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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, allowing the bus to maintain a speed of sixty to seventy kilometers per hour. As we passed one town after another, my father kept telling me: "This is Zhu City, this is Shijiang, this is Longhui, this is Zhou Wang..."
After passing a small village called Lanba, the houses along the roadside began to multiply, and now and then, a tall factory gate caught my eye. When we reached a fork in the road, I suddenly saw a large red banner by the roadside that read "Shaoyang Gongzhuan New Student Reception." Just as I was about to ask 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 each bus station."
The bus came to a steady stop in the square of Shaoyang West Station. As I emerged from the vehicle, I immediately spotted 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 square, 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 moving slowly out of the station, making a right turn onto the main road and following the route we had taken earlier.
About ten minutes later, the car entered through an iron gate and stopped between two low and simple two-story red brick buildings. A few rows of tables and chairs were set up in the corridor. The accompanying students guided everyone to complete their registration procedures by major—paying fees, collecting supplies, and being assigned dormitories.
This year marked the first year of tuition fees at universities; even for officially admitted students like us, we had to pay nearly 400 yuan for tuition and miscellaneous fees. Furthermore, we would need to manage our living expenses during our time at school.
I heard that the Military Academy still operated under a "fully inclusive" system where students didn't have to pay anything and received clothing and other supplies. Teacher training colleges provided each student with a monthly subsidy of 30-40 yuan to cultivate future "engineers of human souls."
But I only managed to get into Gongzhuan and could only follow the crowd to pay fees...
After completing all the procedures and being led by an upperclassman toward the dormitory, I 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 seemed much smaller than even Dongkou No. 3 High School's makeshift playground.
The teaching building was just a lonely structure that appeared smaller than our high school; however, it did look relatively new in color. The boys' dormitory was a six-story building that seemed even taller than the teaching building. Having grown accustomed to living in single-story houses, I couldn't help but look up at it while recalling those few pitiful red brick houses on the left side of the school gate that were said to be the girls' dormitory. Thankfully, there weren't many girls studying engineering; otherwise, how would they fit?
Upon entering the dormitory building, I was assigned room 606 on the highest floor. Enjoying the cool October breeze, I turned to my yet unfamiliar roommate and said, "Living this high up means mosquitoes can't climb up here; we can sleep soundly."
After inquiring further, I learned that our class of Chemical Engineering from 1989 had 40 new students—32 boys among them. Besides a few classmates from urban areas attending classes together, most lived in two dormitories; our dormitory consisted entirely of students from various counties within Shaoyang City while another dormitory (which seemed to be 601) mainly housed students from other regions within Hunan Province along with several classmates from other sections of our major.
Once I settled in, my father took me to meet Teacher Sun Quan's brother-in-law, Vice Principal Zhou Nanxuan of Gongzhuan, and his wife Teacher Liu. He reminded me to listen to my teachers and study hard before preparing to head home.
At the school gate with my father, we noticed that the bus returning from West Station to pick up new students was about to depart in the afternoon. My father planned to take a bus back home from there while I stood beside him watching as the bus gradually disappeared into the distance along with his figure. I silently thought—this is where I will spend three years of my youthful time at university.
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