Restart life

Chapter 585, 0573: [The Photo Hangs on the Wall]

When leaders at all levels were speaking, most of the thousands of students were distracted.

The newly enrolled first-year high school students lined up in slightly neater rows, whispering among themselves to their classmates nearby.

The seasoned students in their second and third years of high school were much more relaxed. Their formation gradually became crooked, and they even ignored the homeroom teacher's reprimands and turned around to chat and laugh with their friends.

After Chen Guiliang went up to give his speech, most of the students looked at the podium and took out their phones to take pictures of the stage.

When Chen Guiliang and Xie Yang were in their senior year of high school, there were at most 10 mobile phones in a class, and more than half of them were PHS phones.

Almost every high school student these days owns one.

While many of these are feature phones, often offered as a free gift with a phone credit top-up, there are still a significant number of smartphones available. Especially popular are the cheap, knock-off smartphones priced in the hundreds of yuan, which are particularly popular among students.

In order to seize market share, the three major operators have lowered their 3G tariffs.

Take China Unicom for example, they just launched a 3G trial card. New users get 50 yuan free for every 50 yuan recharged, plus 300MB of free data per month, and the monthly fee is waived for two months. Existing users who refer new users can also receive free talk time and 3G data.

The students had just switched to a new, more affordable meal plan and were now snapping photos of Chen Laozu and posting them on Weibo.

Especially the older students, who had heard all sorts of campus legends about Chen Laozu, and the teachers often made up stories in class.

I've finally seen a living person today!
The area where the alumni gathered had a particularly large number of alumni from Chen Guiliang's class and grade. Even some alumni from different classes in the same grade as Chen Guiliang had returned—with special permission from their superiors.

"Why hasn't Zheng Feng come back?" Li Jun deliberately brought up Zheng Feng's shortcomings.

Zheng Feng's fervent pursuit of Bian Guanyue back then was common knowledge in Class 10. Although Li Jun had also pursued Bian Guanyue, it didn't stop him from mocking Zheng Feng for being a toad trying to eat swan meat.

Wang Siyu said, "Zheng Feng is now a state-owned enterprise cadre, he's very busy with work."

Li Jun laughed and said, "It's precisely because he's a state-owned enterprise cadre that he should come back to drink with Master Chen this time. That idiot must be feeling guilty, afraid that Master Chen still remembers his pursuit of Bian Guanyue."

"Hohohohohohoho." Guan Zhiqiang's laughter remained distinctive.

"What are you laughing at!" Li Jun was annoyed by the voice.

Guan Zhiqiang said, "I don't know who chased after him first, and they even asked Master Chen to switch seats."

Li Jun angrily retorted, "You son of a bitch, do you want to fight?"

Guan Zhiqiang said, "Come on, hit me. I'll record this and send it to your bank's management!"

Li Jun, suppressing his anger, said, "I can't be bothered to argue with you. I'm a bank executive now."

Guan Zhiqiang wasn't as easy to talk to as before. He said sarcastically, "A teller supervisor is considered a cadre? You've been doing this for five or six years, and you have connections at home, yet you still have to be transferred to a remote branch to get promoted to teller supervisor. Did you offend all your superiors and colleagues at your old branch?"

"None of your business!" Li Jun became increasingly angry as he listened, because Guan Zhiqiang had revealed the truth to him.

Seeing that the two were about to start arguing, a classmate asked, "Where are the class monitor and the academic representative? Haven't they come back yet?"

Xu Haibo said, "Li Rui studied in the United States, and Wu Meng studied in Singapore."

"Wow, that's awesome! Which other students in our class are going abroad to study?" Li Yulin asked.

Xu Haibo said, "Just the two of them."

Li Yulin asked, "Why didn't you study abroad?"

Xu Haibo said, "They both received full scholarships. I tried too, but I didn't get one. Studying for a PhD at Fudan University is good too; you can go home anytime during holidays."

Listening to them talk about these things, Yang Hao felt increasingly inferior.

He and Qin Shanshan repeated a year of high school, so he was already a year late entering university. His old classmates all had great successes, while he was just a middle school Chinese teacher at a lousy school.

His proudest moment is when he brags to people that he and the richest man were high school roommates.

The principal knew about this relationship and had repeatedly hinted to Yang Hao to keep in touch with Chen Guiliang. Yang Hao pretended not to understand the hints, but in reality, he was too embarrassed to contact his old classmate because he was doing so poorly.

At this moment, Chen Guiliang was giving a speech on the stage, shining brightly in the eyes of his classmates.

Even Xie Yang, Tao Xue, and Qin Shanshan stood with leaders and well-known alumni, chatting and laughing, though it was unclear what they were talking about.

Li Runze, the Chinese language teacher, had retired. He strolled over slowly from home, a thermos of goji berries in his hand, and stood in a corner of the playground watching from afar.

"Old Li, you're here too?" It was an old colleague who had also retired.

Li Runze's expression was calm and composed, but he stood tall with his hands behind his back and said, "I came back to visit, and I'm going fishing this afternoon."

"What kind of fish are you fishing for?" the old colleague laughed, pointing at Chen Guiliang who was giving a speech. "Your students are so amazing now, don't you feel great?"

Li Runze said, "It's the students' business whether they are good or bad. We teachers should have a normal attitude. Good students and bad students are all our students. The main thing is to see how they develop on their own."

An old colleague complained, "You know what? The way you're acting right now is really irritating."

Li Runze seemed not to hear this, recalling, "I knew Chen Guiliang was an extraordinary student when he was in the first year of high school. He got a perfect score on his essay in the first semester's final exam! The only perfect score in the entire school!" "You've said that countless times, I'm sick of hearing it," his old colleague said irritably.

Li Runze said, "You don't understand. You can tell a person's ambition by looking at their writing. You can tell a person's future development by looking at their high school essays. While other students were just piling up fancy words, his essays already had substance. Alas, I thought he would become a writer or philosopher, but I never expected him to go into business. What a pity, what a pity!"

"You only make money by doing business. He's the richest man now," my old colleague exclaimed in amazement. "He only graduated high school nine years ago, right? And he hasn't even been out of college for many years. How did he become the richest man? How is he even thinking?"

Li Runze said, "It's innate. Some people are just born geniuses, you can't argue with that."

After Chen Guiliang finished his speech, several leaders went up on stage and took the opportunity to hold a donation ceremony.

Chen Guiliang donated 1000 million yuan.

Xie Yang also donated 20 yuan.

"Wow!!!"

The students gasped in surprise; 1000 million was a huge shock to them.

"Let's go fishing." Li Runze turned and left.

An old colleague chased after him: "Aren't you going to talk to the students about your teacher-student relationship? Aren't you going to give a reporter an interview?"

Li Runze said, "There's no need. Instead of doing those things, we might as well catch a couple more fish."

Li Runze left gracefully, but the other teachers who taught Chen Guiliang all rushed forward to join in the fun, chatting with leaders and reporters about interesting things from the past.

The homeroom teacher, Liu Shuying, and her husband didn't attend; they were poached by other schools. One was a top-level teacher, the other a senior teacher; their simultaneous departures back then led to a decline in the school's teaching staff, so they were really embarrassed to come back for the anniversary celebration.

They arrived a little later; they were only attending the class reunion.

The school anniversary celebrations are still ongoing, with the hapless first-year high school students wearing anniversary T-shirts and carrying flags and flowers parading around the city. The weather is sweltering, and their parade will last two or three hours.

Only the freshmen obediently followed the arrangements, while the seasoned seniors and juniors were unwilling to do this.

There were still many chaotic celebrations, with some students performing in the auditorium and most students participating in the fun sports meet.

Chen Guiliang, along with leaders, reporters, and prominent alumni, were all invited to the auditorium to watch a cultural performance. After lunch, they were invited to tour the school.

Ten years ago, Chen Guiliang was reborn. He escaped from the examination hall and didn't know what to do. He wandered aimlessly to the library and saw the works of Li Zongwu and Guo Xiaosi displayed side by side.

This time, however, he was accompanied by school leaders and visited the library with city and county leaders.

The book that was exhibited alongside "The Thick Black Theory" has been replaced by "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty." Guo Jingming's representative work, however, has been moved slightly to the side.

Guo Jingming was also visiting the school at the time, looking slightly embarrassed. He had been persuaded to return by his agent and hadn't even prepared to donate; it seemed he'd have to make up for it another day.

Several display cases showcased works by renowned alumni.

Chen Guiliang had overlooked this before, but this time he actually discovered something new. For example, Li Yinghai's "Han Chinese Modes and Their Harmonies", as well as his piano scores such as "Sunset Flute and Drum" and "Sunshine Triple".

Chen Guiliang felt ashamed. He felt that "Those Things of the Ming Dynasty" should be moved to give the best exhibition space to Li Yinghai's work.

“Aunt Xue, your copy of ‘Silk Road Smoke and Dust’.” Qin Shanshan pointed to a display case.

Tao Xue covered her face in embarrassment.

She knew her own limitations. If she hadn't come back with Chen Guiliang, she wouldn't have been qualified to visit with the leaders, and her online novels would have had a hard time being displayed in the school's showcase.

After touring the entire library, the city leader said to the camera, "Longdu is a land of outstanding people and talents. In the field of literature and art alone, our No. 2 Middle School has produced so many famous figures. Mr. Chen Guiliang is not only an entrepreneur but also a leader in the cultural field… and there are also Mr. Guo Xiaosi and Ms. Tao Xue, whose works are popular throughout the country…"

The city leader then told the reporters, "In the whole city, we have many other cultural figures. Like the Rao sisters, Rao Xueman and Rao Xueli, whose novels are very popular. And there's the singer, Ms. Tan Weiwei… I hope that our colleagues in the press can promote these figures more and do a special report on Longdu's cultural figures…"

The principal immediately expressed his support, saying that No. 2 Middle School could submit all kinds of detailed information.

The reporters weren't interested in the leaders; their focus was entirely on Chen Guiliang and Guo Xiaosi, and they might also try to interview Tao Xue. After all, the TV series "Silk Road Smoke and Dust" was currently airing.

Encouraged by numerous reporters, Chen Guiliang, Tao Xue, and Guo Xiaosi posed for a group photo. Chen Guiliang was the tallest, Tao Xue the second tallest, and Guo Xiaosi the shortest…

Xie Yang, the vice president of ByteDance, seemed to be just there for show, and was completely forgotten by the reporters.

However, the leaders were very enthusiastic towards him and would often get close to Xie Yang to chat.

A WeChat message notification sounded, and Chen Guiliang took out his phone to check. It was a message from Xu Haibo: "When will you guys finish? We've eaten sunflower seed shells all over the place here."

"Soon," Chen Guiliang replied.

Xu Haibo said, "I visited the library building before, and your and Xie Yang's photos were hanging on the wall. We old classmates really wanted to offer some incense when we visited."

Chen Guiliang replied: "Bobo, it's been years, you've become more talkative."

"Hurry up, we've been waiting for you," Xu Haibo said.

(End of this chapter)