I, Yan Jiefang, will live to 2025 in this courtyard house.

The rules for college admission in 1961 were completely different from those after 2000; college application came first, and entrance examinations followed.

Every year from June 10th to 12th, Dongcheng District holds a unified application period for the high school entrance examination. All graduating junior high school students must decide on their school choices in advance, file the application, and then participate in the subsequent entrance examinations.

The whole class was struggling with their choices regarding the college application forms. Some students were more cautious and consulted with familiar classmates or the homeroom teacher.

Some people consider themselves exceptional and covet the prestige of key universities, while others blindly follow the trend when filling out their applications.

Yan Jiefang knew perfectly well that the family background of his small business owner was an invisible wall of political vetting.

Top-tier key high schools like Beijing No. 4 High School, Beijing No. 5 High School, Tsinghua University High School, and Beijing No. 101 High School have extremely high entry requirements and rigorous political vetting, placing the most emphasis on family background and political connections.

No matter how outstanding the exam scores or how perfect the answer sheet, once the political review process begins, they will inevitably be eliminated and there will be no possibility of being admitted.

Blindly filling out applications is simply a waste of precious volunteer slots.

Even ordinary key municipal or district key schools didn't include him.

Fortunately, he had made preparations in advance.

Therefore, in the first category of high school application, Yan Jiefang simply filled in the high school section of No. 22 Middle School.

At that time, No. 22 Middle School was just an ordinary public high school. It did not have the halo of the district key high school or model high school in later years, but it had the advantage of a relaxed political review and a high tolerance for errors in enrollment. It was the best choice that suited his background and was a safe backup.

When his homeroom teacher, Ms. Chang, saw that he had applied to No. 22 Middle School, she felt a little regretful but also happy, as it showed his sense of identification with the school.

Of course, he also knew that Yan Jiefang would definitely be admitted to a vocational school and would not stay to study high school.

However, with his intelligence, he should have a bright future after graduating from vocational school.

Compared to filling out a backup high school application, Yan Jiefang's choice of vocational school was the most important part of his college application.

Following Professor Gao's previous professional advice, he filled in the three vocational schools that best suited his situation, emphasized technical skills over family background, and guaranteed job placement by state-run institutions, along with their corresponding majors.

These three types of technical majors place great emphasis on academic performance, have less stringent background checks, have a large job shortage, and offer extremely stable employment.

This perfectly avoids the shortcomings of their ingredients and is the most pragmatic and safest way out at present.

Once the application form is filled out, the next step is for the parents to sign it to make it valid.

Yan Jiefang took the form home to Yan Bugui for his signature. As expected, Yan Bugui, upon seeing this, once again tried to manipulate him.

He stared at the application form for a long time, trying to use the pretext of signing it to put on his parental airs and control his son. He dawdled and refused to put pen to paper, while muttering and nitpicking, looking like he was unwilling to give in easily.

Yan Jiefang was too lazy to waste words and argue with him, and he didn't want to cause any trouble on such an important matter as filling out college applications.

Without making a sound, he pulled Yang Ruihua aside, quietly took out a Yuan Shikai silver dollar that he had just won, and secretly slipped it to Yang Ruihua.

In those days, resources were scarce and saving money was difficult. A Yuan Shikai silver dollar could be exchanged for a black ten banknote on the black market, making it a real hard currency.

Yang Ruihua's eyes suddenly lit up, and her eyes instantly filled with smiles. Without the slightest hesitation, she immediately picked up the pen and decisively signed her name in the parent column.

The entire process was swift and efficient, completely thwarting Yan Bugui's attempts to find fault or take advantage of him.

Seeing that his wife had already signed and sealed the document, Yan Bugui felt he had no further say and was filled with resentment, but had nowhere to vent it, so he could only give up in frustration.

Fortunately, he noticed the Yuan Shikai silver dollar that Yang Ruihua showed him, and his eyes lit up immediately, making him feel much better.

He guessed that this must be the piece that the third brother had given to the second brother before.

I don't know if the second-in-command still has any Yuan Shikai silver dollars, nor do I know where he hid them before.

We need to find a way to get to the bottom of this.

Recently, Yang Ruihua has been asked to visit the two brothers' room more often and to be more careful when cleaning and doing laundry.

After the volunteer application process was finalized, there were several more days of intensive review.

The three-day entrance examination for junior high school students began as scheduled.

The middle school entrance examination in 1961 was held from June 17th to 19th, lasting three days.

There are six subjects in total: Chinese, Mathematics, English, Politics, Physics, and Chemistry.

Each subject is worth 100 points, for a total of 600 points. (Other search engines provide vague and incomplete information. Doubao initially stated it was out of 100 points, but after further investigation, it turned out to be out of 5 points. The exam dates are also vague, usually in mid-to-late June. This book uses the current 100-point system and the dates are earlier.)

The exam format was basic and standard, and all the test points were under Yan Jiefang's control.

Having already mastered all the junior high school knowledge and studied high school content ahead of time, he answered questions fluently and effortlessly.

The exam paper was neat and meticulous, and every question was answered flawlessly. The student remained calm and composed throughout the entire process, without any pressure.

When the exam finally ended and the other candidates walked out of the examination room, most of them were restless and anxious. Some regretted their mistakes, while others waited anxiously.

Only Yan Jiefang remained calm and was extremely confident in the quality of his answers.

He conservatively estimated that his total score would definitely not be lower than 590, just a hair's breadth away from the perfect score of 600.

It all depends on how the examiners grade the political essays and the Chinese composition.

Now that the outcome of the exam was decided, Yan Jiefang stopped wasting time worrying about the results and quickly reorganized his daily routine, replanning his schedule.

He divided all his core energy into two main tasks:

First, he regularly resides at the city library, extensively consulting various historical materials, documents, and resources related to the revolutionary war to accumulate creative foundation;

Secondly, he devoted himself to polishing his novels on the theme of the Red Anti-Japanese War.

His debut work was titled "The Bloodstained Bugle Call," and was positioned as a collection of short stories about revolutionary themes.

The first short story is titled "Little Hero Gangzi," which focuses on the anti-Japanese spirit of a young man during a time of war and portrays the patriotism and passionate sense of responsibility of an ordinary person.

Relying on his vision and understanding far beyond his time, as well as his superb writing skills, the plots he wrote were realistic and profound, and the characters were vivid and three-dimensional, showing both the cruelty and ruthlessness of war and the sincerity and courage of ordinary people.

Of course, betrayal by traitors is also inevitable!

The main traitor in the first chapter is Yi Zhongjiang, that traitorous dog!

The traitor in the first chapter is Yi Zhongjiang, that traitorous dog!

This guy spouts platitudes about morality and righteousness, but behind the scenes he's a treacherous villain; most people simply can't tell what's really going on with him.

The young hero Gangzi was killed because of its betrayal and betrayal!

He could have written the final version in one go, but to prevent theft and to keep a copy, he deliberately wrote more than a dozen versions of the manuscript step by step.

There are many traces of alteration left on it.

And I will use this method to complete my writing in the future.

This can avoid a lot of trouble.

"Little Hero Gangzi" was completed in 10 days.

He then sent it to the 49th City Literature and Art Editorial Department on Wangfujing Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing. (The actual address in 1961)

After sending out the first piece, he immediately began writing his second short story, "The Bloodstained Bugle Call".

While writing, he did not give up practicing Tai Chi to improve his health and studying high school courses on his own, but he turned them all into a way to relax in his spare time.

While his peers were still anxious about exams and confused about the future, Yan Jiefang had already broken free from his restlessness and was taking things one step at a time. He was diligently pursuing his studies while also writing, steadily controlling the pace of his life.

Yan Bugui accidentally saw the second son's manuscript and was deeply shocked.

He really couldn't understand this son.