Courtyard House: Starting with a 28-inch motorcycle

The teacher led them straight to the administration building, where they efficiently obtained temporary access passes from the academic affairs office. The two then wandered around casually for a bit before Su Man, rubbing her stomach and saying she was starving, finally smiled and pushed open the door to leave.

We turned into the state-run restaurant on the street corner and each ordered a large bowl of steaming hot dumplings with chive and egg filling. The soup was bright and the dough was chewy. We ate until we were sweating.

The typhoon was a bit chilly at the bus stop. The two waved goodbye and jumped onto different green buses going in different directions. They continued to wave to each other through the windows until they shrank into tiny dots and disappeared into the morning light.

As dawn broke, Xiao Yao hurried to school with her textbooks in hand. With that thin access pass, she could finally ride her bicycle all the way into the school gate, no longer having to lock it outside in the sun.

He headed straight for the assembly area on the east side of the sports field—where a huge crowd had already gathered. He spotted the words "Physics Department Elite Class" on the class sign and immediately squeezed his way in.

The flag-raising ceremony was solemn and respectful, followed by speeches from school leaders, each sentence revolving around the themes of "hard-won achievements" and "entrusted by the times." Finally, the students dispersed to their classrooms to break the ice and get to know each other.

As the national flag was slowly raised to the top of the flagpole, before the applause had even subsided, several school leaders took to the stage. Their words were few, but each carried weight: "You are not ordinary students; you are the cream of the crop, handpicked by the nation. This is a rare opportunity, so cherish it as if it were gold."

Pushing open the classroom door, I saw a middle-aged male teacher with thin-rimmed glasses and slightly graying temples standing by the podium, flipping through the class roster. He looked up and smiled, "Hello students, I'm your counselor, Gao Xiangfeng." He paused, then added, "You can just call me Counselor Gao from now on."

Someone below muttered quietly, "Director Gao? That's a more natural way to address him!"

Director Gao sighed inwardly. This year's class had twenty students, the youngest being only seventeen, and eight of them were specially recruited "prodigies," whom the teaching affairs office privately called the "future laboratory reserve team."

But prodigies are prodigies, after all, they're still teenagers with their hair still down. Some can solve problems as fast as if they've pressed the fast-forward button, but when asked to write a self-criticism, they scratch their heads in frustration; some can deduce quantum models, but can't stop chewing gum in class. Professor Gao didn't say it aloud, but he had already etched the word "headache" into the title page of his lesson plan.

But the school dumped all these "troublemakers" on him: "Old Gao, others can't manage you, but you can."

He had no choice but to take on this hot potato.

Seeing everyone looking down at their pens and pretending to look out the window, with no one speaking up, Director Gao cleared his throat: "I just heard a student say at the door—'Science and technology can revitalize the country, it's not just a slogan, it has to be achieved with real action; catching up with Britain and the United States is not a dream, it has to be shouldered by our generation'... I'll remember those words."

Before he finished speaking, all eyes in the class turned to Xiao Yao—those few words were what he had casually chatted with his neighbor while waiting for the teacher to enter the room.

"Let's start with self-introductions," Director Gao smiled gently at him, raised his hand and gestured, "This student, would you like to go first?"

Xiao Yao was startled and almost choked on his own saliva.

Wang Yutong tilted her head and leaned closer, laughing in a low voice, "Brother, you're famous now." She then winked at him, her eyes full of mischievous anticipation.

Xiao Yao steeled himself and walked up to the podium, his voice steady but his pace slightly fast: "Hello everyone, my name is Xiao Yao, I'm nineteen years old, and I'm from Kyoto. It's an honor to study alongside you all, and I hope you'll take care of me in the future."

Director Gao raised an eyebrow: "Too conventional! What are your special skills? You can't just be a bookworm, can you?"

"My...my special skill..." Xiao Yao's Adam's apple bobbed, and he finally admitted honestly, "I just learn things relatively quickly."

As soon as he finished speaking, several soft laughs rang out from all around, and more than a dozen pairs of eyes stared at him, some scrutinizing, some teasing, and some with a tacit understanding and probing.

He bowed hastily and fled back to his seat.

Director Gao laughed loudly: "Not bad, honest! Next, who's next?" His tone was full of encouragement.

The second student was fairly composed, but when it was Wang Yutong's turn, the style changed abruptly—

"I don't need to memorize a text three times; I can recite the entire Feynman Lectures on Physics from memory."

"Advanced mathematics? I taught myself real analysis during my first summer break and am now working on functional analysis."

"I set up a simple electromagnetic induction device on my dormitory balcony and successfully turned on the LED light last night."

"This year's college entrance exam paper? It wasn't on the exam, but I took it home and did it twice. I got all the multiple-choice questions right, and my steps for the essay questions were even more detailed than the standard answers."

Xiao Yao stared down at the toes of his shoes and suddenly felt that the phrase "learns relatively quickly" sounded like something a primary school student would say.

Meanwhile, in the physics department head's office, several professors were sitting in a circle, carefully looking through the freshmen's files.

Someone pointed to a resume and nodded: "A solid foundation; the lab reports are even more professionally written than those of graduate students."

Someone flipped through the competition certificates and exclaimed, "These kids don't just have a solid foundation, they have a deep one—after one semester of teaching, they can get hands-on experience with real research projects."

They repeatedly stroked the thin list, as if holding an unopened flame. They only hoped to nurture it carefully, so that it would one day become the backbone of China's science and technology.

……

Su Man sat on a stone bench under a ginkgo tree, quietly reading "Introduction to Solid State Physics," while Qian Wentao squatted beside her, carefully adjusting the gear meshing of his copper steam train with tweezers.

Seeing Xiao Yao approach, the two looked up and asked with a smile, "Didn't you go to the library to grab a seat? Why did you come back empty-handed?"

"Don't even mention it," Xiao Yao said with a wry smile. "It was so crowded that it was difficult to even turn around. I stood on tiptoe and looked for ten minutes, but I couldn't find a single empty table."

Su Man was taken aback: "I went there at seven o'clock this morning, and the reading room was so empty that you could hear the sound of turning pages."

Xiao Yao noticed the fleeting surprise in her eyes and nodded: "Don't believe me?"

Wang Yutong shook her head and chimed in, "No wonder my uncle always says in Boston—the world's most hardworking students are right here on our land."

Su Man hesitated: "Don't foreign students...do the same thing?"

"They walk to school, while we climb mountains with heavy loads." Wang Yutong poked at the chimney of the little train, her voice softening. "My uncle said that they have roads paved decades ago, while we started late, have fewer resources, and if we don't work hard, we won't even see the taillights."

The air fell silent for a moment after the word "poor" was uttered.

Su Man closed the book, her fingertips lingering on the edge of the page. She didn't speak, but a faint shadow appeared between her brows.

Xiao Yao glanced at the red flag fluttering atop the distant teaching building and suddenly spoke up: "Don't keep quiet. Let's give it our all this time, widen the roads, and strengthen the bridges, so that future generations can study at their own pace under the sun, without having to run around."

Ji Fengnan looked up at the sky, his voice low but deep: "All I want in my life is to see the five-star red flag planted in the soil of the Sea of ​​Tranquility on the moon—that place shouldn't just be labeled USA."

Qian Wentao laughed heartily: "Your ambitions are truly impressive! I haven't thought that far ahead—I just want to thoroughly understand physics and compile a solid physics textbook so that generations of students can use my books to learn, grow, and solve problems." He paused, scratched his head, and continued, "Although Brother Fengnan hasn't set foot on the moon, when it comes to the foundations and frontiers of physics, foreign countries have laid a wider and deeper foundation. We must put in all our effort to bring back their essence in its original form, chew it thoroughly, and then spit out our own bones and flesh, so that students can start from a high position and not lose at the starting line."

Ji Fengnan waved his hand with a smile: "What are my feelings? At most, I felt a little excited watching their lunar probe land steadily on the moon. The one with real ambition and courage is Xiao Yao!" He turned to the side, his gaze fixed on Xiao Yao. "Xiao Yao made a statement in front of the whole class—to use science and technology to build the nation's great weapons, to prove with hardcore innovation that the world can indeed be reshaped by technology; this generation will definitely climb another peak on the shoulders of the Soviet Union and the United States!" He blinked. "Xiao Yao, am I right?"

Xiao Yao raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the familiar faces: "I did say that. But relying on one person to fight alone? That's not ambition, that's recklessness. Without everyone working together as one, even the tallest building can't be built. I believe that our group will eventually run faster and stand taller than them."

The words were spoken lightly, yet landed with a heavy weight. Those giants whose names are etched in textbooks—Fermi's gestures as he deduced neutron bombardment, Yang Zhenning's manuscript pages filled with formulas, Landau's silhouette as he scribbled furiously at the blackboard…which one didn't dedicate their lives to formulas? Could my own hands truly bear such weight?

It's too difficult. Just mastering the textbook is exhausting; to delve deeper, how many sleepless nights, how many drafts, how many self-righteous ideas would one have to discard? Is one's brain capable? Can one's willpower withstand it?

What is the point of studying so hard? Is it really just to live off the family fortune and be a rich kid who doesn't have to worry about food and clothing?

Xiao Yao's fingertips unconsciously traced the edge of the table. Memories of his past lives washed over his ankles like a tide—empty, adrift, living day after day as if walking on thin ice. This time, he didn't want to be a salted fish that drifted with the tide. He wanted to dig a well, even if it was shallow, so that future generations could drink a mouthful of clear, living water.

When he first arrived, his mind was a wasteland: lost and directionless, he had even lost his bearings. Getting married and having children? That was just a stable shell, not the life he truly wanted to enter.

No one was too surprised by his words. There were plenty of eccentric characters in the class—there was a girl who would often squat in the hallway at 2 a.m. with chalk, meticulously deriving Schrödinger's equations on the concrete floor; and there was a boy whose eyes would light up frighteningly as soon as he entered the lab, disassembling instruments more easily than taking apart his own watch…

Before the exam, Xiao Yao simply moved into the dormitory and studied hard with everyone. He reviewed all the knowledge the teacher had taught and also studied an extra half-book of supplementary materials for each subject, forcing himself to finish them within seven days.

To get a clear picture of his abilities, he would often sneak into the old professors' offices with questions in mind, asking them to casually create a set of practice tests to gauge his level. The tests weren't filed; it was purely a private "self-assessment."