Writer 1978: I Need to Give the Literary World a Lesson

Chapter 9 University Resources
The atmosphere in the audience was quickly ignited, with leaders on the stage and teachers and students below cheering in unison. Later, it was said that people from different factions tried to persuade him to take office, but he refused and even fought them back.

Those people jumped up and cursed him: "You damned cripple Yang, I think you deserve to be denounced!"

Yang the Cripple ripped off his hat and cursed, "You little brat, fuck your mother! I'm just a cook, I don't know anything else!"

Besides, his noodles were really delicious; even without meat in the bowl, you could taste the meat flavor. Liu Yimin used to sneak over for a treat and would ask him with a smile how he made them.

The cook said mysteriously, "This is a family recipe passed down through generations!"

At the time, Liu Yimin joked with him, saying, "If it were a family heirloom, you wouldn't need to be an apprentice in a restaurant; you would already be a master chef."

He chuckled, a smirk playing on his lips: "I never said it was a family heirloom. It was a heirloom from my stingy, dead shopkeeper. They used this method to cut corners."

Because of his limp, everyone called him Yang the Cripple!

After Liu Yimin sat down, he ordered a bowl of braised noodles, which was Yang the Cripple's specialty. The smell from the kitchen made his stomach rumble.

A bowl of stewed noodles was served, and Liu Yimin couldn't wait to start eating. There was no mutton on it; it was a purely vegetarian stewed noodle dish, but it was still quite oily, with a layer of grease floating on top.

After taking a few sips of soup, Liu Yimin looked up and found Yang the Cripple leaning against the door frame leading to the kitchen. Seeing him, Yang smiled and walked over: "Little guy, it's you. Haven't seen you for a while. What's up?"

"I'm taking an exam, and after I finish, all I want is a bowl of your noodles."

"Taking the college entrance exam? Then you should eat well. Wait a minute." Yang the Cripple turned and went into the kitchen. After a while, he came out with a small bowl containing a small bowl of braised noodles.

"Eat up, young man, one bowl won't be enough." Then, as Yang the Cripple turned back into the kitchen, he gestured for him to stir the noodles before eating.

After thanking him, Liu Yimin stirred the food with his chopsticks and suddenly noticed that several pieces of meat had been flipped up. He looked up at Yang the Cripple in confusion. Yang the Cripple was standing at the kitchen door, smiling and gesturing for him to eat quickly.

After a hearty meal, Liu Yimin rode his bicycle back to the driver's dormitory of the supply and marketing cooperative.

The next day was Chinese. The test papers were quickly distributed to Liu Yimin. He glanced at the questions and his eyes widened immediately. Could these be college entrance exam questions? These questions were much simpler than those in politics. For him, these questions were like an old lady drinking porridge—a breeze.

The first question is to add punctuation marks to the following three paragraphs, which is worth a total of 10 points.

This nationally standardized Chinese language exam was even simpler than the one set by Hen Province in 77. The second question was to fill in the blank with the most appropriate word. The third question was to fill in conjunctions, and the fourth question was to correct grammatical errors.

I finished writing down these questions in twenty minutes, and I also checked them once.

The essay question was extremely easy, more like a question type found in later graduate entrance exams for journalism and communication majors. It required adapting several or even a single piece of material into a news report with a specified word count. Students were encouraged to recombine the material, extract key points, add conjunctions, optimize sentences, or even simply copy the original text.

The essay prompt was an article titled "The issue of speed is a political issue," and the author was required to condense it into a short essay of 500 to 600 words, with a minimum of 600 words. Otherwise, points would be deducted. The total score was 30 points.

"The issue of speed is a political issue," a leader stated at a conference promoting the study of Daqing in industry. The article heavily references political content, and its main point is to call for accelerated development in industry, agriculture, and other sectors. By highlighting the key points and summarizing them, you can achieve a high score.

Questions six through eight tested knowledge of classical Chinese, including passages from the Analects and dialogues between Emperor Taizong of Tang and his ministers.

The questions weren't difficult; the only problem was the heat. My palms were sweaty, making it easy for my hand to slip when writing with the pen. Liu Yimin wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm, then bent down and finished the last question.

I capped the pen and started twirling it aimlessly.

The teacher on the podium suddenly shifted his gaze to Liu Yimin, his sharp eyes fixed on the pen in Liu Yimin's hand. He then scanned around Liu Yimin's surroundings, thinking that Liu Yimin was about to do something sneaky.

Then, seeing that he seemed to be really playing around, he shook his head in exasperation, thinking to himself that he was hopeless. If you don't know how to do it, at least write it down first, just in case you get points! The proctor slowly turned around, his gaze sweeping left and right, and finally landed on Liu Yimin's paper.

"Huh? It's full?" The proctor took off his glasses in disbelief, breathed on them several times to make sure they were clean, then put his glasses back on and glanced at Liu Yimin's exam paper out of the corner of his eye.

Is it really full? The punctuation seems correct, and the word filling also looks like a proper answer. Turn the page for the essay! The proctor shouted inwardly.

As if he had heard a shout, Liu Yimin calmly turned the page of the test paper.

The rustling of writing and sighs mingled in the examination room. Some students seemed to want to rip their hair out. No one noticed that a candidate was having a silent exchange with the invigilator.

The proctor read Liu Yimin's essay from beginning to end. Regardless of the content, the neat handwriting immediately caught his eye. Then, upon reading the content, he gasped, "Wow! A genius!"
After reading through Liu Yimin's entire exam paper, he was even more shocked. As a Chinese language teacher himself, even without seeing the standard answers, he could tell whether the objective questions were correct or not, except for subjective questions like the essay.

It's amazing that such a talented student exists in Ru County; it seems we'll produce a college graduate this year. It's a pity he wasn't the proctor for the afternoon's math exam, otherwise he could have observed Liu Yimin's performance even better.

Seeing that he had finished reading, Liu Yimin quietly flipped the paper over. The proctor snapped out of his shock, glared at Liu Yimin, and then went to patrol other areas with his hands behind his back.

When he met with another proctor, he whispered, "We have a promising student in our exam room!"

"Who?"

"The one that's lying down, getting ready to sleep."

"Old Yang, are you out of your mind? The one who's sleeping? A promising student sleeping during the college entrance exam?" another proctor said disdainfully.

"You don't believe me either, do you? Other people do the problems because they haven't finished, but he sleeps because he really finished them, and his accuracy rate is extremely high. Anyway, I can't see anything wrong with him. His handwriting is also beautiful. As long as he doesn't do too badly in the other subjects, getting into university is a sure thing."

Teacher Yang said in an unquestionable tone.

(End of this chapter)