporters like Tao Xue who will actively promote it to other classmates.

Does "Journey to the Seas" have any reading barriers as a classical Chinese poem?
The recently completed serialized novel, "Wei Yi Bu Yong Shang," had a truly high reading threshold. The author used almost every technique he could think of, employing an extremely discouraging writing style to tell a very boring story.

This kind of purely technically impressive literary novel can keep countless middle school students reading it every semester for more than half a year... The post-00s generation who are keen on scrolling through Douyin probably can't understand it.

In the first five years of the 21st century, as long as your articles are well-written, you will have no shortage of young people who will follow you.

On the day the magazine was released, some students took copies of "Journey to the Seas" to ask their Chinese language teachers for advice.

Asking for advice was a pretense; showing off was the real purpose.

I have no idea what they're showing off.

"Teacher, this is Chen Guiliang's award-winning essay. He was admitted to Peking University without taking the entrance exam because of this essay."

"Bring it over and let me take a look."

Across the country, more than one or two language arts teachers have told their students in class: “This article is very well written; the author has already been admitted to Peking University. Today, let’s analyze it and see why he wrote it so well. You can’t learn this by just studying; you need to accumulate knowledge more often… Also, the author wrote another article questioning the errors in the annotations of the ‘Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng,’ which I think is also very reasonable. But when you take the exam, you should still rely on the textbook…”

Meanwhile, reports from dozens of media outlets were also published one after another.

The focus of the discussions varied widely, ranging from discussions about fairness in the admissions process to mocking Chen Guiliang's arrogance, to writing about his "small goal" of 100 million yuan as a joke, and to praising him lavishly.

There were even calls to correct errors in the Chinese language textbooks, and these reports unexpectedly sparked heated discussions.

When Chen Guiliang was about to take the mock exam, Professor Liu Yongxiang from East China Normal University went down to the exam first.

He wrote an article two years ago pointing out the errors in the textbook, but it didn't attract any attention. Now he's taking this opportunity to bring it up again.

In an interview, Professor Liu also stated, "Although Chen Guiliang is still a high school student, he has already demonstrated the potential for academic research. If he comes to East China Normal University to pursue his master's and doctoral degrees in the future, I would be very willing to be his mentor..."

(End of this chapter)