After returning to school from the Ning family and finishing classes, Xia Xiaolan could no longer go back to the Shichahai home.
Having made it to the English competition finals, Teacher Lin was going to give her special training.
At this point, there was no distinction between Architecture or other departments, nor between freshmen and seniors – they were competing for Huaqing’s collective honor. Among the 4 students who made it to the finals, whoever won a place or achieved a high ranking would bring glory to the school.
There was no need for secretive special treatment. How to approach the finals and improve English proficiency in a short time needed to be researched collectively by Huaqing’s relevant teachers.
Teacher Lin wasn’t the only foreign language teacher at Huaqing.
Huaqing had a Foreign Languages Department, quite famous actually, established in 1926. Many renowned domestic scholars and professors came from this department. Though it had temporarily stopped admitting students, last year the department was reinstated and began recruiting again.
Among those who made it to the finals, besides freshmen Xia Xiaolan and Ji Jiangyuan, the other two were sophomore students from the Foreign Languages Department!
Besides Teacher Lin, professors from the Foreign Languages Department came to provide special training.
At 7 PM, the professor gathered the students in a small classroom and first gave them an ideological education lesson, re-emphasizing the importance of these finals.
Indeed, all 4 finalists were present, including Ji Jiangyuan.
Xia Xiaolan’s declaration to cut ties with him wasn’t a joke. When Ji Jiangyuan’s eyes looked her way, she responded with cold indifference.
Thanks to Ji Ya, many at school knew about Xia Xiaolan and Ji Jiangyuan’s drama.
Though people didn’t discuss it openly, they had their thoughts. Seeing Xia Xiaolan’s frosty expression, whatever might have been between her and Ji Jiangyuan had been destroyed by his mother. Now no female classmates dared approach Ji Jiangyuan – what use was his handsome face and family background with such a mother? Everyone knew to keep their distance.
While girls thought this way, male students sympathized with Ji Jiangyuan, especially his roommates. They had simply answered Ji Ya’s questions at the time, not knowing what kind of person she was, causing trouble for Xia Xiaolan and making Ji Jiangyuan unable to hold his head up at school.
The once-popular figure had suddenly become dejected, though credit to Ji Jiangyuan’s mental fortitude for returning to school so quickly after his sick leave.
“…This is the Education Ministry’s first national English competition, targeting university students across the country. Whoever wins prizes in the finals, whichever group achieves victory – it’s not just personal glory but the school’s honor, representing our school’s foreign language level, especially now that our country is promoting English!”
Particularly for Huaqing’s Foreign Languages Department, newly rebuilt last year with everything needing restoration, they desperately wanted to achieve some results.
The department took this national university English competition very seriously. With the Education Ministry officially making English a main subject in the college entrance examination, they needed this competition to increase national attention on English, showing middle school students the English proficiency levels of university students, while also submitting a report to their superiors.
This perfectly aligned with Huaqing’s Foreign Languages Department’s wishes – they wanted this competition to be as grand as possible.
Being the “first” competition carried special weight, establishing dominance – Huaqing and Beijing University were old rivals, and both welcomed such academic competition, as healthy rivalry promoted mutual growth.
After the professor’s long speech, seeing all four students, including Xia Xiaolan, nodding continuously, he delivered another heavy blow:
“You’ve probably all heard that students who place in the finals have a chance to become ‘exchange students’ abroad. This isn’t just a rumor – the Education Ministry has such plans! You know that this summer, China participated in the Olympics in Los Angeles for the first time, marking China’s athletic debut on the world stage. But besides sports, we also have excellent students. You are China’s reserve talent… Being an exchange student is wonderful – you can personally experience foreign education and culture. American universities have a rich academic atmosphere. This exchange student experience would be valuable for your future work and life!”
Exchange students weren’t quite the same as studying abroad.
But it would be false to say anyone wouldn’t want to experience the foreign world.
Some even sold their houses to self-fund overseas study – Xia Xiaolan had seen it firsthand.
These exchange programs might last six months or a year, with travel expenses and local accommodation covered by the state – who wouldn’t want to go?
Even Xia Xiaolan wanted to go. Earning RMB domestically versus dollars abroad, which exchanged at a 1:10 ratio on the black market – earning capitalist country money to bring back and build China, Xia Xiaolan felt no pressure about that.
Six months in America would be nice – she could look for business opportunities and help Grandmother Yu find her son.
The professor had effectively motivated everyone. What Xia Xiaolan had heard as speculation from Liu Huazheng was now confirmed fact from the professor’s mouth, though not yet publicly announced.
But winning wouldn’t be easy for Xia Xiaolan – she wasn’t the only competitor in the finals.
Forget competing against other contestants – she wasn’t even confident about beating the other three Huaqing finalists.
Among the 100 university students nationwide who made it to the finals, Xia Xiaolan suspected she barely qualified, considering her oral exam portion.
Beijing universities had 20 finalists total, with Huaqing now tied with Beijing University at 4 each. Some schools had zero qualifiers – the 100 finalist spots were divided among key universities nationwide.
Wanting to win, Xia Xiaolan studied particularly hard.
She had no time to deal with matters like Ji Jiangyuan – with a short-term goal, she was fully focused. Though human evolution had produced the beautiful Chinese language, weren’t other countries’ languages beautiful too? Without studying for specific purposes, it was easier to discover language’s inherent beauty.
Making it to the finals proved everyone had good basic vocabulary. The professor suggested they should now focus on advanced vocabulary and complex sentence structures.
“When eating delicious food, finishing a good book, hearing a good song, or praising someone, must we only say ‘very good’? There’s also ‘prestantious’, ‘jelly’… or like in alliterative poetry, using ‘thriven and thro’ – wouldn’t that catch the judges’ attention more?”
Xia Xiaolan admitted the professor was right. Though no one would use “thriven and thro” such archaic poetic vocabulary for praise in daily life, using it in the finals would certainly have more impact than “very good” – as the professor said, when everyone’s level is similar, advanced vocabulary and sentence structures help one stand out.
This special training session had shown them the direction, and Xia Xiaolan knew what to focus on in the time before the finals.
She decided not to tell Grandmother Yu about this yet – if she ultimately didn’t get the “exchange student” position, wouldn’t that just give Grandmother Yu false hope? Walking partway with Xia Xiaolan, Teacher Lin found it particularly strange:
“You seem to have suddenly become very motivated, going from taking things as they come to being determined to succeed. What happened?”