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墨書 Inktalez
The biggest difference between university and high school lies in the abundance of time. In this era, gaining admission to university feels like breaking free from the confines of rural life. Aside from attending classes, we no longer need to prepare for the next day's lessons or review what we learned days before; there is plenty of free time.
Apart from visiting relatives and friends on weekends, I spent my evenings after meals not like most of my classmates who immediately fell into the card games and poker circles created by older students, nor did I join the few who were either dominating the sports fields or cheering loudly. Instead, I quietly stepped outside the walls to explore the world beyond.
Gongzhuan is located in the outskirts, where the main highways connecting Shaoyang to Huaihua and Xinhua intersect just outside the school walls. The roaring vehicles on these roads did not pique my interest at all. Between the school's wall and a construction company across the street lies a narrow alley about two to three meters wide. Walking through this alley leads to the real countryside, a place that carries a hint of my hometown's flavor, which became my favorite spot to spend my evenings after dinner. Every evening, I would invite my fellow classmate from Chemical Engineering, Lin Gaoxiang, or my dorm neighbor from Wugang, Xiang Ni Hua, to explore it together.
Although it is called a rural area, this suburban countryside differs in many ways from the hilly regions of my hometown. The small hills here are mostly filled with orange trees; the pines, firs, and various other trees that accompanied me through childhood are seldom seen. In places where the hills flatten out a bit, patches of dry land have been cultivated into various shapes, growing all sorts of vegetables and fruits.
Our semester started relatively late, and the oranges were ripe for harvest. The bright red fruits were quite enticing; however, the local farmers kept a close watch on their orange trees. They had set up makeshift shelters on the hills to guard them. Even during moonlit nights, I dared not reach out to pluck any oranges hanging within my grasp as I would at home. Instead, I had to avoid any suspicion of “picking fruit in a melon patch” or “adjusting my cap under a plum tree.” Whenever I spotted branches reaching out towards me, I would quicken my pace and raise my hands for any vigilant farmer nearby to see.
The first time I walked through the alley outside the school walls, I discovered several small rice paddies not far away. Just as I thought this place was no different from home, I looked up and realized these paddies were remnants of what was known as “lazy man's fields.” Alongside the road ahead were neatly arranged vegetable plots where many farmers were busy—some weeding, others watering or harvesting fruits and vegetables. What surprised me was how orderly these plots were; they were laid out in neat rows or squares without any chaotic appearance. Each plot had a small square pond at its edge filled with dark liquid. The farmers did not carry buckets like those at home but used long-handled scoops to draw water from these ponds and pour it onto their crops; their scoops were much longer than those back home, making it easier for them to reach where they needed.
Walking along the village path for several hundred steps, the sparse farmhouses became even more scattered. Between two small hills, what used to be ridges had been transformed into vegetable plots; however, each plot was gradually increasing in size with more people working within them. Suddenly, I noticed several raised mounds scattered among the vegetable fields ahead. While they weren't as grand as our family’s ancestral burial site at Longshi Mountain's Frog Rock, there were certainly more than those at Zhushan Bay nearby. Did they not fear wasting arable land? Did they not worry about startling passersby?
As I wandered through this rural land beyond the walls evening after evening—sometimes hurrying past, sometimes pausing to watch farmers sweat under their labor, or occasionally stopping to pick a few blades of foxtail grass or wild daisies—I gradually noticed a pattern: on paths near the school and by small woods, I often encountered groups of classmates—some like us simply walking to pass time aimlessly, others arm in arm heading towards more secluded areas. Strangely enough, regardless of which group they belonged to, very few greeted or acknowledged the farmers working in their fields; it seemed we did not regard each other at all—neither side considered the other as equals?
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