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墨書 Inktalez
On the morning of October 9th, my father and I set off from the cave entrance, boarding a bus heading east to Shaoyang. The National Highway 320 undulated between hills, but fortunately, there weren't many vehicles on the road. The bus maintained a speed of sixty to seventy kilometers per hour as we passed one town after another. My father continuously pointed out the places we were passing: "This is Zhu City, this is Shijiang, this is Longhui, this is Zhou Wang..."
After passing a small village called Lanba, the houses by the roadside began to increase in number, and now and then, tall factory gates came into view. When we reached a fork in the road, I suddenly spotted a large red banner by the roadside that read "Shaoyang Polytechnic New Student Reception." Just as I was about to call for the driver to stop, my father said, "We have a lot of luggage; it's not convenient to get off here. Let's wait until we reach the station. The notice said that the school has arranged vehicles to pick us up at every bus station."
The bus came to a steady stop in the yard of Shaoyang West Station. As I squeezed out of the bus, I immediately saw a row of red banners not far away. Besides Gongzhuan, it seemed that several other schools were also welcoming new students. We walked over, and an upperclassman helped us with one piece of luggage while leading us to a car parked at the edge of the yard, instructing us to find a seat.
After waiting for about half an hour, more students and parents boarded the vehicle until it was nearly full. The car started up and slowly drove out of the station, making a right turn onto the main road and following the route we had taken earlier.
After more than ten minutes, the car entered through an iron gate and stopped between two low and simple two-story red brick buildings. Inside the corridor were several rows of tables and chairs. The accompanying students guided everyone to complete their registration procedures by major—paying fees, collecting supplies, and assigning dormitories.
This year marked the first year that universities implemented tuition fees. Even for officially admitted students like us, we had to pay nearly 400 yuan in tuition and miscellaneous fees, and from now on, we would need to cover our living expenses ourselves.
I heard that the Military Academy still operated under an "All-Inclusive System," where students paid nothing and received clothing and other supplies. Normal colleges provided each student with a monthly subsidy of 30-40 yuan to cultivate future "Human Soul Engineers."
But I only got into Gongzhuan and could only follow the crowd to pay fees...
After completing all the procedures, I followed an upperclassman toward the dormitory and suddenly realized: this university is quite small!
Passing by the playground, I saw two basketball courts and half a soccer field; surprisingly, there was no running track. Compared to Dongkou No. 1 High School's standard 400-meter sports field (which included a swimming pool), it was far less impressive; even compared to Dongkou Third Middle School's makeshift playground, it fell short.
There was only one lonely teaching building that looked smaller than our high school; its color did appear relatively new. The boys' dormitory was a six-story building that seemed even taller than the teaching building. Having been used to living in single-story houses, I found myself looking up at it while recalling those few shabby red brick houses on the left side of the school gate—rumored to be the girls' dormitory. Thankfully, there weren't many female engineering students; otherwise, how could they all fit?
Upon entering the dormitory building, I was assigned room 606 on the highest floor. Feeling the cool October breeze, I turned to my yet-to-be-familiar roommate and said, "Living this high up means mosquitoes can't crawl up here; we can sleep soundly."
After inquiring further, I learned that our class of Chemical Engineering from '89 had 40 new students—32 boys among them. Aside from a few classmates from downtown who commuted daily, most lived in two dormitories: ours consisted entirely of students from various counties within Shaoyang City while another dormitory (seemingly 601) housed students mainly from other regions within Hunan Province along with some classmates from other majors.
Once I settled in, my father took me to meet Teacher Sun Quan's brother-in-law, Vice Principal Zhou Nanxuan of Gongzhuan, along with his wife Teacher Liu. He reminded me to listen to my teachers and study hard before preparing to head home.
As my father and I arrived at the school gate in time for the afternoon bus picking up new students at West Station, he planned to take a ride back home from there. Standing beside him as he prepared to leave, I watched as his figure gradually faded into the distance along with the bus's shadow and silently thought—this is where I will spend three years of my youth at university.
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