Courtyard House: From Deputy Division Commander to Civilian, Progressing All the Way

October 1977, a month destined to be recorded in history.

When the announcer from the Central People's Broadcasting Station announced the resumption of the unified college entrance examination to the whole country in an exciting and loud voice, the entire land of China seemed to have experienced a magnitude 10 earthquake.

Tens of millions of educated youth who had been sent to work in rural areas, endured hardship in the border regions, or carried heavy loads in factories and mines, wept bitterly in the fields and beside the roaring machines, clutching a copy of the People's Daily with its large headline.

The ladder to upward mobility, which had been blocked for a full decade, has finally reopened to ordinary people.

Yuquan Mountain, Building No. 6, Class A.

The large study at the innermost part of the second floor has been closed for more than half a year.

Even before the official announcement of the resumption of the college entrance examination, Lin Yang, with his keen sense of smell as a high-level core member, had already obtained several sets of the long-out-of-print "Self-Study Series of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry". He gave strict orders that the two brothers, Lin Weidong and Lin Jianguo, should not leave the house and should study these books to the death.

In the study, thick curtains were drawn, and only two table lamps emitting white light were lit.

The air was filled with the strong smell of strong tea and tobacco.

Lin Weidong was shirtless, his muscular chest covered in fine beads of sweat. He gripped his hair tightly with his left hand, while his right hand held a pen as he rapidly worked on a complex analytical geometry problem on a draft paper.

Those hands that could once wield a 100mm rifled cannon with unparalleled stability and take down a Soviet tank with a single shot from 800 meters away, now had a huge blister on the joint of their middle fingers from gripping the pen for so long. The blister burst and scabbed over, turning into a hard, dead skin.

Sitting opposite him, Lin Jianguo was in no better shape.

In front of Lin Jianguo was a mountain of physics review materials. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with alarming red veins, like a trapped beast driven to the brink of despair.

"Brother, I'm stuck on this electromagnetic induction problem again, especially the force analysis." Lin Jianguo irritably threw his pencil on the table, rubbed his face hard, and his voice was as hoarse as sandpaper.

"When you're digging in the saline-alkali soil of northern Jiangsu, you can hit mud with every shovel stroke. But this physics problem, I've been looking at it for an hour and my brain is just a complete mess! This is much harder than driving a tank!" Lin Jianguo said, panting heavily in frustration.

Lin Weidong put down his pen, raised his head, and there was not a trace of impatience in his deep, cold eyes.

He had experienced life and death on the frontier and struggled in the lower rungs of society in northern Jiangsu. He knew all too well that compared to losing fingers in the freezing cold, this mental torment was nothing.

"Jianguo, pick up the pen." Lin Weidong's voice was soft, but it carried an unquestionable tone of command.

Lin Jianguo was stunned for a moment.

"When we were in the armored division, what did Company Commander Gao teach us?" Lin Weidong stared into his cousin's eyes. "If a tank track breaks and there's no jack, you have to carry it on your shoulders. This problem is like the Russian bunker. If you throw your pen away now, you're deserting."

Lin Weidong pushed the draft paper in front of him, which was filled with calculation steps, over.

"The force analysis is stuck because you're treating the changes in the magnetic field as static. Imagine it as a turbocharger in a tank engine, the electric current as diesel fuel, and the magnetic field cutting as piston movement. Calculate it again."

Lin Jianguo took a deep breath, silently picked up his pencil, gritted his teeth, and buried himself once again in the pile of formulas that looked like gibberish.

The door was gently pushed open.

Ding Qiunan carried in two steaming bowls of calming soup. This once aloof and detached factory doctor, seeing her son's gaunt and emaciated face, felt heartbroken and tears streamed down her face.

"Jianguo, Weidong, take a break. You've both been working three all-nighters in a row. Even the strongest bodies can't take this." Ding Qiunan placed the bowl on the corner of the table, her voice trembling slightly.

"Aunt, we're not tired." Lin Weidong picked up the bowl, gulped down the scalding hot medicine in a few mouthfuls, and casually wiped his mouth. "There's only a little over a month until the exam. Millions of people across the country are vying for this single-plank bridge with us. My dad said that the Lin family either doesn't go to the battlefield, or if they do, they must come in first."

Outside the door, Lin Fan and Lin Yang stood side by side.

Looking at the two young men working late into the night inside the room, Lin Fan, the commander-in-chief of the 100,000-strong factory, also felt his eyes well up with tears.

"Yangzi, aren't we pushing him too hard?" Lin Fan lowered his voice. "He had a weak foundation before the founding of the People's Republic of China, and in the past six months, he's forced himself to go through all the junior and senior high school textbooks. I'm afraid he'll lose his mind."

Lin Yang stood with his hands behind his back, his expression cold and stern, his eyes revealing absolute rationality.

"Brother, a kind heart cannot command an army, nor can it raise true pillars of the nation."

Lin Yang turned around and walked towards the living room on the first floor, with Lin Fan following closely behind.

The two sat down on the sofa, and Lin Yang lit a cigarette.

"The current heavy industry system is being held up by us old folks," Lin Yang said, exhaling a puff of smoke, his gaze distant. "But the industry of the future is digital, it's about precision electronics. Without a sophisticated cultural foundation, relying solely on blacksmithing and sledgehammering will inevitably leave us behind the West again."

"Jianguo wanted to study mechanical engineering at Tsinghua University, and Weidong wanted to study command at the National Defense University. This was a crucial hurdle they had to overcome. If they couldn't overcome it, they would forever remain ordinary soldiers charging into battle, never becoming the ones who would control the fate of the nation."

Lin Fan remained silent for a long time before nodding heavily. He knew that his younger brother's vision would always be ten or twenty years ahead of his own.

Time flew by amidst the frantic sea of ​​practice questions.

In December 1977, Beijing experienced its coldest winter in ten years.

The north wind howled, and heavy snow fell.

But this heavy snow could not extinguish the burning passion of the 5.7 million test takers across China.

It was 6:30 in the morning, and it was still dark.

A Beijing Jeep with military license plates came to a steady stop outside the gate of an examination center in Dongcheng District.

He Yuzhu, wearing a thick military overcoat, sat in the driver's seat. He turned his head and looked at Lin Weidong and Lin Jianguo in the back seat.

"Weidong, Jianguo. The exam hall is like a battlefield. Today, Uncle Zhu will be in the car to keep you in check. If anyone dares to cause trouble outside the exam hall, I'll deal with them!" He Yuzhu grinned, revealing his white teeth, trying to ease the tense atmosphere.

Lin Jianguo rubbed his hands, which were red from the cold, took a deep breath, and picked up the transparent plastic bag full of stationery and his exam admission ticket.

"Uncle Zhu, don't worry. All the skin we've been skinned alive these past six months will be exchanged for points and recouped today!"

Lin Weidong didn't say anything. He pushed open the car door and stepped into the wind and snow.

Outside the examination center, a dense crowd had already gathered.