1980 My Entertainment Era

Chapter 24: My Year of Fighting

The December issue of Children's Literature published Xia Tian's "A Nail Destroyed a Country".

It was the groom who was replacing the horseshoes of Charles III's warhorse. One missing horseshoe nail led to the death of a cavalryman, a death of a cavalryman led to the destruction of a unit, a destruction of a unit led to the loss of a war, and a loss of a war led to the destruction of a country.

PS: I asked Dachun what he thought of this story. Dachun said: No wonder the cavalry was eliminated, now they all drive tanks!
Although Dachun knew that he was in the magazine, this was the first time he saw his name in a printed magazine, so he quickly showed it to his mother.

After a while, he came back with a sad face: "Tian'er, am I wrong? Cavalry has been eliminated! Now everyone drives tanks!"

Dachun was beaten by his mother~
Xia Tian nodded: "You are right, talk less in the future..."

Your perspective on things is different from that of ordinary people!
When it came to December, the temperature began to drop significantly.

Even though she is not afraid of the cold in the summer and is somewhat immune to the cold and heat, she still asked Xia Ma to wear a sweater - she provided the wool herself and asked Chun Ma to help her knit it.

Although Mother Xia tried her best, she only managed to knit a neck collar in the end.

At that time, the whole Xia family supported Mother Xia in knitting sweaters - Father Xia bought wool everywhere, and Xia Tian helped to make the yarn balls.

Even Mimi was lying on her back, with her four legs supporting the ball of yarn so that Mother Xia could knit clothes comfortably.

As a result, Xia's mother found that she had made some mistakes in knitting. As she was unpicking the stitches, she scolded Mimi: "It's because you were messing around that I made mistakes!"

Mimi was scolded, her eyes widened, her head tilted, and she stared at Xia Ma: ... Me?! You rude guy~
Having a collar is great!
Dad Xia praised Mom Xia: Look, isn’t this progress?
Of course not. When they got married, Mother Xia wanted to knit a sweater for Father Xia. But now Xia is already over ten years old, and she hasn’t even knitted a vest.

As the weather gets colder, people in Yanjing begin to prepare fuel for the winter.

Nothing else, except that a few people would prepare some wood, most of them still had coal.

Dad Xia took Xia Tian and borrowed a donkey to ride on, and went to the coal briquette factory in Xuanwu District, where workers were producing coal briquettes and honeycomb coal.

Mix coal powder and loess in a certain proportion, add water and make mud, and use a handheld iron mold to make a cylindrical honeycomb briquettes with many honeycombs. It can be used after drying.

Burn-resistant and long-lasting, many families use it for heating and cooking.

The father and son brought back a pile of honeycomb coal on a donkey and piled it in the corner of the wall to block the snow. Mother Xia was cleaning the black coal dust in the yard.

At that time, there was basically no central heating in individual homes, and burning the stove in the winter was very dirty.

On December 12th, the college entrance examination that many people have been looking forward to for a long time began - the dates were different in different places, and some were on the 10th.

That winter, 570 million candidates aged between 13 and 37 flocked to the examination halls, and ultimately 27.3 were admitted.

Due to the hasty preparation, there was insufficient paper for printing the test papers, so the chief designer personally ordered the use of paper for printing "MX".

The restrictions on the candidates' family background were also removed by the chief designer. But there are still various opinions at the grassroots level, and there is nothing we can do about it.

The questions in this year's college entrance examination were much easier because many young people of the right age had been sent to the countryside for many years during the 10-year movement, and their skills were much lower.

Because the quality of personnel varies greatly, and in order to fill the talent gaps of previous years, the questions in many places are mainly basic questions.

Probably the simplest one in history, right?
But even so, it is very difficult for many people.

Let me put it this way, in a geography test you are asked if it is summer in Yanjing, what season is it in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil?
Ninety-nine percent of the candidates don’t know where Brasilia is, or even the country of Brazil.

However, as long as you can get over this hurdle, your future will be limitless.

After the resumption of the college entrance examination, there has been a saying that "77 is gold and 78 is silver".

In other words, the first batch of college students, Class of 77, have unsurprisingly become the backbone of society, and the second batch of college students, Class of 78, have also developed quite well.

If you pass the exam, many of the big guys you have only seen in the news will become your alumni and classmates in the future!
The college entrance examination came and went quickly. In just two days, countless young people who were extremely excited and suppressed their excitement retreated like a tide.

Those who return to the factory return to the factory, and those who return to the countryside return to the countryside.

On December 12, the authorities officially announced the Chinese character simplification plan, which was later referred to as the second simplified Chinese characters.

It’s a pity that the country has been founded for nearly 30 years now, and people don’t want it to be simplified any further, as they have become accustomed to it.

Therefore, people were very dissatisfied with the second simplified Chinese character plan, and the newspapers were full of criticisms.

Based on the information obtained from Tianqi, Xia Tian learned that no one had taken the two simplified character schemes seriously until they were confirmed to be abolished on June 86, 6.

There are a few characters that are still used by some people later, such as the second simplified character of “餐” (meal), which is “歺” (food), and the “桔” (orange), which is “桔” (orange)!
Two days later, it was December 12, the winter solstice.

As the saying goes, if you don't eat dumplings during the winter solstice, no one will care if your ears freeze off. Who doesn't eat dumplings during the Chinese New Year? !

Even if the conditions at home are difficult, at least we should have a meal of cabbage stuffing, right?

All the fine grain coupons saved for a year were exchanged for rich and strong flour, just for these few days.

Xia Tian's family made dumplings stuffed with pork and cabbage. Xia Tian ate fifty of them and brought a large bowl to Da Chun's family.

Dachun's family made dumplings stuffed with sauerkraut and pork. Dachun's father quickly called out to Xia Tian: "Hurry up and get on the kang." - It was the kang in his family, made by Dachun's father.

"Have you eaten?"

"Just ate."

"Then eat some more."

Dad Chun knows Xia Tian too well, so he is sure that Xia Tian can still eat. It is impossible for him not to be able to eat.

I was forced to eat 10 dumplings stuffed with sauerkraut.

As for the bowl of dumplings stuffed with pork and cabbage, Chun's father and mother each tasted two, and the rest were eaten by Dachun.

The dumplings at Xia Tian's house have a higher pork content. Da Chun loves to eat them~
...Soon the year 78 arrived.

On January 1, "Children's Literature" published Xia Tian's "The Wolf is Coming".

The prototype of this story comes from "Aesop's Fables", and Xia Tian localized it.

PS: Dachun: You can only lie twice at most!

The editor specially wrote an editorial note below: Don’t believe Dachun’er, he can’t even lie once!

It can be seen that the editors still respect "Teacher Jinghongke" very much. Even if they are worried about misleading children, they would rather write the editor's words below rather than delete or modify Xia Tian's original work.

The editors feel that this is the most direct feeling of the children after all, and it may represent the thoughts of some children. What we need to do is to guide them correctly, not to erase other ideas.

The new year issue of People's Literature became popular across the country as soon as it was released.

The cover article of this issue is called "Goldbach's Conjecture" and the protagonist is a mathematician named Chen Jingrun.

The article contains a golden sentence of a generation: the crown of mathematics is number theory, and the Goldbach conjecture is the pearl on the crown. Chen Jingrun is the person closest to that pearl in the world.

The publication of this article established a positive image of intellectuals and the reputation of science among the public.

Besides, the famous program "News Broadcast" started at 7 o'clock tonight. It can be heard on TV and radio.

The host is a man with a deep voice who can only be heard but not seen.

It is Mr. Zhao who said, "Spring is here, and it is the season for everything to come together."
Unexpectedly, many years later, he got a nickname - Jin Ye - because of a phone recording.

……

Just a few days into the new year, the People's Daily published some information about last month's college entrance examination.

Last year's college entrance examination was conducted in order to lower the difficulty level, so the composition accounted for as much as 70% of the score. The topic of the composition was "My Year of Fighting".

The People's Daily specially selected the three best essays from among college entrance examination candidates across the country and published them in the newspaper.

The college entrance examination scores will soon be out!
Here in Yenching, the top scorer in liberal arts was actually a lesbian, and she was the author of one of the three essays published in the newspaper.

She was just one point away from getting a full score in Chinese!
On the 16th, it is Laba. Later, people didn't pay much attention to this day and didn't regard it as a festival, but now they still take it seriously.

Those who have some means at home will make some Laba porridge to drink.

There is a set of rhymes in Yanjing: Children, don't be greedy, after Laba Festival it will be New Year; drink Laba porridge for a few days, it will be the twenty-third; on the twenty-third, sticky sugar-coated melons; on the twenty-fourth, house-cleaning day; on the twenty-fifth, eat frozen tofu; on the twenty-sixth, go buy meat; on the twenty-seventh, slaughter the rooster; on the twenty-eighth, let the dough rise; on the twenty-nine, steam buns; stay up all night on the 30th, and walk around the streets on the first day of the New Year.

It's Laba Festival now, and I can feel a little bit of anticipation for the New Year.

There have been several snowfalls since the beginning of winter, but none of them were heavy and disappeared as soon as they hit the ground.

But it snowed heavily today. In the summer evening, when I shone a flashlight out the window, I saw heavy snow falling all over the place, and there was already a thick layer of snow on the ground.

I woke up at 5:30 the next day, got up and washed up, and saw that the outside was covered with snow.

If you raise your perspective and overlook the entire city of Yanjing, you will find that this ancient country is covered with a layer of silver.

When I went out for morning exercise in the summer, I found that the snow was about twelve or thirteen centimeters thick.

I picked up the bamboo broom and swept the yard. Well, let's not do morning exercises today, let's sweep the snow instead.

After sweeping the yard, he went out the door and started sweeping the entrance, and also swept the alley at the same time.

There were some elderly men and women who slept lightly and got up very early. When they saw Xia Tian sweeping the snow, they praised it repeatedly.

"Oh, okay, man! That's righteousness!"

"Good job, Xiaotian. You don't have to sweep the door. I'll do it. Don't let you get cold."

"Xiaotian, do you want to eat some bean buns? Auntie made some this morning. Eat a few to warm you up."

Some people even said something out of line: "It's summer now, don't sweep the doorway for Old Li. I'll throw some water on him and make him fall!"

After lunch, Xiaodong and his friends came to find Xia Tian and Dachun.

Xiaodong: "Tian'er, when Yan Jing and I came here, we saw one group of people fighting with another group."

"Because of what?"

"I do not know."

Glasses pushed his glasses up and sniffed his nose: "What else could it be? Just looking for trouble."

Kids these days are wild and their families don’t really care about them.

For example, in the summer when they are teenagers, they are still unable to go to school, so they do all kinds of things.

It's not realistic to ask them to work, they just run around in the alleys every day. Fighting is normal.

Just like what Yan Jing said, just find something to do to kill time and use up energy.

For example, two years earlier in the summer, I would often go to various alleys and schools to intercept these particularly active guys and use them to satisfy my itchy hands.

"Let's go. It's freezing cold and there's nothing to do. Let's go and see what's going on."

(End of this chapter)