After the exams, there came a momentary relief.

During the college entrance exam, discovering you can’t solve a problem feels like a sharp knife stabbing into your heart. After the exam, getting stabbed happens plenty of times – checking answers is like being cut slowly with a dull blade. When everyone else chooses A for a multiple-choice question and you’re the only one who picked B, even top students like Xia Xiaolan would doubt if they made a careless mistake.

For those who weren’t as academically confident as Xia Xiaolan, checking answers was even more painful.

First, they checked against the unofficial answer key. In three days, they would go to school to estimate their scores against the official standard answers. There would be no room for debate then – any deviation from the official answers would feel like countless small knife stabs.

Three days after the exam, memories of how one answered certain questions could become unclear – that’s why score estimates often weren’t accurate.

Yet these estimates would determine which university to apply to!

So completing the college entrance exam didn’t mean the long march was over. Until you held the admission letter in your hands, clearly stating “Student So-and-so, please report to the school on X year X month X date,” that anxiety wouldn’t truly subside. Though they had to cross mountains of blades and seas of fire, it was true that educational resources were unevenly distributed. Poor students with talent and determination could still use the college entrance exam to leap from their rural origins and change their lives.

From this perspective, the college entrance exam was indeed the fairest system.

After the exam, the school-arranged bus would take everyone back to Anqing County.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t refuse to return with everyone – the bus could squeeze in a few more, and Old Wang couldn’t refuse to let Liu Fen and her two companions board.

Xia Xiaolan wanted to get her wrist checked at the county hospital. Without painkillers, her wrist still hurt, and after three days of writing exams, she wasn’t sure if the fracture had worsened.

She hadn’t mentioned any of this to avoid worrying others. Though she had managed to complete the college entrance exam, while Xia Xiaolan might not rest, her wrist certainly needed proper recovery time.

She didn’t know if Xia Zhangzheng was dead or alive, and if no one took him to the hospital, she wouldn’t feel guilty if he died.

These people had blood on their hands – they had taken “Xia Xiaolan’s” life!

A fracture could heal, but Xia Xiaolan wanted something irreparable – she wanted Xia Zhangzheng to pay with his hand. She had originally planned for a comminuted fracture, which would be difficult to heal properly with current medical technology, but according to Ge Jian’s feedback, Xia Zhangzheng’s hand injury was even worse than a comminuted fracture.

That was excellent!

But Xia Xiaolan’s satisfaction didn’t last long. At the county hospital, new X-rays showed that despite her caution during the exam, the injury had worsened.

“Young people shouldn’t take their good health for granted. What could have healed in one or two months will now take at least half that time again to recover with complete rest! If you want this hand to be able to lift water for the rest of your life, you must stop straining it!”

Xia Xiaolan nodded repeatedly. The college entrance exam was over – why would she strain her injured right hand now? That would be foolish.

Expecting another round of caring concern from Principal Sun and others, Xia Xiaolan had her cast replaced and returned to Shangdu.

Around the same time, Xia Ziyu sat on a stuffy green-skinned train. After ten hours of bumpy travel, she got off the train and, without taking a break, rushed to the provincial hospital.

By then, it had been exactly three days since Xia Zhangzheng’s amputation surgery, and Xia Ziyu had just arrived from Beijing.

Finding the hospital room, she saw the patient sleeping, while Zhang Cui sat haggard by the bedside, lost in thought.

“Mom!”

In the hospital bed, Xia Zhangzheng had one hand in a cast, while the other was amputated below the elbow, wrapped in layers of bandages stained with blood and yellow iodine solution. Regardless of whether Xia Zhangzheng favored sons over daughters, he was still Xia Ziyu’s father, and she was certainly grieved at this moment.

Her voice choked with emotion, startling Zhang Cui awake.

“Ziyu, Ziyu, you’re finally back. Your father… your father’s hand is gone…”

In just two or three days, Zhang Cui’s eye sockets had sunken, her face had turned ashen, and she hadn’t bothered to bathe or comb her hair – she looked terrified.

She was indeed terrified. Xia Zhangzheng was sleeping now, but when he regained consciousness after the amputation surgery, he couldn’t accept losing his hand. He had shouted at Zhang Cui to report it to the police, to seek revenge, saying his hand had been smashed by someone.

His shouting had alarmed the hospital staff, who notified the police station.

When the police came to investigate, Xia Zhangzheng claimed he had been attacked. Following procedure, the police asked why he had gone to such a remote location alone, and if he had seen the attacker’s face.

Xia Zhangzheng and Zhang Cui rented a place in the north of the city, both being rural vendors who had come to the city to make a living.

Their daily activities were usually confined to the northern part of the city – so why had he gone to the dark alley behind a school in the south?

Xia Zhangzheng couldn’t answer this question. He stammered, and the police had to wait until he was in better condition to take his formal statement.

There were others in the hospital room, and seeing Zhang Cui’s emotional state, Xia Ziyu pulled her mother out. Beyond the corridor was a small garden, empty now – a perfect place to talk.

“The telegram wasn’t clear – what happened to Dad’s hand?”

She hadn’t returned until the third day not out of filial impiety, but because she had just made progress with the tutoring school she had been planning. Having contacted the “teachers” and secured a location, Xia Ziyu had been full of ambition, hoping to make her mark with the tutoring school. Then came the telegram from home, not with good news, but saying her father Xia Zhangzheng had lost his hand and asking her to return immediately.

Xia Ziyu wanted to buy a ticket right away, but she had invested considerable money in the preliminary work for the tutoring school.

She could only get the new business running before rushing back to Shangdu as quickly as possible.

Zhang Cui cried again and again, frustrating Xia Ziyu: “Mom, stop crying first. How did Dad’s hand get broken? Weren’t you supposed to…”

Weren’t you supposed to stop Xia Xiaolan from taking the college entrance exam, rather than getting your hand broken? Xia Ziyu’s main frustration was that the college entrance exam was over – had Xia Xiaolan taken it or not?

“It was… it was Xia Xiaolan, it must have been that little wretch. She must have found someone to break your father’s hand!”

Zhang Cui had lost weight dramatically, not just from caring for Xia Zhangzheng, but from her fear.

Xia Zhangzheng said his hand had been smashed repeatedly, a pain he would never forget. Zhang Cui feared that while sleeping at night, she too would be dragged out and have her hands broken – the fear kept her awake at night.

“Mom, Dad’s hand is broken, and you still haven’t figured out if Xia Xiaolan took the exam or not!”

Amputation, not just a fracture. Losing a hand – wasn’t that a waste?

…

Xia Xiaolan enjoyed three carefree days.

She slept until she naturally woke up, ate whatever she wanted, and wasn’t allowed to do any housework.

On July 12th, accompanied by Li Dongliang and another person, she went to County No. 1 Middle School to estimate her scores and fill out her college preferences.

Today they can freely check their answers against the standard answers posted on the blackboard. A crowd had gathered before Xia Xiaolan arrived, clustering around the blackboard. Everyone held paper and pencil, writing down their score for each question, subject by subject – this was “score estimation.”

“Xiaolan, your hand is still injured, let me check the answers for you?”

Chen Qing held paper and pencil, and when Xia Xiaolan nodded, the dense crowd of heads immediately cleared a path. Chen Qing asked which subject she wanted to check first, and though Xia Xiaolan thought it didn’t matter, with so many classmates watching expectantly, she couldn’t help touching her nose tip:

“Well, let’s start with Chinese Literature.”